A Soldier's Life - 334 -

Chapter 334: Easy, Peezy, Manticore Squeezy

“The dungeon is definitely aware of us,” I stated. It was not a mental attack that I felt on my new mental defenses, just an awareness that we were under scrutiny.

“How do you know?” Raelia asked as she looked up into my eyes.

I didn’t want to reveal my abilities openly in case the dungeon understood what we were saying. The Shimmering Labyrinth seemed to object to my presence—or my methods, and I thought it tried extra hard to get me to leave. “I just do. We should watch what we say and do while we are in its influence.” I turned to make sure the others heard.

Konstantin walked forward and said, “I don’t feel anything.” It was like Konstantin not to believe me. He needed to confirm everything himself.

“You need to have the sensitivity of a mage to feel the change of aether in the environment. Dungeons pull aether to themselves from the ley lines and environment,” Raelia stated.

“A mage?” Konstantin muttered, amused, while looking at me.

“We found the dungeon. Are we going to enter or go back and inform the Council in Eternis,” Maveith’s voice echoed in the passage behind us.

“We should enter the dungeon and find its exit to the surface,” Konstantin voiced. “We can decide what to do after that. I would prefer not to have to climb all the surface,” he grumbled. It took us over a day to reach this point, and we didn’t encounter any obstacles that slowed us down.

“Just remember, the dungeon can hear us,” I reiterated as we silently descended into the passage. It was still the same rounded, bored passage, but the slope was much steeper. We paused several times as Konstantin inspected piles of dust—ancient manticore fecal deposits, according to him. When we encountered more writing on the wall, Maveith translated.

Maveith’s hand traced the glyphs carved into the walls. “It says freedom is at hand—follow the signs and fly to freedom beneath the true sun.” Maveith seemed to consider before adding, “It says something like slave no more.”

It made me uncomfortable as we had noted that the greater doppelgangers in the Shimmering Labyrinth had been contracted—or enslaved—to the dungeon. I didn’t want to be trapped for eternity in a dungeon. Still, it didn’t stop us, and we proceeded for a few minutes before encountering a smooth wall blocking the tunnel. I walked up to the wall and sent an earth pulse from my boots. “The wall is about a foot thick, and a chamber is beyond. A barrier makes it difficult to get a clear picture of what is in the chamber beyond.”

“It must be an entrance to a dungeon room,” Raelia noted, knowing that you couldn’t cast magic into a room.

“Smashing the stone using your maul, would alert the creatures in the room. What about removing the stone with your stone shape spell form?” I was looking at Maveith. No one else had any ideas on gaining access to the dungeon stealthily. We agreed to remain silent as Maveith worked slowly removing the stone with his hands, focusing on creating a hole in the wall. He quickly made a foot-wide hole at eye level and soon punched a smaller peephole into the room beyond.

Light poured from the hole, and we covered all but one glowstone. Maveith had the first peek into the chamber. Konstantin was second, and when my turn came, I saw a massive domed chamber beyond. Ragged, rocky cliffs surrounded the room with a single pearlescent bright glowstone in the center of the ceiling. A large pool of water dominated the center with an odd green glow. Small bushes dotted rocky soil, but the room had no cover. A brightly lit corridor was directly opposite of us, heading to other parts of the dungeon.

I scanned the cliffs, looking for a manticore, but the cliffs were too jagged, had too many hiding places, and I couldn’t see above us. I noticed the edges of the hole Maveith had made were slowly closing, as if the wall was healing. Maveith moved to enlarge it again, but I stopped him and let the hole close. Navek and Raelia got a quick look as the hole narrowed. When it was closed, I whispered to my companions.

“It is a perfect environment to give a manticore the advantage—a domed chamber maybe seventy yards across and at least that in height. The good news is that it is well-lit. We need to find out how many manticores are there before attempting to enter.”

Navek huffed, “It has to be one, possibly two, if the female is in the same room.” Navek believed the dungeon only had one male and one female manticore.

“Never assume anything in a dungeon,” Konstantin cautioned. “Delvers rarely live if they make a single mistake.”

“Konstantin is right, and we knew nothing about this dungeon. Usually, the Adventurer’s Guild will have a comprehensive guide for a dungeon. We don’t know what to expect,” Raelia said softly, supporting Konstantin’s caution.

Navek looked a little perturbed as we reached his lifelong goal. He wanted to rush in and destroy this dungeon so the manticores it released would never bother his people again, and he could get his final vengeance.

Konstantin said thoughtfully, “We should scout the room from just a small hole. Hopefully, the hole will go unnoticed by the creature within, and we can learn what we are facing.”

Maveith offered an optimistic opinion, “It could be a safe room.”

Raelia shook her head, “No, not something that large. That is definitely a habitat.”

We spent some time setting up defenses in the passage in case something came down the corridor or the dungeon destroyed the wall separating us from the domed chamber. Then Maveith created a spy hole and kept it open until he ran out of aether. He could keep it open for about an hour before he needed to recover his aether.

During his second turn keeping the hole open, Raelia was watching the room and hissed softly in excitement. “A giant mole!” Konstantin moved her aside to look.

“Damn, the manticore just swooped down from above us.” Konstantin moved aside and let me look. A manticore was tearing apart a dog-sized gray-furred creature. It was completely oblivious to our presence as flesh and bone were consumed noisily. The jaws of the manticore easily crunched the bone, causing echoes in the room. Konstantin whispered to Maveith, “Keep just a tiny hole open.”

