Grand Game 309: The Better Part of Valor (Patreon)

It was not all bad news, of course.

There were some definite benefits to facing two weaker creatures instead of one higher level foe, especially since the ‘new’ vipers weren’t elite-ranked monsters anymore. That not-insignificant fact was what had allowed me to analyze the clones.

It was also why my telepathic abilities were more likely to succeed the second time around too. And after the next iteration of clones, it would be even easier. In fact, I thought, grinning in sudden realization, from here on things could only get easier.

I can still win this.

The insight reignited my enthusiasm, and I nearly resumed the battle there and then, but I reined in the impulse in time. There was something else I had to attend to first—namely, restoring my mana.

Both the clones appeared content to remain where they were, but just in case I retreated another fifty yards up the tunnel. The exit, and I was certain now that it was indeed an exit—light, albeit of the weak and dull kind, was streaming through—was only a short hop away. Nothing had ventured through yet, and I didn’t think anything would, but it wouldn’t do to leave it unguarded.

“Keep watch on that,” I instructed Ghost, gesturing to the exit, then sat down and closed my eyes.

✵ ✵ ✵

You have replenished 100% of your mana. Void armor charge remaining: 100%.

Your channeling has increased to level 104.

A little later, I opened my eyes to find Ghost standing patient sentry by my side. Rising silently to my haunches, I peered down the tunnel. The two swarm vipers were still where I’d last seen them.

“Are you going to try killing them?” Ghost asked.

I glanced at her. “I am,” I replied, knowing she meant the vipers.

“Won’t more just appear?”

I shrugged. “It matters little. Each successive group will be lower-leveled and easier to kill.” I paused. “It will likely be time-consuming, though.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

I looked back over my shoulder. “Return to the exit and keep watch. Make sure nothing interrupts us.”

“On my way!” she responded as energetically as ever despite the trivial nature of the task I’d assigned her.

I smiled fondly as I watched the spirit wolf make her way back to the exit. As frustrating as Ghost could be at times, her unrelenting good cheer never failed to surprise me. It made her a pleasant companion and I was glad to have her around.

“Try to stay within fifty yards of me at all times,” I said, adding a final word of caution. “If I need to flee, I will teleport to your location.”

“Of course, Prime,” she replied.

Leaving Ghost to her task, I turned back to the swarm vipers. Their minds were opaque to me as their predecessor’s had been, but neither had concealed itself yet. Hmm… Was that because they had lost the ability to do so, no longer being elite creatures?

I didn’t know and it didn’t really matter. Drawing psi, I began casting.

There were multiple tactics I could employ against the swarm vipers, but the simplest—and most effective—was to let them do most of the work for me.

Sending tendrils of psi forward, I assaulted the minds of both serpents simultaneously.

You have cast mass charm.

A level 191 swarm viper has failed a mental resistance check!

A level 191 swarm viper has passed a mental resistance check!

You have charmed 1 of 2 targets for 20 seconds.

I exhaled in relief as I wrenched control of one of the clone’s minds. I’d not been entirely sure my charm spell would work and had been afraid that whatever ability the vipers were using to shield themselves from my mindsight would also make them immune to mental manipulations.

But it hadn’t. And now the rest of the encounter would be simplicity itself. Right, time to get them fighting, I thought and reached across the mental link binding my new minion to my will.

A hostile entity has detected your spell! A level 191 swarm viper is now hostile to your minion!

I faltered, momentarily distracted by the surprising Game message. Something like this had never happened before!

The second swarm viper did not hesitate though, and before I could finish issuing my attack orders, it struck. Uncoiling rapidly, it darted forward and clamped steel jaws around my minion.

It didn’t stop just there, though.

Powered by the momentum of its lunge, the serpent coiled the rest of its body about its victim, locking down its torso too. My minion attempted to respond in kind, but the second swarm viper had executed its first strike too well, and it was unable to sink its jaws into the other.

A swarm viper has critically injured your minion.

Your minion has failed to hit a swarm viper.

My mouth twisted sourly as I watched the two writhing serpents. It seemed all but certain that my minion would lose the battle, and I wondered if I should intervene. But after a moment’s consideration, I decided not to.

After all, it didn’t matter which viper came out on top.

The loser would still clone itself into two weaker variants. Stilling my hands, I waited for the battle to resolve itself.

✵ ✵ ✵

Inevitably, the aggressor won.

