The Dungeon Portal’s first triangular face led directly to the 16th Level. It was seen as a rite of passage, to graduate from the pentagonal faces that opened to the first dozen and move into the very first Copper-ranked level. Anyone with a writ could use the Copper Gate to access the first dozen floors, but that was seen as child’s play; the real action began on the 16th, and it was only after a successful sortie to that level that you got to call yourself a genuine Copper-ranked Raider.
“We’re ready for this,” said Nessa loudly, leading their crew in a jog across the plaza to where the huge polyhedron spun and shivered before the gates. The rain formed a shimmering layer over its spinning form, seeming to either evaporate or bounce of some invisible force a foot before hitting the polyhedron itself. “We’re more than ready. Just listen to my commands, play this smart, and we’ll get out just fine.”
“If I hadn’t just lost my home—my old home, that is—I might even feel excited.” Sam ran with the crew, her repaired armor protected by an oiled cloak. “The 16th!” She shook her head in wonder. “The Endless Castle! I’ve heard so many tales. Do you think there really is no bottom to the chasms? I mean, how can that be, the 17th Level has to be below it, which means bottomless chasms would—”
“Sam, Sam!” called Vic. “There is a strict Flutic Mining Consortium barring adorable puppies from entering the 16th. Get your killer face on, or they’ll refuse you admittance.”
Sam stuck her tongue out at Vic. “I’m just saying, this is a genuinely big moment, right up there with hitting the 1st Level for the first time, or acquiring a class, or your first Artifact. The 16th, you know?”
Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, Harald couldn’t refrain from giving Sam a feral grin. He wanted this. Needed this release. Yseult Khan’s bullying, the intangible injustice of Count Gorkin, and now losing his home?
It was high time for some catharsis.
“You’re right,” said Nessa as they drew up to the Copper Gate. Only one party was being processed ahead of them, so they fell in line and waited, rain drumming on their hoods and cloaks. “This is a big moment. But in many ways we’re already overqualified. Harald’s Goldchop alone makes this an uneven battle.”
“I won’t be using it,” said Harald. “I’m focusing on leveling my class.”
“But it’s still there in case of emergencies. And that fact alone robs the level of much of its lethality. We’re a quality mix of classes, and, for that matter, we have a Dreadrune with us.” Nessa glanced back at Kársek who brought up the rear, his face hidden beneath the peak of a slate gray hood. “Which is something I still don’t know how to factor into our plans, seeing as our friend won’t tell me more about his abilities other than it’s ‘destruction’ related.”
“You have to afford a dwarf his mysteries,” chided Vic, hugging himself against the damp chill. “You should know that, Nessa. How better to entice, to beguile? He’s showing a little leg, but to see it all you have to step behind the crimson curtain. It’s a trick as old as time.”
“The 16th Level isn’t a boudoir,” said Nessa. “And I’m not a mark, I’m the Delve Captain.”
“Welcome to the Copper Gate,” called Susie, indicating they should approach. “Hello, Harald. Brought your friends at last?”
“All present and accounted for,” smiled Harald, the expression tight.
“Good. Glad to see it. Now: the great city of Flutic salutes her brave heroes, and welcomes those guests from abroad who wish to try their hands at the dungeon. All who venture through do so at their own risk, and relinquish any right to charge the city of Flutic, the Mining Consortium, or any other governing body with responsibility for what transpires below. The city exacts a forty percent tax on all scales recovered. Do you agree to these terms?”
“Absolutely not!” protested Vic, expression aghast.
“Yes, of course we do,” sighed Nessa, elbowing Vic aside.
“Then in the name of the Grandees of Flutic, go forth brave adventurers and wrest glory and honor from the remains of the Fallen Angel.” Susie gave Harald a wink from beneath her hood. “Give them hell.”
They worked their way through the process, stopping at the taxation counter, and then with invoices in hand, they hurried up to the Copper platform where the other guard gave his perfunctory warning, the rain clearly dampening his enthusiasm, and then bid them approach the Dungeon Portal.
Nessa raised a Silver Starburst and the polyhedron seemed to focus on them, drawing just a little closer as its faces blurred and then locked into a singular triangle, sixteen notches marked along the first half of one edge.
Its face hollowed out, and Nessa drew her blade. Lantern aloft, she strode forward and up, and the rest of them followed.
The Dungeon Portal swallowed them whole, and Harald felt that sense of being translated across space to step out, wary and prepared, onto a crumbling stone parapet.
The distant hiss of the rain cut out abruptly, and all seemed unnaturally quiet as a result. Dawnblade in hand, he gazed out over the misty expanse of ruined architecture, everything a haze green as if they stood in the depths of some overgrown pond.
