We walked up to the door to the dungeon and once again it opened, sliding up into the ceiling. As we walked in, I noticed that there was a left-hand turn about fifty feet into the dungeon. The ceilings were much higher than I had thought as well, being enough for Aeolith to walk in without needing to duck. As we reached the left turn the door began to slide closed again, shutting us in. There was a set of stairs around the turn that led down. The stairs were quite wide, about fifteen feet across, but had standard size steps, so Aeolith might have a bit of trouble standing on just a single step. I stopped at the top of the stairs and Rutherford almost ran into me.
"Why'd you stop?" Rutherford asked, likely having others run into him as well.
"The stairs lead down. I thought this was a four-story building and expected the stairs to go up not down."
Everyone looked down at the stairs then.
"Maybe there is a basement that we go through to get to the rest of the tower?" Vokin offered.
"Maybe. I guess we don't have any choice but to go down. Nowhere else to go," I replied. "Let's form up since we are now officially locked in. Vokin, in front, Myself and Rutherford behind Vokin, Tristan and Randal in the rear, Aeolith and Zephyr have the flanks."
"You have this down quite well already," Randal said.
"We had some good training," I said, a sudden surge of sadness gripping me.
Randal apparently picked up on this and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Do not feel too sad, we are about to pay them back for their vile deeds."
I nodded once curtly and turned back to the stairs.
"Let's move. Keep your positions."
We began descending the stairs, Vokin in the lead with shield and axe ready. The stairs led down for about a hundred feet, longer than the height of a single level of a building. Moving while still in our formation made me feel a little bit like some kind of special forces unit. I bet the military back on earth would absolutely love to have a dragon and a giant predatory cat as part of one of their units. It would make some stealth operations a little tricky, but it would make the fights a lot easier.
Bringing myself back to the moment, I focused on what was ahead of us. I looked once again at the new version of the magical sword that Erot had given me. It was truly a stunning weapon and something worthy of being given to me by a goddess. I was eager to test it out on Shadow Beasts.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and walked into a tunnel that seemed to wind around in a circular pattern. It was nearly pitch black so Rutherford cast the spell Illumination, which lit up the area around us without a distinct light source, which was a bit of an odd sensation for me. There was no ball of light, no fire like on a torch, no shining brilliance from an object, it just seemed like there was light to see by. I chalked it up to magic, after all being able to see was all that mattered for now. We could see it curving to the right out in front of us. It eventually curved to where we could not see what was on the path ahead of us anymore. In these tunnels, Aeolith would be of less use because her mobility was limited. She could still do some damage, but not as well as in a large cavern or outside. Zephyr would be at a bit of a disadvantage as well, but not nearly as much as Aeolith since he didn't fly.
We remained in formation and moved forward through the tunnel. The tunnel seemed as though it was carved out of stone and earth by some large drill, or maybe even a worm-like creature.
"Brutus, do you think this formation was made by a creature?" I asked, scared that we might run into a giant worm or snake at the end of the tunnel.
"Not likely, it is too perfect. I would expect there to be teeth marks or something to show that it was eaten away by a worm. This is likely just the formation the dungeon chose and hollowed out the passages." Brutus replied.
That put my mind at ease. We still had no idea what to expect in this dungeon, but that it was;t a giant worm was at least a bit of a relief. Walking down the passage it was almost odd that there was literally nothing at all on the way. plants, no stalactites or stalagmites, no rocks even on the path. Just a barren tunnel. We walked along in silence listening for anything that might tell us what was going on, Rutherford's Illumination spell still lighting our surroundings.
After another thirty minutes of walking, I heard something up ahead and stopped. My dragon senses were better than the rest of the team, except maybe Zephyr, I had no idea how good his hearing was.
"I hear something coming. Footfalls, and growling. Be ready," I said putting up a hand to signal a halt for a moment.
After a minute the noises got louder and everyone could hear them now. Many feet on the ground. But the sounds were close together, likely from a quadruped with the growls. Then we got our first glimpse of them. They looked like wolves, but bigger, and uglier, and their fur was patchy like they had some kind of disease.
