Somnus IV - Chapter 25 (Patreon)

“Kaleek,” Kat said theatrically as she sloshed through waist deep clouded water, “The next time Dorrik suggests that we raid a dungeon with a name like ‘The Murky Depths,’ I would be grateful if you could smack them on the back of the head for me.”

The big otter’s nose twitched.  Scattered around the room were a half dozen monster corpses that resembled deflated beach balls.  In life, they had been inflated with gas and had moved around the room with alarming swiftness and agility, cutting through armor and exposed flesh with ease by using their razor sharp flippers.

“I don’t know,” the desoph drawled back.  “I enjoy having a chance to fight in water once more, but on the other hand, the swamp this dungeon is emulating is brackish and filled with decaying plant matter.  I feel like my fur is coated with sewage.”

“I am right here,” Dorrik cut in huffily.  “I must assure you that I am not enjoying this excursion either.  Still, swamp puffers are very susceptible to piercing and slashing weapons.  This dungeon was a logical choice even if the mire does limit our mobility.”

“Why are the logical choices always so disgusting?” Kat responded with a long-suffering sigh.  “Just one time I want the logical choice to be for us to go to a dungeon that’s full of sunshine and fresh cut grass.”

“I will see what I can do in the future,” Dorrik replied, “but for now, it is time for us to challenge the boss chamber.  Jaalin, Stekat and Toorvu are waiting for us and I would prefer not to delay matters any more than necessary.”

Kaleek grunted, turning toward the ramp that led up to a narrow island of dry land around the door out of the room.

“What information do we have on the dungeon boss?” He asked.  “Size, attacks, weaknesses, anything like that or are we stuck moving blind again?”

Dorrik eagerly climbed out of the water, reaching down with their lower arms to brush some of the muck at moisture off of their scales as they responded.

“It is a trio of eels attached to a round central body that will remain at the bottom of a lake.  It is possible to harm the eel heads, and damage to their hitpoints will transfer to the main body, but they will also slowly regenerate.  There are records of adventurers killing all three of the heads only for them to gradually regrow and attack again.  It is generally not thought possible to conquer the dungeon without someone diving into the water and attacking the creature's body.”

“Unfortunately,” Dorrik continued, “The eels themselves are capable of electrifying the water.  The safest route is to destroy the three heads and then send a diver down to find and kill the boss’ body before they can regenerate, but we have other options.”

“I do have Resist Electricity,” Kat said thoughtfully.

“Precisely!” They crowed excitedly.  “I have also purchased a pair of armbands, one with a weak regeneration enchantment and another that supports freedom of movement.  They are only single use but so long as you keep your spell in place, they should be enough to stop Kaleek from suffering any serious damage or loss of muscular control due to electrocution while he handles the monster’s true form.”

“Wait,” Kaleek interjected, raising both of his hands.  “Since when am I the one diving down to the bottom of a dark pond to fight some unknown monster without direct support?  One of the first things a pup learns is to avoid murky waters.  That’s a recipe for being ambushed and murdered before the rest of your pod can even spot the ripples on the water’s surface.”

“Sending me down wouldn’t work well,” Kat said, shrugging.  “My abilities are agility based and I can’t hold my breath that long.  I’d be lucky to stab it more than a half dozen times before I had to swim back to the surface and each of those stabs wouldn’t be that deep.  We need your sword if we’re going to do any serious damage.”

“I can’t swim,” Dorrik chimed in helpfully.  “I’m pretty sure that I would simply drown before I managed to sink to the bottom of the lake.”

Kaleek sighed, his ears drooping in resignation as he climbed up out of the water to join Dorrik on the small island next to the door.

“Fine,” he said unhappily.  “Give me the armbands.  I’ll kill your monster, but I’m not happy about it.  Once we finish this ascension ritual the two of you owe me at least one day in a nice rest stop so that I can have my fur brushed.  I deserve to be pampered a little bit after everything you put me through.”

Kat choked back a snicker.  There was just something about the almost perpetually blood covered otter sitting down for his race’s version of a pedicure that broke some part of her brain.

