I woke in the morning to find Mave minding the fire.
“You took a watch?” I asked.
“Yes, Halloway too.” She said.
“Nobody else?” I asked and she made a face and shook her head.
I just rolled my eyes. The sooner I could be done with the Red Wolves, the better. I hoped we found something good in these dungeons that could help me support myself for a time. If I could mind it first, maybe I could stash my fair share of it before Ryan stole most of it away. I didn’t like the idea of that since I didn’t want to deceive Halloway and Mave, but if I found anything I could pocket without tipping anyone off, I would.
I took out some meat that I had brought along and fried some modest portions on a makeshift spit that had been made. I also slipped on some big thick slices of badger meat. Before long everyone was awakened by the smell, stretching and salivating. As I had guessed, before calling time to eat, Ryan helped himself to the biggest hunk of skewered meat, with Dark right on his tail.
I internally cackled maniacally as I had predicted those two would snag the biggest bits before anyone else. The sour looks on their faces as they forced down the gamey meat was pure delight as the rest of us enjoyed our nice, delectable pieces. I wasn’t positive on what sort of meat it was and wasn’t inclined on Inspecting it to find out. The Norse didn’t seem to keep cattle. It was good though.
I wasn’t forcing Carmilla into the same corner as them, even though her behavior with Dark was hurting my friend. It wasn’t her fault that Dark was an ass. I frowned to myself, though she had been laughing along with Dark as he was taking jibes at me. Maybe some secret comeuppance was coming her way soon. I’d have to keep an eye on her.
The dungeon was a small mound of stonework, rounded, weathered, and covered in moss. It gave more the impression of an outcropping of rock than a construction. A small wood door was jammed into the arch that made the entrance. I was fifty-fifty on whether Ryan would fit through it. The grasslands behind the mound were more or less flat, so this dungeon would be subterranean.
My Treasure Hunter, now Tomb Raider, skill was giving me a decent bit of loot lust that I had not felt last night when I was exhausted. We partied up and Ryan pressed on the door.
[Party: Do you wish to enter this dungeon?]
[Requirement: Party Minimum: 5]
[Y/N]
We all hit Y, even me, and the door swung open on rusty hinges. A musty and funky scent wafted out of a dark stairwell. It didn’t reek of mold and gross that the dungeon in the fen did, but it wasn’t pleasant.
“Damn, I wish I had a N95 mask or something to help keep the smells at bay.” I commented.
“Oh, you are one of those, huh?” Ryan asked me.
“One of what?” I asked in confusion.
“A covidiot,” he said with a smirk and shoved his bulk though the small entrance.
I shared a look with Halloway and Mave. Halloway just nodded morosely and followed Ryan in. Dark and Carmilla following him in, with Mave, Pest and I bringing up the rear. Out of a random flicker of curiosity I Inspected a bit of wall as I entered the dungeon.
Name: Stone Brick
Material: Sedimentary Compound
FLAGS: DUNGEON_WALL_IMPERVIOUS
I gave the wall a smirk as we passed underground, seemed Loki made it so one couldn’t tunnel in through the back wall anymore. Pity.
The stairs led down to a decently sized stone room. Mave lit up her light ball in the darkness letting us see around ourselves. The construction was stonework, not bricks as the Inspect claimed, but fitted stone that had been shaped to near impossible perfection. Wear and tear was evident with some stones crumbling or dislodged from their carful placement. This place had been abandoned and left to deteriorate. Debris was scattered around the room in the form of collapsed wooden furniture.
Pest skittered past the formation and started poking at what looked like a collapsed bookshelf. I took that as a sign that no creepy crawlies were around that he could sense and followed his lead to poke at the closest bit of furniture. It appeared to have once been a chair with some cloth padding. Nothing worthwhile. The others took a cursory inspection as well but didn’t report any success at finding loot.
