The bells rang out in Broken Tusk, a song Theo thought he might not ever hear again. Compared to the last time the town was under attack, things were more organized this time around. While he wasn’t aware of it before, the alchemist observed Aarok’s commanders directing people through the town. People flooded from the eastern gates and the train, pouring from Qavell, Rivers, and Gronro. They must have trained for this, as the organization was too great for any other possibility.

Summoning his tactical map, Theo watched as the forces moved into position. He made his way through town, feeling Tresk and Alex flying overhead somewhere. Her job was to provide information to the assembled defenders, doing fly-overs. It was clear the monsters were coming from the Swamp Dungeon, but Xol’sa had that problem sorted. The alchemist arrived at the command tent not long after, seeking answers. Aarok, Luras, and Xol’sa were assembled. The space elf looked tired, taking shallow breaths as he sputtered.

“I should have seen it coming.” Xol’sa turned, giving Theo a worried look. “We should’ve seen it, Theo!”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Theo approached the table. Xol’sa was talking about the godly energy fading from the world. Of course it would interact with the dungeons, how couldn’t it? They were tied directly to the heavens, often siphoning energy from the realms. Even some of Tero’gal’s energy still penetrated the veil, adding some power to the world’s dungeons.

“As though we’re unprepared,” Luras said, smirking at the group. “The walls would hold without defenders. We’ll be fine.”

“Maybe.” Aarok rubbed the stubble on his chin, shaking his head at the map. “Something feels off.”

“Because something is off.” Xol’sa thrust his hand into the air, generating a complex array that hovered over the table. He poked at things that Theo could barely recognize, let alone understand. “This mistake is my fault. The godly energies aren’t even half the problem. What we’re dealing with is the void energy leaking through the realm of my people. Bringing one of them here was like punching a hole in a barrel. We just tapped into the pure void.”

Theo clicked his tongue. “That’s not possible. I control the void.”

“You travel through the void, you don’t control it,” Xol’sa corrected. “That’s like saying you can swim, therefore you’re the master of the ocean.”

“You don’t have to be mean about it,” Theo said in mock offense.

“How can void energy change a dungeon?” Aarok asked, changing the subject to something productive.

“Gods know,” Xol’sa said. “Stronger dungeons. More dungeons. Sapient dungeons—I can’t say.”

“This wouldn’t be the first time someone brought something nasty to Broken Tusk,” Luras said, waving a dismissive hand. “And it won’t be the last. We’ve got this.”

“Go weave some magic, Xol’sa,” Theo said. “We can discuss impacts later. Right now, we need to blow some stuff up.”

“Hell yeah!” Tresk shouted somewhere above.

“Get to work, you lizard!” Theo shouted up.

“You’re a lizard!” Tresk shot back. But she was already gone, sealing the exchange.

The alchemist instead turned his attention to the tactical map. They had every advantage they had used in the past. The swamp was hard to move through, even for high-level monsters. Unless there were flying enemies, it would be a slaughter in the marsh. Even then, the many towers that lined the walls of the town bristled with power. Artifice tubes fed them faux coins, sending their damage outputs to absurd levels. It might have been a small town in the eyes of the world, but Broken Tusk had never held back on defensive measures.

“Oh, that’s messed up,” Tresk spoke into Theo’s mind.

“Ew! Ew! Ew!” Alex shouted. “Someone get me a knife. Peace was never an option.”

“What?” Theo asked, speaking the words out loud. He shook his head, switching to the telepathic channel. “What’s going on?”

“We ain’t gonna have trouble with this wave, Theo. I think I might puke, though.”

Theo sent his sight to that of Tresk’s. One moment he was standing under a hide tent, and the next he was soaring in the air. He looked down at… a nightmare. The Swamp Dungeon usually created goblins and wolves. Sometimes it created turtles, but it was mostly goblins and wolves. The creatures that poured over the swap were wrong. Goblins with too many legs. Others with too few. Goblin-wolf hybrids and other visions of horror. One thing was certain between each of the creatures, though. The ways they had changed were not helpful.

“Good lord,” Theo said, removing himself from the command tent. He assumed his normal sight, rushing over to stop Xol’sa before he ascended the battlements. “The goblins are all messed up.”

“How?” Xol’sa asked.

Theo took the steps to the battlements, explaining what he saw in the marsh below Tresk and Alex.

“By the gods,” Xol’sa said. The adventurers on the wall cleared a spot for them, but the goblins were still too distant to see.

“Any ideas?”

