Bo didn't know who, or what, would respond to the strident alarm, and he didn't want to stick around to find out. “Lead us down, Jenny,” he said.
“Down?” Slick asked. “We need to go up and out of here.”
“The only way out of this dungeon is through the core,” Bo reminded the older man. “The sooner we get to it, the sooner we get our hands on that sweet, sweet smoker.”
“I did like that rig,” Jenny said wistfully, and took off down the hallway at a trot. She adjusted the strap holding her knife’s sheath so the weapon’s handle was within easy reach of her right hand. “Any tips on fighting those big pig bastards?”
“Don't do it,” Bo said. “If we run into more of those, leave the fighting to me.”
“And if we can't?” Slick asked.
“Chop them down like trees,” Bo said. “And don't stop chopping until they stop making noise.”
“Gross,” Jenny said.
“Not as gross as the alternative,” Bo said. “They’d eat you as soon as look at you.”
That brought the conversation to a halt. Bo and his party had experienced mostly good luck so far, but he couldn’t help but feel that the headache-inducing flashing lights and whooping siren would soon bring an end to that. Their only hope of survival was to avoid getting bogged down in battles to reach the core and deal with the boss monster. Bo was so pre-occupied trying to work out how he’d handle that battle that he missed Jenny's turn and had to backtrack.
The dungeon is changing. The scripts on the walls are becoming more dense. We must be getting closer to the heart. Be ready for anything. And, for the love of whatever gods watch over you pathetic hairless monkeys, do not let yourself die. The afterlife porn industry is not kind to big fellows like you.
“You can stop reminding me about that,” Bo muttered. “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
I find threats of imminent destruction can be motivating. I know when I was a warrior—
“You're not fooling me, Jeeves,” Bo whispered, hoping the sirens would conceal his conversation from Jenny and Slick. “I know you were a butler.”
You don't know as much about me as you think. To a devil, the term servant has many meanings. Some day, perhaps I will explain it all to you. If you survive today and don’t become a demon’s pleasure toy.
The sounds of shuffling footsteps had grown louder over the past few minutes. It echoed from the mouths of passages that intersected the party's path, like the sound of windblown leaves scraping across the asphalt in autumn. While that noise didn’t seem loud, the fact that Bo could hear it over the sirens meant it was much louder than it sounded.
That could only mean one thing.
Either the bad guys were very close, or there were so many of them that the sounds of their footsteps were louder than the alarm.
Jenny must've picked up on that, too, because she picked up the pace until the party was jogging down the hall.
“I really shouldn't have skipped cardio last week,” Slick said.
“Last week?” Bo asked. “I bet you haven't done cardio in a year.”
“You would lose that bet,” Slick said.
“Really?” Jenny asked.
“Yep,” Slick said, gasping for air, “because I've never done cardio.”
The trio laughed, then saved their breath for the race against whatever was coming down those tunnels. The only good news is that the dungeon's passages were getting smaller. The party soon had to walk single file, and not long after that the corridor was so narrow Bo's elbows nearly scraped the walls with every step. Rough grooves worn into the stone on either side of the corridor told him that the crypt coin racks barely fit down here, too.
They had to be getting close.
“Hear that?” Jenny asked.
“What are you talking about?” Bo asked.
“The sirens are quieter,” Jenny said.
She was right. Though the red lights in the floor were still flashing, the obnoxious klaxon was nowhere near as loud as it had been. Bo didn't know what that meant, but he hoped it was a sign they were approaching the dungeon core. Maybe the boss monster had sensitive ears and didn't want to be disturbed by the siren. He held onto that hope is they kept moving, because it was the only lifeline he and his friends had. If they were caught by a mob of monsters in this tunnel, it wouldn't have much room to fight. The bad guys would overwhelm them with sheer numbers, and that would be the end of that.
“Holy shit,” Jenny said with a gasp.
She'd emerged from the hallway, and Slick and Bo soon joined her on a wooden walkway that encircled a fifty-foot-wide shaft that shot hundreds of feet into the air above them. Throbbing crimson light poured down from somewhere far overhead, so bright they couldn't see its source.