“Deal,” Dorrik replied primly as they handed over a pair of dark red rings to Kaleek.  “I do apologize for pushing the two of you so hard.  The speed we are moving isn’t fair and it isn’t safe.  I will not easily forget everything that both of you are doing for me.”

A trickle of warmth ran through Kat, fighting against the damp chill of the swamp she was standing in.  Without her really noticing, a smile found its way onto her face as she chuckled out a response.

“How could I say no?  We’re friends.  You’ve done so much for me without asking a single thing.  I can’t forget something like that.  Having the luxury to do something for a friend without benefit or reward, simply for the joy of being helpful?  That’s not something you see much of in my world.  In all honesty, it’s an opportunity I wouldn’t give up for anything.”

“Same,” Kaleek grunted.  “I’m not as much of an orator as Kat, but friends help friends.  Simple as that.

He slipped both of the armbands on, hopping up and down a couple of times as their enchantments settled over him.  Kaleek, shifted his head to the side, cracking his neck.  A grin popped up onto his muzzle and he hefted his sword up onto his shoulder.

“Everyone else ready?  If we’re going to do this, we might as well do it now.  No reason to wait until our fur is dry just to get it wet again.”

Kat looked at Dorrik.  The big lizard took a deep breath and nodded back at the two of them before they turned around and pushed the door open.  It swung away from them with a drawn out creak, revealing a dimly lit lake beyond.

She splashed out of the swamp filled with deflated beach balls, climbing up onto the narrow strip of dry land to join her companions.  The next room had four islands, one in the center and three spread out near the outside of the circular chamber and all connected by gently swinging rope bridges.

Kaleek sprinted into the room, heavy footsteps rocking the bridge from the doorway to the central chunk of land.  A second later, Kat and Dorrik ran in after him, a wave of humidity slamming into them the moment they crossed the threshold.

Just before the desoph made it to the center island, the water of the lake erupted upward, spraying the room’s ceiling as three snakelike creatures burst into the damp air.  Atop their long sinuous necks, bulbous muscular jaws sat just below three pairs of beady black eyes.

They swayed slightly, heads surveying the room as they sought out the intruders that had awoken them.  Kaleek didn’t give them a chance, sliding his sword into its sheath and jumping straight into the murky waves of the lake.

Two of the heads turned to follow Kaleek’s movements.  Without bothering to say anything, Kat drew a knife and whipped it into one of the monster’s necks.  She didn’t think that the paralytic poison coating the blade would do much to a creature of its size, but the handspan of metal sticking out of its slick skin would go a long way toward pulling its attention.

Dorrik ran another twenty to thirty paces, setting themselves up on the central island.  One of the monster’s heads tracked them while the two that had been looking for Kaleek snapped around to focus on Kat.

One of the serpentlike appendages lunged forward, electricity crackling off of its skin as jaws the size of a dumpster yawned open in front of her.  Kat tucked her shoulder and rolled toward the central island.  Her sudden movements sent the entire bridge swinging backward, carrying her just beyond the monster’s reach.

Its fangs crashed into the rickety wood of the swaying bridge, shattering rope and decaying planks with equal ease.  Kat felt herself falling toward the clouded water, but she didn’t wait for herself to hit.  The moment she regained her feet from the roll, she was moving, Shadow Step draining stamina from her as her body jumped ten or so paces toward the outcropping of rock and dirt that sat in the center of the lake.

She began reciting the words to Resist Electricity I, her mind focusing on the mental image of Kaleek swimming through the dark water as she ran the last ten or so paces in an eyeblink.  All three of the eel heads swiveled around to face Dorrik and her just in time for the lokkel’s psi ability to activate.

A circle of purple energy appeared behind Dorrik’s head.  Dozens of violet spikes bulged free of the ability before launching themselves en masse at the oncoming monster.  About half missed, but that meant that over the course of a second, almost thirty knives of psi energy slammed into the eels.