After the manticore completely consumed the mole, it went to the pool and drank its fill before turning around. I don’t think it noticed the dime-sized hole as it flapped its wings and flew above us. I let the hole close. I explained what I had seen, and Navek said excitedly, “It just feasted. It will likely fall asleep to digest its meal. We can catch it unawares.”

No one else had a better idea, so once Maveith had recovered his aether, he opened a three-foot-wide hole before running completely out of aether. I entered first because, of course, I was accustomed to being the bait, but I also had the aether shield amulet. I stepped softly on the ground as I looked up for the manticore. Konstantin was the second one through. The hole was closing too quickly for the goliaths to make it through, so Raelia was the third one through. She was starting to form a fireball immediately on entering the room.

I started backing toward the center of the room, looking where I saw the manticore fly up. A stone shelf about thirty feet up had a prone form of the manticore. It was facing the exit on the far side, but its eyes were closed. Konstantin moved to my left, his bow readied, and Raelia to the right, her fireball growing. We nodded to each other indicating we were not going to wait for the goliaths. I backed up toward the pool of water, waiting for the manticore to notice me.

When it didn’t move, I intentionally scuffed my boots on the rocky ground. I wanted it to come to me, not me to it. The manticore’s horrid face finally had one eye lazily open. Its sleepy look suggested that it thought it was dreaming. It yawned slowly, bits of flesh on its crooked teeth. With both eyes now open, it rolled its feet and hissed, tensing and coming alert.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked in poor stone giant. The manticore's tail had arched behind it, but it suddenly paused, tilting its head in confusion. That was the only phrase Maveith had imparted to me. It had understood the words, but I guessed the answer was no as the tail snapped forward, and a spray of poisoned quills swarmed toward me. My air shield protected me from a half dozen of the projectiles, but the air shield failed, and my aether amulet flashed and deflected the last two.

The manticore wasn’t happy as Konstantin’s first arrow stuck in the side of its neck. It dove off the cliff at Konstantin, Raelia’s fireball darting toward the manticore with its spread leathery wings. The explosion enveloped the manticore and caused it to tumble out of the air to the ground in a tangle of limbs and wings. Its mane was smoldering, but it was not even close to death—and it was angry. Konstantin was back peddling while firing his bow. I intercepted the grounded manticore with my black spear.

Maveith’s arms were extended through the hole, and he fired an arrow into the manticore’s flank, causing it to turn in surprise. This gave me the opportunity to drive Heartseeker into its chest cavity. The beast turned quickly, and my spear tip caught on its shoulder, penetrating deeply but failing to deliver a killing blow. I saw the tail whipping behind it, and I cursed. I released the spear and rolled away as a second wave of barbs flew. A manticore was not supposed to use this attack so quickly again. One of the poisoned barbs pierced my calf, and I grunted in pain as the poison made my leg flare with unbelievable pain. Even though the pain burned, my mind remained clear and focused.

I didn’t want to show the dungeon my dimensional space kill, but I might not have a choice as I went to one knee. I pulled the spike the rest of the way through my calf and instinctually sent healing to close the wound.

Konstantin had discarded his bow, as his arrows were merely a nuisance to the beast’s thick hide. He had drawn both of his swords and yelled to divert the creature’s attention away from me while I recovered. The spear hampered its movements. Konstantin’s new runic weapon landed first, shocking and paralyzing the other shoulder with an electric discharge that instantly caused the smell of ozone to assault me. He slid to the creature's rear and hacked at the tail, trying to sever the end unsuccessfully with the Death Hunter blade.

Raelia had started to form a second fireball as I stood, with my healing far enough along. My mind fortress muted the pain, and I pulled the broadsword into my hand. Using the large blade two-handed, I hacked down into the neck of the distracted manticore. I caught enough of the spine to shatter the vertebrae and sever the spine. The manticore collapsed in a heap. It struggled to breathe as it could no longer control its body. It made foul sounds and curses in the stone giant language.

Konstantin hacked to prevent the beast from rising again. I then started purifying the manticore poison from my body and completing the healing. An ugly battle, but we won. The collector was immediately in my hand as I harvested the beast. In the background large thuds sounded as Maveith was using his hammer to enlarge the hole. The thick blue aether was pulled from the manticore’s body into the collector and formed an apex essence of channeling.

I looked up to Konstantin, who made the smiled, but it quickly disappeared. He nodded and announced, “I will go find the reward chest.”

“I will help!” Raelia voiced excitedly at the prospect of treasure.

Maveith and Navek joined us in the room, and we watched the dungeon seal our exit. Konstantin and Raelia had returned with a modest-sized fancy-looking wooden chest. We opened it under everyone's watchful eyes. The simple latch flipped up, and the lid opened soundlessly. Inside was a bed of silver coins and a red leather-bound book.

Raelia took the initiative to peruse the book. We waited for her to give her appraisal. “It is an air spell, a very complex one, more complex than something I can learn—maybe something to do with influencing the weather.” She closed it unhappily. She had an affinity of 27 in air magic. I took the book and sent it to my dimensional space.

As Konstantin divided up the silver coins, I wandered to the pool of water. The pool was illuminated by a glowstone at the bottom, which is why it appeared to glow. The backlighting highlighted a handful of large fish swimming in the water. We would definitely be doing some fishing before searching for the dungeon exit.

“What are we going to call the dungeon?” Konstantin asked as we explored the room for harvestables. I was kneeling by one of the bushes. I thought the bush was a type of tea leaf but was not confident.

“What?” I said, looking up.

“We discovered the dungeon, so we get to name it,” he responded disinterestedly. “What should we call this dungeon?”

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