Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 170 (Patreon)

44 miles from Centerpoint Dungeon

The goddess’ voice screamed throughout the kingdom.

Anderson winced at the sensation. Even though he was still dozens of miles away from Centerpoint, where he was sure her voice originated, the sound of her voice passing through his head hurt.

What the hells was going on?

He could just about make out the words from this distance, and they burned with power. Everything the goddess said did, but this felt particularly vitriolic, somehow.

From the way the mass of otherworlders shuddered, they felt it, too. It didn’t take someone with brilliant mana perception to understand that the goddess had just taken action. What kind of action—that, he didn’t know.

Anderson composed a message on the ARI.

#

Hey guys—this is Anderson. I assume we just all heard/felt that? What just happened? Anyone at Centerpoint know?

#

[Warning: message load significantly exceeds normal capacity. It may take some time for normal function to be restored. The Alder Corporation thanks you for your patience.]

Anderson cursed under his breath, trying not to look too worried in front of the thousand-odd otherworlders that were relying on him and Alice to survive.

Whatever Iris had done to create the ARI, the goddess had not seen fit to undo. Anderson wasn’t sure why, since she seemed to have it out for them otherwise, but he was thankful that they got that little mercy, at least.

But it was down right now. Had it been weakened?

A mile behind them, the tower that Anderson had just successfully escaped from roared.

“Aw, shit,” he said. Louder, he said, “Everyone! Be ready to run, and be ready to fight!”

He was sure that Lucas would have had something motivational to say, but while the [Tour Guide] knew how to speak softly and carry a big stick, Anderson only had the stick.

Dealing with the monster horde had been annoying enough when he’d been alone and had a respawn anchor. Subtract a [Hourglass Bracelet] and add in over a thousand hapless otherworlders, maybe fifty of which were even above level 5?

Yeah, if the tower was producing monsters at the same volume that it had been when trying to chase Anderson earlier, he was not confident about their odds.

He would almost certainly survive. Alice would survive. Alex was starting to get his act together—maybe he would make it, too.

The rest of them, though?

Anderson grit his teeth, readying himself for the monster horde he knew was coming. What had he seen before he’d run away, earlier? Maw-mouths, dragons, elementals, hydras… he hadn’t gotten a great view of everything, but there was an entire menagerie to deal with.

He would save as many as he could.

Then the earth erupted beneath his feet, and he realized that it was so much worse than he thought.

#

87 miles from Centerpoint Dungeon

Iris was exceedingly glad her class came with the perks it did.

The otherworlders were growing at a remarkable pace, she had to admit. The [Tactician] wasn’t sure if the rest of the adventurers—Lucas included—had acknowledged how quickly they were pacing through their levels, but she supposed that they had also gotten use to rapid leveling.

Under her direction, the otherworlders with Alder Corp were mostly above level 5 now. It was a pace that the Iris of two decades ago would have been deeply jealous of.

But now, she had pulled out all the stops. In the past two months, she’d jumped from level 10 to level 18, drawing on the hidden reserves of power she’d allowed the goddess to seal in exchange for her Unique Skill.

[Threads of Fate] was no longer as powerful as it had been, but Iris had already realized that she was outclassed by the king in that respect. The goddess herself seemed to have intervened to lower the efficacy of the Unique Skill even before that, so the trade had been easy.

For the last week, she had given herself a taste of what Lucas and the Centerpoint Dungeon had been doing for the last several months. It was rather to her liking, to be honest. It wasn’t what she usually did; Iris lived to make a profit.

Then again she couldn’t run a company if there was nobody left to sell her wares to. The human cost of this operation pained her. Iris had deeply miscalculated how easy it would be to take down the king.

With every passing day, the peril that everyone was in seemed to grow worse. They were down to eighteen and a half days before everybody died, and time was running out.

The goddess’ latest message hadn’t helped, either. It was strong, powerful enough that even the otherworlders here could sense what she was saying. That may have been a result of Iris demonstrating how they could collectively sense the fluctuations of mana in the area to keep themselves safe from oncoming monsters, but that didn’t change the fact that the goddess was angry.

Iris wondered what could have triggered it. The goddess had been in somewhat of a bad mood recently, to put it lightly, so it could have been any number of actions.

The motive was less important than the effects of it. The goddess rarely spoke, and when she did, it was almost always accompanied with a massive paradigm shift. Sometimes that shift was for an individual; others, it affected the whole world.

Today, Iris guessed it would be the latter. She could sense the change in the ambient mana, and if her otherworlders still had their mana-sensing capabilities active, they would be able to, too.

“Remain calm,” she ordered, her [Leader’s Voice] projecting her words to all three thousand or so people they were managing now—almost all otherworlders, but with a handful of kingdom natives that had survived. “Assess the situation. Recall your training.”

She used the same warmly authoritative voice that she used with her employees. It proved effective even now. In times of crisis, people wanted someone that could lead, even if that person was equally clueless about the situation.

