Chapter 15: 13. The Gnome and the Collapsing Mountain

“I’ll take care of this,” Liandra said with the confidence of a seasoned heroine.

“Will you manage? There’s ten of them.”

That partially sounded like compassion, though Theodor had ulterior-motives in mind. True, he didn’t want Liandra to get too hurt—he actually had started to find her amusing after the brief time spent together. However, there was a more practical point to his question. If she managed to destroy all the red-armored demons, that would mean that she also got to claim all their cores.

“It’s no problem for me to lend a hand,” he insisted.

“Thanks for the offer, but I got this.” The woman took a step forward, dragging her massive sword along the stone floor. “Without the demon heart, they won’t last a minute.”

“It’s really no problem.” The answer was exactly what the dungeon feared. Already he could see ten demon cores, not to mention everything the army of gnome-work armors had, slip between his fingers.

Logically, there was no reason for him to be upset. His main goal remained the same as it always was: enjoy a calm and uneventful life. All this nonsense with destroying Lord Mandrake was nothing but an unfortunate joke of fate. The sooner it was over, the better, and not getting involved was only to his gain. And yet, he had had to admit to developing a guilty pleasure of seeing the levels of his avatars increase.

Ok, Theodor, get a grip of yourself, the dungeon said to itself. You’re just experiencing an experience high. Or maybe experience withdrawal? You just need to stop thinking about it and let things play out. It’s bound to pass.

Unfortunately, it didn’t. With each step the heroine took towards the gathered army, Theo imagined seeing messages of further levels. Maybe it was alright to level up just a little bit? Just until he reached level ten. That was a nice round number. Or twenty… twenty-five at the most. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Well, maybe it would hurt the demons and enemies he dispatched in order to claim their cores.

“So, you think you can take on the great Lord Mandrake, future ruler of the world?” The gnome let out a forced laugh. “I laugh at your folly!”

Liandra didn’t reply, continuing her slow approach.

“It took you’re a tremendous amount of luck, and a bit of effort to destroy one of my captains,” Lord Mandrake continued. “And you think you can defeat ten?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” Liandra tightened her grip round the hilt.

Theo’s avatar moved from foot to foot, fidgeting as he thought what to do.

“Spok, what can you tell me about glowing colossuses?” he asked back in his main body.

Excuse me, sir? If the spirit guide had the ability to blink it would have. Glowing what?

“Giant statue-like creatures made of metal and covered in ruby shards.”

Ah. That sounds like a guardian. They’re favored by younger dungeons, though lately the trend seems to be going for quality rather than quantity. The problem lies in the heroes. They seem to be quite capable of destroying single large beings—even if considerably more powerful—rather than a wave of smaller minions.

Theo could fully see that. When it came to goblins, he had destroyed considerably more than Liandra. Yep, she didn’t have a particularly hard time against a minor demon.

Am I to understand you’re fighting another dungeon?

“What? No. Some pesky gnome with delusions of grandeur made one. I just want to know how many core points I’ll get from its core.”

The gnome?

“The colossus, Spor…” the dungeon said, annoyed.

That would be nothing, sir. Colossuses don’t have their own cores. They rely on other cores for energy. That’s why creating them is an expensive investment—part of a dungeon’s own core is used in the process. Should the entity be destroyed, the core fragment is lost as well, decreasing the overall strength of the dungeon. There have been embarrassing cases of dungeons losing entire sections since they no longer had the energy to maintain—

“Thank you, Spok.” Theodor cut the conversation short.

Since the colossus wasn’t a suitable target, he pondered on taking one or two of the demons instead. It was annoying that his fireballs were still unusable. If he could cast a few of those, he’d get a whole lot of experience from the mechanized suits of armor.

“Stop!” Lord Mandrake shouted. “I order you!”

“And why would I do that?”

“One step closer and I’ll slice the entire mountain in half, killing everyone in it!”

“Including yourself?” Theo asked, causing Liandra to stifle a chuckle.

“You’re still mocking me? Well, you’ll no longer mock me when I show you this!”

