He waddled as quickly as he could manage, and heard Kit’s paws pad behind him as the sorceress returned to fox form. That gave Bert strength, and he forced himself to march up the corridor.
He’d already memorized the maze, so he quickly wove a path to the next room he knew White would appear in. Bert moved to stand in the center of the room, and waited for his opponent to arrive.
“I’ll be invisible in the corner. You’ve got my support.” Kit’s voice reassured Bert, though he was still terrified as he waited for White.
Bert had no idea if this was the correct course of action, but if he was not willing to take the same risks he asked of his monsters, then he was a poor lord indeed.
So Bert waited.
Quite some time later White finally trudged into the room, and from his expression Bert supposed he probably wasn’t all that thrilled about the maze. Who didn’t like mazes?
“Hullo.” Bert waved up at White. At first his rival didn’t seem to notice him, but eventually he glanced down at Bert with a start. “Hey there, dark elf person. My name Bert. You invade dungeon. Not cool. Bert kill you in wizard’s duel now, okay?”
White began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, on and on. It was quite rude, and Bert had rarely been so offended. He waited politely for White to finish, then stuck out his tongue.
“You are going to duel me? You still have one hit point.” White chuckled. “There’s no way you can win. Not even if I let you get in a free spell. Go ahead. Do your worst.”
Bert scrunched his eyes, and went for the throat, metaphorically speaking. He was too short to reach White’s throat.
He’d had a great deal of time to think, and knew that he’d only really get one chance at ending White. Bert used the dark lord trope, and peered beyond White to the character sheet outside reality.
There it was, and Bert could see all of his abilities. His hit points. Seven hundred? How was that fair? Not a problem. Bert would simply give White one hit point. He willed the sheet to change, but…nothing happened.
“Yes, you begin to realize your predicament.” White tsked at Bert as he wagged his finger. “Did you think I’d ever leave you in a position to cheat again? I gave my class the feature cannot be illegally modified by game masters, players, or dark lords. You can’t touch me, Bert.”
Bert’s eyes widened, and he enacted the next phase in his plan. Bert turned on his heel and ran. He sprinted from the room, and into the maze. “Dark elf person can’t touch Bert either!”
He sprinted through the maze, winding back toward the volcano. White’s angry shouts fell further and further behind, and Bert began to breathe easier.
“Nicely done.” Kit’s voice emanated from the shadows, and he realized she must still be invisible. “Hopefully he bypasses the rest of your monsters, and comes straight for us. Have you prepared the sky rock?”
“Bert put it in place.” Bert began to pace back and forth again, this time from nervousness. “White coming. He so much more powerful than Bert thought. Bert worried we going to lose.”
“The rest of the plan is still intact, right?” Kit shifted uncomfortably. “He touches the rock and our problem is solved.”
Bert nodded weakly, but didn’t reply. He didn’t believe the rock would work. Nothing else had slowed White, and odds were good that he’d have some power or ability to nullify the sky rock.
What could Bert do? Maybe his monsters would get away, at the very least. Maybe Bert and Kit could run too, and they could simply let White keep the sky rock.
No. Bert had spent too much time running. Too much time hiding. He would see this through to the end. Whether White fought his monsters or not he would eventually come to the end of the maze.
When he did Bert would be ready. White had proven arrogant so far. Getting him to touch the sky rock shouldn’t be that hard. All Bert had to do was survive and hope for the best.
33
Surrender
White strode through the maze in no particular hurry. The dark lord had made his pathetic attempt, and fled. Kit, whom White had glimpsed hiding in the corner, had slunk after the goblin. His class granted permanent see invisibility, of course, in addition to night vision.
Nothing Bert or Kit had done thus far had proven even the slightest bit effective. White didn’t want to grow overconfident, but it was hard not to strut as he made his way through his newest dungeon. This would make an excellent secondary fortress, particularly with the forge, which he hadn’t yet seen, but had certainly heard of.
White began humming to himself, and had almost forgotten Bert entirely when he came around a corner into another large room. Just how big was this maze, anyway? It seemed endless.
A glass marble flashed through the air and cracked into his chin, forcing White back a step. Another took him in the shoulder, then another to the crotch. More and more marbles slammed into him, as a…was that a bipedal rhinoceros? Spitting marbles?
White raised a hand to cast a spell, but as he opened his mouth a gob of sticky webbing slammed into his face and pinned his head to the wall behind him. Now that his shield was down the blow actually inflicted damage. Not much past his damage resistance, but enough to annoy the necromancer.
Bert’s monsters were going to have to die.
An SUV-sized spider landed on his back, and crushed White down into the stone. Fangs sank into his neck, and hot acidic poison pumped into the wound.
“Pathetic.” White teleported up the hallway, within sight, but close to a corner he could duck around if needed. He