“Let’s move.” Ryan commanded and we formed up in front of a frail looking wood door. Ryan had not one ounce of composure within himself and simply kicked the door in. It exploded impressively into fragments that scattered down the hallway that greeted us. The careful stonework continued.
Halloway led us into the hallway and around two corners, one right and one left. An opening in the side of the hall went to the left and a little further down another corner went to the right. Halloway hesitated at the opening and peeked around.
“Room, large, dark.” He whispered.
“Let’s block it off. Mave send in a light,” Ryan instructed.
We advanced our formation taking up position in the short hall before the room. Halloway was posted dead center, shield at the ready, flanked by Ryan and Dark. I was next, my bow at the ready, the two god-touched right behind me. Mave with staff and Carmilla with her broom.
Mave’s light ball, even using the spotlight, wasn’t showing us very much of the inside of the room. She spoke a Word on a stone and tossed it into the room. Its fading glow skipped along the floor revealing what lay within.
The room may have once been a library or storage, it was lined with ancient, and half collapsed shelves. Each of those shelves were lined with an assortment of wood bits, straw, feathers, and shredded cloth. These bits of wreckage had bright green serpentine heads poking over the brims. Lots and lots of heads.
They tracked the rock as it bounced and slid across the floor, scenting the air with their tongues. When the rock came to a rest the heads swiveled to looked in our direction. There was a momentary pause as we faced each other.
“Snakes?” Dark whispered with a tremble in his voice.
The noise broke the stand-off and serpents leapt from their nests or otherwise slithered from under the broken furniture.
They didn’t fall from their perches to land on the floor, instead little red feathered wings held them aloft. Those on the ground struck out as if attacking the air, it sprang them off the ground, their wings catching and lifting them upwards.
The way they swam through the air had an impossibility to it that was reminiscent of a Chinese dragon. The thought of these being actual tiny dragons terrified me, so I checked them.
Name: Gliding Feathered Snake
Race: Trimeresurus Pit Viper
Type: Creature
Allegiance: Vagabond Clan
FLAGS: COGNITION_0, FLIGHT, VENEMOUS – HEMOTOXIN
Health: Healthy
Energy: Full
Oh, good, not dragons, just a horde of venomous flying snakes.
They came at us like a sedate flight of arrows. Halloway raised his shield and braced, many of them thunking ineffectively into it. Some dodged around and latched onto him with long fangs.
“Be careful, they are venomous!” He shouted out. His health on the party overlay switching to slightly injured. Ryan swung his sword in the air managing to cut some of them down before they reached him, but the weapon wasn’t made for quick work, and some got through his heavy slow swings. Dark did not react well to the snakes and covered his face and head with his arms, scrunching down like someone hiding from the rain.
It didn’t help as some latched onto his cowering form pumping him full of venom. All this resulted in a few of them slipping through the first line and straight at us. I quickly dropped my bow, I might have gotten passable enough to hit a giant badger, but a flying snake? I’d not take those odds. I staggered backwards pushing Mave and Carmilla along with me.
It was a moment of hectic struggle, but I was able to pull loose the ultimate weapon. The magic wielders backed up to the wall, giving me enough room to unleash the immense power within. Imitating a baseball players stance, I cocked back for the brief moment I had before swinging the heavy cast iron skillet.
Kong!
A satisfying sound rang out as I smashed the pan into the lead snake. It was sent flying back the way it had come. With a smack it left a bloody splotch on Halloway’s back.
“Sorry, my bad!” I got out before recoiling as another snake bore down on me. The pan, though effective, was heavy and unwieldy, so I hadn’t had time to pull it back to my shoulder. I scooped it across the air in front of me. The lip on the pan snatched up the snake and flung it behind my shoulder like a lacrosse stick.
“Hey!” The god-touched yelled simultaneously.
I didn’t have time to respond coherently, as I was opening my mouth a third snake had closed the distance and sunk its fangs deeply into my arm piercing right through my jacket.
“Sor…..ucking hell!” My apology was inturrupted, followed by a rare notification chime noise.
