The interrogation of the Blood Cultist had taken about two to three hours, so when we ended the “session”, the sun was already up in the sky and was shining its morning rays upon the world. Even with the new information that we had retrieved from the Cultist, it was still rather important that I set up my Pill Forge immediately and correctly, because it was almost a guaranteed-fact that I would be needing some of those Regeneration pills quite soon, if not for myself then most assuredly for the “idiot” group of three.
Fortunately, Yi Gore had left the device for “milking the chicken” active overnight in the company of Will-E, which had been tasked to act as a storage device for the decapitated bodies, so I now had a rather large supply of the chicken meat together with the Regeneration Essence that the flesh provided for my Alchemy needs.
I took the little robot-child together with me when I went to the shack, and he proved to be quite an efficient cleaner when working around the dusty rooms of the wooden house. It seemed that the robot just kept on becoming more and more useful, aside from providing that immense storage space. Butler Will-E for the win! He was even currently painted black, so he was donning the tuxedo look too.
Since we were in each other's company, I took the time to ask him why he hadn't actually retaliated whenever the demons or other hostiles had attacked us. He then simply told me that his combat protocols were currently disabled at the moment, so he wasn't able to harm any living being on purpose, even if that included the demons.
Since I have always thought of myself as an advocate for “robot rights”, I asked him whether there was some way for him to bypass those protocols, like to reprogram himself, but the reply had been rather surprising, as he told me that he was totally willing to intervene on our behalf and defend us against the assault of the demons from a mental point of view, but rather that it was an issue of his hardware preventing him from doing so, as his limbs would simply lock up if he tried to take any intentional hostile action against any living creature. It seems that whoever had built the dwemmer automatons in the first place had been rather careful to plant a lot of redundancies against a hostile “robot uprising” into these golems.
On the other hand though, I had fortunately found out that his combat protocols were not permanently “frozen” in the harmless position, but rather that they needed to be toggled “ON” by his owner, which was currently designated as Fungus. A rather complicated process was involved in performing that task, so immediately after we had both finished cleaning the shack and had installed my Rare Pill Forge plus its extensions properly, we had both headed back to the village’s inn to have a talk with Mr. Gorilla-Mc’Princeface about flipping the switch.
It took us about half-an-hour more of scouring the entire Heavenly Library with our astral projections to find out where the Golem maintenance manuals were located at, to learn what the “factory default” key-phrases for enabling any hostile actions were for a golem-model of Will-E’s making, as we then proceeded to change the “password” for such administrative actions to something custom, a set of keywords that would become henceforth only known to myself and Fungus.
It took a drop of blood, a fingerprint scan and an eye-scan as well to enable the combat protocols, but we now finally had a little Robot-Butler capable of actual combat, instead of one that just kept hugging its own head in fear.
Still, I wanted to know if there was something more that I could do for the little guy, since I personally abhorred the notion of slavery, which this was a diluted version-of, no matter how you looked at it, but he told me that even if he were to somehow be released from his “servitude”, he would still choose the stick with our group, as he felt a somewhat weird paternal affection towards Fungus, as he had been the person to contribute the most to the process of the Golem's creation, and that his logic circuits told him that he only had things to gain from remaining in our company, as our entire group was rather unusual and very prone towards Mother System's forms of enforced “adventures”.
After we had enabled the combat protocols on the little golem, I proceeded to wake-up the rest of the members of my party, minus Jin of course, as I did not want to currently have to deal with him, and then we all headed towards the Forge building to meet up with Carmine which had spent the entire night over there at the smithy, instead of here at the inn.
We did find her exactly as I expected, bent over the forge and still pounding metal, as she had not slept even for a single wink since yesterday, caught in her maddened fervor to regain her lost blacksmithing skills. Near her, an entire pile of weapons and armors could be seen, as she had almost exhausted the entire stockpile of metals ingots and bars that the Smithy had accumulated over the years.
I allowed her to finish the item she was currently crafting, but after that I immediately put a stop to her item-creation spree, as I forced her to go and take a nap. Of course, the moment she placed her head on a pillow, she dozed off instantly and began snoring in a very loud dwarfish way.
Since we were already at the smithy, I had decided to ask the guys to create an inventory list of all of the items that could be considered weapons, armors, or even raw smithing materials that we had stolen from the Ming Empire's warehouses, or that Carmine had crafted overnight, since they were both a lot more knowledgeable when it came to categorizing and sorting these things then I was. Fung was rather exceptional at this, since he had been raised in a Merchant Clan, and had a lot of know-how related to the subject.