Not that Iris was clueless, of course. She closed her eyes, trying to sense what had changed. It was a difficult task thanks to the king’s comprehensive warding, but she’d found that with time and effort, she was capable of detecting the details of anomalies.

The mana signature of the world around them was different, that much was obvious. But what, specifically, had it been?

Iris was not particularly old, but she was very, very experienced. She knew the goddess’ mark—hells, she had spoken to her personally, thanks to her creation of the ARI, and she knew what the effect of her hand on baseline reality was like. The goddess didn’t have mana, not exactly; she didn’t need it.

The mana was shifting in ways that indicated something other than the divine had touched it, though, which made her suspicious.

There were only two major players other than the goddess that could have created a ripple on that scale, and one of them would have told her his plans.

She frowned. Had Lucas successfully begun the process of forcibly ascending the otherworlders?

Iris checked the rating system-cum-communication network she’d created, only to find that it had collapsed under the load of everyone using it.

If she had been a less composed woman, she would have cursed.

But she was Iris Alder, and she was a professional.

So Iris put one half of her brain on identifying what the cause of that ripple of magic was and set the other to start repairing her ARI.

It shouldn’t have overloaded right now. Most of the otherworlders weren’t even in the system, and the ARI had been working just fine when she’d had it deployed on tens of thousands of adventurers.

Most of whom are now dead, she thought grimly. Had the dungeon breaks, monster horde, and subsequent Cataclysm killed people attached to the ARI but left their souls “logged in,” as Rose had put it?

Iris delved into her interface, weaving through a complex web of mana—and then she felt it.

Another burst of mana. Definitely not the goddess, and absolutely not Centerpoint Dungeon.

It was coming from right under them.

“The threat is under you,” Iris declared urgently, “Take cover imm—”

The earth cracked right in the center of the formation of otherworlders, and a dozen of them screamed as they fell, tumbling straight into the pit that formed there.

Their screams cut off before long, and Iris soon saw why.

A golden, gleaming spire rose from the hole the king had created, and even as she watched, the mangled bodies of the otherworlders she’d just watched die seemed to dissolve into it, flesh and bone melting in a shower of gore that the golden surface hungrily slurped up.

“Weapons free!” Iris cried. “Escape the tower! If you can’t escape, kill it!”

The tower’s sides split open.

In an instant, another dozen people died, flattened by the structures that emerged.

One of them was an Alder Corp employee. She was down to thirty-two of them, now.

Iris had engaged in war before, but never on the front lines.

No time like the present, she thought grimly, preparing her spells.

She was going to lose a lot of people.

That was a sacrifice she was going to have to be willing to make.

#

109 miles from Centerpoint Dungeon

[DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD RUN?]

That message hadn’t been intended for Rose, she quickly realized. The sound of the goddess in her mind was far different from when she was issuing a command to another person. This was horribly strange, though—normally, the goddess liked to speak in private.

“Run from what?” Ryan asked. “I don’t think we’re running.”

Troy frowned. “You heard it, too?”

“If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Lucas did something she really didn’t like,” Rose said. “Maybe something she found uninteresting, or something that she didn’t know how to respond to.”

“It could be anything,” Troy said, shrugging. “Do you think we should return?”

“I doubt it,” Rose said. “Can you feel the change in the air?”

“I’d be a piss-poor [Mage] if I couldn’t,” he replied. “Yes. It smells like death.”

“What’s your take on it, Troy?” Ryan asked. “I don’t feel the ground shaking or anything.”

“I cannot determine its exact details,” Troy said.

“Give us your best guess,” Ryan suggested.

“Based on the signature of the magic, I doubt that it originated from the goddess. In all likelihood, the king is making a play.”

“He must’ve heard the goddess too,” Rose said. “He’ll know we’re off balance.”

The watery dungeon above them started to churn violently, a stormy sea above the ground.

“You think that’s part of it?” Ryan asked.

“Almost certainly,” Troy said.

“I’m going to see if anyone has better detais,” Rose announced. “Ah—nope, never mind. The ARI is down, gentlemen.”

“Figures,” Ryan said with a sigh. “You should tell your mom to make it better.”

Rose snorted. “Yeah. I’m sure this is a great time to ask.”

Whatever the magic effect was, the worst of it seemed to dodge them. The dungeon did start spitting out monsters, but those were easily handled between the three of them.

Thorn arrived six minutes after the goddess’ message, [Bag of Holding] in hand.

“Did you hear that?” he asked breathlessly, screeching to a halt mid-air. He’d been using a [Greater Flight] or something, Rose guessed, because he’d been going fast.

“Yes,” all three of them responded at once.

As if it had been waiting for the [Wizard], the watery sphere above them pulsed once more, and a fresh wave of monsters spilled forth.

“You still came,” Ryan said. “Is everything alright back at Centerpoint?”