[You have been Poisoned!]
The System must mean business, chiming to let me know I was poisoned. I dropped the pan and grabbed the snake’s head, squeezing it. I pulled it off my arm, its fangs dripping with a clear fluid mixed with my own blood.
“Well, that ain’t good.” I muttered and startled as I caught sight of a fourth snake bearing down on me. I shrieked in a manly and dignified manner, flailing with the snake in my hand. It turned out to be a perfect maneuver, the long whip-like body smacking into the flying snake and tangling them together enough to knock the flyer to the floor.
I jerked up on the snake-whip and the tangled one went flying into the ceiling with enough force to hear a crunch.
[Congratulations! Unconventional Weapon Use has increased to Level 2!]
The System approved. But who wouldn’t, that was badass! Apparently, the other snakes didn’t. A mess of them slithering towards me along the floor. I took a quick glance at the front line. No more snakes seemed to be joining the fray. Ryan had given up on his ineffectual sword and was barbarian punching and stomping all the snakes within his reach.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Halloway was raking his sword along the floor in front of him. Ending the snakes that had bounced off his shield. A few were still latched onto his body like party streamers. I took a step back and thought it funny that they didn’t release.
Dark was stomping weakly at the floor in imitation at Ryan. I looked back down to the closing snakes, they were already dealt with, Pest having ravaged them violently with teeth and knife. He was insanely proficient at killing snakes. Like a little mongoose.
“Heh, he is a little mongoose.” I said and staggered a little.
I blinked and looked around.
“I don’t feel so hot.” I said to myself and slumped backwards, a pair of hands caught me and helped cushion my fall.
I felt hands on my face and a Word was spoken.
[You are no longer Poisoned!]
A cool sensation ran through my body, leaving behind a chill. I had been hot. I opened my eyes to find Carmilla with her hands on my face. She nodded quickly and rushed off to the frontliners. I just decided to lay there for a moment. Pest came up to my head and put his hands on my face in imitation of Carmilla. Or at least I think he did. It may have been a hallucination.
I lifted my hands and found a snake still in one, it wasn’t quite dead, but I don’t think it was wholly alive either. I gave it to Pest.
“Here, you take care of this buddy.” I said to him. He graciously accepted the snake before putting it in his jaws and thrashing it wildly. I winced and sat up. Brutal little guy, he was.
Halloway was slumped down into a sitting position as well, his snake decorations had been removed. He glanced over and I raised a fist.
“Snake venom brothers!” I called. He raised his fist back in solidarity.
Ryan was surveying the scene and looked over at me sitting on the ground.
“What the hell are you doing down there? You only have two jobs.” He said to me in irritation. “Treasure finding and protecting the magic wielders.”
“And what about your boy over there?” I asked, indicating Dark.
Carmilla had her hands on Dark’s face, supposedly casting the cleansing Word, but it seemed they lingered quite the long while. She snatched them away when we all looked their way.
“What about him? He was up here fighting the fight, while you are back there sitting on your ass.” Ryan accused.
“My ass? My ass is being sat on, cause fuck boy over there can’t hold a line and all these,” I snapped back and gestured at the dead snakes between us. “Got past him and you!”
“Looks like your little rat there did more work on them than you even came close to. Fucking frying pan as a weapon, what a joke.” Ryan growled back at me, starting to clench his fists, and coming toward me.
“Don’t talk shit about Gloria!” I shouted.
His anger seemed to grind to a halt behind a wall of confusion. Of all the people in the group, quiet Carmilla was the one to voice the question.
“Uhm… Wh…Who is Gloria?” She stammered out.
I exaggeratedly gestured towards my frying pan.
“Alright, everyone calm down, it’s just post battle adrenaline! Everyone did their job.” Halloway intoned in his sickly-sweet way.
[A charisma effect has been used near you.]
No shit? Thanks for the update, System, never would have guessed! I snapped, but didn’t say anything out loud, simmering in my anger.