"Incoming!" I called and actually smiled. It was time for battle again.
The wolves ran down the hallway and the first of them met Vokin's shield. It leaped into the air and landed on the outside of his shield, snarling and biting at the edges. He tossed the wolf off and back into its friends with a heave and met the next wolf with the head of his axe to its face. It spun to the side landing on another wolf, which bit and snapped at it until it noticed it was dead.
Rutherford jumped in next and since he was the origin of the Illumination spell, it moved to center around him. This put the wolves in the field of his spell for the first time and they began to smoke slightly when they entered the area of effect. Their eyes also began to glow red and they whined slightly in pain. They quickly overcame their fear of the pain though and began to run ahead again. I noticed the smoke coming off of them seemed to come from their shadows and run up the sides of their body to evaporate in the air above them. I thought this odd but focused on the fight for now. Rutherford used his hammer to great effect, smashing wolves left and right and I ran past him after his third swing which was aimed from left to right and slashed across the shoulder of one of the wolves.
What happened next was astounding. The slash caused the two gems on the hilt to light up and a light shone out from both of the gems, shooting up the blade. The shoulder of the wolf exploded out with light and the eyes of the wolf went wide with pain as it yelped and landed on the ground and rolled away into a heap. All fighting stopped at that moment. All eyes landed on me and my sword. I smiled and dashed forward to the next wolf. They seemed much less keen to jump all over me since the explosion of their friend. Another strike with the sword, and another explosion of light from the creature. The rest of the team joined in and in short order, the wolf pack was destroyed.
"What in the name of the Holy Order was that?!" Rutherford exclaimed.
"I'm not totally sure. I think it has to do with the new upgrades to the sword and the monsters. The gems were changed to light gems, and I could see the shadows coming off the wolves. Almost like they had been infused with shadow." I replied.
"I did sense something off with the beasts as they approached," Vokin said.
"I could see them start to smoke when they got into Rutherford's area of effect for his Illumination spell," I said pointing to the carcasses. "It almost looked like their shadows were being burned."
"We should probably see if they have anything on them. This is a dungeon after all," Tristan added.
We nodded and went to check the dead bodies. But, there was nothing. Not even the meat was usable because they seemed to have contracted some kind of disease. They even looked almost moldy on the outside.
"I'm beginning to wonder if the Shadow Beast taking over this dungeon has had an effect on it. Maybe its essence is bleeding into the dungeon. I mean, they can have a similar effect on people. Why not the dungeon?" I offered.
The others shrugged. It seemed to make some sense, but no one knew. The last being we knew to have contact with the Shadow Beasts was dead now. We would just need to press on to see what came of it. We left the corpses of the wolves and continued on the path that appeared to wind around the exterior of the base of the abbey tower. We were walking for about another twenty minutes when a stench filled my nose like that of rotting flesh. Then there was a groaning and rasping sound, followed by the shuffling of feet.
"Ugh, god, what is that smell? And the sounds.....oh no...." I trailed off.
"What is it, lad?" Vokin asked.
"Undead." I managed to croak out.
"It's not really a problem, Callan," Rutherford said. "I'm a Cleric remember? I can turn undead away from us if I need to."
"Right. Sorry, I just have this thing with dead bodies. Not really a fan,"
"Well, now is your chance to get to take some of that fear out in the form of aggressive dismemberment," Rutherford added with a wink and an elbow to my arm. "Besides, most of them are pretty slow or just need to have their head removed."
"OK, but where I'm from we have movies where zombies come back and if they bite you, then you turn into a zombie. Eventually, they take over most of the planet," I added.
"Must be a weak planet. That doesn't happen here. Their bites can be poisonous sometimes, but it's easily cured with a potion or a cleansing spell. And that's only if their bite is poisonous. Usually, it's not so there isn't much to worry about." Rutherford said.
"That does make me feel better. So, it's really just like killing slower monsters that have to have their heads cut off?" I asked.
"Basically," Rutherford said, shrugging like it was no big deal.
