“HA!” Chunky slammed his cards onto the stone table, greedily sliding the pot towards him. Eight feet of pure muscle needed lots of vitamins. The others groaned as Chunky pulled off another flush.
“Rigged! It’s rigged I tell you!” Hefty complained, casting sullen looks in Chunky’s direction.
“That’s what you said the last time” Beefy, Chunky’s bestest friend, grunted. Chunky barely paid attention, too busy gobbling up his winnings.
“WHAT IN TARNATION IS GOING ON OVER HERE!!!” Head boss cheese Chief barged in. He insisted his name was Chief, but everybody called him Porky. Never to his face, the last pig to do that had been briskited. Chunky jerked his head out of the pot, frantically whipping the soup off his mouth.
“Nothin boss.” His partners in crime chorused.
“YOU WAS GAMBLING I KNOW YOU WAS GAMBLING! GIVE ME THIRTY!” The group cast angry glances at Chunky as the six of them pulled out thirty nuts, handing them over to the chief.
“AND I BETTER NOT CATCH YOU DOING IT AGAIN WITHOUT PAYING THE PROTECTION FEE!” Porky Chief head boss cheese always shouted. It was probably because of the big weapon strapped to his back making him cranky.
“That was all I had!” Hungry snarled, stepping into Chunky’s personal space. “I wonder how I'm gonna get more.”
The piggy pest froze as Chunky pressed a serrated buck knife to his throat. It was Chunky’s favorite knife, the bestest of the twelve he always carried. Then everyone had a knife, their huge frames edging away from each other.
“STOP STOP STOP!!!” Head boss cheese Chief Porky bellowed, his huge body suddenly shoving them apart. They reluctantly separated, knives returning to the dozens of belts strapped across their bodies like a form of body armor.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU, THREE? I CAN’T LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR ONE MINUTE WITHOUT-”
A scent wafted into the room, turning the members of the First Piggy Commando Death Squad towards the door weapons, out faster than thought. The big hole was usually sealed, but it had opened now, figures flooding through.They were the object of their very existence, the ultimate foe, the eaters of pig flesh.
The Enemy.
Adventurers.
“Aw Pork!” They shouted in unison, diving for cover as they ignited their weapons, petty conflict forgotten as instilled instinct took over.
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“Ryia, did you give pigs a deck of cards and teach them how to play poker?”
“Who, me? Where would I get a deck of cards?"
“Uh, the camp outside?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
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The Adventurers advanced, a trio of arrows slamming into the barriers, forcing the commando’s heads down. Chunky ripped an orb from its strap, glancing across a barricade at Beefy. Chunky countdown from three, his three fingered hand reminiscent of a hoof, then they hurled their orbs over the barricade.
Bang-womp-BOOM!
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The orbs were made of black, heavily enchanted metal. On contact with the floor just in front of the advancing group force runes activated, blowing the orbs apart with a pair of bangs. This inflicted some minor lacerations, mostly canceled by the bodyguard’s high-quality armor.
On the other hand, the hydrogen/oxygen combo kept liquid by cooling runes deployed just fine, explosively decompressing with a womp, staggering several nearby bodyguards but dealing no major injuries. The rapidly expanding cloud of gas, reveled in its freedom, getting all the kinks out.
______________________________
“Twelve hours in a tiny metal ball will give ya such a crick in the neck let me tell you.” the gas cloud muttered, glancing around curiously. It spread out, getting a feel for the situation as-
______________________________
The cloud died screaming as its edges connected with the room’s torches, igniting in a radiant stream of light.
BOOM.
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Chunky peaked above the barricade, eyes scanning for any survivors. The bang was gone, and the Adventurer baddies looked like the piggy head boss cheese Chief had briskited. They dead? So fast? Eh, puny Adventurer-
Blackened skin fell away as new tissue replaced it, bows replaced by backups, spells hurled at their rock emplacements.
A fireball landed just in front of Chunky, the concussive blast blowing him off his feet, nearly forcing his weapon from his hand. He rolled to his feet, pulling the bulky lump of metal into place as he sighted on a particularly large Adventurer and tapped a rune. The long cylindrical tube of metal glowed fiercely, starting to hum in his hands.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
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I watched in anticipation as this floor’s trump card was used for the first time.
The concept was simple: thousands of near microscopic force projection runes accelerated mana towards an Adventurer, impacting his cultivation channels and disrupting his ability to use mana. As a stream of mana particles, moving so fast even I’d be hard pressed to match it, reached for particularly large Adventurer, I cackled at the Adventurer’s inevitable demise.
Then things got weird.
Again.
The mana particles which, according to my books, shouldn’t interact with matter in any way, carved through the air, flashes of blinding fire spontaneously manifesting as more superheated mana particles appeared from out of nowhere. I barely had time to notice the phenomena before the particles impacted the Adventurer’s shield and did… nothing. Well, not quite nothing as the impacting particles seemed to replicate, which shouldn’t be-
A ball of superheated flame manifested, so hot it melted the man’s shield in an instant, disappearing the next millisecond as the new mana particles dispersed into the air.
