Owyn held his bow against Mycroft’s shell, gripping the nearest ridge of her crown for stability. In his other hand he held his necklace. Its soft blue light directed him in the direction of the pond against one wall. Not down into the water, like he expected, but fully across, into a crack in the wall where the water drained.
Rab suddenly blocked his view, lunging across the whole of the battlefield to stab for the giant six legged lizard that Damian and Silver were attempting to stop. The giant crabs attack struck true, but his broken and blunted spear failed to pierce the heavily armored monster. Damian and Silver both abandoned the fight, taking to the skies. Silver, bleeding heavily, abandoned the fight entirely, disappearing into the darkness far away. Damian flew silently and invisibly, so when he landed behind Owyn, he jolted in surprise.
“Mercy has betrayed us.” Damian reported.
“No shit!” Mr. Vernant shouted back in anger. His large sword cleaved through three skeletons. The rest retreated, replaced by reanimated lizard-folk. The fleshy undead would take a much harder beating than their skeletal counterparts.
“The core is in there!” Owyn shouted to Damian. He pointed to the crack in the wall.
Damian followed his finger, seeing the target. He nodded. “Your new orders are to stop fighting. Let the undead deal with the lizards. We’re aiming for the core.”
Mycroft was already running. She held Grant’s skeleton in a single tentacle. Baited by his son and the fleeing light of Owyn’s helmet, Mr. Vernant stopped fighting the undead to run after them. Undead and lizards both chased after them, cutting them off from Mimi before she could follow after them. Owyn, stilling atop Mycroft behind her eyes, kicked her front shell to get her attention.
“We need to go back for-”
Rab roared. A loud, clicking screech that overpowered every other sound in the battlefield. The long, skeletal dragon was on a rampage, stomping around at random, and one of these attacks glanced Mimi. Her entire left half was squished beneath the dragon's feet, crushed by its weight as well as the weight of the rocks she carried inside her shell. She was still moving, and shoved away from the foot, but it was still enough to enrage Rab.
The giant crab briefly abandoned defending itself from the lizard champion, using his giant shield claw to grip the skeletal dragon’s spine. He swung his claw wide, heaving the long skeleton like a heavy whip. The beast roared silently, dozens of limbs curling in on itself to claw at Rab. In no short amount of time, the length of the skeleton crashed into the pond, causing a massive wave to crash over the attacking forces.
Suddenly, a ratkin army joined in the fight. They swarmed the land, taking on the lizards and undead four to one. These were the Grove’s soldiers, wielding wooden weapons
Owyn realized that the fighting wouldn’t end until the Lizard core was defeated. He grit his teeth, pressing into Mycroft beneath him. “Go! We need to get to the core!”
Mycroft charged into the water. Some lizard-folk ran in after them, but the ratkin had tied up the remainder, as well as many of the undead. Rocks were thrown in from the darkness, splashing into the pond or striking the swimming lizard-folk. Owyn risked a glance back to see Mimi limping away on half her limbs, her arms constantly throwing rocks towards the water. Rab was constantly trying to get back to her, but the champion lizard was attacking him without mercy.
Still, that meant Owyn was free and clear.
Mycroft picked up Mr. Vernant with a pair of tentacles, since his wading through the water was slowing them down. Damian left them, melding into the darkness. Owyn heard the wet sounds of knives through necks moments later. He was covering for them.
Mycroft reached the end of the pond. Hundreds of lizards swarmed the crack in the wall, many of them dropping into the water once it got too crowded. Owyn held up his necklace again, confirming the presence of the dungeon’s core deeper inside. He put it away and tried to position himself to see better within. Too many lizards blocked his view.
Owyn took out his knife, adjusting his position atop Mycroft. He leaned in, propping himself up against the wall so he could better attack at the lizards. They hissed and leapt at him, falling woefully short into the water below.
“They’re climbing up!” Mr. Vernant shouted from behind Owyn.
Owyn pushed himself back, seeing small lizards climbing up Mycroft’s shell. She was whipping her tentacles around in an effort to club them to death, but they numbered too many. Owyn had to stop his attack in order to help defend.
