Chapter 46: Machu Picchu

The next week went smoothly and I dedicated most of my mana for the next few days to the claiming of Florida as part of the Appalachia Kingdom. There was one group near Orlando that protested the change until we brought them to a sanctuary city and showed the benefits of signing up. Then they immediately wanted to turn over control to us. It seems that even semi-organized groups are starting to have trouble. The initial glut of resources from scavenging is starting to run out and a guaranteed source of food and protection is very attractive.

After all of this I refilled my inventory with supplies and teleported to Machu Picchu. I wanted to try this level 125 dungeon out. Before I entered though I set aside 500 mana every 3 minutes to be continuously drained from my mana pool to claim land surrounding my lair in Antarctica. I decided since no one lives there I might as well own a continent. The 500 mana would never be missed by me and I can just check it occasionally to determine the progress on the land claiming. I designated the borders of Antarctica so when the claim is finished it should automatically stop drawing the mana from my total mana pool.

I looked around the ruins of Machu Picchu before I entered the dungeon. I had always wanted to visit here before the world changed. Now that I am here I am glad that I have my dragons with me, because if I was alone I probably would get freaked out. The silence and stillness is amazing and the ruins just add a touch of eeriness. This is perfect dungeon exploring ambience.

When I enter the dungeon a Great Game message appears.

Welcome to the Machu Picchu dungeon. Recommended level is 125. Enjoy your trip to the underworld.

Ok, that was not ominous or anything. This must be based on the Incan myths of the underworld. I wish I knew more about the local legends it might help prepare me. I signal my group of dragons to assume their now instinctual dungeon hunting positions. As we work our way down the first corridor, the stone surrounding us looks more and more natural. It seems that the dungeon is trying to make me think that people dug it out and then hit something they shouldn’t resulting in the dungeon we have today. The question is what did they find in this little Great Game fictional story?

Ahead of me the corridor begins to widen into a cavern. I signal my little ones to wait and I do my normal sneak and peek into the new chamber. Dancing around a fire located almost directly in the middle is a group of red skinned, pointy eared, and pointy teethed individuals. They have to be demons. No horns or tail as in western mythologies, but they definitely give off that “demon” feeling. Identify.

Supay Demon Level 85

Interesting, the small fry which is what you are supposed to run into first in a dungeon is this high of a level. Let’s see quick count gives me 6 dancing around the fire and no obvious signs of one being a leader or better than the others, I guess a quick area of effect spell followed by some individual spells to draw them in and then have the dragonling group attack from the sides once I have aggro. I quickly head back to my dragons and explain the plan. Each time they level up they seem to get smarter and smarter. I am hoping that when they finally break a level cap they will be able to talk or transform partially like I can do now.

I really have not talked about or explained my flight ability since I got it after breaking past level 100. This is for two reasons, first I am not that good at it. There is an old saying based on a long ago cartoon that sums it up best. I am not really flying rather than falling with style. I can glide very well, but I do not have the magic or muscles figured out for lift off. I basically have to jump off things and I can glide pretty far. I rarely run into anything anymore either. The second reason is that I would like to keep such things hidden as much as possible in case I need to surprise people in the future. Mostly though it is because I am embarrassed about how bad I actually am at flying. I thought it would be level 100, open wings, instinct takes over, and I am soaring with my dragons and the birds. In actuality it was level 100, open wings, fall down cliff in an embarrassing manner, and then watch my precious children laugh at me. I am glad that my high stats just meant bruises to both myself and my ego and not actual real damage.

Focus, must eliminate threat and clear dungeon. I decide to go with past game knowledge, because lets face it for some reason most of our games have been remarkably similar to what is actually happening after the Great Game change over. Standard game knowledge dictates that demons are strong against fire and weak against water and ice. So I will get to try out one of my new water element “spells”. In actuality it is a cross between the element of water and air. I create a spiked ball of the hardest and most dense ice and leave a small pocket in the center which I fill up with compressed air almost to the breaking point. The next step is simple, I send it out with my air mana towards the target and as soon as it impacts something the compressed air is released turning the whole thing into a giant spiky ice grenade.