I barely noticed the Adventurer’s screams as the melted slag of a shield mercilessly burned the flesh from his arm, too busy trying to figure out within the crap had just happened. I had nothing, literally nothing, to explain it. Every book I’d been given said mana did not interact with matter, and matter barely interacted with mana. According to the texts, the only way to manifest things directly was to have a dungeon do it.
But whatever had just happened, I’d finally confirmed a suspicion. Sigmundr had given me crap. Partially useful crap, but still crap. The info had nearly gotten me killed by the World-oh.
It all came together. There had been no deal, at least not from the World Core’s perspective. How could there be a deal if one side deliberately lied while setting it up? If there was any doubt about whether the contract still stood, it had been banished. I’d trusted this man, one of only two ENADs I’d spoken to, and he’d thrown that trust under the garbage. He’d given me tomes full of common runes and false magical theory, all culminating in this moment: watching the mana accelerator heat up before exploding, blowing the arm off of a mob.
The Director might have genuinely believed he was selling me the genuine article, and I might have just discovered an inconsistency in the current magical theory that SSS ranked sages over the eons had somehow missed. Or the Adventurer Society Director could have tried to pull a fast one.
Guess which theory was more convincing.
I watched as the pigs, half of them wounded while the other half had only knives for weapons, were systematically butchered, the smell of roasting bacon filling the room. The last survivor, my too perfect memory slamming the name Chunky into my psyche, slit a guard’s throat before going down despite only having one arm. His headless body slammed into the card table he’d played at just minutes earlier.
The bloody sight twisted something inside of me, resolving a question I’d been unable to answer, and I suddenly knew how I felt about my mobs. They were soldiers, obeying my orders and trusting me to use their deaths to the greatest effect.
I watched my soldiers be slaughtered as the very weapon’s I’d given them to protect themselves killed them instead, the noise seeming to fade away. For a long beat I felt numb to the sight, my Core flatly refusing to process. Then everything snapped to the present as something cold flickered through me. Zimisite’s death had been in the heat of the moment, instant justice for Ryia.
But Sigmundr wasn’t here, and even if he was, he didn’t quite deserve death. He’d saved Ryia and me after all. But all the good will that action had built evaporated along with my mob’s blood as the team burned them like they were some unintelligent hogs.
Watching the exalting Adventurers, I made a decision, the first of its kind for me. That arrogant inheritor of Zimisite's legacy was going to die.
And I was going to “forget” to send him to the Underworld
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Leeko savored the taste of victory, the meat a representation of this dungeon’s inadequacies. Still, it knew how to make good pork. Perhaps he would relegate it to the kitchens after it was stripped of its illusionary freedom. Perhaps he’d even, in his infinite mercy, bring the residents of that collection of hovels they called Brink. For all of the place’s filth, there were strong backs that could advance the Emerald sect’s cause. The daughter of the so-called “Elder” might even need his personal ministrations... he'd just have to-
A light flickered.
Leeko glanced at the wall of torches, astonishment filtering through his psyche. Was this dungeon not even capable of keeping the lights on in the presence of its superiors? His astonishment morphed into disgust as the flame died, another torch beginning to flicker at its comrades demise. And another.
And another.
In seconds half the torches in the room were gone as the other half guttered, the room sinking into darkness. His bodyguards leapt to their feet, alarm running through their puny minds. Didn’t they understand? This fool of a dungeon had been conquered, brought low before its superiors. It wouldn’t dare to…
Leeko's mind ground to a halt as two orbs, eyes he realized, opened in the perfect darkness. Their proximity to the ground should have reassured Leeko of the beast's small frame, but there was something unnerving about those eyes. They didn’t merely glow, they burned, wisps of fire mana curling away as they looked straight at him, the rage contained in the flames so great he felt his cultivation recoil.
“Death. The decree… is… death. It will be so.” The words whispered through the room, the sound seeming to emanate from the walls themselves rather than the eyes.
Leeko stood, raising the Artifact high as his power flowed through it, his strength far beyond anything this world had ever seen at his rank. This beast dared to threaten him!? HIM!? The most powerful C ranker in a thousand generations!? Death was too good for it; he would make its very existence a torture that would rival that of the Thousand Hells.
“Bring it to me.” He hissed. That his voice sounded weak in comparison to the beast only served to infuriate him further. But for the first time in Leeko’s life, his guards didn’t answer.
“Fools!” He shouted, stepping forward “I said-”
He froze as his boots splashed in a sticky fluid. The Artifact, now glowing from the mana it held, illuminated the fallen form of his chief bodyguard, dead two feet from him. There had been no fight, no shout, not even the sound of the man’s body hitting the floor. The part of him that had kept his ancestors alive during the time of the Great Beasts screamed.
“Stay back! Don’t you know who I am!?”
The silence was his only answer.
“Well?! Say something!?” The silence was getting to Leeko, or maybe it was the bodies his brightening staff revealed.
“I reject the Adventurer Society.”
The words emanated from the dungeon itself as a claw ripped out Leeko’s throat.