We continued to walk and the noises and smells got stronger as we went. After another twenty-minute walk, we came to an opening where the path ended in a giant room. What we saw there made us all stop and move back to hide behind the wall of the pathway.
"You saw what I saw right?" I asked.
"Hundreds of undead all milling about? Nearly so many bodies they didn't have enough room to move around? Yeah, I think we saw what you saw," Tristan replied.
"So, can you turn them all Rutherford?"
"No, my spell can only target about two dozen at the absolute most. We are going to have to smash our way through," He said, almost with glee, rubbing his hands together.
"Rutherford, I still want you to use the spell as soon as we come around the corner. That will cause the ones closest to move back to give us some space. Vokin, keep blocking for us and strike when you can. Randal, attack from range and watch for whoever needs help the most. Tristan, this is kind of your thing right? So you just do what you do from the back to destroy as many as you can. I know you won't be able to raise them if their heads are cut off, but there should be other things you can do right?" I asked, barking orders to the others.
"Sure. Death's Toll, while a death magic spell, is extra effective against undead, ironically," He replied.
"Great! Aeolith, Zephyr, just kill as many things as you can without getting hurt or stuck behind enemy lines. Try to thin out the ones on our flanks if you can."
Both companions nodded their ascent.
"Alright, bear in mind what we saw with the wolves. These creatures could be infused with shadows. So if you have a light spell, have it ready, but keep it in reserve for if we start to get pushed back. Except for your Illumination spell, Rutherford. Keep that one going at all times."
We all agreed on the plan and moved back to the edge of the wall to peer around again. The undead didn't seem to have noticed us yet. I looked around the room one more time and suddenly pulled everyone back.
"Back of the room, far side, slightly off to the right there is a throne of some kind. And someone was sitting on it. I bet that is the necromancer controlling the undead. Tristan, can you take a quick peek to tell me what you think?"
"Sure thing. But your vision is way better than mine." Tristan replied.
He peered around the edge of the room and looked where I had indicated. He pulled is head back and looked pale.
"What was it?" I asked.
"That isn't just a necromancer, that is a lich." He said, his color fading even more.
"Wonderful news. Alright, slightly different plan. We are going to implement what I am now calling plan turn and burn. I will cast grease, then Rutherford will cast turn undead. After that, we charge out and need to light the grease on fire. Does anyone have a quick way to do that? One that isn't my fireball spell?" I asked, looking from face to face.
"Lad, just light a torch from one of our bags and toss it on there. Flint and steel here behind the wall first," Vokin said. "Not everything has to be lit with a fireball..."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Right, good call. OK, Vokin, light the torch and toss it on our way out. That way you are near the front. I will keep the lich off us for now, but we need to carve a path to him."
Everyone agreed and we started getting ready. I moved up to the edge of the tunnel and peered around the edge. I could hear Vokin using the flint and steel to work on starting a fire on a torch, the flint striking the steel in a continuous pattern. It stopped and I could see the light from behind me from the torch. I reached out and cast Grease at the edge of the milling zombies so that the area of effect got as many of the zombies as possible. A few of the zombies started to slip, but most were moving too slowly to fall. Then Rutherford came up behind me and stepped out into the room.
"The gods curse your existence and decry your vile presence. Be gone from this place!"
The spell took hold and almost two dozen undead seemed unable to get away from Rutherford fast enough. Unfortunately for them, they were also in the grease. They began to fall and then did everything they could to continue to get away. That meant trying to stand up, then giving up and crawling if they could. Most of what happened was splashing the grease onto those around them. Some made it out of the grease spot and were pushing against the others to move even further way, once again spreading the grease even further.
