So, the raid had reached the door to the lair of the dungeon ruler. It was a large portal of wrought iron, embellished with art of golems—what you called the dwarfs—on its face. Khelero turned to the raid that waited anxiously behind him.
“It’s time,” he said to us, “activate your con-links.”
The subconscious link. It’s a small device of shaped wood with a crystalline bead in the center. You fit it around the earlobe, such that you have the bead stuck in your ear. On its own it does nothing, but after our raid members had set the con-links snugly on their ears, I tapped my staff to the floor.
“Spirit Link,” I said. “Level 1.”
It was at that moment our subconscious minds were soul bound, the beads of our con-links joined by my spell. High levels of the Spirit Link spell could share many things, such as feelings like pain, power in the form of mana, and life itself. At its lowest level, it turned a group of disparate adventurers, like wild animals, into a coordinated herd, or a deadly pack of hunters.
What was it like, being attached to so many subconscious minds? It was something of a miasma. I could feel it as the one who watched from its center, like I stood in the eye of a storm. If a raid member felt something, I would be able to see it in my mind’s eye; sense it, like a thought. If I issued an instruction, the raid members would hear it as their own inner voice directing them to battle. Through the con-link I had control of our battlefield.
“You’ve all been through the training,” Khelero said. “Those of you who haven’t much experience, I know it will feel strange, but when that voice tells you to jump, you jump. That’s the Instructor watching over you, don’t doubt him.”
Khelero nodded at Fiona. He took hold of a bar attached to one door and Fiona grabbed the other. They pushed and the door juddered. Dust fell and the doors gradually gave way, opened to the final chamber: The Lair. It was as large as I had remembered. An immense colonnade at least a hundred feet wide and several hundred feet long. The ceiling was so high as to be hidden in shadows cast by red-lit gold braziers that glowed beside each imperial column.
The room was black, like obsidian, and its floor was laid in a dark marble that added a crisp tap to our heavy steps. At the end of the hall was the dungeon ruler. You might imagine it like a beast of many heads, snarled in chains. Some dungeon rulers were certainly ferocious like beasts, but they were always like men; two feet, two hands, and a pair of baleful eyes.
The dungeon ruler of the Adderhorn Dungeon was a golem—a giant dwarf—twenty-feet tall and broad with extraordinary muscles. It was made of stone, as all golems were, but instead of a breastplate, its bare chest was covered by the five thick braids of a beard that reached its knees. Its bright red eyes glowed at us from where it sat on its throne.
Khelero advanced inside and we followed close behind him. I began coordinating our movements. Since the dungeon ruler was still resting on the throne, we would follow Plan A: We made broadhead formation, like the point of an arrow. Khelero and Cassius was in front. A healer stood behind each them, about ten feet away, and the DPS spread in two wings so as to not hit each other in a crossfire. I was in the center of the formation, toward the rear, where I was least likely to draw attention. Come the start of the fight, when aggro had been established, I would be able to join, but not before then; not before, because I couldn’t risk the dungeon ruler ignoring our tanks and striking the DPS.
I gave the instruction soundlessly to Khelero, after our positions had been taken. It was transmitted through the subconscious connection of the con-link.
[Engage,] I said to his mind.
Singular words were the easiest to communicate, with each additional word creating greater confusion. I could add two or three, but the reality was I couldn’t communicate more than four words before the message became garbled.
Khelero drew his longsword from the scabbard on his belt and pinned its blade against the marble floor. “Knight’s Challenge,” he said, “Rank 5.”
White light expanded in a ring from his feet. It flashed down the colonnade and crossed the dungeon ruler. It groaned like a man and dust fell in streams from the ceiling. I felt that noise was not made in pain or sadness, but that it was derisive, as if to insult us, or inspire fear. The dungeon ruler’s eyes flared up in red flames and it stepped down from its throne. Its stone boots fell heavy on the floor.
Elizabeth opened her book and read from the white light that illuminated its pages. “And in the long night, as they crossed the sea, the storm that lashed their ship became a breeze, and the clouded sky opened to stars,” she said.
Have you ever met a priest? While wizards may cast spells numbered in levels, and warriors may wield arts and skills numbered in ranks, priests are unique in the ritual words they command. Liz had a lovely voice, but she spoke rarely. Her voice was dedicated to the Saga of Namidae, and when recited faithfully, her mana manifested in the air.
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The battering sound that hammered our ears was dampened. The ritual incantation of the Stormy Night protected our bodies from excessive force. It would not absorb a sword blow, like a shield would, but it reduced the energy of loud noises or powerful winds; that was what we needed just to stand before the immense weight of the dungeon ruler.
Khelero and Cassius raised their shields. As the dungeon ruler approached, I spread our melee DPS, the zweihander squire and two rogues, so that they would be positioned at its sides.
Adventurers measured a dungeon ruler’s strength by its stamina and the time it took to render it immobile. You could not kill a dungeon ruler like you would a monster, or a man, you could only exhaust it, and—when it fell on its knees—defeat it by shattering its core gem.
