Chapter 359: Prize Winner |
I was repeatedly Stunned and Stupefied any time the general managed to dodge an Oblivion Orb, but it didn’t matter. He had no opportunity to counterattack, and while Stupefy kept me from casting spells, Oblivion Orb had already been cast on all the hammers flying around. Between the general’s desperate attempts to dodge and Homing Weapon’s blatant refusal to let him, the air was a twisting mess of hammers, a storm of death that pierced through my foe and–with Homing Weapon’s charge expended–each one slammed into the ground behind the Timan with the force of a missile.
The fight, like so many these days, was temporarily obscured by a cloud of dust and debris, but I didn’t need to see General Ragad to know what had happened. His soul had vacated this plane of existence somewhere in the middle of what I’d unleashed on him. A Level 26 Gold, someone who was among the most elite of his peers, and he’d barely put up a fight.
It had been too easy. I couldn’t understand why it had been so easy. For most of my Delving career, a Gold at the Level 26 soft cap was a goliath, someone unassailable. It represented a wall that I knew my party would eventually breach, but to see that wall crumble with a half-hearted push was startling. It had been a shit matchup for the general, given that I had a build that was a nightmare for a pure mage to come up against, but still…
I entertained these thoughts only with my second instance of focus since the battle wasn’t over. While the sounds I was hearing gave me confidence that Shog was handling his own, I still didn’t want to leave him alone with four Level 20s.
I flew towards the noise and caught the Timan archer from behind with a volley of hammers. If he had any defensive skills, they’d already been exhausted. The man’s body was pulped and deleted by the unexpected barrage, leaving behind a spray of mangled flesh. Again, I was shocked by the potency of the hit, but with everything I’d gained recently it shouldn’t have been surprising. With seven or eight hammers tipped with Oblivion Orb, I was potentially outputting thousands of damage per salvo. If my target didn’t have any proper mitigation, death was the only outcome.
I came upon the main scene of the fight, finding that Smiley had been dismembered, her body pulled apart by Shog’s feelers rather than cut down by his blades. Shog himself was moving between shadows to avoid boulders that Rocky was commanding from the ground and hurling in his direction. Cowl was hounding him with half of her shadow creatures, while molding the other half into a dark replacement for one of her legs, which had been amputated at the hip. I targeted her next, but she was quicker to react than the Timan. She staggered and punched several hammers from the air, but feathers disappeared as Oblivion Orb hit, the flesh beneath becoming deeply bruised as thousands of tiny chunks of her tissue disappeared. She tried to send some of her few remaining shadow creatures towards me. They left me Blinded and Deafened, but that hardly mattered. Soul-Sight gave me enough vision to land the next round of hammers, and this time her unarmed defense failed her. Cowl was snuffed out like the others.
As the shadows faded, I saw Shog grappling with the giant. The blue man had activated his racial ability, growing larger and larger over time. Grimvaldrim typically kept themselves small enough to interact with other humanoid races and to otherwise avoid the inconveniences of being huge as fuck. This Grimvaldrim was now topping more than twenty feet, his rock-encrusted muscles bulging with new strength.
It wasn’t enough. Whatever c’thonic sorcery Shog had been working during his time away, the c’thon was strong. I doubted he was throwing down with the same weight Varrin could, but a Level 20 Grimvaldrim bruiser in his natural form wasn’t enough. Shog’s tentacles cracked stone armor and twisted apart flesh as the floating c’thon heaved the giant to one side. The man fell, taking a sword to the throat and one to the chest on landing. Shog pulled out the bardiche I’d given him as a parting gift before his sabbatical and drove it into the giant’s eye, a weakness that had been exacerbated as he grew.
The rocky man twitched as Shog gave the bardiche a good stir inside the man’s skull, then let out a final rasp as he went still. Shog pulled his weapons free and swung them in a blur, ridding them of most of the gore they’d accumulated. He turned to see me standing over Cowl’s ravaged corpse and nodded.