The rest of us rushed out of the tunnel and laid into the undead. Vokin went first and tossed the torch into the grease and it caught fire immediately. The zombies caught in the Grease caught fire. The zombies near the grease that had been splashed caught fire, and the ones touching the zombies trying to escape caught fire. It spread and spread, further and further into the crowd of zombies. We clearly got the attention of the lich as it floated above the zombies and began to move toward us. Vokin started attacking the zombies on the left side that were not on fire, Rutherford ran up as well and started smashing them with his hammer. I cast a Grasping Vines spell on the right side of the fire to stop the zombies there from surrounding us then followed behind Rutherford and Vokin watching what the lich was doing. Randal was behind me picking off the zombies that were trying to come around the edges of the fighting, and Tristan stood next to him casting spells into the horde as well. Suddenly over my shoulder leaped two large beasts. They smashed into the zombies on either side of Vokin and Rutherford, teeth biting and claws tearing apart victims with no mercy. I heard first a large roar, then a smaller one from Aeolith then Zephyr as they let their triumph be known to the room at large.
The lich saw this commotion and began moving toward them. It extended a hand and a green light formed in its palm. I hadn't been idle and had been preparing a Fireball spell right after the Grasping Vines, holding it while watching where the Lich would go. I sent a warning to Aeolith, who cast Dragon Sheild over herself and those around her. The barrier surrounded her along with Vokin and Rutherford. The barrier popped into existence as a bobble around her, catching zombies inside as well, and pushing some zombies a little further away from her around the outside of the bubble.
The Lich let the greenlight go right as I flung the fireball at it as hard as I could. The greenlight hit the barrier and spread over it with green flames rushing out in all directions. Cracks formed in the barrier and began to spread as the flames did, but the barrier held. While it was distracted firing that green flame spell at Aeolith, a fireball the size of a beachball impacted the Lich in the stomach and exploded, sending it flying backward in the air across the room.
With the Lich down for the moment, we focused on the undead horde. The Slaughter continued. Aeolith's shield had since been taken down by the undead beating on it, so she was throwing everything she had at the horde. Zephyr was doing a great job of keeping a lot of escaped undead off of Vokin's and Rutherford's opposite flank, still using the wall of flaming undead as a blocker to funnel the undead to a smaller space. I moved over to Vokin's left side to slash at an undead that was about to jump on his back, and when I slashed across its back, it exploded forward, raining guts and gore all over Vokin's left side. He paused with his shield raised, hunched his shoulders, then turned to his right and began retching. I had to pull him back for a moment and step in to attack the undead in his place.
"What the actual hell, Callan?!" He said to me, spitting to get the pieces out of his mouth.
"Sorry, Vokin!" I said between strikes, which still caused the undead to explode. "I really wasn't thinking about what would happen, I was just trying to keep them off your back."
A few more spitting sounds came from behind me followed by retching again. Then a shield bashed the undead next to me and Vokin was back in the fray. I stepped back again to let him fill in the spot. Just as I stepped back there was an extremely loud hissing noise coming from the back of the room.
"Enough of this!" Came a whispering voice that almost sounded like when someone tries to talk while inhaling.
A wave of power erupted over us and all fighting stopped. The undead took a step back and the Lich floated over the undead. His outfit was burned and I could see his pale, emaciated flesh under the robe where there was now a hole. He was clearly miffed at being hit with that fireball.
"You will not come here and disturb me and leave alive!" The Lich hissed.
I began casting something and I didn't know exactly what to do at that moment, so I hit him with a Shocking Bolt. The bolt of electricity arced toward him and bounced off of a purple-colored barrier in front of him. Clearly, it had gotten wiser about needing to have its shields up.
"Spread out! I'll draw its attention. Carve a path to it!"
The team all moved and I looked up at the Lich.
"There's more where that fireball came from. Come and get me ugly. Unless you're scared?"
The Lich's eyes narrowed slightly at this and it turned to face me with the growing ball of power between its hands. The rest of my team began killing the undead who seemed to be woken from their stupor by the first strike from a weapon and the battle continued. The Lich stayed focused on me though. It shot its hands forward finally, releasing a wave of power at me. I threw up my Dragon Shield and the magic waws stopped. It kept pushing against my barrier though, and soon I was engulfed in a sea of purple fire that was covering the whole shield. Cracks began to form in the shield and then spread across the surface. Just when I thought it would crack and consume me, the fires went out. That was when I saw the energy bolt streaking toward my shield. I didn't have time to move and it struck my shield causing it to break and disappear, and the bolt hit me square in the chest, knocking me off my feet and throwing me back toward the tunnel entrance.