“I don’t know,” Thorn said. “I was already gone. My spells flickered out halfway through, but they came back after the message did. It looks like the king’s raising his towers early. There’s a lot more of them than Iris predicted.”

“Fuck,” Ryan said succinctly.

“Fuck, indeed.”

“We still have a job to do,” Rose said, brushing her hair out of her face. She wished it was that easy to brush her concerns away. “Let’s do it.”

The four of them turned grimly towards the dungeon, which thrashed so violently that they couldn’t even see the core anymore.

When it was done, a monster larger than the entire dungeon circled it, slimy and six-headed and tentacled.

A [True Kraken].

They leapt into battle, knowing the weight of the world lay on their shoulders.

#

0 miles from Centerpoint Dungeon

The goddess’ message might have knocked me off my feet. I couldn’t tell, because when I reoriented myself, Carly and I were no longer in the dungeon.

Aw, shit, I thought, looking around. This was a similar space to the one where I’d received my class evolution. That didn’t bode well.

The goddess didn’t so much appear as much as make us aware of her presence, as if she’d always been here. Given the extent of power she seemed to exert, she may as well have been. She was always everywhere at every time.

“Goddess,” I said, not kindly. “What do you want?”

[THE SAME I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED.]

She was still angry, I assumed, since she kept on speaking in all capital letters. Each of her words traced itself across my vision, searing themselves into my retinas. I felt like every sentence was another sledgehammer to the brain, which wasn’t helping matters.

“This is not what I was promised,” Carly said. “This was not our deal.”

[YOU ARE IRRELEVANT. YOU ARE AN IRRITANT. YOU ARE EXTRANEOUS.]

Carly Iru, [Omniscient Librarian] had enough time to open her eyes wide with surprise before she popped like a soap bubble.

I recoiled, stumbling back. Was she dead? She wasn’t here anymore, that much was obvious, but had the goddess just killed her because… just because?

[HER CONTRACT IS FULFILLED. SHE HAS ASCENDED TWO PLANES ABOVE. SHE WILL BE UNABLE TO RETURN.]

Welp. I was suitably horrified that yet another solution that I’d put a lot into had gone up into smoke alongside an incredibly powerful ally, but…

“You’re getting predictable,” I said, barely controlling my anger. “The good guys get close to winning? Oh, I guess it’s time to break their kneecaps. King isn’t doing well enough? Here’s the perfect sacrifice and situations, the perfect Cataclysm, delivered right into his hands! Fantastic!”

[YOU ARE THE PREDICTABLE ONE. YOU STAY PUT, AND YOU GUIDE, AND YOU DO IT IN PERPETUITY.]

“No fucking shit,” I said, genuinely angry now. “Remember how you put me here?”

[YOUR LIFE BEGINS TO BORE. SHOW THE WORLD PASSION. SHOW IT HATRED. SHOW IT ANYTHING BUT UNRELENTLESS, IDIOTIC KINDNESS.]

She showed me visions, like she always did. I saw myself committing my first kill. I watched myself save Rose, anger etched into my face. I saw Sylva die. I saw me kill the Omen.

“What, this is what you want?” I asked, more furious with every passing second. “More killing? More war? That’s what you think I am?”

[THAT IS WHEN YOU INSPIRE MY INTEREST. SHOW ME YOU ARE WORTH MY TIME.]

“Maybe I’m not,” I hissed. “But if all you can offer my people is unending violence, I don’t think you’re worth mine.”

I didn’t have any dungeon powers here. This was the goddess’ domain, after all, and I drew all my powers from her. If she wanted, she could strike me down right now. Kill me where I stood.

Yet I knew she wouldn’t. If she wanted entertainment, oh, I could give her a show. Killing me was the only way to guarantee that I could never assuage her boredom again.

[You are bold, Lucas.]

The text calmed down. I didn’t know why she suddenly seemed calmer after I directly insulted her, but I could appreciate that I no longer wanted to tear my brain out and bash it against a rock until the headache shut up every time she spoke.

[You will have one final opportunity. Entertain me, prove your worth over the nameless king’s, and perhaps your world may survive.]

Though I didn’t have powers here, I could still feel the shift in the world. It was not a pleasant sensation.

“What did you just do?” I asked. “What did you just do?”

A quest flickered in front of me. A very familiar one.

[World Quest: Dungeon Dive]

[The Centerpoint Dungeon has taken residence in the once-great kingdom. Find it, infiltrate it, and eliminate it at any cost.]

[Reward: 20 levels.]

[Penalty for failure: Death.]

[Time remaining: 18 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes]

Then, as I watched, the number on the bottom decremented. Then it did it again. And again.

Time went into free-fall.

[Time remaining: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds]

Oh, no, I thought. I’m not ready.

None of us were ready.

I blinked, and I was no longer there. The quest remained in the center of my vision, an executioner’s blade counting down with every second.

[Last chance, Lucas.]