“Maybe,” I replied. “Someone who I thought was an ally led me into this ambush and hasn’t shown himself since.”
“A little mouse?”
“A Littan, yeah.”
Shog floated away into the wrecked trees and rummaged about with his feelers. After a few seconds he returned, carrying a body that looked pathetically small against his massive frame. He floated over and laid Rufio down at my feet.
The Littan was in bad shape, his torso dotted with small puncture wounds, likely from the gravel that Rocky had been throwing around. A few large, sharp pieces of wood were sticking out of his abdomen, and one of his legs was bent in a way it wasn’t meant to bend. I knelt down to find that he was still breathing, but blood ran freely from his many wounds.
The man opened bloodshot eyes to study me. “Friendly fire,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “It is hard to avoid it when the battlefield is so small, no?”
I looked around, seeing that a dark wall presented a barrier not far from where we stood, rising until it disappeared within the black sky. Whatever lay beyond it was impenetrable to my senses. The blockade appeared to curve away into the distance, indicating this whole area was enclosed.
“You led me into an ambush,” I said, turning back to him. I was half hoping it wasn’t true, but Rufio gave me a shrug. He had to abandon the motion halfway through with a pained groan. My heart fell at the implied admission.
“I never wanted to be a soldier,” he said. “It is no excuse for betrayal, but it is one I used to justify it to myself.” He swallowed, eyes glistening. “The fact that you survived this is proof enough…” He trailed off, eyes drooping as he mumbled something incomprehensible. It was like he was trying to explain, but the words were coming out all jumbled. I thought he was saying his betrayal went deeper than just me, like it had something to do with the military at large. He coughed and blinked, stirring back to the present. He looked at me with weary chagrin. “I do not suppose… you have a healing spell?”
I raised an eyebrow but didn’t begrudge the dying man his shameless request. “Not one I can use on another person,” I said.
He grinned without humor. “Then there is at least one thing you cannot do.” He reached up and pushed at my knee. “Now leave me in peace.”
I frowned, but stood and took a step away. Rufio’s hand fell to the dirt. The Littan closed his eyes, and a minute later his soul faded, dead from blood loss.
I looked around at the gruesome scene. The violence that Shog and I wrought was not clean. People were in pieces and sloppy piles, except for Rufio, whose injuries practically looked like flesh wounds. I squinted at the Littan for a second, feeling like there was something I was forgetting to do.
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A spray of blood drummed against my armor as Shog drove a wide, six-foot blade into Rufio’s chest. The Littan’s eyes opened wide, jaw unhinged to scream, but both lungs had been severed by the hit. He glared up at the c’thon for a pained second, then went limp, his head lolling to one side.
Shog made a horrible purring noise. “I could not tell if he was pretending,” he said. “But it is always best to be certain of these things.”
“Double-tap,” I said, smacking myself on the side of my helm. “He fake-died so pathetically I almost forgot to do it.” I took another look at the wretched corpses around us. “Pretty sure the rest of them are properly dead, although we could do the rounds to make sure.”
Shog’s feelers flexed and his shadow swam away from us. The dark shape stopped beneath Cowl’s corpse, which sank into it. It moved on to the next body, and I turned back to Shog rather than watch whatever that was as it did whatever it was doing.
“So,” I began, “how was your trip home?”
Shog’s big black eyes watched me impassively. “It was… productive.”
The emphasis on the way he said “productive” made it clear I didn’t want any specifics. “How’s the family?”
“My brood flourishes!” he said, spreading his arms triumphantly. “We have consumed what rivals oppressed us and made their broodlings our own.”
“You ate your enemies and stole their kids?” I asked, making a face.
Shog’s arms drooped. “I thought you would prefer it if we didn’t eat the children as well.”
“Uh, no, yeah. Not eating kids is good.” I nodded, unsure if he was saying that he literally chose not to slaughter children because he thought it might bother me if he did. I decided against getting clarity on the matter. “Although, there are probably more than just those two options.”