The monster’s eyes blanked as the disorienting aspect of the psi attack overwhelmed its rudimentary consciousness.  Kat took that time to run to the right, taking up position on another island so that the boss wouldn’t be able to focus all of its attacks on the two of them.

One of the heads swung around in a low arc, casting its unfocused gaze in Kat’s general direction.  The monster thrust a head drunkenly toward her, but Kat avoided its halting descent with ease, quietly chanting the words to Resist Electricity I as she let its head slam into the stone island.

Electricity arced off of the downed head, crackling as it grounded itself into the rock.  Kat drew another throwing knife from her bandoleer, throwing it at the eel.  It thwacked home, buried up to its hilt in one of the monster’s eyes and partially blinding it.

One of the other heads lunged back toward Kat, and she had to suppress her instinctive urge to jump atop it as more bolts of electricity fizzled up and down its slimy skin.  Instead she ran toward it, activating Shadow Step a couple of times in short succession to zip past its clumsy attacks.

Dorrik summoned a huge guillotine blade of psi energy that crashed down on the one neck accosting them as Kat blurred past.  She shared a quick nod with the lokkel as she kept running, feet clunking on the wood of another rope bridge as she sprinted her way toward the far left island.

The creature croaked, a sound somewhere between the noise of a bullfrog and the rasp of metal on metal. Water swirled as one of the heads dove into the water, leaving a wake behind it as it circumnavigated the central island.  Near the center of the chamber, the head hit by Dorrik’s ability snapped back.  It wasn’t dead or fully disabled, but the force of the blow was more than enough to stun the monster.

Kat slammed her dagger back into its sheath.  As much as she wanted to get up close and personal with eels, their electricity aura was more than her body could handle without special preparation.  Instead, she pulled the crossbow off of her back, cranking the string backward and slotting an arrow into the weapon just as the monster’s head burst above the water’s surface.

Part of her wished she had Stekat’s abilities to enchant and poison her crossbow bolt, but Kat would settle for being able to ram an arm’s length of wood and steel into a monster from a full room away.  Just as the eel in front of her reached the apex of its thrust out of the water, Kat’s crossbow twanged and thumped into her shoulder.

The arrow didn’t quite hit the monster in the eye.  Kat was getting better and better with her crossbow, but she wasn’t quite there yet.  Still, the quarrel bit deep, penetrating through clammy skin and deep into the cartilage that passed for the eel’s skull.

It wobbled slightly and Kat felt a flash of disappointment.  Ordinarily, she would have followed up with a stab from her knife or a quick spell like Overpressure to capitalize on the injury, but all of her attention and magic was needed to maintain Resist Electricity I.  After all, that was the weakness of arcane spells.  They offered more flexibility and power than elementalist abilities, but you couldn’t cast them quickly, and you absolutely couldn’t use more than one at a time.

Kat rolled to her left, dodging the monster’s head as it slapped itself down on the island like a great rubbery whip.  Rock exploded under its weight, stinging Kat’s cheeks and drawing thin lines of blood as it shattered outward.

She danced backward, cranking on the crossbow’s string.  Back on the central island, Dorrik had one of the heads pinned to the ground while they stabbed it, each of their swords taking one of the monster’s eyes.  The lokkel shuddered once, accepting the damage from the creature’s electricity in exchange for crippling it.  Dorrik stepped back, summoning another blade of psi energy that sliced downward slamming into the eel’s neck.

The head in front of Kat shuddered.  Obviously it felt some of the damage from the head that Dorrik was abusing.  It lurched upward, blood trickling down the side of its face from the crossbow quarrel still lodged in its flesh.  Out of the corner of her eye, Kat spotted a second head, slicing through the water, trying to sneak up on her from the side.

Her crossbow bucked against her shoulder a second time, and Kat barely had a chance to see her arrow punching deep into the slimy skin between the eel’s eyes before she sprinted directly toward it.  Behind her the second head burst upward from the water line, snapping at the empty air where she had once stood.

Both of the heads turned, struggling to track her rapidly moving form.  She nodded at Dorrik, their scales smoking slightly from the electricity.  Kat nodded at the lokkel as they fired bolt after bolt of psi energy into the struggling and almost dead monster head that lay on the island next to them.