“Wow,” whispered Sam, appearing beside him, blade in hand. “It’s amazing!”
She was right. The 16th Level was known as the Endless Castle for everywhere Harald looked he saw ancient keeps connected by bridges and walkways, huge blocky towers punctuating the expanse, staircases descending amidst rubble to lower levels, shadowed arches, arrow-slit windows, crenellated retaining walls, partially demolished facades, all of it piled atop each other, each lower floor sometimes marginally wider than the last, providing ledges and walkways, or sheer so that the crumbling walls descended into the fog.
It was a brutal architecture, a castle given to madness, endless buildings and bridges, causeways and places to hide. Chains and ropes were hung across some of the greater chasms, while others simply lay strewn down the length of walls.
It was perfect. It was exactly the kind of hunting ground he craved.
Harald allowed himself a small, predatory smile. Almost he pitied the hobgoblins. They’d not claimed his manor nor heaped injustices upon Flutic.
Still, they’d pay the price nonetheless.
They’d appeared near the top of one keep-like edifice, shoulder to shoulder on a ledge that was only a couple of yards deep. This ran along the keep’s face, dark windows and a distant archway leading inside, and then turned sharply at each distant corner. A level below, a broad bridge shot out across the narrow chasm that separated them from a massively built wall, so thick that it no doubt housed chambers of its own. Harald stepped to the ledge’s edge and peered down; the drop was sheer and ended in a courtyard some five levels down that was filled with shattered wooden beams, as if a stable or the like had been stepped on by a giant.
“All right everyone.” Nessa’s tone was cool and collected. “I see an enemy patrol two levels down on the far wall, over there.”
Harald followed her gesture and saw the hobgoblin unit. Eight strong, it was marching slowly along a walkway that hugged the huge wall’s face, making their way toward an archway that led inside.
“They’ll be armed with longbows and blades,” said Nessa, tone businesslike as she led them along the ledge. “So chokepoints are of limited value unless we can prevent their getting a line of sight.”
“And the orcs?” asked Sam.
“Such brutes,” said Vic, but there was tension in his voice, and his rapier was in his hand. “They lose all self-possession at the sight of raiders, and will just come screaming at you like an avalanche of crudely tattooed muscle and blades. They’re at once easier to deal with for being predictable, but surprisingly hard to kill. Aim for the head, if possible.”
Harald felt Sam’s Beacon of Hope, and his edgy anticipation eased. “Sounds good. So we just head out and search for enemies?”
“The trick is to scope out each leg of the journey,” said Nessa, slowing as she reached the corner. “Then move fast to new cover. You never know when you’ll run into a patrol, and any combat that lasts for a while will draw reinforcements. Ideally, we’ll spot our targets and overwhelm them before they can throw us back or send for help.”
She peered around the corner, then gestured for everyone to follow and slipped around it.
The walkway followed the keep’s geometric contours, and Nessa led them down a steep ramp to double back to the bridge. It’s far end passed into the wall through an ominous archway, large enough to ride a horse through, though nothing moved in its depths.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Nessa crouched and watched the bridge for a moment. Everyone hugged the walls and did the same.
The silence was uneasy. It had a cavernous feel to it, though the sky was open to the green miasma. No wind, Harald realized. Everything was still. Occasionally he heard the sound of rock cracking, or pebbles falling, as if a chunk of a wall had just given way.
“All right, let’s cross quickly,” said Nessa, rising and running out into the open.
Halfway across the hobgoblin squad emerged from the gloom to fill the archway, their eyes widening under steel helms at the sight of the approaching raiders.
“Bows!” barked their leader, a hugely shouldered monster that appeared twice as large as the others.
Hobbo discipline shone through. The first line dropped to one knee, bows rising, the second rank raising their weapons to loose over the first rank’s heads.
Nessa let out a cry as she swept her blade before her, unleashing a Crescent Arc even as she put on speed. Sam summoned her Shield of Valor and set it before Nessa, covering her assault, while Vic raised the Point as he ran beside Harald despite being too far to use it.
“Behind me!” Harald barked.
The hobbos loosed even as Nessa’s Crescent scythed into them, cutting through the bows and arms of the three center warriors. The yard-long arrows flew forth, most punching into the Shield of Valor, but the others came at Harald just as he summoned Umbral Aegis.
He swept his Dawnblade across in a vain effort to slash the arrows in midair, missed, and felt them hit home, causing his armor to crack.
But they didn’t pierce.
Everything happened very quickly from there.
Nessa’s Will of the Blade subtly helped shaped their team’s approach, preventing anyone from bunching up, even as her Harmonic Resistance blunted the natural terror of running headlong at a phalanx of archers. She leaped into the midst of the hobgoblins, blade lashing out and unleashing an Echoing Strike, the white flash leaping from one startled warrior to the other.
