Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Sonya didn’t move an inch from her seat, her eyes fixed on the dungeon gate. Amos had already set up around it and was taking readings with his instruments and had even offered to send in more drones with flight plans. Sonya had turned the idea down, giving the explanation that she didn’t want to risk it. Honestly, it really didn’t matter and she could have even brought in a crew to mine the enormous wealth inside, but that would be basically broadcasting that the crystals inside were valuable way too early. It was again, disappointing, but what could she really do about it? She’d considered calling in Shark and his team to ‘raid’ the dungeon behind Firestorm in order to get the materials but there was no way that wouldn’t scream coincidence.

She frowned, the searching eyes of that detective popping up in her mind again. He’d had good instincts, even refusing to shake hands with her. Her finger twitched and she leaned back, crossing her arms and watching the portal carefully. It had barely been an hour since Firestorm’s team had gone inside. Will they really be okay? Should I send Marta in anyway? Hmm...

“Just let them have their time,” Marta said from her side, not even glancing her way.

Sonya let out a huff, “Am I that easy to read?”

“I’m tempted to buy you a hat that says helicopter parent,” Marta teased, eliciting a snort of laughter from Amos on the other side of the room.

Sonya clicked her tongue and looked away, a little embarrassed. “They...” She sighed, “They’re just what I want to see from the heroes. I want them to set a precedent. Not end up like Duong.”

“He officially became Vietnam’s top hero yesterday, started a guild with his fiance,” Marta said after a pause, not hiding the approving smile on her face. She shrugged and looked over at the portal, “They’re setting a precedent now. Whatever’s in there, it’s important, isn’t it?”

Sonya looked up at her friend and noted with her senses that the aides that had come with them had already left for a short break. It was just the three of them. She hesitated for a moment before nodding, “...yes.”

“More of that mysterious knowledge of yours?” Amos asked with a grin, glancing away from his equipment for the first time.

“Yes,” Sonya said simply, “It’d be better to see for yourself, to be honest, but suffice to say that it isn’t hard to figure out once you go inside. You ever play Shaded Spirts, Amos?” She asked and stretched her legs out, crossing them at her ankles.

He blinked at her in confusion, “Uh... yeah? Why?”

“There you go,” She said with a dismissive gesture, “You put it together on your own.”

He looked away with a furrowed brow for a moment before flinching and rounding on her, his eyes wide, “Are you serious? That’s what’s in there? Are they going to be okay? Wait...” He looked at his fingers for a moment, “So you’re saying it has to be cleared or...”

Sonya made a mock gesture of an explosion, “Pshhhh,” She elaborated with a bit of a goofy smile.

He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into them before looking up at the portal, “Good luck guys, we’re counting on you.”

–

It turned out that the blade devils weren’t all that hard to kill. The trick, it turned out, was direct precision attacks. Indirect damage or splash damage did very little to their frail looking bodies and the only reason Firestorm’s flames did as much damage as they did was because of the raw power behind them. He had come to refer to it as the separation of tiers, there was simply a qualitative difference between the firepower of a heroic like himself and someone of the epic tier, for example. Then you had to take the unique traits of the monster or enemy into consideration.

Boiling it down, he got the impression that the little devils were barely uncommon in strength, hardly a match for a party of four heroics, but still a threat in numbers. The blade devils were uncommon as well, going down in a single hit sometimes from one of Bandit’s dark arrows, his blatant overkill of the first notwithstanding. Firestorm’s problem was that he had been acting in the role of crowd control, dealing with large swaths of enemies rather than focusing on single opponents, because of that, the blade devils barely noticed his attacks despite the tier disparity.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Bandit asked.

He blinked at his friend, “Huh? What?”

“Loot, brother! Loot! My god have you ever played a video game before? That mace looked sick, man,” Bandit exclaimed, getting a tired look from Bluestar and a laugh from Lifesaver.

Firestorm frowned, turning back and pulling the weapon out of the creature’s broken grasp. He looked it over, “It’s not that impressive,” He said with a frown and began to channel heat into it, “See? It...” Nothing happened. He channeled more heat, “Wait a sec...” He scowled and the flames on his fingers began to turn white, he concentrated, squeezing the weapon tightly before he finally let it go with a gasp, looking at the weapon with a bit of wonder now. “Holy shit, it’s fireproof.”

He glanced up at Bandit who was giving him a smug look from beneath his hood and couldn’t help but appreciate the guys insight. He held it out, “Do you want it?” He asked.

Bandit sighed dramatically as if he was explaining something to a child, “Your kill, your loot, more importantly I’d say it’s a perfect fit. That whole boxing thing earlier looked kind of dorky.”

“It wasn’t dorky!” Firestorm protested.

“If you boys are done bickering, the elevator is waiting,” Bluestar said with a small laugh, passing between the two of them, Lifesaver in tow. “I’m going up, what are you going to do?”

Firestorm and Bandit exchanged looks before he ultimately gave up on the argument. He looked down at the weapon in his hands and clutched it by the grip. He pursed his lips and considered the weapon for a moment before the wicked-looking head of the silvery weapon ignited into intense yellow flames. He swung it around a few times and was pleased to see it wasn’t that hard to maintain. He pat the flaming head of the weapon in the palm of his hand and glanced up at Bandit who was giving him a smug look.

He grunted, “Yeah, yeah, it’s nice,” He grumbled and hurried to follow the other three as they made their way to the elevator and crowd inside.

Bluestar stood next to the button and they got back into formation. “Ready boys?” She asked.

“Let’s do it,” Firestorm said and the doors closed in front of him.

The next four floors went about the same, just with larger numbers to be honest. It seemed like the primary creatures of this place were the blade devils, little devils, and the incubi acting as some kind of leaders. At one point things got a little hairy as one of the incubi and a crowd of little devils managed to escape Firestorms initial blitz and mounted a solid counter-attack. It seemed like the incubi were some kind of commanders, able to keep the little devils organized during a fight and make them significantly more threatening, but ultimately they were no match for the party of heroic-tiers. While they ignored most of the bodies, they did make an effort to gather the weapons of the incubi, the material they were made was something Amos would be very interested in.

It was as they were getting into the elevator and began heading towards the eighth total floor that things began to feel different. The button had changed from the usual illuminated yellow to a dark red.

“The boss, you think?” Lifesaver asked, his arms crossed.

“Seems likely, but we’ve only gone up eight floors, the building is way bigger than that,” Bluestar said thoughtfully, “Though based on the windows, it does seem like we’ve been skipping floors now and then.”

“Windows?” Firestorm asked.

“You haven’t been looking out the windows? They’re right there, you can see the city,” Bluestar said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The three men looked down at their feet and she let out a sigh, “Anyway, Sonya’s waiting for us, so let’s get this over with,” She said and hit the button. The doors shut, and the team of four, full of confidence, began their final ascent.