This combination is rather new so I have not mastered it to the level I like, but if it works well I expect that I will have plenty of practice in this dungeon. I can maintain and shoot three of these at a time if I have around 10-15 seconds to prepare. Not that useful in an ongoing battle where everything happens quickly, but it should work great as an opening salvo. If I keep practicing I am sure I can get the number of spiky ice balls up and the casting/preparation time down.

I approach the opening to the cavern once again with three prepared ice balls and my group of dragons. One quick peek to make sure nothing has changed and then the dramatic step out and launch of the ice spell. One of the ice balls actually hits a Supay demon, one hits the floor, and the last one hits the bonfire they are dancing around. Hmmm, I need to work on my aim with this spell. The demon hit by the spell is thrown back and is very bloodied. Quick fact Supay demons have blue blood. The other five look to be wounded but more mad than anything else. The bonfire is almost completely put out by the exploding ice ball that hit it leaving the cavern much darker and creepier than it originally was. Luckily with our low light sight as dragons and dragonkin this should not affect us in a bad way.

My dragons each square off with one demon leaving me one to deal with myself at least until the one that got blasted off its feet gets back up. I decide to try melee combat against this first demon to check its skills and toughness. My dragons may be below the level of their opponents, but size wise they are much bigger. I hope they will be a good match up individually. I need to keep an eye out just in case one of them needs rescuing. After the first ten to fifteen seconds of the fight I crush the skull of my personal foe with my military pick. I have switched to this weapon recently because I think it has the best combination of damages to anything I encounter. I can cause blunt trauma with the hammer side and I get amazing penetration with the spike against foes who are resistant to slashing or blunt damage. I have a machete on my hip in case I run into something that needs to be slashed, say a giant that I need to cut a tendon on, (I know it is unlikely but I have seen a lot of anime and played a lot of games, better safe than sorry) but I think that this military pick give me the best advantage against the widest range of foes.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

With my opponent disposed of I quickly check on my dragons. They are getting hit a lot but seem to be winning. That means I can find the sixth and final opponent. Strange I am sure it was knocked back in this direction. Where did that guy go? I suddenly feel a horrible pain in my kidney region. What the heck? I roar in pain, I really roared it must be a trait from the bloodline, and reached back to see what was wrong. I felt what could only be a dagger hilt, somebody stabbed me. It must have been my missing demon. I have not felt such pain in a long time. I yank the dagger out, probably not my best move, but I am acting more on instinct here than anything else.

I quickly scan the area and there he is smirking at me. I can feel a burning sensation from the stab wound. Was it poisoned? To be safe I quickly take out a recovery pill, the ones that are supposed to remove abnormal statuses, from my inventory and swallow it down. The entire time I am doing this I am keeping an eye on the little prick that stabbed me. He is dancing around and trying to find an opening to hurt me again. NO WAY MISTER. Like the old saying says, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I will not lose situational awareness again. Once I downed the pill I exchanged my military pick for my shotgun and just unloaded both barrels at the demon. With his previous injuries this was enough to put him down for good. I admit I may be a little petty as I went over and kicked his corpse a few times and stomped on his head just to make sure. That dagger to the kidneys HURT.

Each of my dragons was wrapping up their fight and all of them while injured were obviously going to win. I watched carefully just to make sure. I mean I already screwed up once, I do not want the kids to suffer if I make another mistake. Once they each finished off their opponents I made sure we were all recovering nicely and then patrolled the bodies for treasure and items. Nothing spectacular, just a little more currency than usual, probably due to the higher levels.

Alright, I need to make sure that I have solid plans and backups in place like usual. I have been getting complacent and that dagger to the kidneys woke me up. I should be glad that it was something this simple that refocused me no matter how much it hurt instead of something that killed me or my little guys. I have to remember that lower level does not mean that I can ignore or assume they cannot hurt me or mine.

The rest of the dungeon was nothing spectacular. A series of tunnels connected to caverns that held several types of demons. The basic Supay demon from the first cavern was joined by Bloodletter demons and Priests of Supay demons. The priests did cause me some trouble at first. Not only could they heal their fellow demons but they could cause them to go berserk and if they were about to die they could sacrifice them for a boost in abilities to the other demons. As you can guess I made eliminating the priests the number one priority. So while there were a few twists and new tricks there was not much variation. It was just approach quietly the new cavern and pick targets, engage, heal up, and repeat.

