Chapter 15
IT IS FINISHED
It’d been a week and a half since the gorillas had started their mission, and Igmail was starting to get worried. Not only had they had consistent casualties for more than a week, destroying the minds of many golems, but he’d just felt half a dozen of them die within the same hour. It was frightening, to say the least. A couple at a time had died before, but never more than a couple at once. Igmail had thought that the mission would fail then and there, dooming him to spend the rest of his time in the bunker in constant fear.
The noise of the guard team practicing was annoying enough, he’d go crazy if he needed to worry about another assassination attempt. He was starting to understand Sanderson, the leader of the adventurer party that had occupied the bunker before him. He’d hate dungeon suppression duty too if this was what it was like for them all the time.
At the moment Igmail was pacing his garden, his justified paranoia leading him to seek comfort among his plant babies. Incidentally, Igmail’s plants were looking as healthy as ever. He’d needed to expand his cold cabinet significantly just to store all the excess produce, and though none of it had gone bad yet, his turnips were starting to turn.
Igmail’s spear, as well, was looking especially dangerous. He’d taken some of the excess stone that the gorillas had brought up during their funeral processions and used it to enhance his spear significantly. He would’ve done the same before, except there’d never been the excess stone for it. He had to specifically set a chunk aside so that he wouldn’t use it while in his golem making trance, as he usually compressed the stone to fit it all in.
He’d worked all the stalagmites he had harvested into the walls of the base as well, but had left it at that, too worried to try getting any more and too paranoid to open the door and suggest that his protection detail did it for him. He wanted those particular golems fully focused on protecting him.
Igmail stopped his pacing for a moment when he passed his carrots for the forty second time that hour. He sighed and sat down with his head between his knees, back resting against the planter, assuming the least alert position he had been in for more than a week.
“Y’all better get this done,” he muttered to himself. “My heart can’t take this waiting.”
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Now that they had reached the confined tunnels the magical murder gorilla golems were in a much better position. The bottom of the stairs was only as wide as two gorillas or four hobgoblins, so no longer would they face such a deluge of attacks. That was cold comfort though, as there were still thousands of goblins trying to kill them.
Interceptor, with his shield and defensive fighting style, ended up on the front lines, along with Pugilist, the second best melee combatant after Champion. The nature of the gorillas as magically animated stone meant that exhaustion wasn’t really an issue for them, but fighting an endless stream of opponents of the same tier would still wear them down eventually. While these two held the front against the goblin town, the others were resting and recovering. Scholar also ended up setting the transport hoop up behind the two, giving them a place to put the dozens of hobgoblins they were killing.
‘Pugilist, Interceptor, hold them here for an hour or two while we recover, then I’ll cover for you as you take your own break to heal,’ Champion sent over their spiritual link. ‘After that, it’ll be up to you two to keep them off our backs while me, Scholar, Dash, and Craft keep going.’
‘Heard, Champion,’ both gorillas responded. Interceptor, though, hesitated a moment afterward. Champion felt the beginnings of a mental message come several times before Interceptor finally worked up the courage to send it.
‘Champion… would, would you tell my… descendant, about me? I… want him to know what I did. How I died. Who I was before… before I became him,’ Interceptor sent slowly, cautiously, waiting for Champion’s reaction. The whole time he kept his body pointed towards the enemy, slaying one after another and callously tossing the bodies through the hoop behind him.
‘Yes, brother. Your son shall know you well, you have my word on that,’ sent Champion, his solemn oath said in a solemn tone with a solemn nod. ‘You’ve been with us for a long time now. You will not be forgotten.’
‘Thank you,’ Interceptor sent weakly, the message barely making it over the distance between the two men’s souls. ‘Thank you,’ he sent once more. This time his metaphorical voice was more gruff yet also louder. The silence afterward lingered, like a heavy blanket muffled everything in the tunnel. Even the dying screams of the red eyed dungeon born seemed oddly mute.
An hour passed like this, with Champion and the rest healing back up fully. Champion gave Interceptor and Pugilist the same opportunity, and didn’t say a thing when he saw Interceptor wasting just a bit of time by engraving his own name on the inside of his shield. After that, it was time to go. Champion felt something strange and new as he looked back, the brave backs of his soldiers disappearing behind a bend in the tunnel.
It was like a weight on his soul, boulders chained to his very essence. He realized then, that these two boulders were not alone. There were many others, one for each and golem that had ever died under his command, each and every unique mind that had been snuffed out on his watch. It took realizing that one of his oldest companions would be added to their number for Champion to admit they were there.
He ran with a new urgency, a new gravity, as he traversed this new floor. Oddly enough, it was empty, just like the one after it and the one after that. His confusions coalesced into questions some time around floor forty eight, when he asked Scholar why there were no monsters to paste.
