Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 179-180 (Patreon)

Arwin’s arrow screamed through the air, wreathed in a cloak of swirling green, and slammed into the side of the Life Constrictor’s head. It punched through scale and bit into the flesh beneath with a loud crack.

The snake hissed in fury and thrashed, sending large droplets of blood splattering across the ground. Crystal bit at its skin and worked its way into flesh, consuming as much magical energy as it could hold.

It wasn’t the first strike to hit it in the past few minutes. There were four other large wounds clustered around the same area. It was actually a little bit sad. The snake just had no way to actually dodge his attacks. It could wrap around the tower, but that just exposed new areas for him to shoot at.

There was nothing the Life Constrictor could do. It really wouldn’t have been much of a problem in most cases. Any normal Journeyman entering the dungeon would have been unlikely to have a way to cause significant damage whilst remaining out of the snake’s range.

Arwin summoned the arrow back to his hands and started to draw the bow once more. Prism’s Reach was practically singing in his hands. The bow was having the time of its life, and it wasn’t shy in drinking in power.

Between everything it was taking from him and the power its crystal growths were gathering from the Life Constrictor, Prism’s Reach was eating well. Magic swirled within it with enough intensity to make Arwin’s fingers prickle.

The bow creaked and [Scourge] pumped through Arwin’s muscles. He gritted his teeth, drawing the string back and letting magical energy flow from his body into Prism’s Reach to supercharge the arrow.

Come on. How long is it going to take? Am I doing something wrong? Prism’s Reach should have activated by now. It’s been drinking energy from me and the Snake for so long that I’m starting to wonder if the stupid bow is just somehow eating it instead of using it.

He let the arrow fly. It screamed through the air and slammed into the snake’s side. Reya winced at the impact and the snake hissed once more, but that was all it could do. Even growing closer to try and fight back against them would have just made it an even easier target.

For as powerful as the monster was, it had absolutely no way to get at them from up on the hill. The biggest problem wasn’t its ability to fight back. It was the amount of time it would take Arwin to finish the thing off.

If they just sat around peppering the monster with the equivalent of huge toothpicks, it could be an hour before it finally fell. That was time that someone else could either show up or get themselves killed.

Unfortunately, there just wasn’t a good alternative. The Life Constrictor definitely wasn’t having a good time. He’d been shooting at it for around five minutes now and his magical energy was starting to dwindle, but the wounds were building up.

The Ardent Guild had done some decent damage to the monster before they’d gotten locked up. Even though they hadn’t inflicted any deadly wounds, every single bit helped when time was of the essence.

Prism’s Reach seemed to sense his impatience — or perhaps it was just impatient itself. The bow trembled as Arwin summoned his arrow back and prepared to draw it once more. A dull crack rang out.

Arwin froze. He was pretty sure the crack had come from the bow, and that was never a good sound when the magical weapon had enough tension in it to launch an arrow hundreds of feet in the span of an instant.

A ripple of energy passed out from the green crystal core at the center of Prism’s Reach. The bow shuddered in Arwin’s grip and power gathered around his hand — not coming from within his body, but from the bow itself.

Loud cracks echoed out as vibrant crystal burst from the bow in a wave, swirling out to cover its arms and extending past them. Arwin nearly dropped the bow as it more than tripled in weight. But, even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have released it.

Crystal grew around his hand, locking it in place and traveling down his arm until it reached his shoulder. Unlike the jagged growths covering the bow, the surface of the crystal against his skin was smooth and flat.

The bow had gotten long enough where he literally couldn’t keep it off the ground at his height. Arwin was forced to hold it at an angle to avoid completely losing his grip on the rapidly expanding weapon.

Power thrummed through the crystal in waves that emanated from the weapon’s core. It didn’t stop at just the bow. Crystal raced into Prism’s Vengeance and encased it in a sleek, glowing shell.