“Can we please quiet down before everything else in this dungeon rushes at us?” Mave asked us quietly.
My eyes went wide. Oops. Rookie mistake. I quickly glanced into the snake room, no further flying danger noodles. I glanced down the hallway yet explored. No immediate threats. I climbed to my feet feeling full of shame for my rookie mistake and scooped up Gloria.
I grabbed up my bow too and propped it against the wall. I wasn’t seeing using it within these halls, and this way it wouldn’t hinder me. I would just grab it on our way out.
“Are we going in there, or down the hall?” Halloway asked Ryan, who scowled as he looked at the options.
“Let’s go down the hall, we can circle back to this after.” Ryan said and I was my turn to frown in consideration.
My hint of loot-lust was pointing me past the snake room.
“That way is the treasure,” I said.
Ryan growled at me.
“No, for real. My skill is pulling me that way, just doing my job.” I said with just a hint of sass. By a hint of sass, I mean like when your practical joker friend loosens the lid on a saltshaker. A whole dump full of sass.
“That just makes me want to go this way even more.” Ryan said as he stomped off down the hallway.
Fuck, I hate people.
We reformed into our formation, this time the casters and me hanging back a little. Not wanting to be bunched up during another zerg rush.
Carmilla was looking a little worn out. Having used a good bit of energy for those Words to get rid of the snake venom from our veins. Halloway seemed stout, and I felt good. The Party overlay listed me and the frontliners at slightly injured. The venom must have cause a damage that wasn’t tied to direct health damage.
Pest was lingering next to Mave and I gave them a once over. They looked as good as when we started. I guess it had been only one short fight ago. But it always felt like so much longer when you were constantly alert for an ambush at every corner. Pest did have a little snake blood marring his fur, but that was it. Mave caught me checking them over and smiled at me, I gave her a nod.
The corner came to another room, this one a little smaller than the one that held the snakes. It had, if anything, even more trashed furniture and nesting material crammed into it. Instead of shelves with mock bird nests these piles of litter were crafted into crude little hovels and huts.
A faint greenish-gold glow suffused the room, a phosphorescent moss. I didn’t know whether this existed in nature or was a fantasy trope, but damn if it wasn’t a cool light source. The backwash of glowing moss revealed silhouetted dark forms that came out of the little huts to meet us as we entered the rooms entrance.
They were about two feet high bipedal creatures covered in fur. Mave swapped to her spotlight and shone it into the room. The creatures recoil away shielding their eyes with small, clawed hands. Clawed hands were becoming a common theme, I felt. What about a nice well-manicured less slashy hand?
Rats. Big ass rats that could walk on their hind legs. They wore clothing resembling formal attire, one even sporting a top hat. Like hobo’s in old movies, the clothing was over-exaggerated in its distressed look with rips and tears. The top hat’s top flapping in the air like an odd lid, with bite shapes taken from its brim. The elbows of the tux jackets missing or otherwise worn. The pants were patched with mismatched cloth. The ones with gloves had random fingers missing from them. The ladies, well I made they assumptions they were female, had stained and pant patched ball gowns.
There were seven of the little monsters, and I took a peek at the details of the gentlerat wearing a top hat.
Name: Mayor Franklin
Race: Ratkin
Type: Creature
Allegiance: Vagabond Clan
FLAGS: COGNITION_0
Health: Healthy
Energy: Full
As the mayor recovered, he pulled a sharp thin weapon from his hip. It looked like a rapier shaped from a piece of bone.
“Let us send these bindle stiffs to the big sleep!” Mayor Franklin said in a high-pitched and cracking voice. He charged forward towards Halloway. I smirked to myself, his luck really did push things in a way that NPC enemies always targeted him over the others.
Other ratkin gathered their weapons as well, coming back with quite the assorted gear. A stout cane, a set of butcher cleavers, a blackjack, a sledge-sized wooden mallet, a pile of rocks, and what looked like a sock full of coins. They were all ratkin sized, but solid representations of what their full-sized counterparts would resemble.
