A Soldier's Life - 344 - Gone Manticore Gone (minor edit on 2-13-25)

Chapter 344: Gone Manticore Gone

Well, at least the creature was talking. The question was, could we get useful information from it? I only understood a fraction of what was being said, and Maveith paused to explain what was being said as the conversation progressed. “We are not the ones who put you in the dungeon. We are just exploring.”

The creature rasped angrily and confusedly, “Dungeon?” Its head whipped around, looking for something or some way to escape.

I leaned into Maveith and said, “Ask it what it remembers last.” Maveith nodded and relayed my question.

The hideous creature sat, but its barbed tail twitched behind it. It was considering its response. Intelligent eyes adorned its ogre-like features. “I had chosen a mate. We found a cave high on the mountain and entered.” It paused, its head tilting as if it were trying to remember. “The mountain moved…” It appeared the manticore was realizing she had died by her pained expression. I assumed, somehow, the dungeon had absorbed her and her mate. It was using them as a template to recreate them over and over. My assumption was they had no memories after their death until they appeared here.

“Did you enter through the dungeon gate?” Maveith asked softly. I nodded at the intelligent question. Maybe the cave they had chosen was the one we were trying to clear.

“Dungeon gate?” the creature said confused.

“Ask it if it agreed to a contract with the dungeon,” I instructed, and Maveith relayed the question.

The manticore tilted its head, and then it panicked and began to howl, “Its powerful claws scratched at its head, cutting flesh, and it seemed to be in extreme pain. I noticed the large glowstone in the ceiling dim ever so slightly, and I felt a brush of the dungeon’s presence against my mind fortress defenses.

We had to cover our ears as the manticores distress increased. Raelia looked away as bloody shreds of flesh were torn from the mane and face of the manticore as it tried to claw into its own skull. It was a horrific scene, and I almost felt pity for the creature. I started to regret my insistence on talking to the manticore. It only seemed to anger the dungeon, and we didn’t get any real answers.

I stepped into the room and lowered Heart Seeker onto its neck. The black leaf tip pierced deep enough to shatter the vertebrae and sever the spinal cord. The creature continued to wail until Maveith’s hammer came down on its skull a moment later, silencing it. Looking back at my companions, I saw that we were all stunned. None of us knew a dungeon could torture its monstrosities.

The chest had appeared near one of the bushes by the pool, but we all took a moment to gather ourselves. I eventually used the collector to gather an apex channeling essence. Konstantin brought the chest to me and opened it, since no one else had collected it. An onyx stick rested on the coins this time, causing me some confusion.

“A wand?” Raelia exclaimed. I picked up the glossy black stick, about twelve inches long and a finger’s width thick. I handed it to Raelia, who turned it over in her hand, trying to make sense of it. She eventually pointed it at the far wall.

“Is that a good idea...” Konstantin began, but she had already channeled aether into it.

A black wispy smoke spewed from the end and quickly turned in a cone of fast-moving fog as it raced across the chamber. The wave of black, ominous fog quickly dissipated after twenty yards into nothingness. “Well, that was very anti-climatic,” I muttered.

“It is a wand of fear, perfect for paralyzing a large group of weak-minded individuals,” Raelia said with reverence. “It is an incredibly powerful spell and can turn the tide of battle if used strategically.”

“I have seen such a spell in the field. She is right, normal men and even legionnaires, will shit themselves or flee when it washes over them,” Konstantin said in seriousness.

“Does it have a certain number of uses before it breaks?” I asked.

Raelia turned the black rod in her hands. “Wands deteriorate with each use. A revelation scroll could tell you how many times it can be used, but this one looks brand new and should have many more uses.”

“Castile found an endless wand in the Labyrinth,” Konstantin corrected Raelia.

Raelia nodded. “Some dungeon wands draw more aether to use but never seem to deteriorate. They can still be physically broken.”

“Any objection to Raelia holding onto the wand?” I asked the group. Raelia gleefully packed away her longer blade and slid the wand in its place.

The dungeon was constantly invading my mental fortress and distracting me. It was extremely displeased with us at the moment. I didn’t believe we had done anything wrong, but it clearly held an opposing view. I sent the entire chest into my space, coins included. Everyone else was already carrying a few pounds of silver coins anyway. “Grab a fish for dinner, and we are going back to the safe room,” I declared. I must have 500 pounds of fillets already in my dimensional space, but Konstantin had been hooked on the minor endurance essences that formed from the fish most of the time.

