I’d certainly get the chance to test that confidence. Goddamn, I was excited.
The others moved in behind him as I studied them, stored details, and banking the information in my gem’s shining fractals, deep in the bowels of Zagorath. Bertha’s savage grin slid over her face as she waited beside my jewel. She might not have been able to see our visitors, but my excitement was infectious. Abby shifted a little nervously, and lightning threads sparked over her body. The Storm Elemental’s full power was buried inside her body, but I doubted it would take long to surface after the pirates attacked.
The Hellbats readied themselves to explode from their vents, and the Storm Sprites crackled with electricity. The pirates inched their way down the stairs, their eyes sweeping over my new decorations on the walls. They didn’t flinch at the grinning skulls mocking them, nor did they need light to illuminate their paths. The sigils glowing on their weapons was more than enough to guide them.
Their weapons were ripe for the taking, straight and serrated blades forged from Obsidian Alloy. Puck had been uncharacteristically helpful in describing their gear—everything was a direct reflection of what he’d said. When the stairwell grew darker as they descended, the pair behind Ralph removed their chest armor, and their tattoos shone with essence, filling their bodies with delicious power.
My consciousness roamed over their forms as I dissected them, and I realized another difference from the Scalpers. This band wasn’t motivated by simple spoils. No, they were here for power, for the Infernal Essence that my dungeon had to offer.
Ralph stepped out onto the central floor of the antechamber.
“Is it time to begin the celebrations?” Puck’s voice entered my mind.
“Not yet,” I asked. “We want to give them a bit of a warm up. There’s no point scaring them off right away.”
“Oh, I suppose I can wait a little while,” Puck said, disappointment clear in his tone.
“There’s a blade trap in the centre,” Ralph warned his men, gesturing at the place where the trap trigger had been only a few days ago. “Stay to the the walls.”
Kid had learned from his mistakes.
So had I.
I grinned as two pirates entered the edge of the wide Paralysis Ring. Lightning exploded from the floor and raced into their muscles.
“Trap!” Ralph yelled, and the pirates who’d managed to miss my Paralysis Ring leaped to the walls while the two remained stunned.
Electricity rippled over the floor, activating my Bladed-Fan all on its own. The cleaving blades erupted from my Hellbat statue, fanning out as they had before, and the sharp slivers struck two stunned adventurers.
One managed to twist away somehow, but the blade scraped across his ribs, ripping open his armor and spilling the first drops of blood on my antechamber floor. The second’s spasming arm caught the blade mid-flight, and it wedged into the bones of his upper arm, and he howled in pain through gritted teeth.
Not as effective as I’d been hoping for, but a good combo. Abby had been everything I’d needed, and more.
The other adventurers moved in, the Paralysis Ring now glowing a bright blue and easy to maneuver around. They were careful not to step on the pulsating circle of Storm Essence as they reached inside and grabbed their comrades. Residual lightning pulsed along the injured pirates’ bodies, and their rescuers received a shock for their efforts.
“Fuck!” a pirate yelped as he stepped back.
“Wait,” Ralph said as he raised a hand. He watched the injured pair for a few seconds, and the lightning eventually vanished from their bodies. “Now.”
Hauling their friends out, they pulled them back and laid them against the walls, away from the Paralysis Ring. An older pirate with a patchwork of facial scars reached into a belt pouch and removed a potion. As he administered the healing tonic, I reached out and unleashed my minions.
Hellbats and Sprites spiraled from the ceiling in a storm of gnashing teeth, hellish screeching, and beating wings. They hurtled toward the scent of blood like homing missiles. The injured pirates were quickly healing, and my minions were prevented from executing easy prey when Ralph lunged forward. The rest of the pirates folded around the injured men, and Ralph’s swords hissed through the air and effortlessly carved into a Hellbat’s wings. The minion tumbled to the ground, and Ralph crushed its skull with a powerful stomp that produced a boom through my antechamber. Infernal Essence flooded into his tattoo as he attacked another creature.
Ralph was looking out for his fellow adventurers this time, not using them as meat shields. Simple avarice wasn’t doing the trick—they were committed to keeping each other alive. My jewel boiled with fury, and I invested the emotion in my minions. They attacked with greater ferocity, but the pirates met them with equal fervor.
The Storm Sprites moved with greater speed than the Hellbats, and they zipped past swords and curled under swinging axes. The pirates attempted to use crossbows to take them down, but the sprites knocked aside the weapons so it was impossible to aim. The Storm minions didn’t have offensive capabilities, and it took all of them to disable a single adventurer. They latched onto a man with a crossbow and blasted him with lightning. He yelped as his muscles spasmed, and two Hellbats rocketed toward him after sensing the easy kill. The vampiric creatures seized his face and neck, but he snatched a bolt and rammed it through a bat’s abdomen and then crushed the other in both hands.
Even unarmed, these pirates were far more powerful than the Scalpers. Their veins pumped with essence and gave them superhuman strength. It would take a whole lot more than a few Hellbats and Storm Sprites to take them down.
Wielding a massive warhammer, the mountain of a man crushed a Hellbat. The sigil on the weapon’s handle burned brightly before an energy pulse covered my bats