‘It seems to me that we’ve killed ‘em already. Do you remember how things got harder faster than they should have for a while, then it evened out? I think the dungeon was emptying its lower floors on us until it ran out of floors to empty, or until it figured that the goblins were best used on their own floor,’ Scholar answered. Nobody was too bothered by being able to get things over with quicker, especially the ever impatient Dash.
It only took a couple hours to run through the empty floors and reach the stairs ti the fiftieth. Just beyond the stairs was a large antechamber, and on the other side of that antechamber was a door. Massive, it was at least eight gorillas tall and six wide. Engraved on the surface was a wyvern, its wing-arms stretched wide open in a t-pose across the massive gates.
It had a long neck and intricately carved scales, each one unique yet fitting into the pattern of the other scales. The head wasn’t very large in proportion to the body, maybe enough to swallow a goblin whole. Long claws extended from its digitigrade legs, both seeming to actually rest upon the floor. It had a thick chest that grew thinner as it went, so that its back legs and long thin tail seemed to form a tail fan like that of a bird.
The carving had long horns that curled back along its neck from what the gorillas could see, its neck and chin being more prominent than its alligator-like eyes. It was a rather intimidating carving, being so life-like as it was, and so huge too. Surely any adventurer would look at it and quake in fear, or so thought Samurthabec.
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‘Huh, that's cool,’ sent Crafter to the group, less than intimidated.
‘It’ll be a shame to break ‘em down,’ Champion admitted, chambering the explosive leap he was about to perform. Instead he simply walked up, his team behind him, and kicked the door open rather than down. The team rushed in without even stopping to assess as they were subscribers to Igmail’s philosophy on killing dangerous things quickly.
Champion, though, still managed to get a good look at their enemy in the time it took to cross the rather large chamber. It was a wyvern, looking just like the one on the door, curled up around a giant crystal ball. It must have been the size of his whole team combined, though the part of his mind that drew on Igmail’s knowledge informed him that most wyvern were at least double that size. That didn’t seem too important, though, not when there was a pseudo dragon the size of Igmail’s starting bunker uncoiling itself in front of him.
Before they’d even reached the target Crafter had already started flinging spears, having stopped some ways back along with Scholar. Champion could see the attacks bouncing off the creature’s scales out of the corner of his… whatever spiritual sensory organs are called, and carefully noted that attacks without his full power behind them were worthless.
Accordingly, he lowered his spear into a couched position, as if he were jousting, and put his utmost into a forward arching jump with his full weight behind it. Unfortunately for him, he was expected, and the wyvern’s long, thin tale smacked him out of the air with surprising strength. He flew to the side a significant distance before he touched the ground again, an awkward tumble bringing him swiftly to his feet.
At this point the wyvern had fully unwrapped itself from its former position, instead standing on all fours protectively in front of the massive orb. Two gorillas tall at the shoulder, it was swiping its long arms at the back liners who were just out of reach. Dash took the opportunity to go in for a quick stab with his daggers, but was treated similarly to Champion. Hairline fractures could be found on his skin just from the one hit.
It became apparent then, between the monster’s size, speed, and strength, that they were facing a tier five. Champion tried running around the perimeter of the room, hoping he could attack from an unexpected angle, but was spotted the moment his motion resumed. The monster’s tail sought to pin and whip him even as it kept Dash at bay with its arms and teeth, an impressive feat of coordination that was nonetheless spoiled by its split focus. Champion dodged, ducked, and weaved around the flailing tail, deflecting it with his spear when he had no other choice.
He was only halfway around the room, just about level with the middle of the wyvern’s torso, when he took a hint from Dash and dove toward it, narrowly ducking his foe’s tail in the process. He recovered with a front roll to regain his momentum but the wyvern finally reacted to his approach. Rearing up on its back legs, the monster performed a quick pivot that aimed to smash Champion into pieces against the stone floor.
This forced Champion to fall into another front roll towards the creature, allowing him to avoid the front claws but bringing him under the creature. He tried to stab upwards, and managed to make a deep scratch on the scales, but it was ultimately ineffective. The monster's tail also made an entrance to Champion’s situation, using the dramatically shortened distance to finally overwhelm Champion and send him flying once more.
In all the fuss over Champion, though, Dash had been left a chance to strike. Darting in, as was his specialty, he avoided Champion’s mistake and kept his feet on the ground. He reached the back feet of the wyvern and started to climb, jamming his straight daggers between the beast’s scales and leaving pinpricks as he went. He reached the inverted knee of the monster, dodging the tail as he went, before the beast finished its journey to the ground, freeing its back legs to act. Even as the tail reached between its legs to swat at Champion, the other leg was being raised to kick Dash off the leg he was on.