Your minion has been dealt a fatal blow.

About time, I thought grumpily.

Even with a death-grip on my minion, victory had not come easily—or quickly—for the second serpent. Sliding free from the corpse, the battered victor reared up to its full height and pinned its defeated foe with its milky white gaze.

I, too, watched the ‘dead’ viper intently. My next move would depend very much on what happened.

The corpse trembled minutely, then more vigorously and, a heartbeat later, burst apart.

Deathwish spell completed. A swarm viper has cloned itself.

As expected, two new vipers emerged from the fresh spatter of blood and gore. It was the moment I’d been waiting for, and without delay, I interrogated both new entrants with analyze.

The target is a level 181 swarm viper.

The target is a level 181 swarm viper.

I pursed my lips. So. Each time the swarm vipers replicated, they lost ten levels. I could work with that. Drawing in psi, I began a second casting.

Again, the second swarm viper surprised me.

Not giving me a chance to finish my casting, the bloody survivor of the first battle struck again. Its jaws opening impossibly wide, the serpent flung itself at one of the new clones.

And swallowed it whole.

What the hell?

My mouth dropped open, revulsion battling shock, as I watched the frantically struggling younger clone slide down the mouth of its fellow. There had been no reason for the older clone to attack. I hadn’t even cast my charm spell yet!

So what had prompted the assault? And what sort of attack was that anyway?

Obligingly, the Game answered.

A level 191 swarm viper has consumed a level 181 swarm viper and has advanced to level 196.

Consume is a rare and somewhat macabre ability that allows some creatures to ingest their weaker fellows. In the process, the attacker becomes stronger, absorbing a fraction of its victim’s power. Note, consumption does not trigger an entity’s deathwish ability.

My eyes widened. Now, that’s… dastardly.

The older swarm viper was not done yet, though. Pinning its gaze on the second clone—realizing its danger, it was frantically slithering away—the engorged serpent darted forward and clamped its jaws down on the fleeing clone’s tail.

Then, it sucked it in, too.

A level 196 swarm viper has consumed a level 181 swarm viper and has advanced to level 201.

Well… damn.

I stared disbelievingly at the newly empowered swarm viper. It might have been my imagination, but to my mind, the thing looked smug and self-satisfied.

More depressing, I was right back where I started: facing off with an elite creature again.

✵ ✵ ✵

The older clone—which I was quickly coming to hate—had yet another surprise for me. Less than a minute after digesting its ‘meals,’ the sated serpent coiled around itself and faded from side

A hostile entity is hidden!

God damnit! I cursed, suspecting what had happened. An elite once more, the swarm viper had regained its camouflage ability. It can still be killed though, I thought mulishly, not doubting my ability to slay the darn thing.

Yet, despite my confidence, I made no move to launch a fresh assault.

Like I’d told Ghost, slaying the swarm viper would take time and, in the face of the clones’ new consumption ability, my estimate of how long that would be had only gone up. Drastically.

I’d spent an hour fighting the viper—and had nothing to show for it. I could resume my battle with the creature and likely waste another few hours slaying it or…

Or I could find another way to employ that time and put my stolen knowledge to use. After all, the entire reason I’d ventured out of the entrance chamber without resting in the first place was the necrotic spike spell—and given the swarm viper’s nature, the spell would be wasted against it. Any one of my blades would serve me better against the clones.

Slaying the swarm viper was not a priority, I reminded myself. Maximizing the benefit I derived from my stolen spell was.  I glanced at the waiting exit behind me. At the very least, the area beyond warranted a scouting trip.

And I can always come back and kill the swarm viper later.

Decided, I turned around and headed out of the tunnel.

✵ ✵ ✵

As I made my way towards Ghost, I felt the muscles in my legs strain harder. The ground beneath me was rising, I realized. Steeply, too.

“We’re leaving?” Ghost asked when I drew level with her beside the exit.

I nodded, panting slightly. “We’ll return later. But for now, it’s time for a bit of exploring.” I jutted my chin towards the exit. “What’s out there?”

“Nothing,” she replied dismissively. “Just rocks and more rocks.”

“Hmm,” I mused, not sure if I was more disappointed or relieved to hear that. Ducking out of the tunnel, I went to see for myself.

The first thing I noticed was the purple sky.

It was enough of a surprise that I instinctively dropped into a crouch and cloaked myself in shadows. Only then did I turn my attention to the surroundings again.