The cracks finally died out, leaving Arwin with a weapon that was over two times his height. Faint thumping pulses of energy came from Prism’s Reach, almost like a heartbeat. A wave of hunger roared in Arwin’s ears like the sea crashing against a beach.

“Godspit,” Reya breathed, taking a step back from him instinctively before her eyes went wide. “Are you okay?”

Arwin gave his arm a tug. It was locked in place — and the bow wouldn’t budge. A glance down at his feet revealed that the crystal had grown into the ground as well, locking Prism’s Reach in place together with him.

He nearly ripped his arm free forcibly with [Scourge] but paused at the last moment as a thought struck him. Arwin called on the Mesh to pull up the stats of Prism’s Reach.

Prism’s Reach: Unique Quality

[Awoken]: This item has taken on life of its own. With every death it causes, it will grow slightly more powerful. Upon reaching [Unknown] threshold, it will be able to bond with its wielder.

[Power for Power]: Prism’s Reach can only be drawn when infused with magical energy from its Wielder. A portion of the spent energy will be transferred into its shots.

[Corrupted Shot]: Arrows fired by Prism’s Reach will infest their target with crystal upon impact, consuming any uncontested magic whenever possible.

[Immense Hunger]: Prism’s Reach can absorb magical energy from its wielder in exchange for empowering its next shot. The amount of magical energy it draws will increase exponentially with the amount of time it spends drawn. Overfeeding Prism’s Reach may modify its attributes temporarily.

[The Arms]: Prism's Reach, armed its Vengeance, may shift its form when it has been sufficient amounts of energy.

[Unique]: This item has formed a treaty with Arwin Tyrr. It has not acknowledge him as owner, but it will obey his commands until deciding if he is worthy of its service or not. Information about this item may be hidden from others.

[The Left Arm]: This is a set item of [2] pieces.

Holy shit. This is what it considers a form shift? I’d say it’s a little bit more dramatic than that.

“I’m fine. This is just something the bow can do. It took me by a bit of surprise as well,” Arwin said, shaking himself off. He could feel the power pouring off the bow already starting to dwindle. It didn’t look like it could hold this form for long.

He pulled back on the string — and it didn’t even budge. Arwin suppressed a curse and doubled his usage of [Scourge], pushing the ability to its absolute limit. A groan escaped his lips and the bow alike as he slowly dragged the string back.

Crystal crackled and hummed. Arwin was aware of the stares boring into his back, but he didn’t have any attention to spare paying them heed. The bow wasn’t even trying to fight him. It was just so heavy that even a flicker of distraction risked releasing the string too early.

Arwin tried to aim the weapon, but it had worked its way so deeply into the ground that it refused to change its angle. Attempts to turn it would have just broken its supports and made it incredibly unwieldy.

The Life Constrictor was fortunately a big target and the bow was already aimed toward it. Between that and the arrow’s target-seeking abilities, all Arwin could do was hope that the bow had aimed itself well enough.

He let go.

The string let out a loud crack as it snapped back into place. His crystal shattered. The air around Arwin whooshed as it rushed to fill the space where the arrow had been an instant before.

He didn’t even get a chance to see the arrow in flight — partially because of how fast it moved, and partially because he was more focused on the fact that he’d nearly taken his own arm off on accident.

By the time his eyes flicked back up, a second crack echoed out through the dungeon, this one a dozen times louder than the first. A confused frown crossed Arwin’s face. The Life Constrictor was exactly where it had been an instant before.

He couldn’t see any sign of the arrow sticking out of its skin. That was rather odd. He’d been pretty sure it should have at least connected, especially since the arrow was able to correct its path.

Arwin’s confusion faltered and vanished as a blood started to pour out of a thin hole right between the snake’s eyes. The monster blinked, looking about as mildly surprised as a snake could. For an instant, it seemed to lock eyes with Arwin.

Then crystal erupted from its head. Large, jagged green spikes ripped through scales and flesh, racing down the huge snake’s body and tearing it apart from within. The Menagerie watched in disbelief as the enormous monster was encased in its entirety.

