Blue words were floating above the monster’s head, courtesy of Max’s new Insight levels.
Custodian of the Genomic Library of Amun
The creepy ant/lobster wasn’t a monster, it was a person. Max had hissed for James to stop his attack, hopefully in time.
James dropped his hand and whispered back, “What? What is it?”
“That isn’t a monster. It’s a NPC or something,” Max replied.
“Max, that’s a monster if I’ve ever seen one,” Gus said.
“No, it’s a person. I picked Insight and now I can identify stuff. That guy over there has a title, ‘Custodian of the Genomic Library’. It’s gotta be an NPC, or some new alien we haven’t met yet. Either way, we don’t attack until we know if it’s hostile.”
They stood there for a second, neither side moving. Eventually, Max gestured for the five of them to move forward. Yang had disappeared at some point. Apparently, she had heard the whispered conversation though, because she hadn’t attacked.
When they were ten feet away, the ant/lobster/person moved for the first time.
It turned to them and said, “You are trespassing. Leave now or you will be killed.”
It’s voice was painfully screechy, but the translation magic hinted that he had a calm voice. The disjunction between the sound and the magic hints was grating on his mind. Max squinted and carried on. It was encouraging that the person could talk and was willing to give warnings.
“Actually, we would like to leave. Can you help us with that?” Max tentatively said.
“No! I am not here to help you! I am here to protect the library!” the person said and slammed a pair of exoskeleton fists down on the bush in front of it. It put its hands on its waist, where two exoskeleton knives rested.
Max was thrown by the answer. He had been expecting a quest giver or someone to give them background on the genomic library. Now he was thinking that they had programmed it to respond just for entertainment. Some flavor text before the fight kicked off. Max gripped his war hammer tighter and looked to his sides to see if they were ready to fight.
Lily took that as an invitation to talk. She said, “Is there something we can help you with?”
The person tilted its head to the side. “Are you here to help?”
Lily smiled and said, “Yes, we are. What do you need help with?”
“It’s those rotting parasites. The bloody things are everywhere. Did the manager send you here to help me exterminate them?”
“Indeed. That’s why we are armed. We heard the parasites were nasty, particularly for someone of our level.” Lily was fully into the roll now.
The bug person leaned forward a bit and looked at them closer. “Rot and pus. Why did the manager send people so low leveled? These aren’t some tail chiggers. They spit sucralose acetate, that’s not something people of your level can handle.”
“Well, I think you know why the manager does these things better than we do.”
“Yeah, yeah. Always focused on the profit margin. What he doesn’t realize is that every day these bloodsuckers wander the library, we lose valuable genomes. It’s costing him big money to cheap out on the pest control,” the custodian waved his hand. “Come on. Let’s get you lot a coagulant sprayer. It’s pretty much impossible to kill the parasites without one.”
He waved them over to the left and led them along the wall.
As they walked, Gus whispered, “Didn’t Ebba say these guys were the bad guys?”
“No, she said they are hostile, we only have to kill the blood bags to progress through the level. I think the guild’s hunters never tried talking to him before.”
“Really? No one tried talking to the lobster janitor in the years they have run the dungeon?”
“No, months, remember? The dungeons change all the time. Ebba acted like it was unusual that the dungeon stayed the same for three months straight,” Max said.
“That’s right. I forgot. It’s probably a pain to try and figure out the right approach to the NPCs if the dungeon is going to just change by the next time you come back. Easier just to steamroll everything.”
“What’s an NPC?” Yang said. She had joined their group without anyone noticing. Sneaky.
Max said, “It stands for Non Player Character. This custodian was programmed by the tower to remember a history that doesn’t exist. They’re here to help the dungeon runners understand what we’re supposed to do.”
“I heard that,” the custodian said from the front of the line. “In fact, I heard everything you said since I entered the library. And I don’t appreciate you saying I’ve been programmed.”
A chill ran down Max’s back. Was the custodian about to turn on them?
“Sorry about that, no offense meant,” Lily said in a bright voice.
“Sure, sure. All’s forgiven. This time.” the ant/lobster/person said and loomed over them.
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Max gulped. That was a threat. He decided to pretend this was all real from here on out.
The custodian turned back to what he was doing. He was standing in front of a large column of flesh, pushing his hands inside the folds of skin. He grabbed a bladder from one fold and pushed it into another. When he was done, he turned and presented it. It looked like a sheep’s bladder meshed with a water sprayer. With an asshole for a nozzle.
Max couldn’t be happier when the custodian handed the still dripping thing to Lily. She accepted it with a forced smile.
“I assume you know how this works, the manager wouldn’t have sent you if you didn’t,” the chitin covered person said firmly.
“Of course we know,” Lily lied through her teeth.
“Good, good. Your first job is to clear the three parasites in this room, easy stuff. It’s the next rooms that are the real hassle. I need ya to clear out all the way to the twelfth room. When ya done, come back here for payment. The manager left ya some stuff. Don’t come back until the final data storage room is complete, otherwise I’ll have to assume you’re trying to sabotage the library. I would take appropriate actions to stop that.”
“Thank you, custodian. What are the other rooms like? They didn’t tell us much before they sent us in,” Lily said.
“Oh, you know, standard stuff for a library. Mostly genome repositories like this one, two rooms of trait catalogs, and two data storage rooms. The parasite infection started in there, so watch yourself. They probably got big. Oh, and watch out for the security measures. They got activated when the parasites broke containment and I can’t turn them off from here.”