Rope ladders rose from the walkway to a series of platforms that held bizarre machinery. Ropes tied to enormous eyebolts screwed into the dungeon's stone walls anchored the platforms and kept them from moving. Metal rack cases like the ones Bo and his allies had loaded with crypt coins sat atop the machines. Most of those cases were less than half full, and it didn’t take long for Bo to see why. With every chugging cycle the machines went through, coins slid down through the cases’ columns and into the churning engines. An unwholesome purple and green light flashed through exhaust ports around the bottom of the machines, in time with the throbbing of the machinery.
Thin, flexible tubes snaked out of the machines and drooped to the floor below the walkway. Every time light flashed from within the machines, something moved through those tubes. Bo saw bulges moving down the tubes, like sped-up footage of a constrictor snake swallowing its prey. The pitmaster couldn’t help but follow the progression of those bulges down the tubes to their ultimate destination twenty feet below the platform.
“We found the boss,” Bo said, chest tightening with worry.
An enormous creature lay at the bottom of the shaft, its amorphous bulk resting on a pile of greasy crypt currency. The tubes from the machines were connected to a strange harness attached to the creature's back with massive metal bolts.
Bo suddenly understood that the machines were, somehow, breaking down the crypt coins and feeding them to the monstrosity.
Get down there and kill that revolting thing.
Bo knew Barbie's command was the right thing to do. But he took a moment to analyze the creature and see exactly what he was up against.
GRAIL SYSTEM MONSTER ANALYSIS
Name: Apocalypse Sow
Type: Greedy Behemoth
Core Level: 25 (1 Base + 24 Augmentation Bonus)
Role: Boss (Dungeon Core)
Deck Composition: Gluttonous Feaster
END ANALYSIS
The Apocalypse Sow's core level ranking made Bo want to curl up into the fetal position and wait for the end. He'd thought a level nine monster was far too tough to fight. But a twenty fifth level monster? This was a suicide mission.
Figure out how to eliminate the augmentation bonus, and you'll have a chance. Not a great chance, but you won't be instantly annihilated.
“Bo?” Jenny asked. “Hate to interrupt your internal monologue, but it sounds like the bad guys are getting closer. What do we do?”
The pitmaster scratched his gore-crusted beard and examined the room. There was only one thing he saw that could provide an augmentation bonus to that monster.
“Cut those tubes,” he said, pointing up at the engines churning on the platforms above them. “I'm going down there to make sure the boss monster doesn’t look up and do something heinous to you two.”
“Climbing up to those machines looks like a serious OSHA violation, boss,” Slick said. “I didn’t bring my old lineman’s harness, and I sure as heck don’t have a safety line.”
“Come on, old man,” Jenny said and clambered onto the nearest chain ladder like a monkey. “Don't make me show you up again.”
“Again?” Slick asked, as he gingerly hoisted himself onto the ladder behind Jenny.
“I saved Bo back in the counting room,” she said. “While you were lying down on the job.”
“I was lying under one of those attendants,” Slick complained. “Damned thing nearly killed me.”
“Stop your whining and come on,” Jenny said. “And don’t look down.”
Bo chuckled to himself as he watched his friends begin the climb up to the platforms. Despite the fact that he was about to descend into the lair of a dungeon's boss monster, armed only with a deck of magic cards and a bad attitude, he actually felt pretty good. His friends' banter lifted his spirits as he slung one long leg over the walkway’s rail and descended a ladder to the floor below. With every step deeper into the boss monster’s lair, Bo felt his conviction to win this fight grow stronger.
Let’s hope your friends don’t fall to their doom or get overwhelmed by this dungeon’s guardians. It would be a shame if the three of you were to all die in this hellhole.
“The doom and gloom may have motivated you to swamp out devilish Porta Potties, but it’s not doing much for me,” Bo said. “Maybe try singing my praises a bit. Talk about how cool it was when I hacked through those pig boys.”
It was an impressive display of carnivorous gluttony. I will give you that. You’d have given even the fattest of Devouring Devils a run for their money. Your legs are starting to fill out nicely, by the way. Maybe a little too nicely.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“I’m not fat,” Bo said.
Yet.
The pitmaster rolled his eyes and continued his descent. He tensed every time he put his foot on a lower rung and fully expected to be attacked by the boss or one of its minions with every passing moment.