Mycroft opened her main mouth. Several tentacles slithered out, rearing up for a moment before striking deep into the crevice. Lizards took advantage of the attack, leaping onto and biting her tentacles. Mycroft brought her tongues back, clamping down her shell once the lizards were within her mouth. A few seconds later, she did the same thing again. Again and again, she sent her tongue-tentacles into the crevice, pulling out more and more lizards, even as her tentacles began to bleed. Finally, she could take it no more, and kept her shell tightly shut. Her crown raised, indicating that was all she could do.
Owyn peered into the crevice once more. He couldn’t see the core. The stone passage winded back and forth, obstructing any chance he had at striking the core.
Waves splashed up behind them. Owyn looked back, then up as Rab towered over them. He was holding back the lizard champion with his bleeding lance arm, and raised his shield claw above them all. Mycroft got the message, and retreated beneath her father.
Rab’s claw lowered with frightening speed for something so large. It crashed into the stone, widening the crack. The lizard monsters all around them cried out in anger. But Rab wasn’t finished, and he struck again.
Mycroft began running away from the falling stone as it cascaded into the pond. Owyn readjusted his position to once again sit behind her eyes. He felt around his quiver, feeling the four arrows he had remaining. Two were used to aid their retreat out of the water, and a third was wasted on an undead that still looked alive. Then, the lizard monsters all cried as one. Rab struck a final blow, and Owyn felt the dungeon surrounding them disappear. The large champion lizard cried in fury, biting down on Rab’s lance and thrashing. Rab’s lance tore off at the shoulder.
Owyn shot his last arrow at the beast, miraculously piercing its eye. It dropped Rab’s lance and cried out in pain, whipping around to face this new apparent threat.
Damian landed nearby. “Time to go.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Owyn just nodded. By straining his vision, he was able to see a new, cuboid dungeon growing in the absence of the previous dungeon. Lucid’s monsters all fled as one in the chaos, leaving the undead behind to deal with the remaining ratkin and lizard-folk. Mycroft went back for Mimi, picking her up with her claws as they ran away.
They went into battle with half an army, and they were heading home with eight. Owyn, Mr. Vernant, Grant, Rab, Mimi, Mycroft, Damian and Silver. Dweller was dead. Or rather, undead now. Controlled by Mercy, the traitorous core. Owyn couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her however. She was just a dungeon.
Such actions were merely part of her nature.
Before they could arrive back at base, Owyn spotted a small horde of mismatched monsters running away from the entrance of their cave. Damian gave chase, but everyone else was either too injured or had other priorities to follow. Owyn leapt off Mycroft early, running for the core room. He breezed through the open doorway to find a halfway crumbled barrier, several villagers standing cautiously on the other side, bloody rocks raised above bloody bodies.
Owyn deflated, relieved. He walked up to the barrier, resting his elbows on the stones to look inside.
“Is everyone alright?”
A large majority of the villagers were huddled out of sight, crowded in one of the many branches of the cave. A few of them held the others back, watching Owyn with fearful eyes.
“Wha-”
“They’re enthralled!” One shouted.
The villagers close to the entrance backed off a bit, lowering their stones. “Sorry Owyn. They came after me. Ah, Lucid. We tried attacking Lucid and-”
Owyn vaulted the barrier, shoving his hand in the speakers face to shut him up. He marched to the back of the cave unobstructed, directly for Lucid’s core. The enthralled villagers caught up to him, grabbing onto his arms.
“You fuck!” Owyn shouted. “I trusted you! You said you’d protect them!”
“And he did!” The villager said infuriatingly calmly. “But we disobeyed his rules! We were going to put Lucid at risk! He was just keeping his promise!”
No such promise was made. His threat. That’s what he followed up on.
Owyn shrugged off the thralls, still staring down at Lucid’s core. It had grown, in the short time he’d been away. Owyn clicked his tongue and growled, stalking away from the room. A quick glance tallied the enthralled humans under his control now.
Six.
Damnit.
----------------------------------------
Owyn sat atop a broken stalagmite. Mycroft sat nearby, she didn’t seem physically able to leave him alone. Perhaps that was for the best. If Owyn was alone again, Lefty might deem him a viable target.
He didn’t like it, but he had to accept this new reality. He was foolish to ever believe that he could get everyone out of here in one piece. Mentally and physically. He hadn’t made a promise to himself nor to anyone else, so it wasn’t like he was breaking vows, but the sentiment remained.
What am I, the leader? Owyn scoffed at himself mentally. I never said we’d all survive. I just said this was our best chance.
