It never goes smoothly. Why on earth doesn’t it ever go smoothly?
Araxes found himself backpedaling off of the raised dais in the dungeon’s central chamber as a wave of small scaly humanoids with glowing eyes charged at him. Their intention was dreadfully clear, and would have been even if they were not continuously chanting ‘destroy the dungeon’ in the creepiest monotone he had ever heard since Karaoke Night at the zombie bar.
Char reached him first, bowling over a Shieldmaiden mob who had tried to get between Araxes and the kobold woman. Char’s claws were out and her teeth were bared, and Araxes had a very unpleasant flashback to the first time he had met the woman in this iteration of himself. She had torn him to shreds with those claws, then spat upon his corpse before whatever strange magicks had tied him to Cora had regenerated him. He was not anxious for a rematch.
“Protect me!” he hollered. It was not the coward’s cry it sounded like. He was the dungeon now, and he did not know if his little immortality still applied or if he was now as Cora had been when she had been the dungeon: vulnerable to attack. And he did not wish to find out.
The dungeon mobs–and it was only the dungeon mobs, he noted as he made it off the dais just ahead of slashing claws that trailed starlight after them–jerked as if stung and launched themselves into the path of the oncoming kobolds. There were maybe a dozen kobolds in the room, and three times as many mobs. The kobolds had been craftsmen and laborers before joining with the dungeon; mid-level at most and passionate not about fighting but about debate and philosophy. The dungeon mobs were spawned with strength and skill at arms, and if they were to be believed had been fighting this war for untold millennia.
It was a massacre.
Araxes watched in growing horror as the kobolds hit the mobs like a morningstar hits butter. An orc soldier rammed his way between Araxes and Char, and lost his head at the neck from one swipe of the kobold’s claws. Araxes didn’t know the orc’s name, but he had seen a flash of his level. 18. High enough that he shouldn’t have gone down that easily, even to Char. And with the orc’s death, a deep ringing gong sounded throughout the dungeon.
YOUR FORCES ARE UNDER ATTACK.
Blood and viscera erupted from every corner of the central chamber as kobolds tore into the mobs who had been their allies mere moments before. A shieldmaiden went down, her arm severed from her torso by a kobold’s bite. Two gnomes dogpiled another kobold, and were ripped to shreds. Char kept coming for Araxes, with Rashun right behind her. Their eyes were fixed on him like a predator’s on its prey, and glowed that hideous gold.
Possession. It was the only explanation. The realization was clinical and dispassionate as he flung himself backwards to avoid another swipe of claws. Two more orcs interposed themselves between Char and him, and were just as quickly disembowled, their sacrifices barely buying Araxes an instant before the kobolds were on him again. He tripped over his robe–the damnable robe he’d been wearing for the last month, that always regenerated with him whenever he died–and wound up on his ass looking up at Char looming over him.
“Destroy the dungeon,” she intoned, raising her claws.
Araxes stared his death in the face, and felt… Empty.
Then Char was airborne, flying and flipping end-over-end where she crashed against the far wall. Jackson Tolliver suddenly loomed large and solid in front of Araxes, his one good eye grim and gleaming. Annie appeared beside him, a wound on her arm and her mace out and spinning, deflecting claws with deftness but not ease.
“Get up!” Jackson yelled at him and thrust a giant paw of a hand at him. “Something’s in their heads! We’ve got to get you out of here!”
Yes. Yes, that was exactly what they must do.
“Outside?” Araxes said as he was hauled to his feet.
“Best chance,” Jackson agreed. “Stay close, we’ll bull our way–”
“Nope,” Annie said, kicking another kobold square in the teeth and launching it away. Aside from a chipped tooth, the kick didn’t seem to have done any actual damage. “Back down the tunnels.”
“Fall back!” Jackson’s roar rose above the maelstrom of screams and shrieks. “Fall back to the tunnels!”
How is this happening? The thought blazed through Araxes’ mind like a comet. Why this? How this? Why now?