But the assault never happened, and Bo reached the floor without incident.
“You've come a long way to die, champion,” the Apocalypse Sow said in a voice so deep Bo felt that in his chest is much as heard it.
“It wasn't much of a hike, really,” Bo said and turned to face the creature. “Our campsite's like half a mile up the road. Though I guess for a big girl like you, half a mile might as well be from here to the moon. You really should try a little hot yoga or tai chi. Get that big booty moving once in a while.”
The massive beast rose from the pile of crypt coins and Bo realized why it hadn’t attacked him. The unwholesome creature's body consisted mostly of blubbery rolls of fat that strained against pale skin covered in weeping sores. Drooping flesh dangled from the long tentacles it had where arms should have been, like molten wax from a candle. Its legs were nowhere to be seen beneath the undulating waves of fat that spread out around the creature to cover most of the pile of crypt coins. The sow's face was a revolting amalgam of woman and pig, with mismatched eyes set above a snout-like nose. The thing's mouth stretched in a jagged line from ear to ear, and Bo saw far too many sharp teeth clashing together around its slug-like purple tongue when it spoke.
“I am far more than the prison of this physical form,” the Apocalypse Sow said. “I am the end of all things. The vast, consuming gullet down which you and everything you have ever known will soon vanish. And when I have eaten all that your world has to offer, I will transcend to a realm you cannot even understand.”
“Really?” Bo said. “To me, you look like a piggy about to transcend to a realm of bacon and pork butt.”
The boss monster laughed, and every bit of fat on its body jiggled like Jell-O in an earthquake. “You are not so different from me, Bo Houston. You, too, wish to devour that which threatens you.”
Bo couldn't really argue with that. He’d made his living selling barbecue and had eaten more than his share of pork. And he was inside a casino, which was a shrine to gluttony and broken dreams.
Maybe Jenny had been right. Slot machines and twisted altars weren't that different from one another. They both drained the life from those who touched them. The altars were just a little more honest about eating the lives of their adherents.
Enough introspection. Kill this thing before it kills you or its servitors arrive and tear your friends limb from limb.
“That’ll be enough chatter. Time to get this over with,” Bo said. “I’m feeling generous today. You want me to chop off your head or gut you?”
“Such confidence. The shock and horror of your defeat will make you a tasty morsel,” the Apocalypse sow said with a gruesome chuckle.
The monstrosity’s tentacles lifted rolls of fat to reveal twin columns of misshapen pink buds. Before Bo could react to that surprise, a gout of foul-smelling liquid splashed from one of the pink protrusions and onto his face. Some of it got into his mouth, gagging him with its too-sweet taste. The gunk stuck to his beard and face like glue, blinding him behind a veil of sugary sweetness and the aroma of garbage. It felt like he'd been hit with a few gallons of melted ice cream poured out of a mortician’s dumpster.
GRAIL SYSTEM AFFLICTION STATUS
Six Blind cards have been added to your deck. They will remain until the affliction’s duration ends.
This affliction cannot be healed.
AFFLICTION DURATION: 30 SECONDS
As bad as the affliction was, the creature's next attack was worse. Something plowed into Bo's ribs like a Louisville slugger swung by a silverback gorilla. The blow punched through the pitmaster's Constitution, causing a Minor Wound. The impact tossed Bo across the room and left him splayed out on the floor like a starfish.
Blinded and injured, the pitmaster scrambled back to his feet before the Apocalypse Sow could follow up with another attack. Bo’s options were limited without his eyes, so he did the only things he could and prayed they’d be enough.
He equipped Carnivore’s Cleaver and pulled a new hand from his deck. The first card was Hackstorm. Bo debated activating that card to inflict some pain on the Sow but decided it against when he saw the next two cards. They were identical, and a serious pain in the butt.
Blind
Type: Consumable
Activate: 2 Constitution
Generate: --
Power: 1
Activating this card consumes it. You will suffer a -2 penalty to all defensive ability scores until the Blind affliction naturally ends, or you consume all blind cards in the deck. You may only activate other affliction cards in the same turn as you activate this one.