The mayor’s rapier stabbed into the wood of Halloway’s shield, bending for a moment before splintering and exploding outward. Halloway had been watching over his shield at the little guy incoming and received a face full of splintered bone. He recoiled, dropping his sword and shield to grab his face with his hands.
“My eyes!” He shouted out as he staggered backwards. The mayor watched the shield fall away from him and stared down at his broken sword in astonishment.
“One ruffian down clansmen, finish the rest!” he shouted. This released whatever held back the rest of the ratkin and with a squeaking war cry they charged at us.
Ryan brought his sword down to crash into the spot the mayor had occupied the moment just before. The ratkin had dashed forward oblivious of the attack as he advanced towards the reeling Halloway. Dark did one of the few intelligent things I had seen him do and picked up Halloway’s downed shield to hide behind. If only he hadn’t dropped his spear to make it happen. He seemed to have a real issue holding onto it. Maybe some duct tape might be helpful for him.
The ratkin mayor smoothly scampered up to Halloway and stabbed his broken rapier into the back of Halloway’s knee, causing the man’s knee to buckle and bring him to the ground. What the hell? Was this ratkin a colossus slayer or some shit? He followed the move by jumping on his chest and waiting for an opportunity to stab the splintered weapon into his throat.
Finally overcoming my surprise, I launched into action. Using Gloria, I swung like a golf pro into the ratkin.
Kong!
God, I loved that noise.
The mayor was caught by the heavy pan and flung away to smash into the corridor wall. I didn’t bother to inspect the other ratkin and just called them by their weapon types.
Through the gap that Halloway left, two had rushed in, Cleavers and Blackjack. The blackjack is an interesting weapon, mostly seen in movies used as a sneaks weapon to knock out an individual. In construction it was a heavy leather pouch with a weight in one end and a rod to keep a stiff handle. The weight was loose on the end of the pouch allowing the weight to deliver a little more punch to the blow. It is normally just under a foot long. This one, if I had to guess, was about three inches long and didn’t look all that threatening. The look on Blackjack’s face though, was murderous. I would rate her an A for effort, but F for execution.
Cleavers on the other hand, wielding two chipped and jagged heavy meat cleavers while still looking menacing. A pluses all the way for him.
They both darted for the downed Halloway but I stepped over him to get into their path. Cleavers reared back his weapons and brought them down aiming for my knee. No. Daddy don’t fuck around with knees. Chronic pain had taught me that for most of my life. Gloria was there to meet his swings, shielding my knee. Unfortunately, this left Blackjack free to take a swing at my other knee.
Though small, her weapon was mighty. It smashed into the back of my knee forcing me to crash down to a kneeling position. My knee smashing into the stone floor probably hurt more, but it was very effective to stagger me. These little bastards really know how to bring a person down to their level.
I yelled out obscenities as Cleaver’s cleavers glanced off of Gloria again. Blackjack pulled back to sap me again when a white pale hand reached out from behind me to gently brush against her. Carmilla spoke a Word as she touched Blackjack. In less time than it took Cleaver to strike again, Blackjack’s body dried up like a prune. She instantly mummified before my very eyes.
Pest who had less bulk but a little height on the ratkin used my kneeling position as a spring board to run and jump into the air. He dove straight at Cleavers. His stiletto daggers leading the way. He plunged them into Cleavers body and bowled him over. They went down in a tangled heap.
Still cursing violently, I got to my feet and felt rage. I hated knee pain. Hated it. I snapped.
My Berserker skill triggered unintentionally.
I went red, as they say. It was a little bit literal for me though. My sight became red around the edges and hyper focus gripped me. I wasn’t sure if it was my altered vision or not, but as I charged forward I caught sight of my arms and I thought they may have had a reddish tint as well.
I cocked Gloria back as I jumped through the gap in the line. Cane was tormenting Ryan with its agility, darting in to whack at him while dodging the heavy slow swings of his sword. This time when Cane jumped back from Ryan’s swing Gloria was there to meet him.