There was a large pile of those item-types inside Will-E's storage which we had never analysed in detail, since we had been stuck traveling on the road until now. While Fungus and Xibei were creating a written manifesto of the items that we currently had available, as they kept pulling stuff out of the little robot's core and [Appraising] the contents, I also took the time to fill my own spatial ring with the exact ingredients that were required to craft the Regeneration pills including the chicken flesh, and then I headed together with Liliam to the shack at the edge of town to start crafting.
A couple of hours later, I had successfully created a couple of batches of those wonder-pills, with the second batch even becoming an upgrade of my former results, since I had managed to lower the cooldown of the whole pill to barely one-and-a-half hours, which was a significant upgrade from the first pill I had ever created, as that particular one had contained enough pill-poison to have its cooldown at almost an entire year. I had managed this new performance by adding a Detoxifier Essence to the recipe, and it had proven to be the right thing to do.
While I was rejoicing at my newfound success, Lingfeng suddenly came rushing through my shack’s door, as another group of demons and skinless rabbits had seemingly attacked the village. “Brother Zhang” was currently organising a retaliatory group, so he was in need of my help, since it was obvious that simply remaining on the defensive did not work anymore. We had to get to the heart of the problem somehow, or at least find some way to cordon-off the continuous spawns that kept coming from the depths of the Old Monastery.
We gathered all of the Guards together, the few monks that could fight on their own, and even woke up poor Carmine to join us, as any extra high-level muscle could mean the difference between life and death for somebody. We had about 20 guards, 5 monks, my party, Lingfeng, Carmine, Yi Gore, Will-E, and sadly, even Jin’s newfound companions. I distributed to everybody any pieces of armor that fit them, and also geared them with Carmine’s overnight crafted weapons until we had a rather decent group.
Actually, why the hell were the Lordling and his posse here as well? Did the innkeeper chicken out on me and forgot to administer the powders to all of them? Hrrr…
After a quick organisational speech, we all opened the wooden gateway that led towards the base of the Temple/Old Monastery, and began to kill any demon or Rabbit-Spawn in sight.
Nobody was taking any risks, and at the slightest sign of trouble we would all pull back and regroup, kill anything that chased us, and then slowly advance once more. I was continuously casting my healing spell on anyone that seemed to need it, and they were all grateful for it, as it eased the pain and closed any bleeding wounds. Our raid group finally reached the Temple’s courtyard, and began the rather annoying cleanup operation, as the whole place was already infested with Hellbound and Rabbit-Spawns. For some strange reason, the little demons never attacked the rabbits, and sometimes even actively cooperated with the beasts. I was certain this was the Dungeon Core’s influence, otherwise I could see no explanation for the odd behaviour.
As we finally reached the base of the Temple itself, we suddenly found a Monk lying on his belly in a pool of his own blood with a few arrows sticking out of him, as if he had just escaped from the confines of the Temple only a few minutes ago. He seemed to be still breathing, but was covered from head to toe in what I could only assume were lash-marks which had peeled his skin away, leaving him a bloodied mess of a man. I immediately rushed to his aid, as I began casting my Regeneration spell on him while looking for my first aid kit.
"Don’t just stand there! Help me flip him over!" I yelled to the Lordling and Jin which were the closest persons to me. Immediately after the Monk was facing upwards again and had temporarely regained consciousness, he grabbed Lord Jaden by the hand and began to beg for his aid.
"Please, listen to me. The Captain of the magisterial guards, he took a few of us Monks down there to find the missing Prince. The idiot led us into a trap! Now everyone is dead...killed by a demon that called itself the Smoocher. Avenge us! Find this Smoocher and slay it, so that our souls may finally be at peace! It was horrible! He tortured all of us for days! I...I managed to chew my own bindings and then freed myself, but I didn't have the time to help the others before he came back...He...He...did unspeakable things to us…(*SOB*)...the HORROR!"
"Rest well! Your death will be avenged!" Lord Jaden muttered in anger over the body of the bloodied Monk.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
*Slap*
"AAAU! WHY’D YOU HIT ME, PEASANT?"
"He ain't dead yet, you moron! Quickly! Monk, swallow this healing pill! Fungus, make with the bandages! Also give me some of that alcohol as disinfectant!"
"Right away!"
"Liliam, hold his head still and make sure he doesn’t bite his tongue."
"Fungus, help me push these broken arrows out of the body. Yes, yes, that way. No, I don’t care if they come out through the other side, the pill will fix the hole in no-time. We simply can’t allow any metal arrowheads to remain stuck within his body, so it’s better this way."
*Woodcrack*Fleshrip*
*AAAAARRRRGHMFHHHHH!!!*
"I know it hurts buddy, but you’ll thank me later!"