Xol’sa shrugged, clicking his tongue a few times. “I guess I should be an expert on spatial energy, right? I can’t think of anything that would create useless evolutions.”

“Will it be a problem if we blow them up?” Theo asked.

“It shouldn’t be. Destroying the monsters will dissipate the void energy.”

The bell had only just stopped ringing. Now it rang again, more frantic this time.

[Aarok]: Who would have guessed? Commanders, check your notifications in the town’s interface. We have more waves coming from the north and south.

“That makes sense,” Xol’sa said. “Go figure. Here, let me share the dungeon threat indicator…”

[Swamp Dungeon] L45 Attacking

[River Dungeon] L30 Imminent Threat

[Mountain Dungeon] L25 Attacking

[Hills Dungeon] L15 Attacking

[Ocean Dungeon] L30 Imminent Threat

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

[Cave Dungeon] L65 Imminent Threat

Theo blinked a few times, allowing his mind to catch up. More Intelligence was needed. “That’s every dungeon,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Yes, this is concerning,” Xol’sa said, scratching his head furiously. “The energy should have empowered the dungeons, but it didn’t. I have a theory, may I go work on it?”

“Not gonna blow stuff up?” Theo asked. He shook his head a moment later. “No, you should be fine. Those goblins didn’t look like much of a threat.”

“I’ll be back!”

Theo watched the lines for a while until the first few goblins came into view. They were messed up, so he tried not to look at them. But one got close enough to the lightning tower and was zapped without fanfare. Aarok approached, leaning against the wall a moment later.

“I have mixed feelings about this,” he said.

“I’m moving my golems around. Don’t worry about the underground dungeon, they’ll keep that secure. Just let me know which direction needs the most reinforcement.”

“Send them south,” Aarok commanded. “How many can you spare.”

“A few hundred. Wherever you need them.”

“Half south and half east,” Aarok said. “Yeah, these goblins are… weird, but we can’t let our guard down. Each wave will have a boss, and I’m not eager to see what it’ll throw at us.”

Theo sighed as he leaned against the wall. He had sent his mental command to all his golems. They were lumbering into position, but it would take them a while. “This reminds me of the old days.”

“What, last season?” Aarok asked with a laugh. “You haven’t been here that long.”

Theo shook his head. “If you consider most people spend about twelve hours a day wherever they are, I’ve been here for much longer. A single day for me is like four days for a normal person.”

“Fancy time-dilation guy over here,” Aarok mocked. He let out a bark-like laugh as another goblin was zapped “Okay, that’s kinda funny.”

“I’d be laughing my ass off if I wasn’t so horrified,” Theo said with a nod. Another goblin got zapped and he let out a small giggle. “Yeah, that was pretty good.”

Alex and Tresk flew overhead. Theo caught a glimpse of them. To his surprise, the goose-dragon had a knife in her mouth. He shook his head. If only there were a way to make a goose even more dangerous.

“Impact on the north wall,” Aarok said. “Troll-type monsters, but they’re just as screwed up as the goblins. Trog-like critters from the south. They’re slightly less messed up.”

“We’re only worried about the bosses, right? The system has a lot of control over those.” Theo cast his eyes skyward. This would be a great time for someone to explain what the hell was going on. But that connection was cut. Broken Tusk had to stand on her own two feet for this one.

“I expect they’ll be nasty.”

Theo withdrew Fenian’s communication crystal from his inventory. He squeezed it, but nothing happened. There was no answer on the other end. The only answers he would get from Khahar would be anything relating to their position as ascendant throne-holders. No, this was a storm they would weather. And that was it.

“Where do you need me?” Theo asked.

“I’ll send you orders as needed,” Aarok said, shrugging. “Just hang out, I guess.”

Theo watched as the battle developed. If the towers weren’t enough to handle the waves of enemies, the adventurers would mop them up. It became less about hiding behind the walls, and more about sorties. Packs of wolf-riding marshlings ranged out to sweep through the strange monsters. Several cadres of elven mages headed out with half-ogre hunters as guards. Throk employed a hand-held artifice that belched fire near the northern wall, helping with the trolls. The golems swept through insectoid creatures underground. It was the strangest fight the alchemist had ever witnessed.

After returning to the western gate, Theo waited for the Swamp Dungeon boss to spawn. The wave had thinned out to nothing, and people were cleaning up the goblins that couldn’t walk well. Shortly after he began waiting, a wave message appeared.

[ERROR Attack]

Monster Wave

Duration: ERROR

SYS

Dungeon

Effects:

Duration: Infinite, Swamp Attack, ERROR.