She turned to the left and sprinted toward the one outcropping of rock that she hadn’t visited yet, directly across from the chamber’s entrance.  The heads began to follow her only to freeze just as Kat set foot on the island.  She dropped into a crouch, loading another crossbow bolt as she eyed the stiff eels.

Finally, after about two seconds, they went limp, slipping to the side and plopping down into the water with a loud splash.  Bubbles surfaced all in gouts churning the surface, and a couple seconds later Kaleek joined them, sword in his hand.

The desoph kicked a couple of times, swimming over to the central island and climbing up next to Dorrik.  He planted his sword point first into the soil before  reaching up and removing his helmet, letting water pour out onto the ground.

“Snakeball is dead,” he said, reaching up to run his paw through the fur between his ears.  “Felt like I was swimming through mud with enough of a static current to make my fur tingle, but it was stuck to the bottom of the lake.  Wasn’t that hard to find, just a bit annoying to kill.”

Dorrik sighed, wiping both of their swords off on the solitary head that lay draped across the central island.  They inspected the blades once before sheathing both of them.

“That is our final dungeon on this floor I suppose.”  Their voice was tired, almost resigned.  “I suppose that the next step is finding the right floor guardian for our skillset and ascending.”

Kat walked across the rope bridge back toward the central island.  None of the eels were moving and the previous moments of chaos seemed strangely distant.  The lake was almost placid.

“Are you already thinking about your ascension ceremony?”  She asked.  “It’ll be tougher than most of our fights to date, but we all know that you’re the most capable of the three of us.  Once we’ve finished the dungeons on the ninth floor, you’ll be more than ready to challenge the floor guardian on your own.”

“I won’t have time to go through each and every dungeon,” Dorrik replied, their crest almost rigid with tension.  “I can feel the changes coming upon me.  If we wait too long, I will become male with or without the ceremony and that would be a dishonor beyond what I can bear.  Even losing and dying in a fight against the guardian would pale in comparison.”

“Wait,” Kat waved a hand to cut the lokkel off.  “What do you mean we won’t have time to go through the dungeons first?  Do they just expect you to run right up to the floor guardian and defeat it without even getting a level’s worth of dungeon awards under your belt?”

“Precisely.”  They sighed.  “There is enough time for us to journey across the floor.  My clan has picked a specific guardian that while impressive, is tailored to my skills.  It will take us a number of nights to find it, but it is the only one against which I have a fighting chance.  Afterward, if I survive, if I do not ascend to the next floor, I will not receive any reward for my feat from the Tower, but I will be allowed to clear the floor’s dungeons alongside the two of you.”

“That hardly seems fair.”  Kat crossed her arms.  “Can’t you take a drug or something to suppress your evolution long enough for you to at least finish off enough dungeons?  It doesn’t seem fair to push something like this any more than your clan is already pushing it.”

“It’s not that easy, Kat,” Kaleek chimed in.  “By now Clan Ahn has begun sending witnesses down.  We aren’t talking folks on just the twenty fourth floor here, we are talking heavy hitters between thirty six and forty eight.  These are not the sort of people that you can disappoint.”

“Still,” Kat said, almost pouting.  “I can’t believe they’re setting Dorrik up for failure like this.  It’s like they don’t want them to win.”

A hand clapped down on her shoulder, and Kat looked up to see Dorrik standing above her, what passed for a smile on their heavily fanged muzzle.

“I thank you Miss Kat, but you misunderstand.  The greater the risk and the greater the threat, the greater the honor.  Clan Ahn does not assign the impossible.  For those it does not expect much of, it barely assigns difficult challenges.  For me?  I have been assigned the greatest challenge of my generation.  When you look at me Miss Kat, what do you see?”

“A scared friend?” She hazarded.

“An easy mistake,” Dorrik replied with a chuckle.  “The challenges are out of the way and the road ahead is clear.  This isn’t fear or worry you see.  It’s excitement.”