Kong!
Gloria sang her song.
Cane was shoved forward onto Ryan’s blade as he completed his swing, dissecting the troublesome ratkin. Sledgehammer was already dead. As far as I was figuring that only left Rocks and Socks. I faced them, but the sight startled me from my berserk trance and laugh.
Dark was hunkered down behind Halloway’s shield as Rocks was throwing stones at him and Socks was winding up an ineffectual hit to smash her sock full of coins into the shield. I guess I found the straight F students.
Even Ryan had a grunt of amusement but wasn’t as interested in standing by to watch the scene. He walked up and grabbed Doorknob by his head and threw him at Rocks. They crashed together and fell into a heap. Ryan followed up with a downward swing, killing both at the same time.
“Ryan!” Mave called from beside Halloway. “Potion!”
Ryan grunted.
“Why don’t you use one of your little tonics to fix him?” Ryan asked me.
“Because they only help healing, they don’t fix damage.” I explained. “If I give him this, he will still have shards of bone in his eye and probably lose his vision.”
With another grunt of dissatisfaction, Ryan stomped over and gave Mave a healing potion.
“Thank you,” she said coldly before dosing Halloway.
I left her to it, not overly concerned. Those potions were magical, and he would be fixed up in moments. Pest came up to me with a grin.
“Good job buddy.” I said to him. “Loot the hell out of these things. This stuff will only fit you so snatch it all up and put it in your bag.”
“Yes!” He said excitedly and immediately started loading his bag.
“What the hell?” Ryan yelled and stomped over to us.
“What?” Pest and I said at the same time.
“What are you doing stealing all the loot?” Ryan grumbled.
“What?” I asked as I walked behind him to pick up the small sledgehammer. It was about a foot long, more like a mallet in my hand, but the handle was too thin. “You gonna use a tiny hammer any time soon?”
Pest had stopped when Ryan yelled, but seeing his attention was on me, he kept stuffing shit into his bag. He was actually trying to stuff an entire ratkin corpse into his rucksack, the mouth not large enough to let it in.
“No, but we can sell it!” Ryan countered.
“Who would buy miniature trash weapons and gear?” I gestured to the corpse at my feet. “Especially this torn up junk? It’s trash to everyone but Pest. We may be able to salvage his something from all this when we get back to go over it.”
“If you do anything with this junk, other than that,” he pressed his finger into my chest. “I want my cut.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a cut.” I said as I tightened my grip on Gloria, otherwise trying to school a neutral expression onto my face.
“See that you do,” he said, with another poke to my chest to punctuate his words. He turned away to inspect the tiny huts. He seemed to have missed my insolence. Turning away and taking a deep breath I tried to calm down.
Pest had given up trying to stuff a corpse into the bag and was being a little less overt with his looting now that eyes were off me and Ryan. I had impressed upon him the importance of keeping the bottomless bag a secret. It didn’t take much to convince him to keep his horde hidden.
“This dungeon is more extensive than the last one.” I said looking around the room.
“Further away from Volsted, the more the difficulty increases.” Halloway said.
“Are we going to go out to recover?”
“No,” Ryan said. “I won’t risk losing the reward by exiting early.”
“Would we?”
“Don’t know,” Halloway answered. “Haven’t had to do it yet. But it is a possibility.”
“And we aren’t trying it today. This dungeon is ripe for loot. And I want it.” Ryan said.
“Can we take a short break? Carmilla is pretty worn out.” Dark asked Ryan as he squatted next to Carmilla who was sitting on the ground leaning against the wall.
“Just a few minutes.” Ryan said noticeably more pleasant to Dark than me.
I grunted to myself and gave Carmilla one of my tonics. I didn’t think it would help with energy, but it wouldn’t hurt. Mave gave me a sour look for helping her nemesis and I just shrugged. Needed to keep the anti-venom supply topped off in here.