The gnome hit something within the colossus’ head. Immediately the chest of the construct opened up, like a very large wardrobe. Reddish orange light flooded the chamber. At the sight of it, both Liandra and Theo’s avatar gasped.

“Just because you destroyed one of my demon hearts doesn’t mean I don’t have another!” The gnome grinned gleefully. “What do you say about that, eh?

“How many hearts do demons have?” Theo asked the obvious question.

Before he could get an answer, the colossus gathered its massive hands together. An orb of fire formed, growing in intensity until it reached the level of plasma. Then, without an ounce of hesitation, the construct released the sphere of destruction straight forward, aiming to hit Liandra.

Instantly, the heroine jumped and rolled to the side, avoiding the fireball by a hair. She was way too experienced to fall for such an obvious trick. Unfortunately, Theo wasn’t. A surprised expression on his avatar’s face, he watched the ball of plasma sizzle its war towards him, then scorch off a foot as it continued on, melting through the chamber floor.

Any normal person would have fallen on the ground in agonizing pain. Theo, though, merely looked down in surprise. His right boot and part of his trouser leg had evaporated completely. However, his leg was perfectly fine and very much there. The only sensation he’d felt was a slight bump in energy exhausted to restore his body.

“Damnit!” Theo cursed and looked up.

His eyes met the gnome’s glance who was staring at him with an expression of unadulterated horror. In that single moment, a number of realizations were made. The future ruler of the world had seen evidence that Theo wasn’t human and was clearly disturbed by the fact. At the same time, the dungeon had come to the realization that if anyone could reveal his true nature; it was the gnome. Both entities spent the next few seconds carefully analyzing exactly what course of action to take. Then all hell broke loose.

“Retreat!” the gnome shouted, closing the colossus’ head around it. Several more orbs of plasma appeared in the colossus’ hands, flying in the avatar’s direction.

Meanwhile, Theo had come to the conclusion that the only way to prevent imminent catastrophe was to silence the gnome, which he rushed forward to do, drawing the heroic sword from his dimension ring.

Three plasma balls hit the ground in front of him. Though none managed to cause any further damage to Theo’s clothes, they did something far worse. The entire mountain shook violently in a tremor that brought Theo and most of Lord Mandrake’s army to the ground.

Large slabs of rock walled off the gnome and his troops, hiding them from view.

“No!” Theo leapt back to his feet, rushing a few steps forward, only to fall again at the next series of shakes.

“Theo, don’t!” Liandra shouted.

“But the gnome! We can’t let him escape!” the avatar shouted.

“Let him go. We have far greater problems! If the fireballs have reached an underground deposit of magma, the entire mountain might explode!”

No, this can’t be happening! The dungeon cursed. Not only had the maniacal goblin overlord uncovered his secret, but the creature was loose out there. Seeing how loose it was with its words, it was quite likely that it would blabber out the truth about Theo to everyone it came across, friend or foe.

“The villagers,” Liandra said as she ran to Theo’s avatar, helping him up. “We must save the villagers. That’s what’s most important.”

Tears in his eyes, the avatar did everything possible to force a smile, but found it impossible.

“The villagers,” he said, the words coming out of his mouth like ice cubes through a straw. “Yes, we must save them…”

“Quickly! Let’s go!”

Without a moment’s delay, the heroine rushed towards the tunnel in which the unfortunate prisoners had gone. Theo did the same.

“Spok, what are the chances of the Mandrake Mountains being an active volcano?” he asked the spirit guide within his main body.

It all depends on how many demon organs were buried there.

That didn’t bode well. From what Theo had seen, there had been two whole hearts, not to mention scores of other demonic fragments that had powered the gnome-work machinery. It would be nice to think that those were all, but something told the dungeon that there were a lot more buried, deeper underground and, at present, highly agitated by the gnome’s reckless plasma ball release.

“Can you do something about the light?” Liandra asked, as they were running.

Deeping in his own thoughts, the dungeon had his avatar cast a small fireball. To a huge surprise, this time the spell didn’t fizzle out.

