9.
The tripwire worked. The kobold sailed deeper into the room as the wire tangled its feet. It rolled through the dust and collided with the stone table with the wet smack of flesh meeting stone. The second one was right behind it, a small dagger outstretched as it entered the room unmolested as the string had pulled the nails out of the wall. The second kobold stared for a moment at its fallen brethren in confusion, and then the confusion was replaced by the heavy weight of Santi’s splitting maul.
Santi grunted as he tugged the maul free of the kobold’s head, eyes locked on the original kobold. He couldn’t believe his luck that his impromptu tripwire had worked that well. He had killed the second warrior before it had even realized he was in the room with him. The first one was woozily getting to all fours, its head lolling as it struggled to get up. Santi could only wince in sympathy as his shins were still aching from hitting the edge of the table. He could only imagine hitting his head would be worse.
Santi didn’t let the small monster suffer long. The maul split bone once more, forever giving the kobold pain relief. Santi went up to the doorway again, putting his sweat soaked back to cold stone. He listened as hard as he could, trying to hold his breath as he struggled to hear if more were coming. All this did was amplify his own heartbeat until it was a thudding bass in his ears. Minutes passed slowly, still there was no sign of further pursuit.
Three dead kobolds in the ossuary and the shaman on the balcony, only five of the original nine remained. The two most dangerous kobolds were off the board though, their magic not available to empower the warriors or chief. All for the price of a few year’s worth of stress and some tender shins. Santi went to his pack and pulled out a few granola bars and another bottle of water. He only had three of those bottles left and had to be careful to conserve them.
He ate and drank in the dark, the torch having guttered out and the glowstick finally finished off. He sat there for a while, letting the effects of the adrenaline wear off, comforted by the dark where just minutes before it had been oppressive. The dark allowed him to pretend for a few minutes now that the shuffling feet of monsters had been replaced with the silence of a tomb.
He could pretend he was back, in his timeline. It was worse no doubt, but there he had power. They had won, he was sure of it. Peace had been so close, the dungeons secured, rifts closed, and peace treaties ratified. The cultists, the Apostates, were the only ones left who had been opposing global peace. He had been so close, so close to being able to finally rest. Tears were trickling down his cheeks again, leaving clean trails through the dirt on his face. He hated himself for being this weak, but the emotions would come so strong sometimes and there was little he could do but ride it out.
Santi wanted to hope. He really did. So he sat there in the dark, inside of a monster ossuary with three corpses and imagined the life he could make. A life where he absorbed the potential of the area instead of letting it slowly wither away. Where his friends weren’t skeletons that would decorate a monster's lair. Where his mom and dad and sisters lived. It hurt. This hope hurt just as bad as the pain of losing them all. How could he make them suffer through this life? This hell that had arrived on earth?
Santi knew he was selfish. Death would be a blessing that many would try to find. An escape from the horrors that were right this very moment being unleashed. His family and friends were fighting for their lives while he had a minor breakdown. He sniffled, fighting back the sobs that were clinging to his throat. Willpower, the minute he got a class he was dumping points into willpower.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He cracked a new glowstick and began to harvest his grisly rewards. Both of the warriors had carried simple iron daggers. Rust spotted the blades, but they were still sharp. Lacking any sort of sheath and not wanting to contract tetanus, Santi tossed them into his bag. The pack was lightening as he left his used water bottles and glowsticks behind, even with the thin assortment of loot he was acquiring. Neither of the warriors had anything else on them. Their half emaciated frames spoke of the poverty of the rift.
When he had fought them originally, they had used steel short swords and had thick leather armor. They had been healthy and fast, their ferocity making up for their stature. While the loot was poor, he was glad of it. The shaman’s table had a wealth of ingredients, mainly dried monster parts, that were shuffled into a series of resealable plastic bags he had bought just for this reason. He was looking forward to access to the store and purchasing a bag of holding as soon as possible. Maybe he’d have enough to buy a spatial ring. That thought sent a delightful shiver through him. Santi had been a powerful mage, but not a wealthy one. Working primarily as a scout and messenger, he never had managed to acquire the type of wealth other more powerful fighters had.
Just one more thing he was hoping to change this time around. Low on his list of priority’s for re-doing the apocalypse, but it was still there. There were many goodies that the merchants and the system-run store had that he would be more than happy to take advantage of this time around. And it all started with clearing this rift.
Santi finished his procrastinating and pulled his heavy pack back on. The wealth of ingredients and heavy iron daggers made up for the lost weight of empty water bottles and dead glowsticks. Good iron daggers were a staple item though, not one he could afford to leave so early. One could never have enough knives, or at least that’s what the other more mundane scouts had said. Santi had much more preferred not to run into anything close enough to require a knife.
He retraced his steps back to the intersection. To the right was back on out. He had eliminated nearly half of the elites, he was sure he would get a better class now than he had originally. Probably a few levels too. He would welcome that alien star again, if only to have light and heat. He could rendezvous with his roommates, fight off the first kobold push and then lead a team back here. It would be easy enough, a few others and they could clear out the rift quickly. It would lessen his own rewards though. He needed to increase his potential as much as possible if he wanted to face the Apostates. Each of them had managed to climb to become a Champion in their first run, something Santi couldn’t have dreamed of. This time he was sure they’d shoot for Master or even higher.
Going straight he was likely to encounter the second patrol somewhere down there. The hallways became a series of degraded corridors filled with rotting storerooms and decayed living quarters. It would be a nightmare to find the second patrol and fight them there.
Going left would lead him deeper to the temple and to the chief and the final set of warriors. One pair was never far from the chief and the chief didn’t stray far from the guardian’s cave. Every rift he had ever entered, the highest ranked boss would perch themselves as close as possible to the rift heart without angering the guardian. Santi didn’t think the fight against the chief would be as bad as he thought. These kobold’s were in much worse shape than what he had remembered. The guardian wouldn’t be, but that was a problem for later.
If he fought the chief, the chief would be able to call the two warriors on this level. If he wasn’t fast enough, those two warriors and the two on the lower level would have time to gang up on him with the chief. That would spell his end just as quickly as anything would. The smart choice was hunting the pair in the warrens of the ruins straight ahead. In the dark, their keen sense of smell would give them an advantage, able to locate him much faster than he would see them.
Santi had a thought. He looked down at his bloodstained hands and ax, turned back and looked into the dark corridor he had just traversed. There were still three relatively fresh corpses in there. They would smell strongly of blood and viscera.
“I miss being a mage,” Santi moaned under his breath as he walked back to the ossuary to bait his next trap.