It was nine in the morning when Snow finally arrived at the dungeon. Zack saw him coming, rolling up in a well maintained Crown Victoria. The old car rumbled as it pulled to a stop just outside the dungeon's influence, where Enza's cane was stabbed into the earth.
"Enza," he breathed, gently caressing the gem as he extracted his cane. "I was so worried."
To Zack's surprise, Snow actually seemed to hug the cane, holding it tight to his chest with his eye closed. The tender moment lasted on a few heartbeats, though, before the archmage's expression turned furious.
That was Jean-Claude's cue to step in and hopefully de-escalate the situation.
"Greetings, Master Snow," Jean-Claude said, bowing politely to the older man. "I am the dungeon's majordomo, and I am here to inform you that—"
Jean-Claude didn't even get a chance to finish. Snow pointed his cane at the kobold, and a bolt of blue-black mana erupted from the core. It struck the poor mob centre mass. For a fraction of a second, Zack stared in confusion. The spell hadn't seemed to do any damage.
Then, Jean-Claude unraveled, the tightly knit fibres of mana holding him together fraying at the seams. In an instant, he dissolved into nothing.
"What the hell!? System, what was that?" Zack asked, projecting his thoughts towards the Akashic System in the hopes of gleaning more information.
[Unmake: Level 5]
[Spell, Magic]
[Fire a bolt of elemental magic at a target. This spell is stronger against crafted entities or illusions.]
[Level 3 Upgrade: Aether from an unmade target is refunded to the caster as mana.]
[Level 5 Upgrade: The caster gains one stack of Manaflow.]
[Cost: 15 mana]
[Manaflow]
[Buff, Magic]
[The caster has increased mana recovery for each stack of Manaflow, to a maximum of 5 stacks. Gaining a stack of Manaflow refreshes the duration.]
[Current stacks: 1 of 5]
[Duration remaining: 59 minutes and 13 seconds.]
Zack shivered as he watched Jean-Claude's mana vanish into the air. He was fortunate that his mobs weren't composed of aether, nor did they have enough mana to fully refund the spell's cost. It didn't matter, though. Despite that spell having a chunky mana cost, it was clear that Snow had enough mana recovery to more than make up for it. Between Enza cycling his spent aether, to his own abilities being built on it, Snow's entire kit was likely centred around casting big spells and recovering enough mana to cast them again.
"Hey, Alex," Zack asked, quickly shooting his attention into his core room. "What does it mean if a spell has the subtype Magic?"
Zack didn't need to hear Alex say it to know what it meant, his friend's pale expression was more than enough. "Snow has an affinity for the magic element."
"Oh boy." Zack shot his awareness back into the lobby, where Snow was already storming in.
The draconids were arrayed against him, and the one-eyed man swept his gaze over them with a mixture of contempt and rage.
"Snow, whatever you're planning, you don't have to do it," Zack said, spinning up a wisp so the old man could hear him. "You have Enza, just leave and—"
Snow blasted the wisp with an Unmake, his jaw clenched tight. "Let me make one thing abundantly clear to you, dungeon. You have stolen from me. You have taken the subjects of my research and encroached upon my authority as an archmage. And if that wasn't enough, you stole my wife in her incredibly vulnerable state. I have played nice with you thusfar, but that ends here."
The old man's entire body seemed to tighten. He held the cane out with one hand, and the other up at eye level. Zack watched as aether coalesced around him, until he unleashed it in a blast of concentrade power. The first draconid it hit exploded into a shower of rubble, and the others charged forward to avenge their fallen comrade.
Snow didn't even let them get close. Another burst of aether exploded out from his body, slicing the nearest draconid in half as it hit. One of the draconids managed to duck under the blast, while another caught at the edge lost an arm for their trouble.
"It's clear that you are a threat to me and mine, dungeon," Snow continued, charging an Unmake and obliterating the draconid that managed to dodge his area blast. "As such, I cannot allow you to continue existing."
"So you're just going to kill me, is that it?" Zack demanded.
"I was hoping that I could use you in my research, but it's clear that's no longer an option." A sneer tugged on the corners of Snow's lips. "If destroying you is what it takes to end the threat you pose, then so be it."