If you considered a dungeon ruler’s entire body to be a block of armor, then the core gem was its true flesh. Direct hits to that crystal would cause more exhaustion than a hit to its stone and, at the time, I believed it to be on the back of its neck. So, you see, the reason I repositioned our melee DPS was to strike at that point. It was a conventional tactic that should have worked.
The dungeon ruler stopped ahead of Khelero. He was within reach of the large stone axes it held in each hand. The dungeon ruler swung and Khelero braced to take the first blow, but it turned its axe in the air and curved its swing. It slammed the zweihander-wielding squire in the chest.
Damion, that was his name. He was a shy boy, just seventeen. He hadn’t really proved himself as a tank, but I saw real promise in him. He could have been top-tier silver, or even gold if Khet willed it. Actually, he was from Atheria, the Atilonian capital, although he wasn’t Atilonian. He spoke of his family just once, the Atilonians would call them immigrants from the north territory, but they were transients left homeless by war. The inquisition discovered Damion’s mana while processing them, and so he was turned over to the guild.
It’s funny how I remember these things now.
I knew he had been hit. There was a spark, like surprise, in the miasma of subconscious connections, and then silence. His presence had gone dark in the con-link. Khelero confirmed it with his eyes, and I knew by his feelings, that Damion was dead.
Winters were comfortable in Atheria, you know? It was well south of the Chotokhetzam, the chasm that split the continent, and it was founded on tall cliffs by a warm-water sea. The Adventurer’s Guild had its headquarters based there and it’s where I was raised, with Khelero and the rest. I remember sitting dockside, beside the gulls on a winter afternoon. Enormous ships blew their horns as they came in to port and their steel-clad bays, I knew, were rich in treasures from around Adohas. People talked around me and passed me by, and I heard everything—saw everything—with my small eyes.
Such life, such vibrancy, that was Atheria. It was the center of the world in many ways.
I don’t know what Damion thought of it. I don’t know if he had spent much time there, before he was shipped off to Adheim. I don’t know if he resented it, or if he hated the Atilonians, or the inquisition that separated him from his family. I remember wondering, how would I find them? How would I tell them what had happened? I wanted to say I was sorry. He should have had more time, to be young, to be in the sun.
Damion died in a dark place, Zenos, against a wall etched in dwarf symbols, doubled in pain and blood. His armor had been crushed and the impact had severed his spine. It brought me no comfort that his death was instantaneous.
I had no time to cry for his sake. No energy to spare, none at all. I had to suppress my own shock lest it spread to a raid already burdened by fear and confusion. I bottled all that felt in the seconds between Damion’s death and the dungeon ruler’s next attack. It wound back its arm and I spoke to the raid with the fierce clarity of adrenaline.
[The dungeon ruler mutated,] I said in one burst.
[Taunts have no effect.]
The dungeon ruler brought down its axe and hewed the floor. The rogues were quick enough to roll aside. I considered retreating, but Khelero flipped his visor and flashed a smile. It was not a happy smile; it was a proud one. The fight was still on, I had to pick a new plan.
Among dungeon mutations, taunt immunity was one of the worst. A taunt was any aggro generating skill, art, spell, or ability in an adventurer’s arsenal. It was usually, but not exclusively, known to tanks; Knight’s Challenge is one example. Without it a tank did not have enough damage to generate passive aggro and would be helpless to attract the dungeon ruler’s ire.
It was a bad situation and we’d already lost one member, but I had created a plan for that circumstance. We fell back toward the door and assembled in a tight wing, almost a line, like the straight head of a bodkin arrow. The tanks were still in front, but Leo was far ahead of the group; he’d left his robes by the door. He’d need all his agility for Plan C: Kiting!
A kite is a paper wing that you drag through the air behind you. It would catch the wind and soar high above, while you held it tethered to your hand by a string. In dungeon parlance, kiting worked similarly, except the dungeon ruler was the kite, and the kiter—an adventurer with high aggro—was the one leading the string.
Leo had positioned himself on the other side of the dungeon ruler, toward its own throne. While it lumbered our way, Leo prepared his spell. A brilliant red circle appeared ahead of his hand. “Fireball!” he shouted. “Level 5!”
A plume of fire exploded from his palm. It struck the back of the dungeon ruler’s neck with the force of a meteor, illuminated the room in its flash, and roared with noise enough to strain our Elizabeth’s protection. Sure enough the dungeon ruler turned and ran after him.
Leo was standing in his black pants and flamboyant red shirt. It was a gift from Liz, I think. He did like to stand out when the battle got started, he even left his staff behind. The stance he took was like a martial artist, ready to strike. He bounced a little on his feet, stared hard through the charging dungeon ruler. When it came close, he ran at it, clapped his hands together, and shouted.
“Blink, Level 3!”
Leo disappeared from the dungeon ruler’s sight and reappeared in a flash a hundred feet behind it.
[Now!] I ordered the raid.