Shog looked thoughtfully at the sky, then back at me. “I do not know what those other options would have been.”
“You know, it’s not important right now.” I reached way around his tentacles and made it onto my tippy toes to clap him on the shoulder. “Anyway, thanks for coming! That whole fight might have been a little iffy if you hadn’t helped out.”
[We had a number of golems we could have deployed,] Grotto thought to us as he floated over.[I believe we would have still achieved victory without him.]
“I am glad to see that you still live, Deceiver.”
Grotto tilted his head, which was more of an entire body tilt. [Are you still concerned with my choice to appear as a c’thon?]
“I am not concerned,” said Shog. “Your title stands because it is true.”
Grotto grumbled under his breath, then jerked his feelers like he was shaking off his irritation. [We should leave this place, now that we are finished. The cretins have been dealt with and Shog has looted their valuable corpses.]
“Valuable… corpses?”
Grotto did the psychic equivalent of a throat clear. [Shog has looted the valuablesoff their corpses. Regardless, this realm makes me uncomfortable, as does my disconnection from the System.]
“Yes, I am curious as to where we are,” said Shog. “I sense–” He seemed to sniff at the air, although he had no nose that I could see. “–cruelty,” he finished. “Enough that even I am disquieted.”
[I believe we are being beckoned, as well.]
I turned to follow Grotto’s eyes, seeing a distant blue light. I exchanged a sober look with my familiar, then led us back to the clearing where we found the flame burning steadily in the air next to an obelisk that hadn’t been there earlier. I watched the fire for a few seconds, which did nothing but give me a serene smile. Finally, I decided nothing was getting done staring at the damn thing and walked up to touch the obelisk.
Mana distributions remaining: 5/5
I let my hand drop and considered the notification. On the one hand, claiming another Labyrinth obelisk would be nice. On the other hand…
I looked at the flame, still smiling at me.
“Why didn’t General Ragad or any of his people claim this?”
The smile became a pair of pursed lips, before the mouth hung open, drooling molten metal while it smiled more languidly.
Prize
You win!
I took a breath and read the notification a couple of times. It was formatted differently than any other notification I’d seen. Something about it put me off.
“How do we leave?” I asked. The flame’s smile faded again as it floated over to the obelisk. It ran its body up and down against it, mouth quivering like it was having a bit too much fun with it. After a while it paused, turned to my hand, then back to the obelisk, then back to my hand.
“Do you plan to claim the mana?” asked Shog.
“This whole place seems to be outside of the System’s influence,” I said. “Meaning there’s nobody managing this obelisk.” I nodded my head at the flame. “Other than this one here.”
[Yes, I would refrain from using that obelisk. There is no telling what it will actually do.]
“That’s what I was getting at.”
Shog’s feelers undulated, but he didn’t say anything more. Eventually the flame scowled, then a flicker of its fire landed on the ground. It burned away the dirt and grass to reveal another circular wormhole platform. Then the thing disappeared in a burst of icy heat.
I looked around to see if it was lingering about anywhere, then checked the platform.
Dungeoneering
“Welp, no idea if this goes where it says it does. If it does, then it’s exactly where we need to go.”
Shog floated over to inspect the platform.
“It reads ‘Dungeoneering,’” he said.
“Think it’ll be a problem that he doesn’t have it?” I asked Grotto, then turned back to the big c’thon. “You don’t have Dungeoneering, right Shog?”
“I do not.”
[If it functions as I believe it will, it should not matter. I will override any measures meant to keep out those who lack the skill.]
“I guess if it’s a huge problem we can always let Shog head home for the day and summon him back tomorrow.” Dimensional Summon had a 24-hour cooldown, but Shog could easily be dismissed, keeping him clear of any insurmountable danger.
I stepped onto the platform, hoping that the flame wasn’t trying to fuck us over. Shog and Grotto joined me, and the whole thing collapsed down into another portal.
Away we went to wherever it was the flame felt like sending us.