As the twenty fifth clockwork soldier melted down into slag, Deacon stepped away from the viewing in the conference room. He had been sitting on a new attribute point for awhile now and figured the plan was working so now would be a good moment to review. Deacon’s Agility and Intelligence were lagging behind the rest. Agility being at twenty six and Intelligence being at twenty nine. He was leaning toward bumping up his Intelligence to a cool thirty. Then he could focus his future points on getting Agility up to snuff. He pulled up his slate that displayed his attributes and dropped one into Intelligence.

Attribute

Score

Intelligence

30

Strength

55

Speed

47

Agility

26

Wisdom

35

Luck

300

No sooner did he finish that than he heard a commotion coming from the others. Deacon jogged back into the room to see Alfred in a panic. The clockwork soldiers were now pushing their way through the bushes now that the fires had exposed additional passages. In hindsight, fighting metal men with welding powder in what amounted to a fancy garden probably wasn’t the best idea.

“Can I ask why the maze wasn’t made of stone walls or had a ceiling?” Hani inquired while Typhus tried to calm Alfred.

“Simple answer is that Deacon never thought of it,” answered Amanda who got up and started heading toward the door.

“It’s fine, we were going to have to fight them anyway. It’s better that it’s in here. Hopefully, that’ll take their focus off of escaping towards the town,” Deacon answered.

“We have another problem,” said Alfred, “they are attacking the walls outside the doorway so more can get in faster. Once the efficacy of the structure begins to collapse, so to will my hold on this dimension,” Alfred added.

“What does that mean?” asked Hani, eyes darting back and forth between everyone.

“It means we’ll need a new plan. There is still a couple hundred automated soldiers outside. I don’t like those odds,” Typhus replied.

“Alfred, can you zoom in closer on one of them? Something bothers me about the design,” Tantus said as he inspected the papers Deacon had found.

The large screen in the room got in close on one of the metal men smashing its way through the hedge maze. It’s metal body was brushed bronze and couldn’t be more than five feet in height. That included the top hat. Tantus turned back and forth between the papers and the image on the wall. He then took out the wand Deacon bought him that let him draw in air. Within a few minutes he had drawn a reasonable facsimile of the device in front of the screen.

“The hats are just part of the head. It’s a solid piece. No seams. The grave hat creature we chased down here was black. It should be easy enough to pick out. These designs are signed by the same Gnome. I’m piecing together the writing, my gnomish isn’t great. They use so many numbers in place of vowels. Regardless, he was called First Engineer, lab one,” Tantus explained while waving his hands vigorously.

“That’s great but how does that help us?” Deacon asked.

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“The door was numbered right? Wasn’t it like number five?” Tantus asked.

“I see where he’s going. Maybe the door with the one on it has more information. Information we can use to stop them altogether,” explained Hani.

The automatons finally made their way toward Sun Wu. Some of them encountered more sand golems and turned to super-heated metal sludge. Those unfortunate enough to meet with Sun Wu’s staff were turned to scrap piles on the ground of whirring gears and sadness.

“Dimensional integrity is at forty five percent and dropping. I’ll lose cohesive tangibility at twenty five percent. I recommend abandoning the dungeon before that happens so I can manage a controlled collapse,” Alfred urgently explained.

“Shit, sorry Alfred. Alright, we need to abandon ship here folks. I’ll leave last since I have to take Sun Wu with me. I’d like him to break as many of those things as possible before we close down. So the sneakiest of us should make their way over to lab one. See if you can get in the door. I guess I’ll be the distraction. I’m out of invisibility potions. Tantus you’ll have to take the high ground. I do not like this plan,” Deacon lamented.

As the others prepared themselves for a mad dash, Deacon looked over his capabilities. He could Dragon Claw Barrage his way into the thick of them outside. Hopefully shred into them enough that he could render those particular platforms useless. He had access to the white phosphorus but no real delivery mechanism in the real world. Even now Alfred was filling a barrel for him to take along. Sun Wu was putting a dent in them, but they would still be overrun by over two hundred of them when the dimension collapsed. Deacon couldn’t use Strike of the Phantasm Knight due to its immobile targe requirement. Devising an alternative would take some time. Ghastly defense wouldn’t work on these constructs. They had no fear.

