Chapter 37: Book 1: Chapter 15 (Part 2 of 2)

From out of the shadows on the right side where Lucas and Jackson were in cover appeared a diminutive figure. It was a young girl, in a classic catholic school uniform, plaid skirt, knee-high white socks, white blouse and tie.

Correction, not a young girl, but a curvy young woman. The blouse was tied up under her breasts showing off a bare midriff and the top buttons were undone. They exposed an enticing cleavage, she even had a cross necklace on, and her tie was artfully short so as not to cover the goods beneath it. She was barely five feet tall and had long blonde hair separated into two bunches on either side of her shoulders.

I heard her cough lightly and she struck a cutesy pose, one knee bent and a finger gently pulling down her lower lip. I had to admit it was incredibly sexy, straight out of a porn movie erotic. Her cough got the attention of both Lucas and Jackson and they looked over their shoulders, their eyes widening as they took in the unexpected sight.

I tried analysing the mystery woman but got nothing. I was confused for a moment and then realisation dawned. This was the avatar of the dungeon, Anastasia Ruslanovna. My analysis didn’t work because she was really the core crystal that I assumed was down the well in the centre of the room.

Things happened quickly then. Lucas stopped firing his bow and turned around fully to regard Anastasia. Jackson yelled at him, but his warning went unheeded, and the Anastasia avatar crooked her index finger at Lucas in a come-hither motion.

 He couldn’t be that stupid, was all I had time to think.

Lucas, like his whole party, couldn’t be any older than eighteen, possibly a year or two younger than that, so the answer to my question was an unequivocal yes.

Yes, he could be that stupid.

Hot girls weren’t just the best weapon in my arsenal.

Lucas lowered his bow and took a few steps towards Anastasia, a big grin on the lad’s face and she strutted the final few steps between them. She pouted, winked at him, and then reached both her hands up to his face. She cupped Lucas’s cheeks as if she was about to draw the lucky boy in for a kiss but stopped pulling him in about halfway to her pouting lips.

Her sexy demeanour vanished, and her gentle caress became a death grip on the side of his head as Lucas body convulsed from whatever she was doing to him.

Lucas visibly withered under her touch, his musculature deflated, and his skin tightened on his now bony frame. She released her hold on him and Lucas collapsed to the floor. I didn’t need to analyse him to know he was dead.

This was bad for our allies’ team and it got worse. Peter, who had been attacking the golem, must have witnessed his brother’s demise from the periphery of his vision.

“Luuucasss!” he wailed in a voice filled with pain and despair.

His concentration dropped and in combat that is never a good thing.

The golem took advantage of his distracted state and its weighty clay fist smashed into the side of his head. Peter spun about and dropped to the ground, his head at an unnatural angle, quite dead.

And just like that Carl’s team were down two members with a third enemy to worry about. Victory seemed far less certain than it had a few seconds ago.

Jackson redirected his balls of flame at Anastasia, but she simply danced out of the way. He kept her at bay, but this meant he was no longer wearing down the golem. With Peter and Lucas dead, and Carl and Kelly doing little more than keeping the golem’s attention, the war of attrition had turned on its head.

Shana and I were the only ones capable of actually defeating the mobs.

I paused for a moment and considered the situation.

Ultimately, I needed to end Carl and Kelly, I knew that. Any qualms I might have had about murdering other human beings had been assuaged significantly by them being titanic pricks. But I wasn’t fooling myself into believing there was no chance of suffering psychological consequences for this decision later. Allowing the dungeon to kill them, rather than doing the deed myself would minimise that possibility.

And yet, the dungeon would be easier to complete with them still in the fight acting as distractions. Then there was Jackson. I quite liked him, despite him allowing himself to be cowed by Carl and I didn’t want to kill him too. I would definitely be wracked with a little guilt if I did, and that was part of what drove me to encourage Tommy to leave.

Even as I thought it over, I knew that I would kill Jackson if he chose to side with Carl and Kelly, but if I let them die by dungeon, we’d have two golems and the avatar to deal with ourselves.

I glanced at Shana beside me, still shooting arrows at the golem Kelly held off. Certainty filled my mind.

Whatever potential guilt I might feel for killing Jackson along with the duo paled in comparison to the self-recrimination I’d endure if I opted for a tougher finish to the dungeon and lost her.

We were getting involved.

“Shana, take up a new position on one of the thrones and shoot at the blonde. Keep your focus on her. I’m going to kill these golems,” I ordered.

We abandoned our position beside the granite slab and rushed around Kelly’s golem to the thrones. Carl continued to kite his golem back and forth in the Northern part of the chamber.

Shana hopped up on the throne and I looked down the well.

There was a metal grate about a foot down inside it that prevented you from going down and a few feet further was a square red gemstone the size of an acorn. It bathed the bottom of the well with a faint red glow.

Shana opened fire on Anastasia and caught her by surprise. She yelped in surprise with an arrow buried in her shoulder and she retreated into the shadows in the Southeast of the chamber.

This freed up Jackson.

“Kelly, back up and give Jackson room. Jackson, blast this fucker with everything you’ve got. We need to finish one of them quickly before the dungeon avatar comes back. Shana, keep your eyes peeled for her,” I called out my plan.

Kelly hesitated briefly, his dislike of me warring with the logic of my orders. Thankfully, logic won out and he skipped back a few steps. Jackson came forward a little but remained out of range of the golems four fists.

Then he slammed the base of his palms together with his fingers outstretched like claws. It was a tad obvious he wanted this to look like Ryu’s Hadoken attack. Trying to appear cool wasn’t entirely appropriate in the circumstances, but if I could shoot green balls of flame from my palms, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.