“That’s not good,” Theo breathed. “I think we broke the system.”

“No kidding,” a random adventurer said with a chuckle. “What do you think we’ll get?”

Theo narrowed his eyes on the horizon. “Ah, crap. Is that what I think it is?”

A gout of blue-black fire rose in the distance, met by normal orange fire. Theo watched as Tresk and Alex ascended into the sky, shooting balls of fire and flinging daggers down at the boss monster. A moment later, it broke through the trees, spreading leathery wings wide as it took flight.

[Boss Monster] spotted! ERROR DRAGON has been sighted. This monster is stronger than regular monsters, use caution.

A murmur spread through the defenders. This wasn’t just an aerial enemy, it was a damned dragon. Theo reached deep inside himself, waiting for his Dreamwalker’s Core to respond. But it didn’t. How could this be above board, as far as the system was concerned? It clearly violated some rules, especially those related to void-borne things coming to the mortal plane. But no, it was fine with it.

“Good thing Tresk is a badass,” Theo said, watching as Tresk and Alex danced through the air. They dodged attacks, sending just as many hits back as they took. The alchemist felt something drain from himself, both of his companions gaining a pair of horns and a whippy tail each. “Yeah, this should be over quickly.”

“Not a damned dragon!” Aarok shouted, stomping up the battlement stairs. “I’m starting to think bringing that elf back was a bad idea, Theo!”

“She’s got this,” Luras said, drawing his bow back and firing a pot-shot at the dragon. To everyone’s surprise, it hit. “That dragon is weak.”

The more Theo watched Tresk fight against the dragon, the more he realized how right Luras was. This wasn’t a true dragon, but some imitation created by the dungeon. It was likely hobbled the same way the goblins were, having too many defects to operate well. But the joy flooding from the marshling was unreal. She was having the time of her life. Fighting a dragon in the real world had been a goal of hers for a long time. And there she was, dashing through the air on the back of a dragon-goose, doing battle with her dragon.

“At least Tresk can die happy,” Theo said. “I can’t tell you how many times she has imagined fighting a dragon.”

“She often visits me in my dreams,” Luras said. “Bringing along a dragon…”

Theo smacked his forehead with the heel of his palm. “I thought I talked to her about that.”

“Good luck getting that girl to listen… She’s been like that her entire life,” Aarok said. “Always diving head-first into whatever.”

“That’s our psychotic lizard,” Theo said, nodding with pride.

True to his assumptions, the dragon was weak. There was something wrong with it, just like the other monsters. Theo held hope in his chest that the other bosses would be the same, but he wouldn’t hold his breath. It could have been the void energy, or the lacking power from the heavens, but something had caused the dungeons to screw up. Perhaps the void energy was just a catalyst, setting something greater into motion. Xol’sa would run some tests. It should be fine. Maybe.

It didn’t take long for the dragon to fall from the sky. The wave completion notification sprung up a moment later.

[Boss Monster] defeated! ERROR DRAGON has been slain. The remaining monsters have already been defeated.

[Monster Wave] complete!

256 Monsters Destroyed!

0 gold bonus (paid to the Mayor of Broken Tusk).

Bonus for defeat both wave bosses:

Obtained: Nothing.

“Oh, sweet,” Theo mocked. “Zero gold. Thanks for that.”

Alex swooped down, perching on the edge of the wall. Tresk dismounted, pumping her fists in the air. She marched over, chest thrown out as clapped for herself. “I killed a dragon!”

“You certainly did,” Theo said. “How was it?”

“Meh. Too easy.”

“Tough little girl, this one,” Luras said, nodding to Tresk with approval. “What level was it.”

“Question mark, question mark. I don’t think it really had a level,” Tresk shrugged. “Even those goblins were messed up.”

“Xol’sa will have answers for us,” Theo said. “If he doesn’t, I’ll do my best to petition the gods.”

“Can you even do that?” Aarok asked.

Theo shrugged. “If they don’t answer, I can ask the system itself.”

Aarok gave Theo a flat look. “You can talk to the system?”

“Yeah. Kinda. She’s made of gems.”

“Perhaps that should have been your first course of action…”

“Just because I have the power to talk to the system doesn’t mean I don’t crap my pants when I go to that place,” Theo countered. “Let’s take care of the other waves before I head off to chat. At least we got some dragon bones out of this.”

“Nope. He exploded,” Tresk said.

“The dragon exploded?” Theo asked. “Did you explode it?”

“Nah, just exploded on his own.”

“Of course it did. Because why would we get anything nice for all this effort?”