The act of pulling the knee forward was slow, giving Dash some warning, but the kick itself was just a blur. One moment Dash had two arms, and then he didn’t. Dash had leaned away too slowly, instead of dodging the blow entirely the wicked claws of the monster had tore right through his body of stone, his entire upper left torso carved out and flung across the room.
It was a miracle that the rest of Dash didn’t go with it, but he somehow managed to hold on, the desperation clear on his normally stony face. De-armed and feeling his Master’s magic collapsing within him, feeling his very sense of self collapsing within him, Dash took a risk. He jumped, not away, but towards the base of the wyvern’s tail. With the tail being occupied by Champion, who Dash saw go flying out from beneath the monster, he managed to make the jump, thrusting his dagger between two of the thinner scales that covered the tail.
He wrapped his legs around the base of the tail, his flexible feet giving him good grip, and began to saw. Within a second the thinner end of the tail had wrapped back around, desperately hitting him, trying to dislodge him. He cracked, and cracked some more, nowhere near as durable as many of the other gorillas, but he held on. Excruciating seconds later, it was finished. The nerve connecting the tail to the pseudo-dragon was severed, effectively taking one of the wyvern’s best weapons out of the fight, but not before it got in one last hit.
One last hit was all it took, and Dash exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces, his dagger the only recognizable thing that remained. Champion recovered just in time to see his friend’s pieces hit the floor. The wyvern shrieked in pain, loud enough for even the nearly deaf gorillas to hear it. It was a terrible, ululating scream, bouncing around the stone chamber again and again. Of course, Champion and crew didn’t waste this opportunity provided for them, with even Craft and Scholar recognizing the futility of their weak projectiles and rushing towards the large monster.
It lashed out in pain, the agony driving its blows to an entirely new level of speed. It let its torso hit the ground as it struck with both forelimbs and its head at the same time. Scholar was demolished instantly by the onslaught, simply no longer used to combat after his extended hiatus. The gentle leader and strategist was gone. Next went Craft. The bundle of spears he carried got caught by the wyvern’s claws, tearing him off his feet to be torn to pieces by the wyvern’s teeth.
Champion witnessed both, he saw those remaining few of his comrades die, and the weight inside him grew heavier. He bullied through, dodged under, and vaulted over the desperately flailing appendages of the wyvern but it wasn’t enough. He got caught clean by a blow, and his spear snapped in half when he tried to block it. The claws of the beast went through his chest with a loud squeal, and he hit the far wall with a loud boom.
Cracked, slumped, and furious, Champion tried to get up, only to have his left arm just crumble away from him. ‘I'm dying, losing cohesion,’ the back of his brain recognized. ‘Just like the rest.’ His failing mind wandered to the various spots of rubble around the cavern. Dash’s shoulder. Scholar’s gravel. Crafter’s broken bundle of spears. He thought of Interceptor and Pugilist, doomed to die by the rush. He thought of all those who died in the hobgoblin town, the six brave minds that dissipated into the air as their souls returned to the Master.
He thought of team North, how they slowly just disappeared, replaced by pale imitations over repeated deaths. He thought of Guardian, the first of his brothers ever to die. He thought of the boulders hanging from his soul, and he named every one of them. Resonating from within themselves a name came bubbling forth from each rock, even those that represented the golems yet to choose a name when they died. The names resolved into an engraving on each stone, and each stone resolved itself into the golem it represented.
The faces of old friends and practical strangers all flashed across his perception, each just a tiny bit unique despite the strong general resemblance. ‘So many met their end to end you,’ Champion sent to the cautiously closing in dwarf twyvern, the intent so strong that it resonated in the very air. ‘My name is Champion, He Who Heralds Evil’s End, and your time is up.’
With this declaration, Champion stood, and a mountain stood with him. The air seemed to waver around him, the stone seemed to creak beneath him, and the mana crashed over him in massive waves, each a tsunami in their own right. Champion’s arm reattached itself, flying over to him as if of its own will. Stone ripped its way out of the floor to fill in his battle scars. Then he raised a foot, and it fell as if a mountain had collapsed.
Samurthabec, as Champion now knew this foul creature was named, recoiled from the palpable power radiating from Champion. Just a single step from Champion displayed more power than she had at her disposal at once. Champion took another step and was suddenly in front of her, just standing.
One of Crafter’s spear floated up to him, the tip broke off so that it was simply a shaft, and Dash’s remaining dagger, the one still embedded in the wyvern’s tail, was suddenly yanked out by an invisible force and brought to him.
Even as Samurthabec watched with terrified eyes he melded the two as if they were always one. ‘Thank you, brothers, for the gift you have given me. I will finish what you started,’ Champion said mentally, the sheer force of his ascending soul making the thought almost physical. Paralyzed by fear, Samurthabec was an easy target. Her blood splattered the walls as the front of her skull simply disappeared.