Revenge of the Sorcerer King 2 - 23

Evening everyone!

Chapter 23

Alessa

I was more nervous then I thought I’d be without Helena here to support me. Thankfully, Sarius had dived dungeons during his knight days and knew what to expect. I was in charge, but it was nice to know someone knew what to expect. Thus, with my twelve vampires, fifty goblins and a hundred undead we marched into the dungeon. 

When we came to the first floor, it had completely reset by this point. Moving ahead with Jade and Sarius we found the fifty or so goblins set up camp like they had last time, only they were much weaker. They were no longer mana charged and I wasn’t too worried about them being able to seriously injury any of my vampires.

“We’ll let two of the first batch, and all the newborns deal with this group. I want to keep level gain relevant.”

“That sounds good. It will give them a chance to drink their fill,” Jade added. With that decided, we moved back to the others. The new girls were wearing armor from the city, but I doubted it would last much longer than a few floors. It was better than the last batch we came down here in, but not by much. Oberon really needed to recruit a master craftsman, or we would fall behind the other countries in weapons and gear if we ever truly went to war.

In what was a repeat of the first time we came through here, the new vampires tore through the goblins even easier then we did. Jade was keeping watch with her magic arrows to make sure none of the new vampires met their end in a stupid fashion. Namely, a sword through the head. It was hard to survive that.

When the sounds of slaughter stopped, I glanced over from my spot where I was reading a book. Body parts of goblins and blood were the dominating factor as I observed the new vampires work. The two senior vampires had only done about three each and left the rest to the newborn. I looked at the ceiling and saw splatters of blood and I wondered how they had managed to get it up there considering it was nearly thirty meters. 

“My Lady. We’ve finished with the floor,” Jade reported after a few moments. Likely as they checked the floor for survivors. Vampires did love to hunt and chase prey.

“Very good. Let’s get to the next floor. I want to reach our stopping point from last time quickly.”

