The rest of the trip through the tunnels was mostly uneventful. We did end up encountering two more bodies, totaling four up to that point. They were the unfortunate victims of a spiked pitfall trap, but I failed to identify the trigger mechanism that would have set it off. The mystery was later solved, however, as I stepped into an intersection and felt a miniscule wave of cold pass over me. Before I realized what had happened, a slab of stone came falling from the ceiling, separating our party in two. Thankfully, I was able to cut a small passageway through the surprise wall with a little bit of magic, and we were reunited.
The trap left us slightly shaken for a while, but ultimately didn’t do much to slow us down. We carried on for a few more hours, fiercely fighting against paranoia and boredom. Eventually, the intersections started to thin out and fully disappear, leaving just one long tunnel to traverse. After what felt like another hour of walking down a never ending hallway, a solitary door popped into view. Relief washed over me as we made it to the door, the potential end of the maze in sight.
“The epicenter should be through this door,” said Irayim. I placed an ear to the door to see if I could hear anything inside, but there were no sounds from within. Instead, I was hit by the disgusting scent of burnt and rotting flesh. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the room, feeling for any turbulent energy. What I saw was a violent whirlwind of color, densely packed into the room, slowly drifting toward the middle.
“It feels… big. I don’t like what’s on the other side of this door,” I said. The others looked at me with confusion, and I remembered that aside from being from Earth, there were many odd things about me on Astema. “Right. I can see magical energy, and there’s enough blowing around in there to make that firebomb seem like a light breeze. Judging by the smell, the other dungeoneers found that out the hard way.” We sat in silence for a moment, contemplating our next move.
“We have three more bottles of holy fire,” Arlis began. “There will probably be more of those creatures, but I should be able to take care of them. Beyond that, my magic won’t be very useful, as Buhtal is my patron.” While physical augmentation could likely be useful in a number of dungeon scenarios, these enemies were immune to physical strikes. Our magic would be the only way to deal with whatever was on the other side of the door.
“As long as you don’t throw them so close, that should be fine. I won’t have time to heal any of you in a fight,” I said. “I’ll do what I can, but realistically speaking, I’ve only been able to use magic for a few days. Is there any particular spell that I should use?”
“Fire will be sufficient,” Irayim stated. “But, so long as your attack is magical in nature, it will work all the same.” I nodded in understanding, and started steadying my breath. My plan was to unleash hell the moment the door was open. Arlis and Selka seemed to be of the same mindset, preparing themselves to act as trebuchets, bombs at the ready. I signaled for Irayim to open the door, and we charged into the room.
To call it a room would have been unfair, actually. The scale hadn’t properly translated through the energy I was seeing before. We found ourselves standing in a massive underground cavern, as well lit as where we initially entered the ruins. The ground was uneven and wet, speckled with patches of stalagmites and the occasional puddle. The center of the area contained the largest of the stalagmites, the top having snapped off and fallen to the floor next to it. Crowning the natural pedestal was a colossal gemstone, quintuple terminated, and all of the colors of the rainbow and then some.
The magical energy in the cavern was all spinning around the crystal and making its way inside as it reached the middle. It was a beautiful and daunting sight, almost enough to distract from the horde of monsters congregating there. Almost. My stomach twisted into knots as my eyes fell upon seven in particular that stood out. Mixed in with the crowd were the reanimated corpses of the previous parties. Some were missing limbs, others were mutilated to the point they wouldn’t have registered as bodies, had they still not been wearing pieces of their armor.
“CLIMB! NOW,” I ordered. We were already outnumbered two to one, and that was before factoring in the dozens of abominations like the ones from the tunnels. The monsters rebuffed my order with a deafening screech, causing blood to leak from my ears as the sound reverberated in the open chamber. Without hesitation, the dead dungeoneers sprinted forward, as we tried to get to higher ground.
I managed to take a running leap up onto a small ledge, and fired a round at the nearest opponent. Surprisingly, the round staggered him, and I followed it up with another to the head. While I had hoped it would be a kill shot, it wasn’t. Not zombies, then, I thought. However, it did seem to at least have a stunning effect. Arlin made his way atop the ledge beside me, and tossed one of his flasks past Selka and Irayim, shattering it on the ground between them and the advancing enemies.
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Two of the corpses and a good five or six abominations were immolated upon impact, reducing them to piles of ash like their comrades in the labyrinth. I quickly holstered my pistol and closed my eyes. Focusing on the fire, I forced it to expand sideways, cutting off a large avenue of pursuit. Another handful of enemies were vaporized before they managed to redirect their momentum. Irayim and Selka didn’t waste any time utilizing the destruction and made their way over to us.