"In that case, the kid gloves are off. I hope you understand that this isn't personal. You're an existential threat to cores everywhere, and if I have to kill you, I'll do it without losing a wink of sleep."
Snow sneered as he lashed out with a bolt of blue and black mana, slicing another draconid in two. Already Enza was hard at work absorbing his spent aether and converting it back into mana. Zack did his best to steal the loose threads, but he found Snow's aether surprisingly difficult to consume. It was like they had a mind of their own, and were resisting him.
With the final draconids dealt with, and nary a mote of dust on Snow's suit, the old man marched towards the manor entrance. Zack mentally frowned, since he had expected Snow to attempt the meadow. Then he remembered the pulse of mana the old mana had sent out in his first visit to the dungeon. Snow knew where his core used to be, and didn't know that Zack had moved it!
Good. Hopefully that means he won't anticipate that I prepared for him. Zack mused.
Snow threw the door open and peered around, stepping carelessly onto the manor's rug. The moment the door shut behind him, the slimes leapt into action. The closest one dropped off the ceiling and landed right on Snow's head, smothering his face in foul smelling black goo. Snow screamed in surprie, and started shooting magic off left and right.
It was only when he unleashed another wave of energy from his body that he was able to get the slime off his head. Snow let out a gasp of air, coughing up black sludge onto the ground. His face was burned red, his forehead blistering from the corrosive slime. A quick wave of his cane and the slime was unmade, purged from his body like it was never there at all.
"Cheap tricks won't defeat me, dungeon," Snow growled. He reached into his coat pocket and extracted a small vial of red potion. He pulled the stopper off with his teeth and downed its contents. Instantly, the burns on his face started to vanish.
The remaining slimes, the ones that managed to dodge Snow's explosive attack, slithered along the carpet towards him. One managed to reach his shoe and started eating away at the black leather pennyloafer, only to receive a sharp kick for its trouble. A swift blast of magic, and it joined the others in death.
A skeleton shambled out of one of the open rooms, sword at the ready, and lunged towards the wizened man. Despite his phenomenal power, Snow was still old. His body might have been shored up with his immense magical power, but that didn't make him invincible. He managed to sidestep the blade by an inch, and rammed Enza's core into its chest. The skeleton flailed and succeeded in clipping Snow in the shoulder just before it exploded in a rush of magic.
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"You caught me off guard, but traps like that only work once," Snow growled. He tapped the butt of his cane against the ground and sent out a quick pulse of aether. Zack expected it to reach his core, but was surprised by how weak it was. All it did was highlight the slimes waiting on the ceiling to leap down and strike.
"I see you." Snow lifted his cane and unleashed hell. Missiles of sorcerous might exploded against the ceiling, slaying slimes instantly. In seconds, the ceiling clinging mobs were almost completely destroyed, leaving only the ground floor skeletons to defend the manor.
Snow strode forward as the crowd started lunging for him. He deftly wove his spells together, firing multiple Unmakes at once. Zack suspected he had a power that let him cast spells multiple times in rapid succession, and quietly hoped he could steal that off Snow's corpse. Assuming he survived this ordeal.
One of the skeletons managed to land a Wicked Strike, lunging with surprising alacrity and catching Snow mid-cast. The blade bit into Snow's side, staining his suit with blood. The cut wasn't deep, less than half an inch of the blade making it into the old man's flesh, and the skeleton perished for the offense. A quick glance at Snow's attributes, and Zack was unsurprised with what he saw.
[Cornelius Snow]
[Human]
[Level: 51]
[Health: 165/215]
[Mana: 87/100]
[Stamina: 81/120]
Snow's health took a significant dip from those few easy strikes, but his mana was nowhere near as low as Zack hoped. Cornelius Snow was a caster through and through. He had little to no defensive capabilities, and instead his powers were all centered around mana management and raw damage potential. If Zack managed to overwhelm him, he might be able to pull through!
Unfortunately, the skeletons were already at their limits. Another blast of magic killed the final one, and left Snow with enough room to pop another healing potion. Unsurprisingly, it topped up his health, bringing him back to his maximum values. His stamina, though, did not recover.
