“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

-Dwight F. Eisenhower

==Caden==

I was no stranger to having knowledge shoved into my head, but having such intimate knowledge of an item I had not created or absorbed was a new experience. The new plants and fauna were being sorted by other shards. I was focusing on the Artifact. I knew the pattern for the Artifact, its dimensions, its location, its exact functions. I knew that it was permanently and completely linked to myself. The system had taken my achievement and created a physical manifestation of my intentions. And, for now, I was linked with Gurek.

I didn’t know enough to properly hold a conversation, but I did know enough to send a simple message.

Hello Gurek.

==Zidaun==

My mind went into overdrive.

It was unclear whether the dungeon or the system had created the Artifact, and that mattered. Artifacts were important. Some were held as national treasures, while others belonged to various nobles and guilds. The Adar had stashes of artifacts held in reserve.

Telepathy was not an easy magic.

The Adar knew this better than most. We had a natural inclination toward it. I had never felt any great skill with it beyond the natural abilities native to us all. I expected to get much better with it in the coming years.

There was a reason for that.

Skills naturally progressed much faster by doing, rather than simply training or studying. And I had a telepathic link to the dungeon. And I would get new ones as I connected to the coming Adar.

The Eternal Blossom would let anyone practice telepathy. It couldn’t be stolen. It couldn’t leave the dungeon. Its owner could not be coerced to transfer ownership away from themselves. If it didn’t have these attributes, I would have expected it to shortly end up the property of a specialized academy or guild. As it was, I had noted what wasn’t restricted. Nothing said the owner couldn’t be coerced to let another use it.

What was the dungeon’s intention?

Did it want to use it produce conflict?

That went against what the description of the Artifact actually said. It said it represented the dungeon’s drive for beauty. That it wanted to share it. For the moment I disregarded the mention of a quest for perfection, that fell into more normal territory.

Gurek now knew that the dungeon was an individual in its own right. Two, in this case. What did I need to do?

For a moment the compulsion to protect my people and their interests battled against the uncertainty of the dungeon’s intentions.

I heard a surprised whisper from Gurek.

“How does it know my name?”

Finally, as things fell into a new balance, I heaved an internal sigh of relief. A decision had been made.

I wouldn’t need to kill my friends. At least not right away. Not at all if I could get some precautions in place.

Instead, I spoke.

“Don’t talk, any of you,” I said. “Gurek, we will address this in a moment. For now… don’t say anything.”

I turned and I looked at the other two.

“Gurek…” I cleared my throat. “He just learned something secret. I will talk more about this if you swear an oath. However, we are still in the dungeon, for now.”

I glanced down at the bridge and over the edge to the mists below.

“Let’s go deal with whatever is on the island,” I said. “After that, after that…. we can talk. For now, just say only what we need to.”

The others followed me somberly as I headed for the far side of the bridge.

I hoped I had managed to convey the seriousness of the matter. This was more dangerous than anything else we had encountered here. Not that that said much, this place had been easy enough so far. My hands would have shook if I had been allowed to. Instead my duty suppressed the visible signs of my stress. Not even mybody was allowed to betray my dungeon or people. I wouldn’t be able to warn them even if I tried.

I prayed it wouldn’t be necessary.

With, perfectly false, calm and confident strides, I crossed the bridge. Gurek had taken the time to get ahead of me and back into position.

As we reached the far side, we slowed down. My senses only reported more stone and flora.

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“Nothing, proceed slowly,” I said. “It is a reasonable bet that there is a boss here or after the island.”

The others simply nodded. I seriously doubted they needed me to tell them anything, but it was protocol for a reason. Anyone could make a mistake, whether through distraction, inattention, or simply a bad day.

Green ferns with long fronds covered the sides of the path. Tiny insects clicked and buzzed in the undergrowth. Their omnipresent droning drowned out the wind. The faint sound of falling water faded from behind us as we followed the twisting path between more greenery. Tall trees here and there shaded the path.

We watched the shadows carefully, but there appeared no sign of danger.

When we finally ran into a monster, it was making no effort to hide.

The tangled plants gave way to a clearing. Tiny ferns, grass, and saplings grew between the cut off stems of larger specimens. The entire clearing showed evidence of being chewed down to the ground regularly. And, at the far side of the clearing, stood the culprit. A boss, with a cleared arena, in all but name.

Armored Millipede

Monstrous

Level 11

“Level eleven,” My voice whispered out.

Its body was a long arrangement of repeating segments, each with two spiked legs. It was covered in thick armor that The armor and carapace were translucent, filled with ghostly suggestions of organs and viscera. Its head was turned away from us at the moment, though we could see bristles of hairs and two long antennae that quivered with the faint movements of the air. All together, its cylindrical body was twenty feet long and three feet across.

One of the antennae, six feet long on its own, twitched as we entered the clearing together. The head of the millipede whipped around to to face us.

Now we could clearly see its face. Two curving pincers were located just below its relatively tiny mouth. Its eyes were on each side, the compound segments recessed to be almost flush with the chitin around them. Clear hairs sprouted above the eyes, bristling out in a protective layer before the hairs joined together into armor that thickened into the next body segment.

There was a momentary pause at it stared at us, its antennae quivering. After a moment the antennae snapped back, flat against the head and it moved towards us. Its motion was strange, the legs working together to make its charge toward us sinuous and deceptively slow. With so many legs working together, it was actually surprisingly fast. The sharp ends of the legs stabbed into the earth, each leaving a precise hole as it advanced.