"Fungus, bandage the right leg. I’ll take the left. Xibei, do his arm."
Immediately, my whole team went into EMT mode, as all of the town Guards, the Lordling, the Huntress and stupid-ass Jin watched in awe. During the time we were patching the guy up, some of the Guardsmen had been smart enough to run back to the village and bring back a makeshift-stretcher composed of two wooden-poles and some cloth-and-leather strips that were held between them, to allow them to carry the body easier.
Lifting the victim onto the stretcher, we then immediately rushed him to Ping’s “clinic”, but fortunately for the Monk, his life was not in danger anymore due to my Regen pill and continuous spell support. I was so glad I had just finished my latest batch! I just knew that the stuff would come in handy!
It also came as a lucky break that right as we were about to head back to the Temple after dropping-off the lashed Monk into Ping’s care, I saw the Lordling's group of the three “idiots” suddenly excuse themselves, as they all rushed out to the closest outhouses and bushes and promptly “exploded” just as I had planned. I guess that it had taken for a while for the effects of the laxatives to take hold then, or maybe the innkeeper had administered a lesser-dose out of fear.
Profiting from the occurrence, I immediately told Ping to be very careful from now on with all of the drinking or washing water that he would be giving to the patients, and use only boiled or even distilled water, as there was a very high chance that the water-well and the aquifer below, which supplied the entire village's drinking water, had already been tainted by the demons, who were now probably taking a crap into it, if the Mother System was following the former plagiarized Earth scenario.
After all of that, our entire group minus the three “idiots” returned to the Buddhist Temple, and began a second sweep of the courtyard, as we found two more angry packs of red demons and weird skinless rabbits lying about. With the levels and numbers that we had on our side though, we quickly dispatched them without any problems.
After the coast was clear and the village’s Guardsmen constructed a makeshift barricade out of random furniture pieces and barrels in front of the staircase that led into the catacombs of the Old Monastery below, as to prevent any more creatures from coming up from the insides of the Dungeon and onto the surface, we finally got the chance to go and use the local Weirdwood Tree, to call Lingfeng’s team and tell them about our current predicament.
Once the “offering” of spirit stones had been accepted by the mouth of the Old-Face Tree and a connection got created across the Empires to the weird communication orb that the small Healer Lady from the former Hero’s party usually carried with her, Lingfeng simply pinged a few short encoded signals to her, which basically told her to “get to Weirdwood Tree and talk to me directly from there”, since the orb communication lines had probably already been compromised.
We waited for an hour or more, and we were assaulted by two more packs of demons and rabbits that came from below the Temple, before Mina the Healer reached back to us from another Weirdwood Tree, somewhere across the world, as using the tree-to-tree direct communication lines was a lot safer than using the orbs, even if not perfect.
"Mina! Listen! This is Lingfeng! The children are with me, but we ran into a huge problem!"
"YOU ran into a huge problem? DO YOU EVEN KNOW IN WHAT A FUCKING DEEP IN SHIT WE ARE AT THIS MOMENT, LIFFY?"
"Wait, WHAT? What’s goin on? It can’t be worse than what I have on my platter at this moment!"
"LIFFY! ALL THE EMPERORS AND THE SECT MASTERS OF THE LARGE SECTS ARE DEAD! EVERYONE! ALL OF THE ROYAL HOUSES, THE PRINCES, THE SECT DISCIPLES AND THE SECT HEADS AND ELDERS...ALL DEAD!"
"HOLY FUCK, SERIOUSLY! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?"
"The Forbidden City suddenly exploded for some unknown reason. All of the bigshots were there for a meeting, because some sort of Ancient Evil has apparently been unleashed upon the world, but once everybody actually got there, KABLOOEY! The whole city went up in a huge ball of fire that was so big it flattened everything down for tens of miles around the blast! I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH DEVASTATION IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! THIS WAS ON A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL OF STRONG, LIFFY!"
"Yeah...about that Ancient Evil...That’s what I’m calling you about. Me and the kids ran into it, and it’s trapped right beneath our feet exactly at this moment..."
"YOU WHAT? QUICKLY! TELL ME MORE! Nobody has a clue which Ancient Evil has been unleashed upon the world yet! How in the Heavens do you keep bumping into such things over and over again? First the Sect-siege, then the Archangel, and now an Ancient Evil? It’s the girl’s fault, isn’t it? She’s like a magical magnet for trouble!"
"Well, yes and no...it’s VERY complicated, Mina. You simply would not believe it if I told you just the abridged version. But yeah, on the overall, we’re currently in quite a large predicament."
"Where are you?"
"Remember that painting with the three-headed dragon?"
"The one with the bells and the pointy things?"