“I can use magic?” The avatar looked at its hand in astonishment. “I can use magic!”

Apparently, with the demon heart gone, there was nothing preventing normal magic from being used. Taking advantage of the fact, Theodor instantly cast a pair of aether shields around himself and Liandra. Transparent spheres of energy appeared, then were instantly lifted thanks to the dungeon’s telekinetic ability. Now, at least, then they could move a bit faster.

“Thanks.” The heroine turned to the avatar. “But I could still use some light.”

“Give me a moment!” Theo grumbled.

That was the problem with some people—always urging for this and that, while being complete slowpokes. Casting another fireball, he then entrapped in a shield. By the laws of nature, and common sense, this shouldn’t have worked. However, as it turned out, it was perfectly possible for a magically created flame to exist without air, surrounded by a magical shell. There were a lot of questions to be asked, but for the moment, he didn’t care. The only thing important was to get all the villagers out of here and chase down Lord Mandrake.

“How about this?” Theo asked, as several more glowing orbs of fire emerged, flying nearby.

“Not bad.” The heroine smiled. “Now all we—” she stopped mid-sentence. “Look out!”

Four large battle trolls had emerged further ahead, blocking the duo’s entry into the tunnel.

Breaking the aether shield while still maintaining his telekinesis, Theo cast a massive fireball forward. Apparently, he had put in a bit too much mana in it because not only did it burn the first few trolls to a crisp but also knocked the remaining two several dozen feet back.

 

CORE CONSUMPTION

4 troll cores converted into 400 Avatar Core Points.

AVATAR LEVEL INCREASE

Your Avatar has become Level 8

+1 Mind, MINOR BLESS skill obtained

700 Core Points required for next Avatar Level

 

“Now you give me this?” Theo grumbled.

 

MINOR BLESS - 1

Allows you to bless small items with divine might. The items can be no larger than a thimble or arrowhead.

Using the skill will increase its rank, increasing the size of items that could be blessed.

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Reading the effects of the new skill felt like adding insult to injury. As it stood, the skill was utterly unusable. Even worse, in order to make it usable, Theo would have to spend vast amounts of time and energy blessing useless items.

“Be careful, there might be more of them!” Liandra said.

“Alright.” Theo created another aether shield around him. If only we’re so lucky.

They flew along the tunnel to a point in which it broke up into a vast cave network. Reaching it, Theo dissolved the aether shields, letting him and the heroine gently onto the stone floor. Not too far away, a dozen villagers banked the wall with crude pickaxes. No one seemed particularly concerned by the tremors that had engulfed the entire mountain. They didn’t appear to be guarded, either.

“Hey!” the avatar shouted. “Villager folk! Stop what you’re doing and run for your lives!” He mentally prepared for an outburst of sudden panic. The people ignored him altogether. “I said, run for your lives,” Theo repeated.

That didn’t seem to have any effect, either. Striking the wall with the methodical effectiveness of puppets, the villagers kept on working, as no one was near.

“What’s up with them?” Theo looked at the heroine.

“They’re probably still under the influence of the demon heart,” she said.

“How? I destroyed one of them, and the snotty little gnome ran away with the other.”

“People aren’t like magic, Theo. It takes them a while to get back to their usual selves. Sometimes days, or even weeks, must pass before everything is back to normal.”

“Weeks?” If Theo wasn’t a dungeon, both he and his avatar would have fainted. “How are we supposed to get them out like that? Carry them?”

Liandra gave him a hopeful look.

“Forget it! I’m not dragging several thousand people out of here! No way!”

For some reason, the moment he said it, he felt bad. True, he was a dungeon—an introverted dungeon, if there was such a thing—but he still had memories of his previous life as a human. Leaving a thousand people in peril through no fault of their own wasn’t something he was willing to go on with. It was one thing speaking about theoreticals, but seeing it in person made his core ache.

“We don’t even know which way is out,” he said defensively. “And there’s no telling how much longer the mountain would last. I wouldn’t put past Mandrake to have rigged the entire place to explode just for the fun of it.”

