Chapter 36: Ch. 32: The Heart Part I

‘What are dungeons?’ has been many a sage’s quandary. What many agree on is that they are a piece of unknown magitech from the civilizations that came before us. They guard unknown treasures and sometimes unknown horrors from avaricious people. Yes, dungeons are both the custodians of the bad as well as the good; after all, how many times have stories about adventurers stumbling upon cursed weapons or unleashing unknown species of monsters into the wilds have been told? That is why we take measures to study dungeons, translate ancient documents, and map them out so that only the greatest good can be accrued from delving into dungeons. From Nithenoel Wyndham’s Facts and Fiction, In the Mage’s Guild Almanac Issue Year 1524 AC .

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The last crypt crawler escaped—another monster that was too intelligent for its own good. However, Arthur made sure to never forget that visage. Such things were supposed to remain buried beneath the Dust and never see the light of day. They never did, for the crypt crawler was again nocturnal. But if he ever saw another one of those naked-mole rat-ape hybrids, he’d kill them and fulminate them with lightning.

By the time the rest of the party had come down, the crypt crawler Arthur had clipped through the collar bone had succumbed to its injuries. It bled a deep crimson that was almost black as the blood coagulated amongst the yellow ichor from the pluripedes and terra scorpions.

“ You did well, human,” Kervir said , spinning his glaive with a flourish. Indeed, he had. He and Livierre had had to cut a swathe through the creatures to get to a pillar that could ensure the incline was not too steep for them to zip down.

And Livierre might have gotten a little carried away and let loose with the incendiary rune heads she'd crafted herself. She was a pure pyromaniac and the results spoke for themselves in mounds of smoking carcasses. After that, whether a creature had a fully developed brain or ganglia, they learnt to leave her alone.

“Mastresse Nora,” Arthur smiled, as he cleaned off bits of ichor from his garb with [Cleanse]. The woman had touched down gracefully without jostling the mana crystal she carried on her back.

“Master Arthur, I knew you could do it,” the dhampir said, giving him an affirmative nod.

It had been risky to zip down because of the lunar moths flying above, but it seemed they'd gone back to hibernation. The last member of the party made their landing with a grunt and immediately got to work scanning the vicinity for threats.

The cavern was pretty large, spanning the entirety of the bottom pyramid that made up the octahedral dungeon. As it was, the descent to the next floor would be shorter because the fourth level narrowed inwards . The dungeon was at its widest between the second and third floors.

Suffice to say, there were no more threats at the moment—Arthur had made doubly sure they could see anything coming by throwing up magelights around the periphery of their pillar.

Stingbats, for one, really hated the [Light] spells and would often attack them without provocation. Stingbats were no less dangerous but better than having themselves attacked; they were rather sly and would come at you from behind. Those barbed tails of theirs had a neurotoxin that could put a fully grown man to sleep in five kardions.

“Let's get moving,” Kervir prompted once everyone had collected themselves. The rope was left there to retrieve on their way back. The party started jogging towards the switchback ramps that made up the dungeon's vertical conveyance system. There were four of them, one on each side of the pyramid.

Nonetheless, their narrow confines would have stymied the advance of the frenzy before the party got down to the fourth floor. Of course, Kervir told them to aim for speed, dispatching their foes only when it was deemed necessary. They didn't have the luxury of time for a meet and greet with every single thing that crawled, flew, and wanted to eat their faces.

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From the get-go, the atmosphere on the fourth floor was different. Halfway through their descent, the limestone gave way to the actual walls and ceiling of the dungeon.

The walls slanted inwards to form a trapezoid passageway with the ceiling, while columns spaced at intervals demarcated the main path. The gap between the pillars and the main path was a drain, though dry of water. Ambient lighting seemed to leak from grooves that separated the frieze from the walls, and as he looked on, Arthur could see esoteric script adorning the cornice tiles.

“ Aetheroglyphs,” Livierre said from his left.

“ That they are,” Arthur reiterated. A few of them had made their way into that material which Arthur had browsed in preparation for this expedition.They looked like something between Greek characters and Chinese Calligraphy art.