“Security measures? What do they look like?”
The custodian clacked their mandibles. “Good question, good question. Dunno. I only maintain the first few rooms which don't have security. I've never seen the high value rooms that need security. All I heard was that the security measures are set up near the floor.” He tapped the base of a flesh column.
“What-” Lily began before she got cut off.
“Enough jawing. Get to work. You got what you need, time to earn your pay,” the custodian said and sharply gestured towards the other side of the room.
“Yes, sir. I look forward to seeing you again when we are done,” Lily said politely.
“Yep, yep. Just don’t destroy too many books, ya hear?” the bug person said and pointed at the organ plants at his feet.
Lily nodded and turned to Max expectantly. Apparently she only wanted to lead in conversion, not combat. Max nodded and started walking towards the other side of the room. It was a surprisingly large room. Even though the whole floor was larger than a football field, Ebba said there were 36 hexagon shaped rooms inside.
Max threaded through the columns of flesh, being careful not to step on the colorful organ plants.
When they were far enough away, he turned back and said, “Good job, Lily. We didn’t have to fight that guy and now we have a tool. You are now our negotiator.”
She flicked her fingers. “That’s the easy part. It’s the fighting that’s the hard part.”
Max nodded. “For sure. Anyway, do you think you know how to use that thing?”
“Not a clue. I don’t even know what it does,” Lily said as she examined the dripping bladder.
James spoke up. “It’s a coagulant sprayer. I bet it sprays out a poison that coagulates the monster’s blood in their veins.”
Lily jerked the bladder away and held it at arm’s length. She made sure to point the pucker away from herself.
Max kept an eye out as they talked, scanning for the monsters they were supposed to kill. The custodian acted like this room would be easy to clear, but Max doubted it. He was pretty sure even one of these parasites would be enough to kill all of them if they weren’t careful.
Despite his attentiveness, it was Ashley that found the first monster. She had been silent since they entered the dungeon, but now she had something important to say.
“Watch out! Behind us!” she yelled and pointed.
Max barely turned to see the monster hiding behind a nearby flesh column. It had a round body about five feet tall. There were two small tentacles coming from its top and it was slithering forward on six large tentacles. Its body was mottled red with snot yellow tentacles and had slimy wet skin. When Ashley pointed out its hiding place, it instantly reacted.
Its body split in half horizontally and opened up to reveal a huge mouth. The mouth was full of long narrow teeth, each one with a broken off tip and dripping blood. Its maw was big enough to eat any one of them in two bites. With a hiss, the monster shot forward, its mouth wide. It aimed for the last person in line, which happened to be James.
He cringed back and held up his pathetically small buckler shield. The monster chomped down on his entire arm. Just as the jagged teeth were about to touch him. a flash of green spread out from his buckler. The magic pushed the parasite’s mouth wide open and knocked it back a few feet.
A gurgling cry came from the monster as it recovered from the shock. Yang appeared from behind a nearby column and stabbed down into the top of its body. The entire short sword sunk into the monster, only stopping at the hilt. A splash of blood flew out from the impact, the same color as its skin. Max realized that the monster wasn’t just red, it was covered in blood, head to tentacle.
The parasite’s cry turned into a shriek and it twisted away from Yang. The move was strong enough to yank the sword out of her hands. The monster jumped back and hissed. If it was inconvenienced by the sword in its body, it didn’t show it. It turned and leapt at Yang.
She was quick enough to jump out of the way of its mouth, but not quick enough to avoid a tentacle as the monster flew by. One of its leg tentacles caught her on the hip and spun her in the air. When they both landed, the tentacle was still attached with a row of barbs. It yanked the barbs back and took half of her armored skirt with it.
By now, the rest of them had realized they were in a fight and sprung into action. James shot out a glass shard that hit the monster dead on. It stuck in two inches before it disappeared.
Lily summoned her mushroomantis. It was bigger this time, with a wider stalk and four beefy legs. It stomped over to the monster and leaned its cap over. Mantis blades shot out from beneath its cap, a half dozen of them sticking into the monster's flesh and opening up long gashes. A warbling cry rang out as the parasite writhed in pain. It shot out three tentacles and wrapped up the mushroomantis, squeezing it tight.
The blue summon seemed unphased by the grapple, it kept stabbing and stabbing. A few moments later the tentacles burst through the summon’s skin and popped it into a mist of blue. Lily gasped like she had been hit.
Max took the opening to bring his war hammer down on the monster’s head. The hammer’s magic activated and blasted down in a dome. A divot instantly formed on the monster’s head and shot downwards. The parasite slammed to the floor and blood spurt out of all of the monster’s wounds. It was enough to paint the surroundings in blood and partially dislodge the sword.
The monster lay there, lifeless. Max didn’t see any orb appear, so he hit it again. And again. It didn’t move. Finally, the message he was expecting came.
Minor amount of essence gathered
Max sucked in a few big lungfuls of air. That fight had only lasted a few seconds, but it was a lot. They almost lost James to the ambush, Yang lost a quarter of her armor, Lily’s summon only lasted a few seconds, and Max’s super strike charge was used up. All that against a single weak monster. He couldn’t imagine how they were going to clear this whole dungeon.
A gurgling cry came from their left and their right. It didn’t sound close, but the whole room was less than a hundred feet wide, everywhere was too close.
“I think they heard us and they’re coming this way,” Ashley said.