The woman smiled.

“I mean, it’s not like I want to leave them here. I don’t. It’s just that my power isn’t limitless. Maybe I can rescue a few dozen, but—”

A quake far stronger than before shook the tunnel, bringing all the brainwashed villagers to the floor. Yet, even that didn’t stop them from attempting to strike at the nearest surface with their tools. Large rocks broke loose from the ceiling, falling dangerously close to the people. It was at that precise moment that Theo acted.

Forgetting concerns, doubts, and fears, he did what a dungeon had to do. Fourteen aether shield bubbles emerged, enveloping everyone, Theo’s avatar included. He knew perfectly well that at present the aether shields wouldn’t be able to withstand an impact of such force, but that wasn’t the plan. The only thing Theo needed the shields for was to make sure that none of the people were dangling about as he moved them out of the path of the falling rocks and down the tunnel.

“Hang on!” he shouted, casting swiftness on himself. This is the worst idea ever!

Gritting his teeth, and all pieces of furniture in his main body, Theo flew along the tunnels with his avatar, followed by a row of aether shield bubbles.

“I’ll take care of the villagers!” he shouted. “You figure out a way to get us out of here!”

Similar to a real-live version of snakebyte, the avatar flew along the corridor, gathering people along the way. Everyone he passed by would be encased in an aether shield, then made to join the ever-growing queue. A normal person would have a long runout of mana, not to mention lost track of each and every “bubbled” person. However, Theo was a dungeon, and as such had perfect special awareness of the surrounding area and every spell he controlled. Energy burned like crazy as more and more villagers were clustered to the group. Soon the queue became so large that Theo had to break his own aether shield in order to be able to create larger, straighter tunnels through which to fly.

My apologies for pointing out the obvious, sir, but your energy is decreasing at an alarming rate, Spok said back in the dungeon’s body. Might I suggest calming things down a bit?

“Don’t you think I would have, if I could!” Theo shouted.

Ah. Well, I’d just like to say that if things continue like this, soon you won’t be able to maintain all the furniture you created.

“The hell with the furniture!”

One thousand seven hundred and eleven bubbled humans were flying behind Theo’s avatar, all of them blissfully unaware of the destruction around them. Rocks continued falling from above. Some of them Theo was forced to wrap in an aether shield, only to prevent them from hitting the unfortunate villagers.

“Did you come up with a plan yet?” he asked Liandra. Nearly every part of the cave system had been explored. Nothing but a few minor segments remained.

“Yes.” the heroine replied, three bubbles away from the avatar. “We have to return to the main chamber.”

“What?! Why?”

“That’ll be the way out!”

Back in the dungeon’s main body, nearly all of the energy reserves were gone. In an effort to keep the core from disintegrating, Spok started converting furniture into energy. It was a crude, wasteful process, but at this point, it was all that could be done.

Turning to his right, Theo’s avatar entered the final unexplored tunnel. As luck would have it there was a single person there. After a few moments, he, too, was added to the group.

“Caught them all!” the avatar shouted.

 

AETHER SHIELD - ULTRA

You have reached the maximal level of the AETHER SHIELD skill. All shields you create will be invulnerable for the first ten seconds of their existence.

 

That was finally some good news. Theo felt all of the shields he had created harden. Apparently, already existing aether shields were also affected, starting from the point he had acquired the skill. All that he needed to do now was get back to the main chamber, which proved easier said than done.

Just how many villages did that gnome really snatch? Theo wondered, as he shuffled the spheres along the exceedingly tight tunnels. His dungeon sense told him that the shortest route to his destination was just over a mile away. Normally, that wouldn’t be much at all. At present, it seemed an impossibly large distance.

The seconds felt like hours. Giving it his all, Theo navigated everyone to their destination.

“That way,” Liandra pointed.

“Why there?”

“I have a divine compass ability. That’s the way we need to be at.”

Theodor had no idea if that was the right way or not. What he feared, though, was that it wouldn’t take more than a few empty rooms to breach the wall.

“Can’t we go to where the gnome ran off?” Theo asked.