Hold on, go back to that one. Araxes felt time slow around him as his thoughts sped up. One of the perks of undeath was that one’s fleshy parts no longer inhibited the free flow of neurons, and one could process information and data at so much higher a rate than one could when confined in a living prison of one’s own breathing body.
Why now? What was different now? What had changed? They had been perfectly alright until just moments ago. Was it a delayed reaction to whatever had happened with the sisters and Araxes inheriting their power? That seemed… Unlikely. Wouldn’t such a thing affect the dungeon mobs first?
He risked a quick glance around. The mobs were dying fast, and the kobolds were showing no mercy in their strikes.
Only the kobolds are affected. But that wasn’t true, not if Nathaniel was to be believed. The town itself had been affected as well. And Nathaniel’s own kin as well. Was it targeting racial groups? If that were the case, why were the Tollivers not affected?
“Protect the core!” the cry went up among the mobs, and Araxes felt himself jerked backwards and out of range of the grabbing claws. One of the huge mushroom men Tolliver had grown stepped in front of him, placing its huge bulk between him and the onrushing kobolds.
Mobs. It was not affecting mobs. Something to do with the dungeon, then? Being a mob protected you from the possession? But then why were the Tollvers not affected? They were not mob–Ah, but they were in a sense, weren’t they? respawned from Cora’s spawn lists even though they had not begun life that way.
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The mushroom man died slower than the others, but it still died. The kobolds were fast, aggressive, and their claws rended through flesh and steel as though it were paper. That should not have been possible, but whatever influence they were under was clearly turbo-charging them.
It’s possessing individuals with no ties to the dungeon. It was a leap of logic, but it felt solid. And Araxes had acted on hunches weaker than that in the past to excellent results.
Two more kobolds came in from the left, and the Tollivers shifted to meet them as other mobs started hustling Araxes away. But one of the kobolds–Araxes thought he recognized this one, but the name escaped him–had circled around and dove into them. A pair of orcs met the kobold with axes flashing, no longer trying to just stop. Araxes could see it in their eyes and feel it in the thrum of their axes. The mobs were aiming to kill, now.
It was not affecting the Tollivers because they were of the Dungeon. The same for the mobs. And for himself. But why not Nathaniel? He was–Ah, but Samuel had passed on the mantel of Guardian to him earlier, had he not? Even though temporary? Perhaps that was enough to give him immunity from this, whatever it was.
Which meant if he could tie a possessed individual to the dungeon in some manner, he could end the possession? That felt sound.
Araxes risked another look past his guardians. Fully half of the mobs that had been in the room were down and either dead or fully disabled. The dozen kobolds that had been in the room were undiminished in number, and seemed barely winded from the exertions. One or two of them sported new wounds that glowed with the same light as their eyes, and were already starting to heal. Char had scrambled back to her feet and was advancing on the Tollivers again. And Rashun, young and eager Rashun, was charging headlong at Annie from the side, his small claws out and glowing blue.
Annie turned her head just before Rashun struck, and Araxes saw her eyes go wide. Her mace moved to intercept the blow–too slowly. She would not make it.
Tie an individual to the dungeon, end the possession.
Araxes had only been the dungeon for a few hours. Perhaps, if he had had time, he might have been able to find ways to grant some sort of status to non-dungeon personnel that would have protected them from the possession. But he had no time. Instinct mixed with hunch and produced a course of action. As Rashun’s claws lashed out for Annie, Araxes reached out with the dungeon’s power and focused it on the young Kobold.
Young Rashun, who had lost his father to Araxes’ hands back when he had been a different entity, back when misery and death had been mere amusements for him. Rashun, who had tried to kill him several ties to avenge his father. Rashun, who had cut him to the bone with his razor’s words. Rashun, who’s claws were still unbloodied, but would not remain so.
There were better candidates. His practical side told him Char, with her higher level and her sharp mind, would be infinitely more qualified. The old Araxesendenak, when faced with this choice, would not have hesitated.
But Araxes had come to understand choice much better in the past week, ever since his talk with Tolliver. And he knew, deep in whatever remained of his blackened and shriveled soul, that only one choice was the correct one here.
