Ultimate Level 1 - 153 - A Whole Different Dungeon Experience (Patreon)

The dungeon was almost hard to look at sometimes. Where the sky should be was a swirling mist of different colors with lights constantly flashing between darkness and light.  Nothing made sense, and even the ground appeared to change occasionally.  One section was twisted stone that suddenly turned into grey dirt, and then into orange sand of some kind.  The wind that blew was silent, but it occasionally raised goosebumps on their skin. It felt as if something was watching them.

“What’s the plan?” Fowl asked as he rotated his shoulders a few times, readying his shield and hammer in case something came at them.

“We move along this weird path and try to find the next portal—all while trying not to die, obviously,” Max replied, earning a grunt and a glare from Batrire.

“What’s wrong, Seth?” Tanila asked.  “Your voice is off slightly, and you’re tense.  Don’t say it’s because of where we are.”

Max nodded and took a deep breath, wondering how to explain.

“When I killed the demon, I got a notification that I had acquired a Demonic Essense,” Max replied, seeing Tanila and Batrire’s faces change at his words.  “It said I have acquired one, and I’m not sure what that means or what it will do.”

“Tanila?”

Their elf mage shook her head, frowning at Batrire’s and her question. “I have no idea.  I’ve never heard of that before… or at least not in a way that makes sense right now.  Besides, we need to move.  The longer we are in here, the more demons will come, attracted by our presence.”

“Let’s go,” Fowl grunted.  “If we’re going to do this, I’d rather not wait.”

Max nodded.  “Everyone spread out a few yards.  My sonar will pick up if anything tries to sneak up on us.  Fowl, you take point. I’ll keep watch behind us and above. Tanila, you take left, and Batrire, you’re watching our right side.”

Max put his halberd up as he spoke and took out a bow and quiver, attaching the quiver to his hip.

“Gods, that looks sexy,” Tanila said with a wink. “A man with a real weapon.”

Smiling, Max nocked an arrow and turned to face behind them.  “Let’s go.”

-----

“Three ahead, seventy yards or so,” Fowl stated as he pointed to the three demons digging in the sand. “What the hell are they doing?”

Max watched as the brown and grey demons with massive claws as wide as Fowl shifted and undulated around on the orange sand with their weird ribbed bodies.  “I’m not sure, but I can shoot one, and we can see how they react.”

“Think that’s best?” Batrire asked as she scanned the rocky landscape near them.  “What if they call friends?”

“I have no idea, but our options are limited. We can charge them, leaving the rock we’re on and getting onto the sand, but something tells me that’s their strong point. It’s only been four minutes, and we’re about to start our first real fight. Something bad will happen at some point.”

“Ready here then,” Batrire replied.

Max turned and saw Tanila give him a thumbs up.  “Alright, here goes nothing.”

Drawing back an arrow, Max smiled as his skill told him where to aim. It felt almost like cheating. He had struggled to hunt rabbits in the woods back home, but now, with the archery skill he hadn’t used except once to test it, he felt as if he had been shooting every day in his life.

The bow made a twang as the arrow sped away, arching then slamming into the demon in the middle before shattering.

Max already had his bow put away and halberd out.

“Here they come!” Fowl shouted as all three demons began to charge toward them.

After a few strides, the demons jumped into the air and dove head-first into the sand, their claws sending up clouds of orange dust as they disappeared beneath it.

“Be ready!” Max shouted as they stared at the edge of the sand twenty yards from them.  

Seconds ticked past, and then at the edge where the rock and sand met, another dust cloud exploded into the air as the three demons burst from the sand, landing a few yards onto the stone, and ran at them.

“Left!” Max shouted as he moved to the right.

Tanila cast her ensnare spell, but nothing happened.

Max heard her curse, and a moment later an ice prison started to form. The demon, with its weird webbed feet, began to slow down as ice surrounded its massive, muscular, brown, veiny legs.

Fowl charged forward, swinging his hammer and watching. But seeing it get blocked by the middle demon's massive claw.  It then slammed its right claw in Fowl, shrieking as it hit Fowl’s shield and experienced pain from his Thorn ability.

The last demon ran to meet Max. One claw was wide open, sharp-looking edges prepared to snip something off, and the other was held ready to bash him.

Max swung his halberd, using its reach to see what it could do against these taller and tougher-looking demons.

The creature held its claw up, attempting to parry and close the distance between them.  The axe blade on Max’s weapon cut through the claw, with sound of a hard outer shell being crushed and continued slashing downward into the demon’s shoulder, sending a fountain of black blood everywhere.

Its other claw clamped onto the haft of Max’s weapon, preventing him from pulling it back, as it cried out in pain.

Jerking his weapon back, the demon came with it, not letting go of the shaft even though it meant the blade stayed lodged in its shoulder.

Opening its mouth, the demon blasted orange sand into Max's face, forcing Max to close his eyes. When he did, the demon shoved the shaft of Max’s weapon up, using the distraction to charge Max. 