Rarity: Uncommon
“Now you are as blind in body as in spirit,” the Apocalypse Sow gloated. “Your kind have gone through their entire existence ignorant of the larger multiverse, and now you will die unable to see your true enemy.”
“If you’re gonna kill me, you better get to it,” Bo growled. “Soon as I clean this mess off my face, I’ll rip your guts out.”
Bo activated both Blind cards, burning all the Constitution mana he could produce for the round. That didn’t miraculously restore his sight, but it did take one-third of those annoying cards out of his deck. He held the Carnivore’s Cleaver out in front of him in what he hoped was a defensive stance while he waited for his five-second turn timer to count down to a new hand.
“Your bravado makes this so much more amusing,” the Sow said with a gurgling chuckle.
Another heavy attack slammed into Bo’s shoulder and sent him sprawling back to the floor. This one got some bonus damage because of his Blind affliction, which took him straight from Minor Wound status to a Hampering Wound. A message told him that would reduce his Strength by 1 until it was healed, leaving him a single Strength mana to use every turn.
Not fun.
Eat. Meat. Now.
That was a sound idea, but Bo didn’t have time to eat anything without the Hungry Hungry Devil card. He really, really hoped he drew that card next. With only two wound levels to go until he kicked the bucket, the pitmaster had never wanted a slab of meat so badly in his life.
But as badly as he was hurt, Bo couldn’t risk the boss monster losing interesting him. He had to keep all its attention focused on him until Slick and Jenny finished their work. Which, he hoped, would happen soon.
“That’s your best shot?” Bo said, then forced himself to laugh. “Your time is running out. Soon as I can see again, you’re done.”
“I smell the fear rolling off you, boy,” the Sow said. “It is sweet as the milk that blinds you. You will be a savored meal. Your death will be slow, and your screams will season your meat.”
“You sprayed me with your milk?” Bo asked, incredulous. He pulled himself back to his feet and brandished the cleaver in the general direction of his foe. The pitmaster had to keep the monster’s attention on him to give his friends time to finish up their work. “That is disgusting. What’s wrong with you?”
The sound of riffling filled Bo’s ears and a new hand popped up in his mind’s eye. Danger Spice, Blind, and Severance. The combination wasn’t ideal, but it gave him some breathing room until he got his eyes back. Bo activated Danger Spice and Severance, though he wasn’t sure how they’d work while he was blind.
The answer, as it turned out, was that the first card worked fine, and the second didn’t work at all. The sow’s bellows were music to Bo’s ears, even as the system message disappointed him about the second card’s results.
YOU ARE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO MAKE A MELEE ATTACK.
“How dare you?” the Apocalypse Sow roared. “I will tear you limb from limb for what you’ve done to me.”
“Yeah, you’ve kinda already threatened me with death,” Bo quipped. “I don’t have a lot of incentive to behave when you’ve already said you’ll eat me. See, when you use the nuclear option right out of the gate, it doesn’t leave you with much room to—”
Another attack from the sow knocked the wind out of Bo and left him staggering. Red sparklers erupted across the blackness behind his eyes, and it took everything he had to stay on his feet.
YOU HAVE SUFFERED A SIGNIFICANT WOUND.
Bo didn’t really need the message to confirm that. He felt the bone-deep pain in every fiber of his being. Another shot like that, and Bo knew he’d be in the dirt. If he hadn’t used the Danger space, he was pretty sure that last one would have killed him outright.
Your friends have abandoned you or been killed. It is time to run, regroup, and come up with a new plan to kill this thing.
Bo refused to believe that. Slick and Jenny were doing their best. They’d come through. He just had to hold on until that happened.
The next hand popped into Bo’s mind, and he nearly cried with relief. He activated Hungry Hungry Devil without a second thought and ignored the pair of Blind cards beside it. He needed his wounds healed far more than his affliction lifted at the moment.
Bo put all four of his Constitution mana into activating the healing card. Relief instantly washed through him, and his wounds vanished, leaving him only Bruised. But he’d have to make the most of his restored health before the Sow hit him again and put him down for the count.