Jade saluted before she vanished. She was the highest level of the vampires behind only Sarius at level forty-seven. The rest were trailing her by five levels. Still. We would be a deadly force if we entered a mortal city. 

~~~

We were clearing the fifth floor when I received a sending. At first I thought it was Helena but it turned out to be Oberon. “Alessa. How goes the dungeon diving?

I pulled my hand from the throat of the hobgoblin boss before I replied. “Decent. We are moving at twice the speed as last time.”

“Good. Helena tells me you have a pretty decent magic archer?”

“Oh? You two are talking so cordially. I fear for the future,” I sent back. “But, yes I do. The princess.”

“Remember young lady. We have eternity and there is a lot of magic still left to pound… teach you,” Oberon sent and I grimaced not that he could see it. 

“Yeah, yeah. Why are you asking if I have a magic archer?”

“Mm, I got a bow from defeating a boss. Its cluttering up my dimensional space so I’m sending it to you.”

“Sending it?” Did the dungeon have some sort of function like that. Before I could say anything more, a black void in space appeared in front of me. 

“Reach in.” I did as I was told and stuck my hand into the void. I felt something a stick or piece of wood and grabbed it. Pulling the object from the void, I found a beautiful bow in my hands. “Use that as you see fit.”

The link vanished and I sighed. They never just wanted to chat for a minute. I shook my head before moving over to Jade. She was helping pull a sword from one of the newborns. While we certainly could help from most wounds quickly and easily, it still hurt like a bitch. The newborn had the sword straight through the stomach which would likely be a fatal wound had she been human still.

“Jade. A moment.”

“Yes, mistress,” she replied yanking the blade free much rougher than she had intended to. The girl screamed from the pain, but it faded fast as the wound started to heal. Jade looked at her. “Don’t take it full on next time.”

“Okay…” 

I chuckled as Jade moved up next to me. “What is it, mistress?”

“Here. Oberon sent it to me just now. Helena apparently bragged about you to him.”

She took the bow with wide eyes. She observed it for a minute before she looked back at me. “This weapon is better than just about every weapon in the royal armory. I’m not sure on its exact worth, but you could likely finance a lordship with this.”

“Use it well then.”

“As you command,” Jade held the bow out and bowed to me. 

The next floors took a bit longer as they were hobgoblins. We still managed to get through the floors easily enough. Fourteen vampires, fifty well equipped goblins and a small army of close to two hundred undead after counting the ones I added from the pervious floors, make quick time. 

Jade had elevated her skills even higher with her new bow. Internally, I was pleased that I had managed to get such an ally. She was not only highly skilled with the bow but was a good second in command after Sarius. She would have the most kills if I hadn’t ordered her to share. I felt that wouldn’t be too much of a problem soon though. If she left everyone else behind she would have to train in a different area much like me and Sarius.

We soon arrived at the boss room for the tenth floor. I cracked my knuckles as I wondered what would be on the other side of the gaudy golden door. Personally, I hoped for a challenge. Wiping the floor with anything I came up against does get old after all. I pushed and the doors swung open easily enough.

A tribal tent sat on the other side of the room. I didn’t see anything at first, but then my senses picked up heart beats and snoring. As we stepped into the room, flames went up and what I thought were boulders moved. Ten trolls rose to their feet clad in simple armors and furs. They were about three times as tall as I was coming in at close to four meters. 

“Trolls! This could get hairy,” Sarius hissed.

“Because they heal almost as fast as we do?” I asked not sure what the real fear was.

“That and they are terribly magic resistant. That will reduce a lot of our combat effectiveness in half.”

“I see.”

There appeared to be a hierarchy among the trolls as the level of equipment got better the bigger the troll was. The troll in the center walked forward and roared at us. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a challenge or just wanted to shout at us. I gave it a rude gesture then moved to the front of the party. I would deal with him myself.

The trolls laughed when I moved forward. They likely thought it was funny for a small girl to challenge them. I smirked in reply as I bent down and picked up a rock. This only caused them to laugh even louder. Aiming at the left most troll’s head, I threw the rock with all my strength.

The stone flew faster than the eye could keep up, unless it was a vampires. Just before the rock hit the troll, it burst into pieces, unable to handle the force of the air around it. The fragments ripped into the troll as he was blasted back several meters. His chest was a shuddered mess. It roared in pain as it clawed its chest.

The other trolls stopped laughing as that all happened in a span of two or three seconds. The leader spit before he lifted his massive sword into the air. I got into a stance and gestured for him to come. 

Oberon

The golden door to the boss room of this floor was even more over the top than the last. This was the first change to the castle compared to mine. Whatever was in the throne room was massive and the castle had been changed to accommodate that. What I wanted to know was wear a sealed dungeon got information on my castle.

Though, given who sealed it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucifer himself had talked or bragged about the castle that was about to be his as he sealed the place. Sucked for him that it sank a couple hundred meters once the city was declared to have fallen into enemy hands when the city core was destroyed. 