Vic broke ahead just before they reached the hobgoblins, Piercing Lance carrying him forward to skewer a foe before the warrior had time to react, and then Harald swept his blade through the air at the hobgoblin leader and unleashed a Demonic Edge.
The shimmering arc of awful energy flew forward to cleave through the hobgoblin’s blade and slam into his broad chest, cutting through his pig-iron cuirass and sinking deep into his ribs.
Then they were toe-to-toe, the Aching Void and Aura of Cruelty overwhelming their foes who struggled to not break and flee before the onslaught. Blades rose, blades fell, and then the enemy were all dead and dying, collapsed upon the floor.
Heaving for breath from the sheer excitement of their victorious charge, Harald wheeled about, searching for fresh danger, and saw the hobgoblin leader gasping and slumped against the wall inside the archway where he’d collapsed.
Saw him just as the hobbo raised a brass trumpet to his lips and blew a quavering, warning note.
“Damn it!” hissed Vic, and the Point extended whisper-fast to skewer the hobbo through one eye, silencing him.
“Too late,” said Nessa, rising from her crouch. “That’s everything close by alerted.”
Kársek came trotting up, face creased into a frown. He clearly couldn’t keep up with an all-out sprint. “We hold the bridge?”
Nessa bit her lip, glanced back the way they’d come, and grimaced. “Looks like we have no choice. Orcs.”
A crowd of hugely muscled creatures had appeared at the edge of the far keep’s uppermost roof. They were as tall as humans, but easily had to weight twice as much, built with stocky power, deep chested, their arms hugely muscled, their faces bestial with lantern jaws and goblin-like backswept ears. Bald but for topknots, they raised their weapons, gave forth curdling shrieks, and began to leap down from level to level, seeming to not care about the height of each drop.
“They’re cutting us off from the portal,” noted Vic.
“They’ll come right for us. Everyone inside, we’ll hold the archway.”
They did as commanded, stepping over corpses and entering the dim room. It was bare of furnishings, high ceilinged, with two archways leading off to either side, no doubt to more rooms within the hollowed huge wall.
Harald remained by the archway, watching the orcs. It was incredible. Despite their formidable bulk and obvious power, they moved with supple athleticism, sinking into deep crouches after each prodigious drop, then springing up again, grunting and bellowing as they urged each other on.
“There’s ten of them, I think,” he called back softly. “They’ll come at us all at once?”
Nessa scowled as she moved to an interior doorway. “Wait. Let me listen.” She cocked her head to one side, then backed away. “There’s a lot of movement coming from this side.”
“We could retreat that way,” said Vic, gesturing with the Point at the remaining door. “Consolidate both attacks through one arch.”
“I can hold the bridge,” said Kársek. “You all focus on the other threat.”
“Kársek, darling,” said Vic. “That’s ten orcs we’re talking about. You may be a Dreadrune, but aren’t you still just Level 1?”
“I can hold the bridge,” said Kársek. “I will begin preparing.”
And the dwarf sat cross-legged in the center of the arch, his rune hammer appearing so that it lay across his lap.
“He’s mad,” said Vic, then gave a desperate laugh. “He’s choosing to meditate now? Kársek! Orcs!”
“Trust,” said Nessa. “Remember how he knocked back Yseult?”
“Agreed,” said Harald. “Sam, why don’t you provide him with support regardless? Your Shield of Valor and the Thornguard might keep him from getting overwhelmed.”
“Vic, check the other archway,” snapped Nessa. “This one’s too wide. Four can come through at a time.”
“We ambush them,” said Harald, moving to join Nessa by her archway. “They won’t see us here. They came through and we hit them with everything we’ve got.”
Vic peered into the other doorway. “Stairs leading down. Don’t hear anything. It’s not too late to flee.”
Sam, who’d taken her position beside the seated Kársek, was watching the orcs. “They’re closing fast. A minute, maybe less. No, definitely make that less.”
“We can’t run.” Nessa’s voice was firm. “The orcs will overtake us, and I won’t fight them on stairs. We hold here. Vic, behind Harald and I. Get your Point ready. Harald, wait till I use my Crescent.”
He could hear them now, the tromp of boots from deeper within the wall approaching in a hurry. He rippled his fingers on the Dawnguard. It was still just a regular if incredibly sharp and durable blade to him; he’d not replaced the Amulet with it yet.
“Should I summon Shadowpaw?”
“Shadow - ?” Nessa stared at him. “Your Servitor? Not yet. Let’s see if we can’t handle this by ourselves.”