His sonar skill told Max exactly where the creature was, and in moments, he spun his weapon around. The hammer portion of the halberd came from underneath and slammed into the demon's chest, sending it flying backward.

Max heard a groan and knew Fowl was being pinched by the claws of the demon he faced. 

Charging, Max brought his weapon down, cutting the demon’s head off and feeling a shiver of cold sweep through him.

[ 1 Demonic Essence Collected ]

The first demon came back at Max, stumbling slightly, its only remaining claw held out with the tip pointing towards him.  Max spun, creating momentum and delivering a powerful blow with the hammer side of his halberd that squashed the head of the demon like a bug under one’s boot.

Black gore spilled out, Max ignored the cold wave and notification he received.

As soon as the demon died, the cloud of sand fell to the ground, letting him and Fowl see again.

Turning to where the last one was, Max saw it was frozen, unmoving, with its head missing.

“What the?”

“Please,” Tanila said, smiling at him.  “It’s amazing what a stone spike can do to an immobilized head.”

Batrire let out a sigh of relief and then chuckled. “Score one for the mage.”

“How you feeling, Fowl? Seemed like you two were getting close.”

“Bah, I’m fine. Keep those bad puns to yourself,” Fowl snapped back, smiling the entire time.

“That wasn’t bad–”

Max raced to where Tanila was, his halberd out and moving in a slash. “To me!”

She didn’t hesitate, immediately running right toward Max as he raced past her, his weapon almost whistling from the speed as it cut through nothing.

A pink head that had no eyes, but with two massive ears and a huge mouth filled with hundreds of teeth fell to the ground.  A moment later, a body with eight arms, eight arms with spikes and barbs and its head missing, appeared only a yard from where Tanila had been.

“Holy–”

“Fire nova!”

Max cast, moving toward Batrire. With his halberd, he sliced another head off, cutting down a second demon.

Shifting to his left, he swung again, three barbed pink arms falling to the ground before the demon who had previously owned them appeared, screeching at him.

His fire nova spell went off, flames rolling out, and six more demons, the same as the other three, appeared surrounding the group.

With their stealth broken, they rushed forward as one, teeth rotating in circles, and long tongues flicked in and out of their mouths.

Tanila’s standard fire nova went off, her flames going further out then Max’s. As the first group screamed in pain, ten more demons appeared.

“Be ready with that taunt!” Max shouted, cutting down two of the closest before moving back to the party to prepare for the rush that was coming.

“Casting! Ten!”

The assault on them began, and Fowl did what he could to protect Batrire, swinging his hammer and bashing his shield, trying to keep all of the creatures focused on him and not the woman he loved.

Holding his halberd above his head, Max spun, creating a zone of death for any of the demons that got close. One found out the hard way, losing three arms before the blade came around and cut its burnt body in two.

The demons screeched at them, pressing closer, trying to find a way to get at them when Tanila’s next spell went off.

A circle of massive spikes shot out from the ground at angles, impaling every creature for over fifteen yards.  Barrels of black blood sprayed everywhere from the wounds she created, and after four seconds the stone spikes disappeared, letting the creatures fall to the ground.

“Remove or destroy the heads!”

Max was already among the fallen, slicing and smashing the creatures' heads as quickly as he could. Fowl was bashing their heads in with his hammer and shield, ignoring their feeble attempts to snare him with their barbs. The plate armor gave them no real place to hold on to, unlike the healer and mage’s cloth robes would have.

“What in the gods was that?” Fowl shouted, looking at the carnage around them.

“Mage and healer killers,” Tanila said with a shudder.  “If it wasn’t for Seth’s ability to sense them…”

“We’d be dead,” Batrire said. “They weren’t strong, but that many attacking from stealth would have overpowered most groups.”

Max was breathing hard, not from the effort but because of the number of essences he had acquired.  

What are these? What are they used for?!

No reply came, but he feared what it might lead to.

“We need to move.  The longer we stay in one place, the more of a chance we’ll run into these things.  Stay close, and be ready.”

-----

“Gods, this is insane,” Fowl stated as he smashed the last of the pink creatures that had tried to attack for the third time.  “How many of these are there?”

“Twenty-nine,” Tanila answered.  “There was a second wave hiding after the first… if Seth hadn’t caught it, we might have been in trouble.”

“They’re learning.  This group came right as those six-legged whatever demons attacked.”

Fowl kicked the massive demon Max mentioned. They were almost nine feet tall, with six massive short legs attached to a long, weirdly misshapen body. Their arms were nothing more than massive scythes. The white color of their bodies was hard to look at as they moved. Only two had attacked, but for a moment, Fowl had wondered if they would actually be able to cut through his armor.

“It’s not even been an hour,” Fowl pointed out.  “I still don’t see a portal, and I can’t look very far ahead without this sky or whatever giving me a headache.”

“Enough complaining! We need to move,” Batrire hissed. “The attacks should be less frequent if we keep moving!”

The four of them started moving again, each occasionally shifting their head and shuddering.  Every step they took felt like someone was watching them.