Puck’s blood bathed the vent, and I could feel it pooling on the stone. His breathing was ragged and his heart was struggling to beat.
“Tell me,” Puck rasped, his voice echoing from the vent. “Did you take some village whore behind the stables, only for her to laugh at you when you unbuttoned your trousers? Is that why you wield a pair of swords?”
Ralph didn’t scream this time—his jaw was set in grim determination. He sheathed both swords and then took a running start before leaping twenty feet into the air. His fingers clamped onto the edge of the vent, and then he grabbed hold of Puck with the other hand. The Chosen One dropped to the ground with my champion gripped around the throat.
“You killed Alaxon,” Ralph snarled. “You drove him into that trap, and you fucking killed him.”
“And look at you now,” Puck wheezed, looking up at him, defiant. “If anything, little Chosen One, I did you a favor. Or are you still a snivelling little worm who pleaded for his life and ran from my master’s halls?”
“Let’s see how well you taunt me after I tear you apart!” Ralph gripped either side of Puck’s shoulders, and his fingers dug deep into my champions flesh. With an almighty scream and a powerful pulling movement, he ripped Puck in two.
In the last seconds of his life, my champion still had the presence of mind to cast a spell. As his body tore apart, the spell exploded outward and rippled the hallway, into the wounds and veins of the still-standing Sand Pirates. The crossbowman with the half-melted face howled like a lunatic and somehow found his feet. Half-blinded, he raced for the corridor, flickering blood all over my walls. His foot found the trigger for one of my new traps, and the Wall Spike blasted out of the wall. It caught him straight in the neck and smashed him into the opposite wall, breaking his spine and damn near decapitating him. With a satisfying slork sound, the trap retracted and yanked the doomed adventurer back into the wall, his head hanging from his torso by a few strands of meat. The spear of the trap tore itself free, and he crumpled to the floor, a shapeless mass of bloody flesh and broken bone.
Impale, eviscerate, decapitate.
Zagorath was doing all that, and more.
Blood, entrails, and Infernal Essence covered Ralph’s body, the remains of my champion. The Chosen One licked his lips hungrily, and the magic from my champion filtered into the adventurer’s tattoo as the pirates looked on in horror.
What I had failed to do, Ralph had achieved—he’d filled the band with terror.
“I’m going to kill you, Chosen One.” Rather than the sound only echoing inside my jewel, it filled the halls of my dungeon. It was a disembodied voice, and didn’t belong to my elf, but it caused the pirates to jump, and a few weapons clattered to the ground.
Take that Ralph. My dungeon was growing stronger, and I was learning new tricks every day.
“Is it Zagorath who speaks?” Zarrik asked.
“Aye. It seems the dungeon has finally noticed us.” Ralph looked up at the ceiling, as though that was where I was located. “You will be defeated, Zagorath. I will kill your troll, and I will kill your elf. Then I will siphon essence from your jewel, leaving only enough for you to rebuild, and then I will return and take everything from you again.”
Puck’s consciousness swirled back into my jewel as the pirates drank potions and tended to their wounds. Ralph’s lieutenant stepped closer to his leader. “This creature. What did it mean, pleading for your life?”
“It lies,” Ralph hissed, turning on the man, flicking my champion’s blood from his longswords, Puck’s Infernal Essence swirling into his bloodstream, feeding the tempest that raced through his veins. “That’s the nature of this dungeon. It divides, and it conquers the divided. Do you doubt that, Zarrik?”
The lieutenant saw the murder in his leader’s eyes, and wisely backed down. “No.”
“Do you remember what I said about questioning me?” Ralph didn’t even let the other man answer before his twin swords slashed across. Zarrik’s head toppled from his shoulders as blood founded from the severed neck. Ralph finished absorbing the man’s essence before the decapitated head stopped rolling.
The newly-appointed pirate leader had adopted my ‘evil overlord’ schtick, and I started to wonder whether it would be a pity to kill him. He reminded me a little of myself, and I could probably use his drive. The thought went to the back of my mind when Ralph pointed to the corridor with a blood-bathed sword.
“Those traps, they’ve changed,” he said as though he hadn’t just slain one of his own. “They came from the ceiling and floor last time. We’ll proceed as we did before. Carefully.”
The pirates were still under Ralph’s sway, and they followed him into the corridor. Obviously Zarrik had been somehow immune to most of the ring’s mind-altering magic—too bad for him.
Including Ralph, six pirates remained, and they all knew about the traps in the corridor now. They scooped up the leather clothing I’d left on the side-altars and systematically tossed them onto the floor in the corridor. The Wall Spikes weren’t directly under my control—they were the equivalent of a muscle reflexively spasming. I watched with a sinking feeling as the leather fell onto the triggers and the spikes fired from the walls. One, then two and three, before the fourth and final spear cannoned into the corridor, hitting nothing but air.
But I had a second trick up my sleeve. The storm traps crackled invisibly in the corridor, simply waiting for someone to step inside them. They weren’t triggered by movement, or