I had consumed my fair share of essences during our time in the dungeon—I was up to six major coordination and five power essences. I didn’t need the assessment table to recognize my growth. Power essences affect your fast-twitch muscles and complement your strength, allowing you to strike much harder. Konstantin had been practicing in the dreamscape, but I was sure that if we sparred in the future, he would be shocked by my growth.

Konstantin caught two fish and collected the essences before we retreated to the safe room. We were all still reeling from what the dungeon had done to the manticore. I speculated that perhaps the dungeon and the manticore never entered into a contract like the one the greater doppelgangers had with the Shimmering Labyrinth. If that were the case, it made sense that the manticore did not realize it was in a dungeon. In a leap of logic, I guessed that the male manticore might have formed the contract and cooperated with the dungeon.

Everything suddenly pieced together for me in a weird theory. Maybe the male manticore’s contract was that it would be freed after a certain amount of time with its mate. That was why we saw the bull flying back into the pit and then out with the female before we descended. I could be completely wrong, but I felt I was on the right track.

Raelia handed me a plate of flaky, buttery-tasting fish. Consuming so many essences had overwhelmed the ring of sustenance, so I had been enjoying larger meals recently. After we consumed the fish, I passed out a yellow fig to everyone.

“We are going to collect some more figs when everyone is ready. It should give the dungeon more time to restore the manticore room,” I announced after devouring the succulent fruit.

Everyone nodded, not eager to return to the manticore chamber. Maveith had made fifteen arrows each for himself and Konstantin from the hollow steel manticore spikes. We had not been able to harvest a single poison gland sack from the manticores successfully. Our best guess was that we were not giving the creatures time to fill them after the dungeon manifested them.

We stood over the maze a few hours later. The fig tree looked full of fruit, and the baying echoes of the mountain goats were still present. I half expected something to have changed, but none of us noticed anything. “We will attempt to clear the maze for the reward chest,” I decided. It would take some extra time, but no one objected to more time away from the manticore room.

We didn’t bring Baldo out due to too much uncertainty about how the dungeon might react to our group’s increase in numbers. With our maps of the maze, we spent half a day tracking down every goat before heading to the center of the maze to claim our prize. The larger chest was there, and I was half-hoping for another goliath helm. Konstantin opened the chest to reveal oversized gauntlets, clearly made for a goliath. They matched the flat black finish of his sentinel goat helm.

Raelia, Konstantin, and I looked at each in understanding. “They are yours, Maveith,” I said.

My friend slowly worked on the flexible metal plate gauntlets. “Should I try sending aether into them?” he asked. I nodded since there were no visible runes to decipher on them. Maveith stood with slight uncertainty. His eyes widened, and he inhaled sharply.

Raelia moved to help him, panicked. “I am fine,” he said, slightly short of breath. He clapped the gauntlets together in a loud clap before he removed them. “My muscles burned, but not in pain. I think they made me stronger, but they didn’t feed on my aether. They were feeding on my body.”

“That sounds dangerous, Maveith.” I warned him.

He wore a big grin. “It was really small, and it just means I’ll have to eat more.” I could tell he was already enamored with the gauntlets, so I let him be.

“I wonder if this reward chest would give a complete set of goliath armor,” Konstantin questioned. “Like the manticore room was rewards for mages, this one was for equipping a goliath to serve on the front lines.”

“Front lines of what? My people have never been at war with anyone,” Maveith rumbled defensively.

“The dungeons helped people prepare to fight the Titans thousands of years ago. Maybe this dungeon helped your people to do that,” Raelia offered.

Maveith slowly shook his head, stating strongly, “My people were not part of the struggle. We faithfully served the stone giants, helping them build the great cities. We never took the field in any battle.” I doubted Maveith could know what happened thousands of years ago. I knew one person who might know the truth—the seer.

I reassured him, “We can clear the maze again if you want to see if the reward offers more pieces, Maveith.” He considered and nodded in agreement.

We worked together to harvest the precious golden figs before returning to the safe room. I was trying to decide how many more times we should slay the manticore before leaving. My dimensional space was approximately three-quarters full. That final free space was about what I liked to leave open to slay a creature with the space if needed.

We rested briefly before entering the jungle room and were shocked to find the shadow hunter again. Did that mean the manticore room would once again have the female manticore? The last two times we killed the shadow hunter panther, the manticore was female. We harvested the nature essence and skinned it before walking the corridor as a group.

When we reached the entrance to the room, the terrain looked the same, with one very large noticeable change.

“Harpies tits,” Konstantin growled. “That’s not a manticore.” All I could think was we had definitely pissed off the dungeon.

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