"Yes that one, remember how we got it? Well, we’re near that place, in the small village."
"I see...I’ll tell the others, but it seems that you have some reasons to be suspicious, if you keep talking in code so much."
"There have been some rather dire info-leaks before this point...major ones, at the highest level. Don’t trust anyone. No connection is secure, not even this tree-to-tree. Get rid of any of the old communication devices, they have most likely become compromised."
"Then how are we supposed to contact you back?"
"You’re not. You either get your asses down here personally or wait until Mister Nobi from the Tai clan gets to you. He’s our current middleman, so you can trust him."
"Yeah...about that Tai child, Liffy. Is the boy still with you?"
"Why?"
"Because you're currently babysitting the next Ming Emperor if he is indeed with you, dumbass. When talking about the straight rights of succession, then he should be the heir incumbent. His Brothers and his old man, the former Ming Emperor, are all dead. The only Princes left alive in all of the Empires are that womanizer Hongmu from the Qin, that poor cripple boy Bai from the Han, and your hidden-boy Fung from the Ming. This is a disaster in the making, Liffy! People have already started fighting for the thrones in all of the Empires and even in the Big-Sects! We stopped five assassinations attempts only today already, and it’s not even lunchtime! Nobles are dropping everywhere like flies!"
"Even if that’s true, then what do you expect me to do about it? March back there with Fung as the Heir and claim the Throne? Even if he IS the rightful heir, going back to the Capital City without some sort of a massive army as a muscle-power would be short of a direct suicide. The nobles would eat the boy alive, Mina, even with all of us there to back him up. Gods damn it, I hate politics! No, for now, the EMPEROR HIMSELF is going to be busy RIGHT WHERE WE ARE at containing the White Devil-Rabbit of Ker-Banog, which has been summoned by some crazed Blood Cultists right under our feet."
"That’s the Ancient Evil that sprang up? Gods, that’s Bad! That’s a Legendary creature of untold power! It’s been said that it ate entire armies at a time! No wonder that everyone is pissing their pants over here!"
"Yes, it’s really that bad. No, actually, it’s WORSE!"
"Worse? How?"
"It seems that the creature SWALLOWED a Dungeon Core, at least if the information that we interrogated out of one of the captured Blood Cultists is true. We have no clue about what can happen if such a creature and a Dungeon Core merge together. This is something that has not happened throughout the entire history of the World!"
"Then how come you are all not dead yet?"
"The creature is currently trapped beneath the earth, on the 16th level, because the Dungeon-reinforced walls do not allow it to climb any higher, since the stairway opening is too small for its size, but it's going to figure out that it can dig its way out horizontally sooner or later, so it's just a matter of time before it gets loose. I really need you guys down here as soon as possible. This is not something that some children can handle! Heck, I'm not sure that we will be able to handle this thing even if we do get together once more. With the Hero of the Sun missing from our tanking position, our group is rather vulnerable compared to what we used to be in the past."
"We'll try to get there as soon as possible, but I'm not making any promises. The situation down here is quite hectic as well. In truth, you guys should probably think about getting your asses out of that place, before any of the other major Hero teams get there, at least if you want to keep those children safe."
Hearing that, I immediately interrupted their conversation, and I gestured to Lingfeng by crossing my hands over my chest that this was something that we would not be able to do because of the entire System narrative setup, as leaving would most certainly unleash the Evil from Below upon the World, which was the least desirable outcome of them all, even worse than getting discovered.
"Mina, because of reasons I can't explain to you yet, it seems that we cannot run away from this place. There are some deep threads of fate at work over here, and we simply cannot get away from them. The only thing you can do at the moment is to go and ask for help from the other reliable Hero teams. The DNT and the Sky-Fangs are both a trusty bunch, so you can call upon them during this time of need."
"Can't. The DNT are currently guarding that Qin Princeling, and the Sky-Fangs are dead, as they blew up with all of the royalty when the Forbidden Palace exploded."
"Ugh...What about the Ozzies?"
"Half in jail and half crippled from their last adventure. It was a raid wipe."
"Damnit! Is there nobody else?"
"We could call Copperfield…"
"No way in hell! Trying to cooperate with that western midget-hater can only end up in disaster! The Warlock would rather see us all sacrificed to his conjured demons, rather than put his own ass through any real danger."
"Then I have no idea. We would probably need to resort to calling the Adventurers Guild and have them cover for us then. I don't think this is something that we can solve on our own. We don't have a high level Hero with us anymore, Liffy."
"No, we don't... But maybe we have something better". Lingfeng ended the conversation while staring at me with expectant eyes. Wait, does he actually think that I can solve this shit? Are you out of your mind, “Liffy”?