Sally had required a blood ritual. Cora had required permission. Araxes had both their power and was greater than their whole. He only needed to point.
Guardian Selection Activated. Target: Rashun Scalesharer. Target confirmed.
Power flowed into Araxes from the Dungeon, and out through him into Rashun. He felt something rise up against the power, some kind of barrier seeking to turn the power away or aside. But whatever the barrier was, it was not designed to stand in the force of this power, and it shattered under the blow. The dungeon’s essence streamed into Rashun even as his claws sped towards Annie. Araxes felt the essence take hold. Rashun’s claws connected.
And bounced off of Annie’s worn breastplate. They no longer glowed. Nor did his eyes. Instead of deadly intent, those clear blue eyes were now full of nothing save confusion.
“Aunt Annie?” The boy started.
“Grab him,” Araxes started to say, but didn’t have the chance. Another kobold, old and wiry and with shredded robes trailing behind him like a cape came barreling out of the melee and snatched up Rashun in his arms.
“You’re not possessed,” Araxes blurted in shock.
“No, not yet. But we must leave! Back to the tunnel!” Sheshek, the kobold Shaman, yelled. His eyes did not glow. “Everyone get into the tunnel! Quickly!”
Araxes did not know the old shaman’s plan, but he recognized the voice of one who had a plan and believed in it utterly. He took up the cry as well, and instantly he felt the tide of the massacre shift. The mobs fought now to escape the kobolds, not to hold them off. They retreated quickly and as orderly as they could. Another shieldmaiden fell, her head torn from her shoulders. A dwarf went down on one knee and was swarmed under by four kobolds. Araxes forced himself to keep watching even as he retreated. Forced himself to watch those who were dying to save him of their own free will.
Then they were in the tunnel. Araxes felt the walls pressing in around him, felt the bottleneck as the mobs crowded in behind him, still fighting to keep the press of kobolds back. Sheshek was next to him, chanting something Araxes could not hear. Rashun was in his arms, limp and staring wide-eyed at the carnage behind them.
Char broke through the mass of bodies and clambered towards Araxes. He watched her come, wondering if this was how he died. Then one of Jackson’s great paws landed on her shoulder, the other one grabbed an arm, and he heaved her up.
She turned her head and with one snap of her jaws, bit off the hand holding her arm at the wrist.
Jackson hollered in pain and heaved with his remaining hand. Char went flying back into the teeming mass, crashing into several of her kobolds and knocking them over like tenpins. It was a brief reprieve, and Araxes knew they would be up in the next instant–
“Stand clear!” One of the remaining orcs yelled. The mobs flowed backwards, bumping and jostling into Araxes. And for the barest instant there was empty space between them and the kobolds, a patch of air no more than a few feet in length.
It was enough. Sheshek’s eyes glowed red, and his chanting reached a fevered pitch. Power surged, and the tunnel closed like the snapping jaws of a trap. Ceiling, walls, and floor all irised closed and formed into a brand new blank wall of stone at the high-level seismage’s command, cutting off the mobs from the kobolds from the rest of the dungeon. For a moment there was the thudding of claws and fists against solid earth, and then nothing.
Silence fell.
For about three seconds.
“Light,” Araxes commanded in what he decided immediately to deem his Dungeon voice, and he immediately began to glow in a bright blue light.
“Medic!” Annie cried, racing to her husband. Jackson was standing slumped, his good hand cradling his new stump.
“Get the wounded to the infirmary,” Araxes said, pointing at the nearest mobs. “Post double guards on this tunnel and at every intersection. The possessed may try to tunnel in. Sheshek, reinforce the tunnel walls as much as you can. Rashun,” he turned to the little kobold, who still looked bewildered and frightened. “Take five minutes, familiarize yourself with your new powers, then join Sheshek in reinforcing the dungeon.”
The next several minutes would forever be a blur to Araxes, even with the clarity that undeath gave him. Right now, even as he provided orders on automatic, his mind was almost wholly occupied with a single question.
What the hell was going on?