“ Each one of them embodies a concept, so they say,” Arthur whispered, entranced by the characters. “ Some claim they are the roots of the runes we use. While aetheroglyphs may embody pure concepts, runes are derivations and interpretations of concepts.”

“ You have a good head on you, Master Arthur,” Livierre said.

“ You could say that,” Arthur murmured. [Intermediate Rune Lore] was trying to passively parse the symbols, but it appeared to have stalled.

Arthur’s experience with the intricacies of runes and their uses was simply not at a high enough level to glean much from them. The few aetheroglyphs in that compilation of intelligence from the Djy’veli agents seemed to be the basics of the basics.

“ Be on guard. The antechamber lies ahead,” Kervir announced from the front. The incline of the passageway came to an end as the floor suddenly levelled out.

Recalling the map from [Eidetic Memory], the fourth level was supposed to be a polygonal antechamber with a vaulted ceiling. It was smaller than the floor before it. There was a mention of columns ringing its periphery to create a corridor against the walls.

As they got closer to the bottom of the landing, they heard the sound of the frenzy that had carried over to this part of the floor before they saw it.

The lighting on the fourth floor must have been brighter to make some shadows spill over to the entranceway. There were screeches and chitters punctuated by the sound of heavy blows landing and the ring of metal. They couldn't tell what was happening from the shadows alone, but the tremors that ensued spoke of something large beyond the entrance. And then there was the smell of crushed bugs.

Chills hit Arthur like cold water splashed on his spine. Danger was palpable in the air.

“Dekara!” Kervir hissed as he looked back at the party, “ I did not expect the frenzy to move the golems so soon. Prepare; you have to reach the columns.”

As Arthur armed his spells, Kervir adopted an offensive crouch, adjusting his glaive and lowering his body as if preparing to dash out. Arkilius likewise took his place to the right of the formation while Livierre prepped her repeating crossbow by changing the barrel carrying the bolts. Nora was cautiously staying back because she carried the fragile crystal.

They saw the two golems laying into the monsters like farmers in a wheat field when they finally stepped past the threshold. Of all the things Arthur had encountered, these were the ones he thought to be the most dangerous, perhaps even more so than the crypt crawlers.

Their ovular heads had a humanoid likeness, like someone's face cast in clay. Chipped off brass marked tearlines and flowed around the shape of three ocular crystals set in a triangle. They had no likeness of a mouth on their egg shaped heads, which made them come off as looking like a pharaoh’s death mask but without the lips and the ceremonial headdress.

Their necks curved to encompass the entire shoulder and looked like they'd belong to a vintage perfume bottle or a humanoid antique tea pot. It gave them the appearance of wearing a mediaeval Medici collar that covered the back of their heads.

The same neck was attached to a wide breast and a trunk that narrowed before connecting to something that resembled humanoid hip bones. They even fabricated a ball and socket joint for the pair of humanoid hips and digitigrade legs that ended in a uncloven hoof like a horse's . Argerum conduits peeked from between the armoured joints, aglow with mana.

The ball and socket treatment seemed to have been given to their arms as well, protected by pauldrons to make striking at the joints awkward. And in their four fingered hands, they held the largest poleaxes Arthur would ever see—and he would have hesitated if Kervir hadn't broken them out of their trance. And that was merely the first golem.

“Make for the core!” the Djy'veli male bellowed, pointedly looking at Livierre.

“We'll create an opening!”

Which was to say, Kervir and Arkilius would serve as a distraction. There was no fighting eight feet of golem, not when they weighed as much as a tel. But their sheer size was meant to be a deterrent, a show of force against intruders who could think. Naturally, they were slow, but the pluripedes and terra scorpions, and even a few sting bats, were too dumb. The monsters saw them as another threat.

As soon as they stepped past the threshold, they felt its gaze land on them. Arthur saw from the corner of his eyes the pearlescent ocular crystal at the apex of their heads glow, and his skin crawled. The obfuscation ring on his right arm grew warm, and that was when he knew they’d thrown a high tier inspection skill at him. [Identify]. The skill bounced off him, and that was worse because that drew its attention.

‘Scat’s creek!’ Arthur swore as the golem lumbered, nay, waded through the mass of indignant scuttlers of many legs, crushing them underfoot. It was on an intercept course for them.