Other than the sound of its movements, it was completely silent.

Gurek had already moved into position to meet it, his two blades each held in arms that looked almost loose. The muscles in his arms were primed to move in a moment in reaction to the charging millipede.

As it reached us one of its antennae whipped out toward Gurek the tip blurring with a whistling sound. Gurek’s left blade met it in mid-air, the flat edge singing with the song of vibrating steel an instant later as the antenna rebounded from the impact.

A blessing settled on us from Firi, a faint glimmering coating our limbs. I could feel the faint barrier of mana that was woven above my skin.

A knife whipped by my ear and stuck into the armor, even as the millipede turned its head to the side and charged past in a curved path. Gurek struck towards its retreating head, his right foot advancing forward with his blade held out ahead of him in a perfectly straight thrust.

His blow was met by the other antenna parrying the sword. The end of the antenna flicked toward his chest, but he backed up quickly enough to avoid it.

As the millipede continued to move past I grabbed at its feet with the dirt below, but the feet simply cut through the soft soil. I started to pull the harder stone out from beneath, bringing up sections to displace the earth.

Even as I was pulling up the stone, Gurek advanced closer toward the millipede’s moving side. As he brought his sword forward to attack the millipede dipped its legs lower on that side, angling the armor toward him.

Gurek struck the armor and the millipede paused for a moment, a small cut the only sign of the attack. Then the side closer towards Gurek leapt upward the legs extending to maximum length. The legs near Gurek flashed out, the razor sharp edges aiming toward him. He backpedaled, his feet moving in precise movements, even as he dipped his body down and parried two of the legs that attempted to slash toward him. Another leg grazed against his armor, leaving only a faint glow in his armor field.

One of the legs Gurek parried had been hit in the joint, and it flew off to the side. While it had raised up its body Inda had taken the opportunity to throw two knives. Each hummed when they impacted in the underbelly, the hilts vibrating for a brief moment as the blade buried themselves in the monster’s flesh. Clear fluid oozed around the two wounds.

The millipede flinched for a moment, then it lowered its body back to the ground. And then it went further, the nearer side dipping further even as the far side pushed just like it had a moment ago and the entire length of the twenty foot millipede flipped over toward us, the razor edged legs flashed, cutting through anything in their way. For now, they met only air, Gurek having moved out of range quickly, even as Inda managed to get another knife buried into the underside.

I frowned for a moment. Gurek was a very agile bulwark, but a more armored one would have trouble moving out of the way.

“Armor test!” I yelled, even as I moved forward.

Dirt and stone flowed up my body, the stone shaping into plates of armor held with toughened joints of compressed dirt. Rapidly I shifted from a vaguely humanoid mass of dirt and stone until I was covered in a complete set of stone armor. It would normally be too heavy to be practical, but my control of the armor meant it moved at my direction. Still, I wouldn’t be doing acrobatics today, I was imitating the slower movements of the more common type of bulwark.

I took measured stepped toward the monster.

After its attempted attack roll, it had continued to move away. Now its head was angling toward us again for another attack.

I stepped forward even as Gurek stepped back.

Seeing no weapon, both its antennae whipped toward me. The dirt behind the stone compressed under the impact and I let out a slight grunt at the two impacts. Otherwise, I was unaffected.

I thrust my hand forward, the stone locking into place around my hand, the dirt shielding me from the impact. The carapace cracked under the impact of my fist. The millipede reacted, lunging toward me.

I let it hit.

The pincers at the front grabbed me and the millipede curled in on itself. Suddenly I was surrounded by the razor sharp legs facing inwards toward me. The blades scratched futilely against my armor, though a few pierced slightly into the hardened dirt connecting the sections. I let it scrabble against me for a little while, measuring the intensity of the force the pincer was putting on me.

Finally, having learned enough, the stone in the earth beneath rose around me, pushing up and outward, forcing the millipede backwards from my body.

It twisted until it was flat on the earth again and came in for another attack run.

“Gurek, you’re up,” I said, letting him take the attacks again.

The millipede attacked a few more times, but the attack patterns didn’t vary any further. So it was time to see if we could do some real damage.

“Gurek, antenna. Inda, check head for weaknesses,” I said.

Gurek took off one of its antennae on the next pass, while a whistling throwing dagger surged by and bounced off the head, leaving a deep gash in the carapace.

The millipede flinched back from the lost antenna, but otherwise it didn’t change its behavior. On the next pass Inda put a dagger through one of its eyes.

It went berserk, twitching and rolling its body. The razor sharp legs spasmed out as it rolled over, making a makeshift grinder in the air. After a few moments it settled back down. It attempted to lunge at Gurek on its next pass, but he danced out of the way.

This time I could feel the magic as Inda threw out a round stone instead of a dagger. It flew past, almost invisible, and splashed into the side of the millipede, forming a crater of broken carapace and viscera. The wound oozed out gunk and the millipede slowed down.

Gurek finished the monster on the next pass. His long blade sank into the intact eye and down into the brain. It twitched for a single moment before it fell still.

The corpse dissolved, Inda’s knives falling to the ground around a chest that had been left behind.

Standing in the now cleared boss arena, I prepared to talk.