Though he couldn’t see, Bo could hear and smell just fine. And the Apocalypse Sow made plenty of unpleasant noises and smelled like the wrong end of a rotting corpse. The pitmaster charged in the smell’s direction, Carnivore’s Cleaver held high. He crashed into the creature’s blubbery flank—at least he thought it was a flank—far sooner than he’d expected and nearly fell back onto his ass at the impact.
“You cannot defeat me,” the creature cooed, nearly choking Bo with the cloud of rancid breath that rolled out of its mouth. “My power comes from the hex itself, and all the creatures I’ve bound to my will. If you wound me, I will replenish my life force by taking from those who worship at my countless altars, or I will strip the magic from the land to fuel my regeneration. You are nothing next to my might, champion.”
“You’re not as tough as you think,” Bo said. “I’ve got a surprise just for you.”
As if on cue, the monster howled in pain and outrage. Reeking oil splashed down across Bo, plastering his hair and clothes to his skin. The gunk was so foul Bo was sure it would be weeks before he could smell anything else, but the horrid odor was the most beautiful scent to him in that moment.
“Does it hurt?” Bo asked, crawling up the creature’s oil-slicked body with his cleaver. He still couldn’t see, but his ears told him all he needed to know about the creature.
Its cries announced its agony, but told Bo something else important, too.
The Apocalypse Sow was afraid.
“You fools,” the sow howled. “I will consume you all. A thousand of your kind are coming for you even now. There is no escape from this place for you.”
Bo’s vision cleared, just in time for him to see one of the creature’s tentacles loop around his waist. The second writhing appendage caught his left arm, but Bo had raised the cleaver above his head to keep his right arm free of the serpentine grasp.
The Sow roared as more rancid grease splashed down from the ceiling, then flexed the muscular tentacle around Bo’s waist until the pitmaster’s spine crackled with a sound like a mouthful of pop rocks washed down with some Mountain Dew.
WARNING: YOU ARE CONSTRICTED
During each of your turns, you gain one Breathless card. If you ever draw a full hand of Breathless cards, you will lose consciousness and receive a Mortal Wound.
You are currently immobile until the creature holding you has a status of Wounded.
You have suffered a Wound.
BREATHLESS CARD ADDED TO DECK
The next round of cards riffled into Bo’s mind, and he let out a groan. The last two blind cards and Carnivore’s Cleaver. With the new Breathless cards being added to his deck, Bo knew he had to either kill the Sow or clear the affliction cards out of his deck, fast. He doubted he could cause much pain with only one point of Strength mana to spend on Carnivore’s Cleaver, so spent two points of Constitution mana to activate the Blind card, removing it from his deck.
“Bo!” Jenny shouted from above him. “We’re hacking through these tubes as fast as we can, but you need to do something, fast. The gamblers are coming for us.”
“A lot of the gamblers are coming!” Slick added.
The panic in his friends’ voices was more painful to Bo than his creaking ribs. They’d followed him into this mess, and now they were up to their eyeballs in the shit. The pitmaster had to kill the Apocalypse Sow, or they were all dead.
And it wouldn’t just be the three of them. When the pigstrosity finished with him, it would spread its tentacles out to the campsite. A lot of innocent people would die if Bo didn’t solve this problem.
“There’s no time to cut all the tubes!” he shouted. “Chop through the ropes holding the platforms. Hurry!”
“Their desperation makes their meat all the sweeter,” the Apocalypse Sow chortled. “They will never finish their work in time to save you. And once you have perished, they will be captured and brought to me.”
“This isn’t over yet,” Bo snapped, desperate to keep the monster’s attention on him. That was all he could do to help his friends.
The next hand of cards flickered into his mind: Breathless, Severance, and Hungry Hungry Devil.
Memories of barbecue competitions long past flashed through Bo’s thoughts. His old man had lost more than he’d won in those days, but it never seemed to get him down. After all, there was plenty of beer and good barbecue, win or lose.
One of the old man’s sayings drifted up through the fog gathering around Bo’s thoughts. “If you can’t beat em,” his father had said around a mouthful of smoked ribs, “then eat ‘em.”
Bo poured his Constitution into Hungry Hungry Devil card and his one point of Strength mana into Severance.
If the only way out of here was past the boss monster, then he’d eat his way straight through the thing’s belly.
[https://i.imgur.com/UfrlQbb.png]