A swing of its poleaxe, made of an axe head and a sharp fluke as long as Arthur was tall, sent a large terra scorpion flying into the walls. Scorpions and pluripedes were swarming the area between the columns , and stingbats were dive bombing from the air. Even as Kervir and Arkilius moved ahead to harry the golem, the pillars at the sides of the polygonal antechamber had never been so close yet so far.

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They ducked as stingbats found a more fleshy target to sink their tail stingers into. Arkilius bellowed, some form of taunt skill; the bats keened and swerved, forced to move towards the Djy’veli.

Then the red Djy’veli was a blur as he charged towards the oncoming golem. The impact of Arkilius’ warhammer against the golem’s breastplate rattled through their teeth. Arthur almost slipped on the slick ichor.

The golem barely even flinched as it turned its might towards the 7 foot Djy’veli. Wurmbone and wrought iron met in explosions of sparks and force as their wielders lost and gained ground time and again. The force of the golem was terrible!

However, the other golem, too far away to be deemed a threat, was taking notice.

But Kervir ran ahead . He vaulted over a terra scorpion’s pincers that could have bisected him in half and used them as a boost to pirouette over their broad body. His inscriptions smoked rather than glowed, and his glaive seemed to phase in and out of reality. He yelled a skill in Djy’veli and cleaved past the scorpion’s stony carapace into the flesh encased within.

The scorpion let out a keening screech that sounded like nails on a chalkboard as the petrifying stinger went limp. Kervir drew its attention.

As for the trio of Arthur, Livierre, and Nora, they were already halfway through the antechamber, despite the many rabble along the way. Lieverre shot a salvo of runehead quarrels that exploded into shrapnel, maiming five of the myriapods into twitching segments. Arthur cast two bursts of [Gale] as he charged through the smoke and dust of the explosions without stopping.

‘[Spark Bolt]! [Spark Bolt]! [Spark Bolt]!’’ he cast, knocking out some stingbats that had escaped Arkilius’ taunting skills. The stingbats were scorched and fell smoking as the last bolt impacted a rearing pluripede through its soft underbelly. It seized, some of its legs blown off. Livierre pulped the top of its head into a yellow mist with a shot from her crossbow.

Finally, they made it into the space hemmed in by the columns. They never stopped as they ran through the curving corridor because, up ahead, the other golem had revised its trajectory and was blurring through the distance. It was a striker class golem, lighter than its tanker class counterpart but no less deadly as, instead of a poleaxe, it had two swords.

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‘Frag!’ Arthur cursed as they ran. They could see that the thing was clearly on an intercept course. Perhaps it was oversight and overconfidence in their planning, but why didn’t Kervir account for the golem’s speed? Or was he the one that had missed out during his introspection.

He delved into his [Eidetic Memory] and realised that Kervir did in fact talk about the golems, twice. And the man himself? He was busy trying to play rearguard to keep some terra scorpions off their backs. And these were the real deal, not the puny things that he’d toasted with [Spark Bolt]. They had actual stone carapaces on their backs, not the pumice like rocks of their spawn that shattered from one spell cast.

“Frag, Livierre!” Arthur yelled.

“ Xhezw! Don’t you think I see it too?” she snapped back. “ Hnrgh! Give me a moment to get this thing rewound. “

She was slotting in another tube of quarrels, reloading. She was preparing for a fight. Were it another time, Arthur would have praised the [Golemficer] who had thought of combining humanoid features with uncloven digitigrade legs. They were very effective at counterbalancing weight and pushing off the ground.

And even though the second golem had the same design features, it was slimmer, blue-green and made of brass. Not magestone like the first. And its weapons were part of its forearms.

Arthur saw how deadly they were as they bisected a juvenile terra scorpion, shearing through the stony exoskeleton like a poached egg. The blade had never dulled because it was made of quartzite that regrew with the dungeon mana and it was coated with ichor. Its movements were as though it was skating across the ground.

‘How’d the dwarves even waltz in here! Arthur thought. ‘Just past three steps of stairs, and the damn door is right there.’

“ Scatter!” Arthur yelled. They had been too bunched together because the corridor could only fit two people abreast. As soon as they burst from the corridor, they parted. Arthur to the left, Livierre to the right, Nora went―skating between the golem’s legs, knapsack cradled at the front of her torso.