Finally, I was in front of door made of bones that could only lead to the boss fight of the dungeon. This dungeon had taken us longer than usual. It had been about 12-13 hours since we started the Machu Picchu dungeon. I wanted to finish it without retreating or staying overnight in the dungeon. If I retreated it would reset and staying overnight when comfort is just a teleport away seemed ridiculous. However, I need to be careful. This dungeon has already surprised me a couple of times and I don’t want to get sloppy right at the end.

I carefully prepare myself and warn my dragons to stay sharp. When I open the bone doors I see a giant cavern with a path down the middle from the doors all the way to the altar at the other end of the room. It must be almost a 100 meters away. Next to the altar, which seemed to have something on it tied down, was a rather large demon that looked like the Priest of Supay demons I had been fighting just larger and more menacing. In between this large priest and me are what seems to be hundreds of the other demons. It looks like I interrupted some sort of ceremony. Not good. I quickly call to my dragons to execute plan R.

Plan R is simply my version of the RUN AWAY or RETREAT plan. While my dragons reversed direction I threw out a wide variety of magic grenades to cover our strategic retreat. I am not even sure which ones I threw, I just grabbed a few and threw. I then turn myself and start advancing to the rear as quickly as possible. I soon catch up to my dragons and as soon as I do I cause a wall of stone to rise from the floor behind us to slow down the pursuers I hear. I don’t want to stop them, rather I need to have a gap between us for the next part of the plan. As soon as we reach the previous cavern my dragons and I turn and run a few meters along the left wall and I quickly raise stone around and try to make it look like the rest of the caves walls.

I can hear the demons coming. I make a very small peep hole so I can check if my little ruse is going to work or if we need to keep running or start to fight. As the first demon enters the cave it looks around and not seeing us howls and continues on towards the other exit. Yes, this might actually work. I watch about twenty demons go past our hiding position. I wait about sixty seconds and nothing comes out of the tunnel. Ok time to start the next phase. I lower the stone walls and we carefully start making our way back towards the altar room. However, this time I start laying down the landmine enchantments that worked so well in the Arachnid warrens behind us. After about 3 minutes of trap setting and moving we arrive back at the open doors. I quietly peer in to see the new situation.

I can see the larger priest demon and only 5 other demons surrounding it. I knew that my original guess of hundreds had to be adrenaline speaking. I signal to my dragons that we were going to attack. I take out my heaviest crossbow and load it with a very large bolt of ice damage. Next I hang my little pistol crossbow on one hip loaded with a dart of silence to prevent the head priest from healing and my military pick is slung on the other hip. On the count of 3, 1…, 2…, 3… I line up and fire the Ice Bolt at the head priest demon and then drop the crossbow and grab the little one to line up and fire the bolt of silence. I see the first one hit and knock the Head Priest demon backwards which causes my shot from the pistol crossbow to miss it and hit another demon instead. Well shoot, another one of my plans didn’t work out the way I wanted.

I yelled to my dragons to attack and then I charged ahead of them. I need to get to the Head Priest before he can do something I regret. I shove the first demon I come to out of the way and knock a second one back with my weapon. Leaving the path towards the Head Priest demon open. You know what let’s just call him Phil. He kind of looks like a Phil, an evil large telemarketer who only brings misery to others and shame to his family. Stupid brain wandering again, I must be tired. It has been a while since that has happened to me. Phil is struggling to his feet when I take a giant swing at his head and with a flinch I miss and hit his shoulder knocking him back again. His roar of pain is satisfying to hear. It means I am doing damage.

Unfortunately, before I can finish off Phil, I see him crush a talisman around his neck and he vanishes. What just happened? Did he go invisible? I continue to where I saw him last and take a giant swing around the area and hit nothing. Ok, probably not invisible I guess he teleported away then. No time to think about that I need to help out my dragons and I can find and kill Phil in a bit. I charge towards two of the other demons who have backed up Elvira into a corner because of the double team and crush the first one’s head with my pick. The second one turns in surprise and that allows Elvira to jump on his back, knock him over, and lock her jaws onto the back of his neck. Ok she has this one under control. I look around quickly to see where else I am needed. Everyone else has their opponent under control. It was just the double team that was giving Elvira trouble.