"Interesting," Zack thought to himself. Of all Snow's values, stamina appeared to be the one he didn't pay much attention to. Unlike mana, which was a raw value that described how much magic a person had, or health—a value that described their current status as a whole—stamina described how much physical energy a person had. It wasn't spent the same way as the other values, but instead was gradually used up as they performed actions. There wasn't a concrete cost to using stamina, just some actions caused it to dip.
Zack wondered if stamina potions were a thing that existed, and if Snow had any on his person. Only time would tell. He focused his attention on the old man again as he stepped into the Shaman's room. Unlike a normal run, in which the Shaman would put on a grand display in anticipation of the fight ahead, it was already ready to go. No sooner had Snow stepped into the room did the skeleton lunge forward.
An ursine bellow echoed through the room, and Snow barely managed to erect a barrier of aether in time to intercept the attack. The Shaman hammered against the blue-white wall, roaring furiously as its attacks did nothing at all.
"Is this supposed to be one of your boss fights?" Snow scoffed. "I am… unimpressed."
Before Zack could make some witty banter, Snow dropped the shield and blasted the Shaman with a bolt of energy. Unlike the normal skeletons, it didn't immediately unravel under the force of Snow's spell. This earned a curiously raised eyebrow from the old man, who suddenly took a bear claw in the chest. He let out a gasp of surprise and pain as he was thrown backward, slamming into the wall for extra damage.
"Cornelius!" Enza screamed, the first words Zack heard her speak since Snow arrived. Instead of projecting her voice, she vibrated her core to produce sound.
"I'm fine," Snow grunted, coughing. Blood stained his teeth and dripped down his chest. His white shirt turned crimson, and he quickly extracted another healing potion from his pocket. This one was a topical, and he slammed the plastic pod against his chest as he struggled to his feet. Slowly, the wounds in his chest started to close.
The Shaman wasn't going to give him a chance to get back up again, lunging forward with a mighty bellow. Snow saw the attack coming and let loose a blast of mana from his cane. This time, it was followed by two more. The rapid fire of blue-black energy pierced the boss mob in the head and torso, and finally broke it down.
Snow extracted another potion from his pocket and promptly downed it, further speeding up his recovery.
"I wonder how many of those you have," Zack mused, as the fireplace slid aside to reveal Bloody Mary's boss room. "I'm willing to bet I have more bosses than you have health potions. I'm already working to respawn the mobs you destroyed. If you leave now, you might make it out alive."
Snow scoffed. "You don't frighten me, dungeon. I've dealt with far worse than a few basic, surface level wounds. In case you haven't noticed, I've barely even dipped into my mana."
"But can the same be said about your health and stamina?"
Snow didn't answer. He rose back to his feet and checked on Enza, making sure she was unharmed. Then, he marched forward, entering Bloody Mary's boss room with cautious glance.
Normally, Zack had a plan for how he wanted to introduce this boss to runners. This was no time for theatrics, though. Instead, Bloody Mary was already posed for battle. Her decapitated head screamed in fury as Snow made eye contact with it, and she raised her cleaver to lunge at him.
To Zack's surprise, Snow actually tried an evasive tactic this time instead of a magical defense. He jumped to the side and twisted in place, blasting Bloody Mary's sides with magical energy. Unlike his Unmake spell, which unraveled magical fibers, this spell seemed to be a more direct damage dealing ability. A quick glance at the spell description revealed as much.
[Arcane Bolt: Level 3]
[Spell, Magic]
[Fire a bolt of raw aether at your target.]
[Level 3 Upgrade: A second bolt can be fired in rapid succession with a reduced mana cost.]
[Cost: 5 mana, 3 mana]
A second bolt erupted from Snow's cane as Zack finished reading the description, striking Mary in the shoulder this time. She let out a furious wail, her voice echoing off the mirrors lining the walls. Snow frowned as he finally looked around the room and took in Bloody Mary's boss arena.
It was shaped like a giant dodecagon, with a mirror lining all but four sides. On a clock, the twelve, three, six, and nine hours would be the sides devoid of mirrors. This was an intentional design on Zack's part, since the six o'clock position was the room's entrance.