The golem slammed into the wall, skidding with the squeal of metallic hooves against stone―jumped and ricocheted off like an alpine goat on a crag. Danger Sense screamed as Arthur dropped , tumbling across the ground. Air whistled past where his neck had been a breath ago.

He broke his tumble with a crouch, Overkill already out in a reverse grip. If there was something that could damage the golem or put up token resistance, it was that fang shaped dagger.

The golem had gotten ahead of them again, and rather than repeat the same thing, it twisted its body with a feline grace and brought its scything arms down to the floor, digging gouges to slow its momentum. Now it stood right firmly between the door and the trio, its ceramic face inexpressive. The rest of its metallic body was covered with a greenish oxidation and ichor was likewise splattered across its breast. It looked like a battle angel.

Arthur noticed that the striker class golem had been fashioned after a woman, and it dwarfed him. Pearlescent opals twinkled―he felt the obfuscation ring warm again. The golem titled its head to the side as it started dragging its scythe blades across the ground. Arthur swallowed.

‘Why the hell are they after me?!’ he thought as he grudgingly went through the motion of casting [Thunder Bolt] in his left arm. If he could just stall it― The golem twitched―

Suddenly, one of Livierre’s quarrels made contact with its head. It rocked back from an explosion―

“ Get a move on and stop staring at it lecher!” Livierre yelled. More quarrels whizzed, peppering the golem's head and shoulders in explosions. Heat and smoke billowed, obscuring the arcane construct.

Rather than lash out that he had not been doing that, he scrambled, throwing himself out of the way ... and just in time too. The golem burst out of the smoke, unharmed, albeit with the original metal showing through the scratches from Livierre's onslaught. Its back was turned―Arthur saw his chance and unleashed the spell he’d been holding, aiming to hit its back. That was a mistake,

He could only stare wide eyed as the golem twisted impossibly around its small waist and intercepted the bolt of lightning with its scything arms. The spell grounded into the quartzite blades,

“ Get out of the way you fool!” Livierre cried as she shot at the golem. The golem’s arms crackled warningly as they brightened; crackles of lightning arced, striking and detonating the runeheads before they even reached their target .

Arthur hobbled back up, muttering, “ Oh―now I remember what he said about the golems,” as the golem flung their arm towards his direction. Time seemed to stretch as thoughts flashed in Arthur’s mind at well, the speed of thought. It dawned on him that his situational awareness and sense of battle were not the best and that his training and sparring with the sword had never really let him develop them. He simply had no experience. Was he going to survive rebound lightning? Could [Gust Shield] deflect it in time―

Then Nora crashed into him like a blur.

“ Oof!” he gasped as the air went out of him. Then his immediate vicinity went white as lightning grounded near the place he’d last been. The air exploded with a crack as the heat built up. Arthur was lucky that the expanding air blasted them rolling before the heat got anywhere near them. He wasn’t keen on finding out how wurmhide would fare against his own lightning.

“ Nora,” Arthur wheezed as he clutched his torso. He scrambled to stand, feeling at his ribs as the Dhampir separated from him. His dwarven goggles had protected him from the flash of light. He saw the feminine striker class golem, its scything arms less bright as a heat haze wafted off the crystalline weapons like the spent barrel of a firearm. In the distance, Kervir had now moved to back up Arkilius as they tried to stall the other golem.

“Master Arthur!” Nora said, none the worse for wear. “ You need to go now!”

“ Huh?” Arthur gasped as he picked Overkill from where it had fallen. He was dazed and there was ringing in his ears, but [Regeneration] was already patching them up.

“Master Arthur! You need to go to the core!” Nora said as she drew her Khxizhos for the first time. Arthur realised what she was about to do. He’d never seen her fight but, even if she was more than human, she couldn’t possibly go up against the golem herself. Kervir and Arkilius were already pressed by the other golem. Nora? She was only one person―

“ Nor―” Arthur started. Livierre grabbed him by the elbow.

“ Dekara! Let's go you lovestruck [Rogue]!” Livierre whirled. Arthur let himself be led away as they ran from the antechamber.

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