“And risk getting caught in a gnome booby trap? Bad Idea.”

“What’s our other option?”

“Let me out.”

Slightly confused, the dungeon did as instructed. The heroine landed on the floor and instantly rushed forward, sword in hand. Six feet from the wall she swung her weapon. Brilliant white light flashed in the chamber as the heroic blade sliced the air, releasing a wave of energy forward. The strength was such that it sliced through stone like cheese, going on for what seemed like a mile.

Normally, such an event would be accompanied by some good and some bad news. Unfortunately, in this case the bad news was more than the good. While the attack had managed to form a crack in a mountain, reaching light, it had also made the already unstable situation worse. Also, the crack was far too narrow to let anyone other than a squirrel pass through.

“Do another one,” the avatar urged.

“Can’t.” The woman shook her head. “One more strike, and the whole mountain will collapse onto us.”

Damn it! Theo knew what had to be done. However, he also knew that he was going to like it. So far, only a few pieces of furniture had been converted into energy. If he were to make an escape tunnel, a lot more would follow.

“This better be worth it!” He flew forward.

Using what energy he left, he kept tapping surfaces as he went, creating small segments of arching tunnels. Not so long-ago Theo would have been able to create the entire thing at one go. Now, however, he had to pace himself. Furniture was going fast as he moved forward, the villagers following in their cocoons of aether.

“Keep going!” Liandra encouraged, who, for some reason, had remained behind.

Theo could no longer worry about her now. All that was in his mind was to reach the outside before his energy ran out.

“Last time I’m using my energy for something like this,” the avatar grumbled as more of his valued creatures disappeared. The entire first floor was nothing but an empty room now. The kitchen and bathroom were also in the process of emptying. Soon even his study would be at risk.

The cage of the large rabbit crashed to the floor, as the table it was on ceased to exist. Moderately disturbed, the critter turned stretched, took a few steps to the nearest corner, then huddled up there, and continued sleeping.

Less than ten feel separated Theo from freedom. One more room and the distance was halved. Another and bright light fell upon him, blinding the avatar for several seconds—an objectively short amount of time that proved enough to have him lose track of the aether bubbles behind and the inertia that came with them.

At precisely that moment, Liandra made her move. Charging forward, she used the flat of her blade to push upon the last of the aether shields. The action was not enough to break the shield, instead propelling—and all those in front—forward.

A sudden rush of villagers slammed into Theo’s avatar, shooting him out like the cork on a bottle of champagne. At the mercy of gravity, the avatar found itself flying through the air to the ground hundreds of feet below.

With a loud thump that caused one more chair wardrobe in his main body to vanish. Barely had that happened when villagers started falling like hail. The good news was that the aether shields were strong enough to cushion their fall before cracking up. The bad news—the avatar ended up beneath a fair number of them.

Sir, your energy has stopped decreasing, Spok said back in the structure of the dungeon. And with half a room to spare.

“Spok, just…” Theo began. “Never mind.”

As a dungeon, Theo didn’t have a direct concept of pain, at least not as far as his avatar was concerned. Yet when it came to annoyance, the sensation was doubled. Few things were as humiliating as having to be dug out of a pile of people. Naturally, Liandra took her sweet time getting to him, even as the mountain trembled behind.

“Theo?” the heroine shouted. “You alright there?”

“Ask me again once you get me out,” he grumbled, as several of the nearby villagers kept fidgeting.

Being taken out of the caves had stopped them from obsessively mining. However, they still remained very much puppetries. At this point, Theo didn’t mind. After all, he too needed a bit of a rest.

“Spok, how long before enough energy is restored?” he asked in the very empty building in Rosewind.

For you to be able to perform a few spells, I’d say six hours, maybe eight. To reconstruct any of your furniture, probably a week?

Eight hours of sleep sounded swell about now. Maybe even ten.

“Theo?” The heroine pulled off two villagers from the avatar. “Things alright? Anything broken?”

“Nothing broken.” The avatar smiled, then closed his eyes. “I just need a short rest.”

 

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