I was in a deep basin formed of stony ground and rimmed with rocky cliffs. My first thought was that I was in a mountain range, but no, there were no tall peaks darkening the horizon. Instead, the cliffs’ tops had been sheared off, and their heights were hidden from sight.

I’m in a chasm, I thought. A cauldron-shaped chasm.

Sheer walls curved around nearly the entirety of the basin, except for a small gap in one section. And in that direction the chasm extended onwards, zigzagging like a jagged scar across the face of the world.

Above the towering gray cliffs—each a few hundred feet tall at least—the sky shone violet. There was no sun in evidence. Nor stars for that matter. But the sky was not uniformly purple. Here and there, the horizon was marred by patches of pale white.

Clouds perhaps? I wondered.

But there was something off about the ‘clouds’—I couldn’t quite put my finger on what, though—and it made me hesitant to label them such. Frowning, I tore my gaze away from the gray haze—the mystery could wait for later—and turned my attention to the rest of the sky.

In other spots, the sky’s violet tinge thickened, deepening, to a metallic hue. The familiar sheen reminded me of the scorching dune dungeon where I’d seen something similar.

Was the violet band stretching across the horizon the sector’s protective barrier? The one that shielded the dungeon from the dark miasma of the Nethersphere? Most likely, I decided and dismissed it from further consideration. Dropping my gaze, I studied the stony pockmarked ground ahead.

That’s when the second intriguing thing caught my eye.

It was a moving mountain.

Two moving mountains rather, each vaguely man-shaped and with arms and legs.

But they weren’t really mountains, I realized. They were monsters, and the dungeon’s next challenge.

“The sky looks funny,” Ghost remarked suddenly. “I… like it. Can we climb the rocks and take a closer look?”

I glanced sideways at the spirit wolf, then back again at the mountain-sized humanoids. The cauldron’s floor extended a few hundred yards in diameter, and the pair were far off and of no immediate threat. “I thought you said there was nothing out here?”

“There isn’t,” she replied. “Now can we go see the sky? Please.”

I pursed my lips. Ghost wouldn’t lie to me, but the two rock creatures were clearly visible. Despite being over two hundred yards away, their size made them easy to spot. “What about those two?”

“Oh, them,” Ghost replied with barely a hitch. “What about them?” She paused, then added helpfully as if I might have missed the fact, “They’re just rocks, Prime. Weirdly shaped and large, but just rocks.”

“They’re moving, Ghost,” I retorted in exasperation.

“So what? Rocks move.”

“Rocks roll,” I growled. “They don’t walk. Living creatures do that!”

“Huh?” Ghost exclaimed, finally sensing some of my irritation. “But they have no mind!”

I blinked. “They don’t?”

“No. They don’t,” Ghost replied emphatically.

I scratched my chin, considering this. The rock creatures were too far away to appear in my own mindsight, but I didn’t disbelieve Ghost. What then did that make the two entities? Constructs? Probably.

Narrowing my gaze, I examined them anew.

Both creatures were as tall as the cliffs bordering the cauldron and while they were humanoid in shape, nothing about them screamed human. For one, they were formed from solid rock, for another their faces were devoid of features, and their hands and feet lack digits, ending in flattened stumps instead.

The two weren’t identical either. The creature on the left was missing an arm, while the one on the right had a chunk missing from one of its legs. I frowned. It almost looked like the two had been injured. But what could injure such behemoths?

“Are they really alive, Prime?” Ghost asked, sounding miserable.

I glanced back at the spirit wolf. She had been trying so hard to be useful, and now, she thought she’d failed me. And she hadn’t, not really.

“They might not be,” I admitted, ashamed of my earlier anger. “They could be constructs.” Realizing she probably didn’t know what that was, I added, “A construct is a made-thing, something created and given false-life. While they have no mind, they are still dangerous.”

“There are creatures with no mind?” Ghost asked, seemingly startled by the notion.

I nodded. “There are.”

“B-but… but how do I spot them then?” she moaned.

“You can’t unless you see them behaving strangely, in a way natural things won’t.” I hesitated before adding gently, “Then you should tell me.”

“I’m sorry, Prime,” she said dejectedly.

“The fault was mine,” I reassured her. I realized that if I was going to continue employing Ghost as my scout, I would have to expand her education. There were things other than constructs she needed to know about, and I resolved to teach her at the soonest opportunity.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go take a closer look at these things.”