“What do you think will be waiting?” Ted asked gripping his hands nervously. 

“Probably an army of armors…” Irgire commented with a sigh.

“You never know. It might be something totally left field,” I replied with a smirk before I pushed against the door. As usual they swung open without any resistance. We moved in carefully. It would not surprise me if there were traps this late in the game. My caution paid off as I felt mana surge on either side of the room. I quickly held up my hand as a barrier formed between us and the rest of the room.

Ted channeled some mana to investigate the barrier. “What is it?” 

“Just a diversion, I expect.”

On the other side of the hall, we could see a giant armor that stat in an equally giant throne. Runes and magical script were lighting up as the eyes started to glow brighter. I drew promise and ran the tip across the barrier, but the mana being supplied was more than enough to supplement what Promise could pull. 

“Hold ye horses! I’ll be getting to ye in a blasted minute!” a voice called out. We turned and found a dwarf walking out from a passage next to the large armor. He was old. Like, I was surprise he was still alive old. He wobbled over to the armor and got on a lift.

Once it reached the back of the breastplate on the giant armor, a hatch popped open and the old dwarf got into the armor. Once the hatch closed, the armor seemed to come alive as it sat up and flexed its hands. A few seconds later, the barrier blocking us was pulled back into the walls and I sensed all the mana flood into the armor. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled slapping my forehead. Are you telling me that old dwarf was going to control that thing? 

“Can we defeat it?” Ted asked with concern.

“Hell if I know!” I replied with a shrug. I could tell that the armor had enough mana to turn a mountain into slag. I just had no idea what its capabilities were or anything along those lines. With a sigh I raised my hand and sent a Destruction Ray at the armor. It collided with a barrier around the armor and rebounded into the wall carving a gash into the throne room. 

“OH! Nice one, lad. I haven’t seen that spell in over nine hundred years,” said a voice from the armor.

“How are you still alive old timer?” I asked more because I couldn’t stop myself. 

“Pact with the dungeon. I get to live forever, but unfortunately, it couldn’t stop my aging completely.”

The giant armor pointed its sword at me, and a beam of light flashed from its tip. If I hadn’t dodged as soon as it pointed at me, I would have been turned to slag. Still he managed to turn close to twenty of the undead with us into ash. 

“Spread out and don’t stop moving!” I shouted before taking my own advice and running to the left. 

This thing had to be similar to a golem. That meant there would be a control crystal that supplied it mana from a network much like mine back at the castle. Since it was a dungeon boss, it would be in the room as dungeon were required by the gods to be fair. I would not be above turning this entire place into a ruin if I had to.

The giant armor turned and chased after me with his light beam spell. I quickly created a barrier of my own just to give me a few extra seconds to dodge in case it managed to get lucky. I sent various spells at the armor to get a gauge of its barrier spell, but let alone find a weakness, I couldn’t even tell how much mana it had at its disposal for the barrier. 

The others weren’t slacking off. They were sending spells while some of the undead had rushed the armors’ feet. They barely came to the things ankles. I did notice that they were able to strike the armor directly having seemingly bypassed the barrier. 

“Pesky ants!” the voice echoed from the armor as it lifted its foot and brought it back down. I sensed gravity magic being used to help accommodate the motion. With a boom, the foot crashed down on the undead hassling it. They never had a chance as the equivalent of ten or so tons crushed them to a paste. 

I gritted my teeth as I moved around the room but failed to find anything that I thought would serve as the node for the network. Without an option, I started casting fireballs as fast as I could as I moved. The entry level spell that I had perfected exploded with considerable force blasting chunks easily from the walls. 

The dwarf riding the armor didn’t care for that. As a sphere of light appeared above the armor. Before I could react, thousands of needles flashed through the air towards me. I jumped to the side, but the had a tracking spell built in. My barrier managed to block most of them, but nearly a dozen managed to break through and ripe through my left hand. With searing pain, the arm turned to dust. 

The armor was about to send another wave my way, when a purple haze of rain formed around it. I glanced up to see Irgire flying above the armor creating some sort of raincloud of poison. As it wasn’t purely magic, the armor’s barrier didn’t activate, and the poison was eating through the armor. 

“Not bad lad! Ye remind me of my younger days,” the voice sounded out before it stabbed its sword into the ground and the damaged areas started repairing rapidly. I narrowed my eyes at the ground where it had stabbed its sword. A few meters below it, I could detect trace amounts of mana flowing into the weapon.

Not wanting to waste anymore time and risk more of my limbs, I stabbed Promise into the ground. With a quick chant, I used the advanced magic, Earthquake forcing mana into the surroundings. Building from a soft rumble into a full-scale room titling on its side as the ground moved under our feet. Everyone but Irgire, who was flying, fell to their backside. 

I knew I hit something important to the giant armor as its barrier suddenly vanished. “About time one of ye did something. I was starting to fall asleep in here!” the voice came from the giant armor.