Mary lifted her skull up and its eyes began to glow. Snow stepped to the side to avoid the direct blast that fired from her eyes, but didn't notice Mary's reflection in the mirrors. Each of them fired a similar blast, and one such attack struck him in the back. Snow gasped more in surprise than pain, as the magical attack splashed off his coat and sent him staggering forward. A quick glance at Snow's status revealed that the attack had barely done anything. Two whole points of damage.
"Of course he has magical defenses out the ass," Zack grumbled, as the old man once again managed to avoid another cleaver strike from his boss. "Still, I'd be a little disappointed if he died here. All that preparation for nothing, and all."
Snow dodged Mary's cleaver strike and managed to catch it with the shaft of his cane. Zack fully expected the wood tool to shatter on impact, only for it to sudden shift in material. The wood took on a dark grey colour, and the ring of metal on metal echoed through the chamber. Worse, Mary swung with enough force to shatter her weapon against Snow's.
"Dammit," Zack cursed. He had discounted Enza as little more than an extra mana battery keeping Snow topped up, and in doing so he had forgotten one very important fact: she was an armament core, a living weapon. Clearly she had her own slew of powers that he hadn't taken into account. If he had to hazard a guess, Snow and Enza had a way to communicate telepathically, too.
Mary screamed in fury, tossing aside her broken cleaver. Zack was already spinning up another one when Snow struck. This time, instead of channeling his magic, he lunged forward with cane out stretched. The crystal head of his weapon suddenly became wreathed in a swirling drill of blue-black energy, which effortlessly punched through Mary's waist. The towering skeleton let out a scream of agony as the vortex of power unravelled her mana like a sweater, then twisted it like spaghetti on a fork.
Blood Mary was gone in seconds.
"I'll admit, that posed an interesting challenge," Snow scoffed. He absorbed as much of Mary's mana as he could, then discarded the rest. Enza sucked on the spent aether until that was gone, too. She was practically radiating magic, now. She was so full of mana that if Zack didn't know better, he'd have thought she was letting off influence of her own.
Snow didn't bother chugging another health potion. Despite Mary managing to land a hit on him, his coat was able to deflect most of the damage. He turned his attention towards the door that opened at the far side of the room and raised an eyebrow.
"Inviting me deeper, are you?"
"I can't kill you if you don't go deeper," Zack answered.
Snow rested his cane against the floor and leaned his weight on it. He pursed his lips, and Zack felt a pulse of aether shoot through his dungeon again. This time,the pulse didn't stop until it finally connected with his core.
"Ah, you moved your core. That explains it." Snow chuckled. "I'll admit, I expected as such. I see you also modified your layout. You'll force me to delve through each of your wings if I want to get to your core."
"I remastered my dungeon just for you," Zack assured him. "Again, we don't have to do this, Snow. You have what you came for! You have Enza. I'm sorry I took her, but I couldn't stand by and let you torture the cores for your own pleasure."
"Is that what you think I do? Torture them like some cruel sadist?"
"Yes."
"Hardly. I'm trying to help them. To undo what was done to them."
Zack paused for a moment. "Undo?"
"He's trying to turn us back into humans," Enza explained, her core vibrating against Zack's influence.
Zack stared silently at the pair of them for a moment. That didn't make sense. That went against everything he was told, both by others and by Archie. "I don't believe you."
"Why?"
"Because I know what you're doing to Matt."
Snow narrowed his eye. "That boy. He's like you, you know. Supposedly he's a dungeon core, and yet he cannot do anything close to what you can. I know cores like you are the key to fixing all of this, but Matthew will not cooperate and you… You are too dangerous."
Zack wanted to strike Snow down on the spot, but the man's impressive magic was blocking him. He couldn't spawn anything in the room, it was like trying to shove a square peg through a brick wall. Despite his bias, Zack fully believed that Snow was telling the truth. In some horrid way, the man truly was trying to find a way to reverse the change from human to core.
They could sit there and argue about that all day, but Snow was already moving toward the door to the next wing. Nothing Zack could say would change his mind. Cooperation was off the table.
"I hope you enjoy your speedrun," Zack said. "I'm going to make sure it's the last thing you do, even if it kills me."