Prism’s Reach crumbled, the huge pieces of crystal that had grown across its surface falling away and turning to ash until all that remained was the normal bow. A flicker of smug satisfaction passed from it to Arwin through their connection.

The snake crumbled away. What had once been a huge beast blew away in the wind, turning into a huge cloud of ash that swirled away from the tower and up into the air.

Title: [Inevitable End] has been earned.

[Inevitable End] – Awarded for killing an overloading monster a full Tier above you from a location where it could do nothing but wait for death. Try not to make it a habit. Perceptive opponents will be able to pick up the promise of death that seems to find those who place themselves in your way.

Arwin blew out a breath, instantly losing all the annoyance that had been building at losing the huge snake’s body to Prism’s Reach. He’d gotten another Title. It was vague, but it seemed like it would increase how intimidating people perceived him to be.

The Mesh definitely didn’t seem too thrilled that I killed the snake when it couldn’t fight back, but tough luck. If it didn’t want me to kill it, then it shouldn’t have trapped the thing under the ground. I’m not going to charge into its gullet if I can make sure everyone is safe by killing it from back here.

“Godspit,” Lillia muttered, and Reya nodded in mute agreement. Rodrick and Anna just exchanged a silent glance but said nothing.

“How?” Olive asked with a mixture of shocked awe and disbelief seeping into her voice. “I know you’ve all got magical weapons, but you can’t tell me that is literally anywhere near the level of the other stuff you’ve shown me. Seriously — who are you?”

“I swear I’ll tell you once we get out of the dungeon. For now, we need to keep moving before anybody shows up.”,” Arwin said, letting Prism’s Reach fade from his hands and blowing out a breath. He was nearly completely drained of magical energy, but they’d spent so much time standing around that more people could show up at any second.

Olive pressed her lips together but gave him a nod. They all hurried down the side of the hill and over to the base of the tower.

Arwin spent a flicker of energy to activate [Dragon’s Greed]. He doubted he would need much, and he was right. The bands of energy that rose up told him that the strongest source of magic was coming right from the tower in front of them.

If there was anywhere that the key went, it was here. It was time to see just what Jessen had left behind.

Chapter 180

Faint shimmers of crystal dust still glittered around the base of the tower as the Menagerie drew up to it. Fortunately, it had settled enough to be mostly concentrated around their feet.

Breathing in vaporized snake didn’t sound like one of those things that wouldn’t be too great for prolonged long-term health. They moved slowly, not wanting to kick too much of the dust up.

The base of the tower was made of grooved black stone. Cracks ran throughout its base and spiderwebbed up along toward its top. Arwin ran his hands over the stone, searching for a circular hole where he could put Jessen’s badge with one hand while he pulled the badge in question out of his bag with the other.

“Look for somewhere I can put this. It’s probobably a circle somewhere in the stone,” Arwin said, holding the badge up so the others could see it. “It would be really embarrassing if this isn’t actually a key and we did all this for nothing.”

“Not nothing. We saved some people,” Reya said. “And you also got a giant lizard.”

“Good point,” Arwin allowed. He held his breath and slowly crouched, scanning the ground to see if the hole was somewhere near his shins. After finding nothing, Arwin rose again and shook his head. “I’d still like to get in, though.”

Shadows slithered along the wall at his side, rising up from beneath Lillia to roll over the surface of the stone around her like a brush. The others searched as well, wrapping around the base of the tower in their search.

There was the mildly concerning possibility that the key wasn’t actually at the base of the tower, but Arwin decided to consider that after they’d actually finished looking around. He didn’t much fancy the idea of having to climb the sheer walls of the tower to find an entrance.

“Are you sure the keyhole is going to be circular?” Olive asked, poking at the tower wall with a finger. “This kind of looks a bit out of place.”

Arwin walked over to stand beside her. Olive had found a short crack in the wall that ran in a perfectly horizontal line. It was the width of his palm and just a few hairs short of chest height.