Was that true? Was Owyn making the right decisions here? Was he right to trust a dungeon? He had just seen first hand the consequences of trusting another dungeon. Mercy’s dragon had stomped on Dweller, deliberately. Gently enough to not kill him outright, to preserve his armor, but enough that he was helpless against the undead that attacked him next. Grant, who hadn’t seen the betrayal, rushed over to have Mercy bring him back, and when Dweller stood next, his mace was brought down on Grant.
His one arm, collar bone, and a portion of his ribs were destroyed. After Dweller collected Mercy’s core, he struck at a retreating Grant, crushing his leg at the shin. The poor boy was entirely lopsided now, and useless. Owyn suspected he’d remain next to Mimi in the core room. A permanent fixture, now immobile.
Owyn reflected further on the battle, recalling every event. The lizard dungeon had a massive advantage of numbers. If it wasn’t for the undead occupying those numbers, the better equipped members of the attack wouldn’t be able to apply their own advantages as they had. He recalled the defense against Lefty’s monsters, when he got overwhelmed and eventually poisoned. Proof that quantity was a quality all its own.
Lucid was down to three active combatants. Rab, Silver, and Damian. Four, if you included Mycroft. Rab may be weak now, but an understanding had been achieved with Lefty during that last attack. Although the humans within Lucid’s territory weren’t under his control, they would still defend him. That meant that even if Rab were to leave again, the core would probably remain safe, unless drastic action was taken.
Lucid was safe. Assuming they did as he commanded of them.
Owyn did as Lucid said, mostly. Did that make Owyn an honorary dungeon dweller? Without the benefits of actually being enthralled to a dungeon? No, not benefits. Drawbacks. With humans actually under Lucid’s control, did he even need Owyn any more? What was stopping him from enthralling the rest? Was he just waiting to collect the remaining humans from the upper caves before converting them all at once? Or would he convert them one at a time, covertly in such a manner that none of the others suspected anything until it was too late?
Owyn thought for a while what it would be like to be enthralled to a dungeon. The six villagers that Lucid had enthralled could no longer be considered ‘human’ anymore. From a legal standpoint, they had all the rights of a regular dungeon monster, which was to say, no rights at all. Of course, any sane individual would see the wrong in that, and would still consider them human. After all, all it would take was the dungeons destruction for the humans to regain all the rights they had before. But they couldn’t do that. They couldn’t destroy this dungeon.
Would Lucid evolve them? What would an evolved human look like? More than the cardinal. Could they have more limbs? Could Owyn get claws like a crab? A shell?
Owyn buried his head in his hands. No. That was wrong. He couldn’t even consider what it would be like to be a dungeon thrall. He could never. Never.
One of the villager thralls approached. “Hey.”
Owyn grunted, keeping his face hidden.
The villager… the thrall twisted his hands nervously. “I… I just want to say that I’m sorry. For not believing you.”
Owyn didn’t respond. An awkward silence fell between them.
Owyn rubbed his face a little, dropping his hands and sighing. “What do you mean?”
“It’s Lucid. He’s not that bad. I mean, all things considered. I just… I didn’t believe you when you said he was going to protect us, but now we’ve all had some time to talk with him. Even though we tried to kill him, he’s forgiven all of us.”
“What does Lucid want?” Owyn said, interrupting whatever babbling was supposed to follow.
“Lucid?” The thrall thought for a second. Probably communicating with Lucid. Suddenly, something dawned on him. “Oh! No, Lucid didn’t send me here. I’m- this is me. Gary. I’m really trying to apologize. Lucid isn’t making me do this.”
Owyn wasn’t sure if he believed him.
The thrall nodded. “Anyway, that’s it. Sorry to bother you.”
“When are we getting the next set of villagers?” Owyn called after him without moving.
The thrall hesitated. “When do you want them?”
Owyn closed his eyes. “The faster we get this over with, the faster we can get to dealing with the church.”
“Lucid says that’s good. He’s going to wait until the monsters are all healed up, and then someone’ll come give you a heads up.”
Owyn closed his eyes, nodding. The thrall left.
Owyn sighed. He was tired. Not physically, although probably that too. No, he was mentally exhausted. He didn’t feel like existing right now. No responsibilities, no worries, nothing. But that wasn’t possible, so he’d suffer with existence. Just for a little while longer.