Man, that hurt. I was laying there writhing on the ground for a moment and looked at my health bar. A third of my health was gone in one hit. I rolled over and got to my feet. I saw the Lich staring at me and laughing. I cast a couple of Minor Healings on myself to get a bit of health back and stepped forward.
"Alright. Not too bad. But now it's time the gloves came off. If you think you can take me then come and get some. Or are you scared of me?"
The Lich stopped laughing and looked at me again. Hatred coming to its face. It flew down toward me and I readied myself. It pulled out a dagger and came down to meet me at an angle. I caught its strike on my sword and sparks flew from the spot where the blades met. From the Lich's blade dark sparks flew, and from my sword sparks of light were thrown. We both stood there battling back and forth, pushing for all we were worth. It became apparent though that the Lich was quite a bit stronger than I was. It began pushing me back, and while I was able to keep my blade in front of me, I was leaving furrows in the ground with my feet as I was slowly pushed back.
Grunting with effort, I held on and dug my heels in to try to hold the Lich at bay. I looked it in the eye and grinned at it through gritted teeth. It stopped pushing quite so hard and looked at me slightly confused. That was when I opened my mouth and shot it in the face, point blank range with a light breath attack. The Lich flopped back off of me and onto the ground, landing square on its back. Not about to miss the moment of opportunity I created, I jumped forward with my sword and went to stab the Lich in the chest as I jumped.
The Lich, whose face was now ruined, looked up at me and scowled as it rolled out of the way of the blade coming down at it.
"Callan!" Rutherford called from the line.
"I'm fine! Focus on keeping the Undead off me. I got this!" I called back.
The Lich was back to its feet and flew over to me and we exchanged blows. He struck with the dagger and I blocked it and I attacked with my sword and he blocked. We went back and forth, back and forth attacking and blocking. After a few hits, the Lich began to speed up and I couldn't block all of his strikes. I began to get small cuts on my arm from the speed of his strikes. They were not deep wounds, but the damage was adding up. I was now down to only half my health.
I sent a message to Aeolith mentally.
"I need a distraction. This guy is getting faster and faster and soon I'm not going to be able to block the stronger strikes."
Aeolith sent me a feeling of affirmation and apparently began using her front feet to begin digging through the horde of undead. Bodies began flying backward and some hit the back of the Lich. The Lich began to get angrier and angrier every time it was hit in the back with a body. It finally struck me in the stomach with the dagger and I grunted. The Lich turned its head to look at where the bodies were coming from, assuming I was going to be down for a moment from the knife to my gut. Instead, I gritted my teeth, stepped forward driving the dagger even further into my gut, and used Powerful Blow with my sword.
I growled in rage as I brought the strike across horizontally right as the Lich was turning to look at me. It's one remaining eye went wide with horror as it saw what I was doing. The sword came across its neck and there was an explosion that removed its head from its body and flung me backward. I was lifted off my feet from the explosion and landed on my back. Down to less than twenty-five percent of my health. I lay there for a moment breathing heavily.
As the Lich died, the remaining undead fell over with no magic left to animate them. The team ran back over to me to see how I was doing. I had a dagger in my abdomen, was bleeding from over a dozen cuts, and had a blackened spot on my chest armor. Rutherford went to work healing me. He kneeled down over me and started casting. He then yanked the dagger out causing me to spasm and groan in pain before the healing magic washed over me and reduced the pain to a dull roar. Aeolith was standing over me looking down with concern.
"Don't worry, I got him," I said as I smiled up at her.
She let out a puff of air to show her displeasure at my antics. But she sent me feelings of relief and love at the same time through our bond. I chuckled slightly.
"Callan that was a stupid thing to do. You could have been killed," Rutherford said.
Now it was Aeolith's turn to chuckle.
"I know, but we had to deal with it and the horde at the same time. There had to be almost a thousand undead in this room and then the Lich throwing spells at us too. Someone had to distract it," I said. "And I had a few tricks up my sleeve to help with dealing with him."