He looked at the badge in his hand, then turned it so that it was parallel with the line and held it up. The two aligned perfectly. Arwin cleared his throat. “Olive found it. I didn’t consider that you’d have to slide it in like a coin instead of pressing it against the stone.”

Everyone gathered around the keyhole.

“Are we ready to go in?” Rodrick asked. “We don’t know how deep the dungeon is. Could be more monsters up ahead.”

“Very well might be. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if Jessen had a trap on whatever it was he’s got — or it could just be another one of the monsters he had mind controlled,” Arwin said through a huff. His magical energy was still pretty low. If they’d been alone in the dungeon, he wouldn’t have hesitated to order a rest.

Unfortunately, they weren’t. Killing two huge overloading monsters had definitely taken some power away from the dungeon, but the Dungeon Break wasn’t going to be that far off — and when the Ardent guildmembers showed back up with their reinforcements, making it into the tower would be impossible.

“I’m doing fine on magical energy,” Lillia said. “As is Olive, I’d say.”

Olive nodded and put her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Yeah. I’m ready for any fight that we need to take. If I’m honest, I’m more interested in getting out of this dungeon as soon as possible. I’m more interested in what it is you’ve got to tell me than I am in finding out what Jessen kept here.”

Can’t blame her for that.

“I’m doing okay,” Reya offered up. “A little more than half. Enough for a fight.”

“I’m in roughly the same spot,” Rodrick said after a second of consideration. “Maybe a bit worse. I got some a good bit of energy back while we were sitting around and letting Arwin pelt the poor snake bastard with spikes. I think everyone’s just about ready to fight other than Arwin.”

“Then I think we move forward now. If anyone thinks that’s a poor idea, please speak up. I’m not immune to making mistakes as we’ve all come to see,” Arwin said. It wasn’t ideal — but if they could get inside the tower, they could at least scope out what they were dealing with. If there wasn’t anything waiting for them, a short break wasn’t out of the question.

Nobody said anything. Arwin slid Jessen’s badge into the keyhole with more than a little trepidation. It struck Arwin that it would be painfully funny if the crack wasn’t actually a keyhole and really was just a random crack, but it was too late to change their plans now.

The badge disappeared into the hole. For a moment, there was silence. Then a soft click echoed out from the wall and the badge spat back out, smacking into Arwin’s chest, dropping, and nearly hitting the ground before he scooped it out of the air.

A small rumble shudder shook the ground around the base of the tower. They all lowered into fighting stances, preparing for the worst, and a layer of stone peeled back at the tower’s entrance.

Faint green light spilled out from within the tower from torches illuminating a path wide enough for two people to walk side by side. It only ran for a few dozen before abruptly coming to an end at a pair of large double doors within the tower.

Only a moment after the entrance to the passage had completely ground open did the stones ripple and start to slowly shut once again. The Menagerie exchanged looks amongst themselves. The entrance wasn’t closing particularly quickly, but it would be fully shut in seconds.

“Is there a hole in there to open the door from within?” Olive asked.

Arwin tossed the badge to Lillia and stepped inside to study the walls. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it only took him a moment to find it. There was an identical a slot along the passage wall.

“Yes. It’s here,” Arwin said.

“Then we might as well,” Reya said, striding right into the passage. Arwin and the others hurried after her, and Lillia handed Arwin back the badge once she’d entered. They stood still for a second as the stone shut behind them, completely blocking out the dungeon at their backs.

“Well… we can take a quick break now,” Rodrick whispered.

“Just not too long. We’re safe from other adventurers now, but I really don’t want to be stuck in the dungeon if there’s a Dungeon Break.”

“We’ve already killed two strong monsters,” Olive said. “We should have a lot more time, right?”

“Never bet against some moron being able to kill himself. Or a bunch of morons being able to kill themselves. With the amount of magical energy this dungeon has in it, it’s basically a beacon to all the monsters in the area. A bunch of them are going to head over here to cut a piece of the pie for themselves, so we can’t assume the dungeon will remain cleared for long.”