It pulled its sword free and pointed it at me again. The earthquake had caused a significant amount of debris to shift and I leapt behind a boulder just as a large beam of light ripped through the spot I had been standing. I pointed Promise over the boulder and sent a multitude of spells at the armor to gauge it.

Fireballs, ice shards, magic missiles, wind blades and a few other elements smashed into the armor. Magic was still less affective than I hoped, but it all made contact with the damn thing so it was progress. The goblin and undead mages saw that I was having an affect with my magic, and they joined in. Waves of magic washed over the giant armor as all the magical inclined members of the party unloaded their mana on the foe.

I spotted Ted nearby and looked for a path over to him through the rubble. I set some delayed magic aimed at the giant armor then used Flash to appear next to him. I was already down to about twenty percent mana and didn’t want to use too much on the spell, but decided it was safer as beams and needles of light were slicing through the battlefield. We had already lost most of the close to one hundred undead that I brought with us.

“Ted!”

“Oberon. What do you think?”

I shook my head. “We took out its connection with the network, but we still need to burn through all its mana reserves. For a golem that size, it could be a while.”

“We don’t have a while.”

I couldn’t deny it. While the main casualties had been the undead, close to a dozen of the goblins had also been struck and killed by the spell. Plus, if I was low on mana, the others would be never more so. “That’s why we need to do some more to hinder it. I want you to aim for the floor under it rather than the legs. Use your desecration spell.”

He looked towards the giant armor and seemed to consider if he could do it or not. “Alright. I am close to out of mana though.”

“I know. Do it when I give the signal.”

“And that would be?”

I grinned before I Flashed. Slamming Promise into the ceiling, I used terra mana to lock my feet to the place I had appeared. Irgire was only a few meters from me. “Irgire! Poison on the ceiling now!”

“You got it!” He took a deep breath before he released. The purple fumes started to eat through the rock around him. While he was doing that, I channeled another earthquake. The ceiling couldn’t take it for more than a few seconds. With a shudder, I felt the rocks under me start to move downward. With another Flash, I appeared back next to Ted who was in the middle of his spell.

“Subtle!” he shouted as the floor that was already barely holding together gave out from under the giant armor’s weight. With a boom, dust and debris flooded the air in the room as the ceiling collapsed on the giant armor. After close to a minute, I found we’d managed to bring the entire top of the castle down on the armor quite literally burying it.

Everyone held their places to make sure the armor was truly incapacitated. I felt my energy increase and knew the battle was over when I gained a level. I sheathed Promise and motioned for everyone to relax. I almost regret the action when there was a flash of light at the back of the room, but when only the old dwarf emerged, I calmed down.

“Well ye be the first victors of the dungeon! Congratulations!”

I released my grip on Promise. “Thank you. Does that mean we get a special prize?”

“Well certainly. You get to enjoy the services of this old dwarf.”

I looked the dwarf over again. I couldn’t help but feel like taking him out of the dungeon would probably result in his death. If the dungeon was keeping him alive, then it likely required a constant supply of mana. I had a lot of mana, but I doubted I could supply this old geezer enough to stay alive.

“Thanks, but I’m not sure I want that prize.”

The dwarf glanced at himself and started laughing then coughing. “Don’t get yer trousers in a twist. When I leave the dungeon, I will revert to a younger state.”

“Depending on how you plan to achieve that might change my decision.”

“See, I got this contract with the dungeon. He made a copy of my mana signature right as I came to be down here. When I am released, the signatures will be swapped. Side note: I’ll only remember about four days before the change. All my other memories will be lost forever. Price I have to pay,” the dwarf said with a shrug. 

“If you lose your memories, what use are you to me?” I really didn’t want the dwarf if he didn’t have his skills. 

“My knowledge will be intact. Just my memories will be gone. I will be binding me self to ye through a magical contract. I don’t exactly understand how it will work, but the dungeon assures me it will and well, I’ve come to trust the old fool.”

The dwarf looked at his surroundings before patting the wall next to him. “I see. Then that will be fine. Though, I am undead and plan to work to make the world much the same. Do you have any moral issues with that?”

“Morals? I’ve near forgotten all those centuries ago, much like everything else. Hell, I don’t even remember how I came to be here in the first place. Ironic isn’t it.”

“Didn’t keep a record?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly on first name basis with the dungeon to begin with. Took me years to reach that. Had to sacrifice things that were weighing me down to survive.”

I held my hand out. “Very well. I am Oberon.”

The dwarf reached up to shake but paused when I said my name. “Oberon? Why does that name ring a bell in this dusty noggin of mine?”

“I was world famous when I was alive. In fact, if you’re as old as you say you are, then we might have known each other back in the day.” When the dwarf said he hadn’t seen my spell in over nine hundred years, I had tried to think about people that Lucifer might have wanted to trap down here, or rather leave down here to die. I couldn’t think of any that matched this old timer though. 

“That so. Well name’s Thragrami. Don’t ask for me family name, I don’t remember it.”

“Very well. Thragrami. It will be good to have a dwarf with some skill in my employee again.”