Harald nodded, raised his blade to the Tower Guard, then changed his mind to emulate Nessa and drop it back into the Tail so that he could swing it up and unleash his edge without worrying about either of his companions.
“They’re at the bridge,” said Sam, tone incredibly tense. “Kársek? They’re crossing the bridge. They’re almost on us—Kársek!”
Harald glanced back, despite the tromp of hobgoblin boots growing ever louder. The orcs were hurling themselves across the bridge as if Kársek were the finish line, racing in an all out sprint, staggered out, a good seven coming at them in a pack.
They were terrifying. Huge fangs, red eyes gleaming with a madness that reminded Harald of his own, their scimitars looking weightless in their huge fists, their skin dark green and stretched taut over their impossible musculatures.
Kársek remained seated and still, head bowed.
Harald glanced back at his own archway. The hobgoblins were almost upon them, the pound of their feet even and controlled, a charge, not an all-out sprint.
Back to his friends. “Kársek!”
The dwarf raised the rune hammer at the very last possible second and said, quite distinctly, “Khazadrok.”
Harald saw the rune. Massive as a barn door, ghostly and geometric in the style of dwarven writing, it appeared before Kársek and flew toward the orcs, the front two of which had leaped to attack, blades drawn back behind their heads, bodies bent like bows, their war cries harrowing.
The rune caused them to burst.
Flesh, bone, and blood erupted into the air as the rune passed down the length of the bridge, instantly slaughtering the seven or so orcs that had taken the lead.
The damage was complete, their deaths instantaneous, with each of their bodies simply bursting like a wine skin hurled at a stone floor from an enormous height.
Their screams cut off, their weapons went flying, and blood and gore slicked and slopped off the bridge, with nothing recognizable left behind.
Harald, wide-eyed, would have just continued staring, stunned, if Nessa hadn’t barked, “Eyes front!”
He wheeled just as the hobbos charged into the room. Nessa’s cry alerted them to the ambush too late.
Harald swept up the Dawnblade, not keeping the strike vertical but moving it obliquely as he unleashed Demonic Edge and dropped the Aching Depths upon the front of the column.
The air dimmed, grew chill, and the awful might of the abyss suffused the air, amplifying the dread of the hobgoblins, whose front rank sought to stop and engage even as momentum from those behind pushed them deeper into the room.
Demonic Edge took one hobbo apart by cleaving through his upper thighs, and then sizzled through a second’s chest, cutting deep through brass chainmail and slashing his chest wide open.
Nessa’s Echoing Strike flashed bright and leaped from one foe to the next, even as Vic unleashed the Point, causing its silver length to extend from between Harald and Nessa to slide neatly into another hobbo’s face.
But more kept coming, shoving the wounded aside, barking rough commands and turning to face them.
Harald moved out wide to give Nessa room to maneuver, and activated Abyssal Attunement. The Dawnblade turned black, and he stabbed it into the chest of one foe who was tripping on a corpse.
A jolt of stolen energy entered him even as the hobbo gasped, weakness flowing out from the wound.
The Dungeon Square.
It was perfect for this moment. The hobgoblins were trying to push into the room, tripping on the dead, seeking to understand what they faced. The Dawnblade kept swinging at those at the fore, coming from every angle, never stopping, and with each blow dealt Harald received a jolt of energy, dark corruption seeping out from the gashes and stabs.
Nessa unleashed a Crescent Arc, then parried a terrible thrust, turned it aside, and drew her longsword across the warrior’s neck, parting his flesh so that it gaped like a red flower.
The dead were already two deep, fallen athwart each other, eight or so defeated in seconds, but more were pushing in from behind.
How many more were there?
The Point extended again and again, picking off foes, but then a harsh roar sounded and a hobgoblin leader barreled through his warriors to leap into the chamber.
He was head and shoulders larger than his fellows, but his armor was a complete suit of thick iron, wickedly spiked and barbed, its black surface gone to rust. It encased him completely, but such was the monster’s strength that it impeded him not at all; he shouldered his way through, barged into the room, and Harald’s first swing simply clanged off the armor even as the Point did the same, failing to pierce the huge plate mail.
The hobbo leader clutched a mace in one hand, and Harald saw that its spikes glowed a noxious green. The air seemed to throb as the leader swept the mace before him in a great arc, and both Harald and Nessa leaped back, loath to try and parry such a huge weapon.
Laughing, the monstrous hobgoblin pushed deeper into the room, making room for this smaller brethren to file in behind in unimpeded.
“You have come to the wrong level!” bellowed the leader, his voice clotted with rage and bloodlust and echoing from within his grisly helm. “This is Barko’s level! This is Barko’s hell! I will crush your skulls and piss down your neckholes. Die! Die! Die!”