But how? How was there another core here? Had they torn her from her own dungeon and forced her to travel with them? Is that what I would’ve become, if not for Bertha and Puck?
Too many questions, not enough time. I had to rescue her.
Now I had two priority targets: the kid and the priest.
“I thought you said this dungeon was in its infantile stages, old man,” a half-orc screamed at the priest. “What do you call this? The walls are decorated, and I can hear the hum of power. It should have taken decades to get to this stage.”
“I thought it was a new dungeon, but clearly Lilith has given this one much guidance. Or perhaps it has stumbled upon greatness itself? There are legends of an incredibly ancient dungeon that once ruled from Zagorath.”
“Legends? I don’t give a fuck about legends. I want loot, and I’m not willing to die in the process.”
“Will you quit being so gutless?” another half-orc said before he kicked Renkish in the back, sending him tumbling down the final steps and crashing to the very door of my antechamber.
The rest of the raiders roared as they charged inside it. They paused all of a sudden upon noticing the room was entirely empty. They must have been expecting chests filled with treasure, and I could feel their disappointment seep through my dungeon’s floors.
“Where’s all the loot?” Renkish asked after he scrambled to his feet.
“Must be further down. There’s stairs over there.” A half-orc gestured behind the wall bearing the bat mosaic.
As the raiders ventured toward the staircase leading to the First Floor, I pulled the trigger on the Hellbats, reaching into their minds and feeding their hungry desire for blood. I sent four from the Pretzel’s hallways and blasted them up into the antechamber vents. Then nine of the red-eyed, white-fanged vampire bats set upon the raiders all at once.
The fools were thrown into chaos, and I watched with glittering satisfaction as a half-orc fell, his throat torn asunder by a Hellbat. Blood fountained in the air before my minion shot toward the next target.
I winced as my connection with one of the Hellbats severed; the kid with the incredible sword had torn through it easily. The human stood over the corpse and stole the Infernal Essence, pulling it into a tattoo on his shirtless back in a similar manner to when my jewel absorbed it.
Of course; that was how the tattooed-sigils worked. It was the key for adventurers to grow their own power by consuming Infernal Essence. Dungeons and adventurers, the two elements of this world went hand in hand.
The kid sliced a wing off a bat, and his face set into a grim line as he crushed its skull with his boot. Another raider howled as a Hellbat smashed him into the wall and pinned him there while it tore at his eyes and face. The half-orc’s head and neck soon became a waterfall of blood. When the others attempted to rescue him, my Hellbat took flight and evaded their clumsy swings.
“All for you, Lilith.” I grinned as blood bathed my obsidian floors.
My bats were a brilliant minion for the shadows—the raiders could barely make anything out in the blood-red light filtering through the obsidian bat’s eyes and wings. The raiders’ confusion didn’t last long, and they eventually regrouped and formed a tight circle. My Hellbats couldn’t withstand the rekindled passion, and I called them to retreat. They vanished up into the vents, out of sight, and I did a quick headcount.
Four left. Fuck.
Five had fallen, absorbed into the raiders’ tattooed sigils. The kid had killed at least two of them.
While my guests laughed and congratulated each other, I counted their number. I’d narrowed their party down to twenty-six, wounding others, but still leaving them able to fight. The four corpses were barely offered a prayer by their comrades; instead, the survivors pilfered the corpses and argued for a few moments over who would inherit what.
“Enough!” the priest yelled, and the half-orcs all looked to him. “The dungeon is not yet complete. You’ve earned only spoils taken from the bodies of your dead brothers. Do you wish to celebrate over defeating a handful of bats, or do you desire the treasure that most certainly lurks deeper into this dungeon?”
The half-orcs shared a few glances and then nodded their agreement. My jewel practically burst with excitement—I’d worried that the first wave might have scared a few into leaving. Their essences and equipment were too precious to allow them to leave, and I probably would have sent my champions racing after them if they’d tried. I checked in with Puck and Bertha and found them waiting in the First Floor. They would be ready as soon as these raiders entered through the corridor.
Well, not all the raiders; my traps would almost certainly whittle down their number.
They spread out, investigating the chamber as they inched closer to my spring-loaded Bladed Fan trap. I needed them confused and less careful with their movements, so I sent my Hellbats back into the antechamber. The minions exploded from the ceiling vent again and surged into the ranks of adventurers.
One hapless adventurer fought off a bat with his sword but made the mistake of stepping on my trap’s trigger. A loud click echoed through the antechamber, and I commanded my Hellbats to take flight, out of the path of the fan blades. All the half-orcs seemed to realize the folly of their comrade immediately, but their realization came too late.
My perfectly-shaped projectiles of razor-sharp troll iron hissed free of the trap and launched from their hidden place in the wall. The blades rippled through the air at chest height, and the shortest of the half-orcs lost his head instantly. The decapitated head spun through the air and showered his friends in blood and gore while severed muscles and spine trailed behind it.