The historian was struggling to make the climb, so Selka took a knee to boost him up. As Irayim’s hand reached the ledge, I grabbed on to pull him up. Suddenly, he was torn from my hands by a streak of red and silver, and I heard a horrid crunching sound. I looked over to see one of the dungeoneers, limbs glowing a harsh red, standing over the man’s pulverized body. Before I could even process what I had witnessed, a thick band of purple energy shot forth from the crystal and into Irayim.
Immediately, his body began to twist and contort, then sprung up from the ground, barely resembling what he did before. Bones were sticking out at harsh angles in places that only skin should call home, his head caved in and missing an eye. The body that had previously belonged to Irayim screeched out, as if to announce its newfound suffering, and charged at us.
Changing gears, I empowered my arm and dropped to my stomach, grabbing a hold of Selka before the same fate could befall him. I pulled hard, the magical enhancement making him nearly as light as a feather, and it wasn’t a moment too soon. Irayim’s corpse grabbed Selka’s boot as I lifted him, thankfully not taking the man down with it. The dungeoneer placed a hand on one of his flasks, ready to throw it down below, but I placed my hand on his to block the action.
“We have to make sure not to burn him up,” I pleaded, staring daggers at the dungeoneers.. “While you two were unconscious in the maze, he used a teleport shard to retrieve a healer. If he’s gone, so is our way out of here.” As I explained, three more of the reanimated bodies managed to jump up to another section of the ledge. In the blink of an eye, a firebomb was on the way, burning them right up and leaving only one remaining flask. The swarm of abominations had also reached us by then, and were trying to claw their way up to us.
Luckily for us, they weren’t exactly very nimble, and their success was limited. I managed to keep them at bay with some fire of my own, killing six in the process. As I tried to come up with a way out that didn’t involve any more losses, I saw more abominations appearing out of thin air around the crystal, and an idea formed in my head.
Without further thought, I grabbed the last of the explosives and empowered my legs, leaping over the crowd of enemies. A few stayed behind to try to get to my party, but the majority wanted the supposed easy prey. Getting on ground level with a horde of monsters that just killed someone in front of my eyes as easily as he were a fly was admittedly not a great idea, but I’d managed to outrun a knell, so I had hope that I’d prevail. The main difficulty was going to lay in balancing avoiding terrain hazards and monster hazards, and I had about two hundred yards to close if I were able to run in a straight line. Precision was key, but I had been practicing for situations like these for half of my life.
I ducked in and out of stalagmites narrow archways, changed direction by rocketing sideways off of nearby wales, and anything else I could muster while maintaining my footing. Every turn I took, every course correction, every dive, revealed another opponent. I was making progress, but it was slow. Out of desperation, I fired a shot at the crystal as I leapt over a cluster of the shadow beings. Unfortunately, the bullet ricocheted off, landing uselessly on the floor.
One of the monsters took advantage of the break in my focus as I landed on the ground, getting a good swipe across my stomach before I managed to power back up, just barely missing the plate in my vest. It felt like I had been doused in acid, causing me to stumble and slip. Time slowed as I fell to the ground, and I desperately threw the firebomb in the direction of the crystal, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to reach. As I watched it sail through the air, two more of the monsters closed in on me.
I felt ribs crack as one pounced on top of me, and another tore clean into my arm. I felt myself being sliced up more, the process slowed by what armor I was wearing. Pain overwhelmed my senses as I was torn apart. An intense heat suddenly enveloped me, overpowering that of the claws. I latched onto the feeling, almost simultaneously as cold as it was hot, as I heard screeching and recognition made its way in. Along with the burning, came the intense black energy of the magical firebomb.
I wrapped myself in it like a blanket, burning off my attackers. Gathering what strength I could, I stood and charged at the crystal, still wrapped in fire. Several monsters tried to attack me as I made my way there, alongside the dead dungeoneers, but they evaporated as they got close. After what felt like an eternity, I reached the pedestal housing the crystal and jumped, just barely managing to cling onto the ledge. The pain was excruciating, but I pushed through. Eventually, I got my hand on my target.
Immediately, I was thrown off the edge by a violent shockwave that shot through the entire cavern. As I came crashing down toward the ground, I saw the abominations start to come apart piece by piece, rejoining the surrounding energy as the blast reached them. I hit the ground hard, knocking the wind – and nearly the consciousness – out of me. Once I regained my breath, a violent chill overtook me, causing my remaining muscles to spasm painfully. I finally let out a bloodcurdling scream, succumbing to the pain now that the threat was gone. I heard footsteps charging toward me as I started to slip from consciousness, but was too spent to see if my time was up. The last thing I experienced before passing out was a blinding flash of light, joined by a building hum.