He thought back to what happened when they first entered the dungeon. They just stood there gawking while the Grave Hat decided what to do. That would be their opportunity. He didn’t know if he could based on that alone. Then he recalled the new halo he just received. Amanda would be mad at him if he used it without practicing. He didn’t even know it’s effects. Sun Wu might be able hold them a little longer. If so, then he might be able to try it out. That’s when he remembered an item he only used once. That would solve his delivery method conundrum.

“What are you doing?” Tantus shouted in Deacon’s face while shaking his shoulders.

“Sorry, I was thinking. What were you saying?” Deacon asked, shocked out of his thoughts.

“Alfred said we are at thirty nine percent dimensional integrity. Time to go,” Tantus said half dragging Deacon toward the door.

“Wait, where is everyone else?” Deacon asked slowing their progress.

“Alfred made a ceiling exit. Amanda and Typhus left through that. It’ll put us out on the roof looking over the that slope that originally contained the constructs. He said that was the best he could do in terms of a safe exit. Should give us a few minutes to get our bearings and not get swamped. When the roof collapses you’ll need to snag Alfred’s cylinder. Got it?” Tantus explained hurriedly digging in his backpack.

“Got it. Sun Wu! We are leaving,” Deacon yelled as Tantus walked through the exit.

Shortly after Tantus disappeared Sun Wu burst through the doors that led to the stairs out into the training grounds. He was smiling ear to ear. That made Deacon nervous. Then another Sun Wu appeared in the doorway. It placed its staff horizontally in the door jam. As clockwork soldiers tried to breach the entryway into Deacon’s sitting room the staff would lower down forcing them to either step over it or jump. The second they committed to a course of action the staff would slide up or down respectively. Soon enough there was a pile of clockwork soldiers on the ground struggling to get back to their feet.

“They are like turtles. It takes like three of them get off the ground. These are your enemies. I could have ruled this world,” Sun Wu said in a huff as his real body disappeared into Deacon’s soul.

“Alright Alfred, shut it down. I need to extract you as soon as you’re ready,” said Deacon before stepping through the exit.

Deacon found himself on top of the row of three rooms. Tantus was a few feet away with his back to the cavern wall. Deacon looked down at the flood of constructs smashing into the walls below. The Gnomes must have reinforced the walls considering they were still holding against this onslaught. From this position Deacon could see they weren’t just fixated on the room they were in. The clockwork soldiers were breaking down the walls leading into all three rooms. Deacon wished he had some premade solvent or acid with him. He really needed to get back to alchemy. None of his titles would help in this situation so he just left Haunted Craftsman selected.

“I’m going to make a mess. You try to get back to the ladder,” Deacon whispered at Tantus who’s brows furrowed not understanding. Deacon just shook his head.

Deacon felt the tell tale sound of stone crumbling and knew the room had been breached. Much to his shock, all the slagged robot corpses and whole bodies blasted out of the room directly into the oncoming clockwork soldiers like maximum spread shotgun pellets. It must have destroyed at least fifty of the damn things with the broken down corpses of their brethren. The roof having less support now began to collapse around Deacon forcing him to hop over to the roof of door number four. Deacon could have sworn he heard a burp as the room collapsed in on itself.

Now it was his turn. He shoved his hand into his bag and pulled the compass that Captain Pete gave him. It was slightly warm to the touch, but Deacon knew it was just conduit to the Sea’s Tempest. He triggered the soul artifact. The air above the cavern started to shake and Deacon could hear a slight humming. Then a horizontal line of blue light split the air above him. That light bathing over the cavern was in stark contrast to the flashing red lights.

“Clear the center of the cavern!” Deacon yelled.

The split in the sky lurched open into an oblong circle through which stormy clouds could be seen. Then a pale green and translucent galleon burst through the rent in reality. On the deck Deacon could see a captains hat atop a spectral gnomes head. He looked at Deacon who pointed at the mass of automatons marching and climbing their way toward Deacon. Captain Pete gave him a wink and all the cannons on his ghostly ship pointed at the center of the room. There was a silent volley of attacks that lit up the cavern floor in bright flashes of light. When it was over, Deacon could see a mess of mangled and melting clockwork corpses. That had to be at least half of what was left. That left around one hundred and seventy five constructs to deal with. The ghost ship slipped back into the portal before it snapped itself shut.