Vokin came over as well holding a blood-covered shield and axe.
"I'm not even mad about the gore covering anymore. Ye got yer payback from that Lich. Though I feel bad about the stabbing."
"You know you thought it was justified for just a moment," I said, smiling up at him.
"Maybe just a moment," He said, smiling back.
It was OK to joke about it now that I was going to be OK. Rutherford finished healing me and gave me a hand up to my feet.
"Thanks, man. I was getting a little worried there at the end." I said to him grasping his wrist.
"You did well, even though it was a stupid, stupid thing to take on a Lich by yourself." He replied.
"I had it under control. Besides, all these creatures seem to be infused with shadows and my sword does a pretty good job of dealing with that."
"Ye mean it does a pretty good job of blowing them to bits all over yer friends?" Vokin chimed in.
We all had a good laugh at that.
"This could take a while, but we need to try to search the undead and find anything of value," I said. "there must be something on the Lich if nothing else. And there sure are a lot of weapons. We could take them back to Jewelston to hand out to the citizens to use in case there is a battle coming."
We moved out to start searching the bodies. I moved to search the Lich first. It had a couple of rings, a necklace, and a pouch at its waist. I Inspected the items to see what they were.
Item:
Necklace The Crypt
Item Type: Accessory
Durability: 130/130
Enchantment: Wearing this necklace will give the wearer 5 additional undead summoning slots
Item Quality: Well Crafted
Item Rarity: Rare
Item:
Ring of Spell Storage
Item Type: Accessory
Durability: 30/30
Enchantment: This ring allows the user to store one spell in it for instant use at any time.
Item Quality: Well Crafted
Item Rarity: Uncommon
Item:
Ring of Health
Item Type: Accessory
Durability: 30/30
Enchantment: Wearing this ring will give the wearer +50 HP
Item Quality: Well Crafted
Item Rarity: Uncommon
"Tristan, is this necklace better than the one you have right now?" I said and I read him the item's description.
"It is!" He said, and he lit up.
I handed it to him and he took off his old necklace and equipped the new one. I put on the other two rings and looked at the pouch. It was a small bag of holding, and inside of it were some alchemy ingredients, four hundred gold, two hundred and fifty silver, and fifty-eight copper. I took the items out and put them in my bag of holding and then handed the bag of holding to Tristan. He lit up again and accepted it gratefully.
Finally, I took the dagger that the Lich had stabbed me with and inspected it as well.
Item:
Dagger of Undeath
Item Type: Weapon
Durability: 164/200
Attack: 45-85 damage
Skill: Create Undead - This skill will activate 50% of the time when an enemy is struck. When it does activate, the person hit with this blade will be turned into an undead to serve you.
Item Quality: Well Crafted
Item Rarity: Rare
That was not good. I had no idea that I could have been killed that easily and with any of the strikes that had hit me. I sat there for a moment thanking my Luck stat for carrying me through. Maybe a few more points there later wouldn't be bad. I also gave this dagger to Tristan. This fight had been something right up his alley.
I went to help the rest of the team with going through the undead. The majority of the gear was just crap. It was rusted and had holes in it or was falling completely apart, in the case of most of the leather armor. We were able to find a few pieces of chainmail that seemed salvageable, some helmets, swords, daggers, axes, spears, maces, and a few other weapons. We placed them in a pile while we searched for other items. It took us several hours to go over every undead and search the room for items. Nothing else of value was found, so I took the items and put them in my bag of holding.
We regrouped in the spot where we had entered the room to decide what to do next.
"Did anyone see the way out from here?" I asked.
"There was another tunnel behind the Lich's throne that seems to lead on in a downward spiral like the tunnel we followed here. I would guess it just continues like that for however many floors are in this dungeon," Rutherford said.
"Great. I guess that is the way we have to go. Any objections, or other ideas?" I asked, looking from person to person and even looking to Aeolith and Zephyr to make sure they understood they were part of the team as well.
No one said anything so we decided to head over to the tunnel to see what was waiting for us around the next bend.