The others recoiled, but it didn’t take long before they were all scrambling to absorb Renkish’s essence. I figured I’d let them have every last drop; it wouldn’t be long before it was all mine anyway. I planned on letting only the priest survive, and he didn’t seem all that interested in consuming essence anyway. But I really wanted to inspect what was in his pouch, and I figured I could do a bit of multitasking.
“Get that pouch from the old priest,” I willed Puck. “But don’t kill him.”
My winged champion blasted down from the ceiling, a shadow-sphere swirling into existence in his clawed hand. The imp pitched the ball of darkness directly toward Alaxon, and the old man managed to spin as it struck him square in the chest. The priest recoiled and gagged as the foul magic blinded him and slid deep into his lungs.
The half-orcs were unconcerned by the attack on the humans, using the opportunity to surge into my First Floor. They gave Renkish’s corpse a wide berth, every one of them missing the second trigger,
As Puck harassed the priest, Ralph leaped to his defense but my champion was too fast—he slipped under the kid’s sword and moved for Alaxon. The imp curled into a ball and smacked into the old man’s chest like a winged blowing ball. The ancient man stumbled backward, unable to keep his balance, and his foot found the trigger of the last spike trap.
Fuck. I’d told Puck not to kill the guy, but then he’d gone and stepped on the trigger.
The old man planted his staff and tried to vault from the triggered tile but was too slow. The spike rent him wide open, ripped through his neck, shattered his shoulder, and bit through his collarbone until it found his heart and wedged itself in tight against his ribcage. Blood exploded from his mouth, and then, with a whirring clunk, the spike retracted, ripping him off his feet and shattering his frail corpse against the ceiling.
Shit. I’d just lost my dungeon’s best potential advertiser. I couldn’t trust any of the half-orcs to do a decent job, so I’d have to settle with Ralph. He wouldn’t be so bad, though, since he certainly possessed the ability to wax eloquent.
Alaxon collapsed to the floor, a shapeless mess of meat and bone. His pouch fell, and the dungeon core span out of it like a coin. The jewel rotated edge over glistening blue edge before coming to rest in a shadowed corner.
“Alaxon!” Ralph screamed. “No!”
With a relentless fury, he came at Puck.
The imp met the kid at the corridor’s exit and hurled a shadow-sphere, but Ralph’s weapon cut the magic in half. The descending blade didn’t stop there, either. I watched in horror as the sword ripped Puck from skull to foot, tearing him in half in a shower of blood and steaming entrails. His essence, now free of its corporeal form, swirled in the air for a moment. But before Ralph’s sigil could absorb him, the mass of energy whipped toward the nearest surface of my dungeon. With a flood of essence that couldn’t begin to match my flood of relief, I felt the imp whirl into my core. His consciousness was not like the usually hyperactive, cunning, and irritating being I knew; it was inert but safe inside my core.
It seemed there was an advantage to being a dungeon champion; immortality wasn’t a bad perk at all.
Ralph snatched the dungeon core from where it had fallen on the floor and raced forward. The other half-orcs had paused at the end of the corridor, too fearful to move into the main chamber. They craned their necks to gaze at the likeness of Lilith. Ralph stood behind them, a few of the half-orcs turning to acknowledge him. They all gazed at him with appreciation, offering a few words of consolation and congratulations for slaying the imp, but Ralph ignored them all. Burning in his eyes was a fire, a desire to destroy my dungeon.
I could use that.
While the raiders were occupied with discussions of the traps and monsters that might lie in wait for them on the journey from the corridor to the dais, I returned to Alaxon’s corpse. By focusing entirely on the single action of absorbing the golden substance floating from his mangled body, every last speck shot toward the dais and siphoned into my jewel.
There was something more to the priest’s Soul Essence—it wasn’t quite as sweet as Gavin’s had been, but was pleasing in another way. It was like a century-old wine, whispering with echoes of magical memories. And it was potent, filling my resource pool far faster than any of the others had. I’d have time to ponder on it later.
“We’ll move slowly,” Ralph said, breaking my thoughts and returning my attention to the raiders. The kid had obviously taken command after Renkish had died, so I guessed killing Puck seemed to have earned him the right to lead. “Every step needs to be careful. Watch the ground, now. If you see any change in the surface color or texture, it’s likely a trap. We’ll draw lots to see who goes first.”
The kid tore at the fabric of his trousers and frayed the edges to produce cotton threads, then the surviving raiders all picked a length. Eventually, the order had been determined and the unluckiest of all the half-orcs ventured forward.
“It’s your time to shine, Bertha,” I said. “Show me what you can do.”
She’d been waiting in the shadows, hidden from anyone peering out of the corridor, but now she stepped into view. Her emerald-green skin bathed in a red glow as she spun her poleaxe in