At least he didn’t shout it out as a large ball of green plasma formed a few inches from his outstretched fingers. He thrust his hands forward and the sphere of flame shot from him like a cannonball and smashed into the golem and rocked it backwards, though it didn’t fall, which was a shame.

Regardless, I didn’t waste the opportunity and rushed the stumbling golem. I ducked low and swiped its legs with both blades, there was no benefit in going for its body, it had no weaker spots.

You have inflicted 8 piercing damage and 24 points of cold damage to Janusian Clay Golem #1. Janusian Clay Golem #1 is below 25% Hit Points.

You have inflicted 8 piercing damage and 24 points of cold damage to Janusian Clay Golem #1.

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My first slash let me know the golem was below twenty-five percent, but not much else. I noticed that Jackson wobbled on his feet and held onto the metal strut nearest him and then slumped down onto his butt, propped against the scythe-like protrusion.

<Mana sickness. Sorcerers can overcharge their sorcerous attacks, but it has consequences. He won’t be of any use for a few minutes, even if has any Mana left. Which I doubt> Quixbix informed me.

I focused on destroying this golem.

Kelly stood just out of its range which didn’t surprise me, but I slashed and stabbed as fast as I could. It was just as well I had enhanced the durability of my scimitars as at least one of them lost a point during that fight. At one point I overextended myself and the golem cracked down on my forearm protected by the bracers.

-50 Hit Points. (478/570)

Damn, fifty Hit Points lost, and he only hit me on the arm. A body shot would cost me a hundred and the head two hundred. No wonder Peter dropped like a rag doll.

Fortunately, my riposte stripped the last of the golems Hit Points and when I darted in next for a double blade attack its health struck zero and the golem crumbled into broken lumps of clay in front of us.

One down, one more of them to go.

Shana continued to scan the chamber, I’d noticed that she had fired off a couple of arrows towards the South and deterred the schoolgirl uniformed minx from getting back into the action. This also suggested Anastasia couldn’t travel through the shadows or transport herself to wherever she wanted. Otherwise, she would surely have jumped Carl while we were enmeshed with the golem number one.

There was no time to waste.

“Kelly, make yourself useful and drag Jackson over to the thrones by Shana and then join me to finish the other golem,” I ordered the elf Paladin.

When he reluctantly followed my instructions, I spoke to Shana in a low voice. “Be careful, he might try and do something stupid. Make sure he knows you’re watching him.”

She flashed me a smile. “I wasn’t born yesterday,” she quipped.

I chuckled and left Shana to it, confident she could handle herself against Kelly if he proved problematic and jogged over to where Carl struggled against the second golem.

He was looking worse for wear; his shield was heavily dented, and he had sweated so profusely that I could smell the acidic whiff of his body odour. There were a couple of fresh dings in his breastplate too. I wasn’t sure if what he had on qualified as plate or mail, but either way, its superior damage mitigation is what had kept him alive.

“Need a hand?” I joked.

He was too involved to do more than scowl and grunt. I adopted a position on the other side of the golem, and this eased its focus on Carl.

We battled the monster for several minutes, this one’s Hit Points having been barely whittled down, unlike the first. Kelly took his sweet time before getting involved and he looked healthier than he had.

Presumably, he had a health potion stashed away in his inventory as well.

I was hit twice in that time, once on the arm and a blow to the head, which truly sucked, but I had over two hundred Hit Points remaining when the second golem finally crumbled as the first had.

I heard a weak whoop of cheering from over by the thrones. Jackson had regained consciousness and was sprawled in one of them, but it was obvious he was still struggling to stand. After getting half out of the throne his arms gave way and he flopped back onto the obsidian chair with a grunt-worthy bump.

I stepped over the brick-orange remains of the golem and scanned the chamber, there was no sign of the avatar.

“I haven’t seen her in several minutes,” Shana called when she noticed where my focus was.

An arched portal appeared in the Northeast section of the chamber with the customary shimmer. This was a signal that we had completed the dungeon and only needed to exit to collect our rewards.

Getting jumped by the avatar was no longer a concern.

Which, of course, was the moment Carl and Kelly predictably chose to strike. But they didn’t catch me unawares. as Quixbix whispered a warning they were manoeuvring to attack as Shana called out her observation to me.

When I moved forward past the golems remains, that had put Carl behind me.

Anticipating he would swing for my head, I ducked, and his backsword whistled over harmlessly. He had put so much effort into what he thought was going to be a killing strike that he was unable to defend himself adequately. I pivoted smoothly and thrust upward with the scimitar in my left hand, the blade sank deep into his unprotected armpit. At the same time, my right-hand scimitar sliced between his groin and thigh.

You have inflicted 68 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Carl Fuchs. Carl Fuchs is slain.

You have inflicted 34 piercing damage and 24 points of cold damage to Carl Fuchs. Total overkill, Torin.

I couldn’t help but grin at Quixbix’s written quip.

However, I needed to recover my combat posture and deal with Kelly.

Although I needn’t have worried, by the time I sprang up into a fighting stance Kelly had already toppled over forward, one of Shana’s fletched arrows buried in the base of his skull.

You have slain Carl Fuchs. Torin receives +689 XP, +5 notoriety, Shana receives + 750 XP.

You have slain Kelly Stevens. Torin receives +439 XP, +5 notoriety, Shana receives + 477 XP.

That was a hefty increase in notoriety. I’d need to figure out if that was because they had Valiant classes or if it was because we were supposed to be allies on this dungeon run.

Regardless, the dungeon was complete, and my secret objective was within reach. I strode back over to the thrones and the well between them, it was time to claim my prize.

The Dungeon Core.

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