Awin dismissed his armor and sat down. He crossed his legs beneath himself, resting against the wall and letting his eyes drift shut to gather back as much energy as he could in the short time that he had.

Minutes slipped by. It didn’t feel like nearly long enough, but he rose ten minutes later, shaking his hands off and shifting from one foot to the other to get the blood flowing once again. The others all gathered themselves and stood as well.

He had a little under half of his magical energy remaining. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to be enough. The risk of sitting around and waiting for another thirty or forty minutes to get the majority of his power back wasn’t worth the risk of getting caught in a Dungeon Break.

“Everyone ready?” Arwin asked as he approached the doors, summoning his armor back over his body.

They all nodded. He pressed his hands against the doors and shoved them. They moved with surprising ease, gliding across the stone and opening to reveal a large circular chamber. Arwin’s nostrils were instantly assaulted with the smell of rotting meat.

Dozens if not hundreds monster parts were scattered across the ground in various states of decay.  Large limbs hung suspended from hooks in the air, and several dead monsters laid in cages throughout the room, thin and starved.

In the center of the room was a large stone altar. Long strands of shimmering thread ran from a metal box upon it and stretched out all over the room. Arwin suppressed a retch and stepped further into the room, watching the ground and stepping carefully to make sure he didn’t trigger a tripwire or pressure plate.

He worked his way a few steps into the room and looked up. The ceiling of the hung far above him, vanishing into the darkness before he could make out where it ended. His lips pressed thin and he turned his gaze back to the room.

“Godspit,” Lillia muttered, the disgust clear in her voice as she looked around. “What is this awful place?”

“It looks like Jessen was experimenting on monsters,” Arwin said, feeling every bit repulsed as Lillia sounded. “But how did he manage to convert such a huge portion of the dungeon to his own workspace?”

“What was he even planning to do here?” Anna asked. “Was he trying to make some form of flesh golem to control with his magic?”

The rest of the Menagerie all stepped into the room, keeping to a tight formation. Arwin summoned Verdant Blaze to his hands. The room put him on edge and it wasn’t difficult to guess why.

The back of Arwin’s neck prickled as he spotted a stretched wing in the corner of the room. It had been pinned in an open position against the wall. “The Wyrms. It would have been hard to control a horde, but why waste material? After killing them, if he managed to take parts from them and stick them together, he could have a really powerful monster.”

“That’s assuming he would be able to reanimate the corpse,” Rodrick said. “How’s he meant to do that?”

A faint, distant thump caught the edges of Arwin’s attention. A loud bang echoed through the room as the doors slammed shut behind them and the box on the altar collapsed to reveal a head-sized heart suspended from an iron spike, the strings running throughout the room all connected to it.

“Shit,” Arwin snarled, dismissing Verdant Blaze and summoning the Prism’s Vengeance. He reared back and hurled the spear-sized arrow at the heart. The weapon streaked through the air, but a large chunk of flesh dropped from the ceiling and intercepted the blow, stopping the spear before it could reach the heart.

Scraps of monster whirled past them, pulled by threads, and slammed into the heart. Squelches, loud and wet, echoed one after the other in a sickening symphony. Mismatched limbs attached themselves to a shoddy corpse as the thumps from the heart at the abomination’s core grew louder.

A shudder shook the monster and it jerked awake. Three arms jutted out of its body, each one from a different beast. One ended in claws, the other a huge paw, while the third looked disturbingly human.

Two large, rotting feet crashed to the ground as the monster rose. It was notably lacking a head, but the Mesh didn’t seem to find that a major problem to its continued existence.

The thumping grew louder still until it was a thunderous roar that echoed through the room like the drums of war.

[Overloading Flesh Abomination — Journeyman 9]

Well, I can’t say we didn’t see this coming.

The abomination’s heartbeat ringing in his ears, Arwin charged to meet Jessen’s last monster.