Chapter 16: Forced Charge

Chapter 16: Forced Charge

Nicau skittered down the rocky beach, heart ringing in his ears. Technically, he'd succeeded—he'd found someone willing to go into the mountain in search of draconic treasure and not ask too many questions of him once he'd played up the lost, sad boy wanting his friend back, and that had been all he'd wanted.

He fought the urge to glance back at the Bronze marching behind him.

He wasn't quite sure he liked the risks that now came with succeeding.

It wasn't like he'd asked a Gold, to be fair; but also he would have known if he was asking a Gold. They had a presence that unranked people could barely stand in, some outward expression of their power; no one truly knew the Dread Pirate's ranking but if being Gold was anything compared to his aura, Nicau would have certainly never been able to approach the tavern. So he hadn't messed up as much as he'd thought he had. Bronzes were technically just one rank above him, really.

But still.

The Bronze was perfectly capable of squishing him like a larvae if he so much as insulted her, and Nicau knew he was enough of an orphaned streetboy to perhaps not quite know the etiquette required for interacting with someone of her level.

"It was this way," he tried, kicking a few pebbles out of her path with all the subtly of a stone-boar. The noon-rising sun was making him sweat even worse than normal. "Just, ah, past the docks."

"How much further?" The other man whined. "Lady Luthia has many important tasks to be completing!"

Ah.

Nicau had successfully gotten two people—Luthia the Bronze, powerful adventurer who stopped in Calarata to unload the more illegal monster parts she gathered on her journey. The tavern had whispered about how she was attempting to reach Silver, where she could officially claim a title and have the High Lords of the Leóro Kingdom start to squabble over who could pay her enough to join their teams, but she still had a ways to go. Powerful, strong, fearless.

And her lackey, Gui the unranked.

"You don't speak for me," she said, voice bored and monotone.

Gui blinked, head cocking to the side. "Was I?"

She didn't bother with a response. "Lead the way, boy."

Nicau didn't have a rat's chance of figuring out what was going on between them, and as Gui continued to try and both speed up their travel and convince them to turn back, he found he really didn't care.

He led them over the hump of crumbled rock from the dragon's fall, the endless rain of the jungle already sweeping the sand clean of blood splatters and twisted shrapnel; beyond that, hidden from Calarata's gaze, stood the gaping maw of the entrance deeper within the mountains.

It might have been his imagination, but it seemed larger than when Romei had disappeared into it, when Albo had managed to squeeze inside. He didn't know whether either of them were still alive.

Nicau didn't know whether he wanted them to be.

"They went in here," he whispered, hugging his arms closer to his chest. It helped his case he didn't have to pretend to be wary of the entrance. "And they haven't come out since. Please, if you can find my friend–"

"Lady Luthia never fails!" Gui said, chest puffed out for her. "Whatever brats you lost in the mountain will be right as rain once she's done with them."

Luthia hummed, peering into the darkness beyond. Her pale hair matched the sand beneath her feet, skin copper under the sun, eyes dark and focused. She wore only a casual shirt and pants, though still with two short swords slung over her back and wrappings over her ankles and wrists; a Bronze always had be prepared for something, given the life of danger they got their strength from. Gui had a full shield and spear strapped to his back, fiddling with a dagger on his belt.

More prepared than Albo and his crew, but hopefully they would fall prey to the same monsters the others had found. Luthia traveled aboard one of the merchant ships that frequented the area, and Nicau knew he would vastly prefer finding employment on those versus with pirates. He had no taste for killing.

He grimaced. There wasn't any other word to describe what he was doing here.

"This is where the mana came from," she murmured, eyes narrowing. Of course she would have felt it too—Nicau had no doubt that his pleadings for her to find his friend had only been a fraction of what had convinced her in comparison to the energy that had exploded out from the mountain yesterday. He had just been a guide to the right location.

"And you're sure this is where the dragon fell?" Luthia asked, fingering the hilt of her leftmost sword.

Nicau bobbed his head with all the pent-up energy of an idiotic pigeoncatcher. "Yes, yes—it must have dug out this hole when it landed, and some of its scales fell inside." He dragged his shoulders up for a miserable sniff. "Romei just wanted a chance to be on the Dread Crew. We knew that if she found enough scales—or even something more—she'd have a chance."

Luthia's eyes flashed. No one could resist the siren's call of the ruler of Calarata.

She crouched—gods, she was like seven feet tall—and braced her arm on the roof of the entrance, glancing back at him. "I'll find her," she said, and disappeared into the darkness.

Gui threw himself in after her, already fumbling his spear out.

Nicau exhaled. He waited until the ringing echoes of their descent stopped, only the quiet crash of the waves behind him audible, and turned to sit on the boulder resting by its entrance. It would be afternoon before long, and night after—he would wait.

Maybe this time they would survive.

-

I hated being right.

Less than a few hours after I'd helped guide my new silverhead evolutions to their new positions in the canals, floors still trembling in the wake of my roar, the rumble of footsteps had reached my points of awareness I'd stationed by the cove entrance.

Fantastic.

I wrangled the ambient mana diffused through my dungeon, tuning it to awareness and vigilance; my various creatures raised their heads, peering towards the entrances in their many-faceted eyes. I didn't ask for violence, though; not yet.

I needed to see who was invading.

A woman appeared just outside of my dungeon; she carried two short swords like extensions of her arms, rustling at her sides as she peered into the fungal garden. Her pale hair shone where her eyes didn't, skin bronzed and teeth uncharacteristically sharp for what I thought humans had. Still outside of my awareness—take just a step closer.

She did. Holy shit.

My mana bristled like a spooked cat—I didn't know the exact rankings for humans but already I could sense the power in her, flowing through her currents like molten stone. Not Gold, certainly—mostly because I knew damned well I'd be dead if a Gold invaded this early—and not quite whatever was below that, but one step lower.

Certainly higher than the last group that had challenged me.

Gui helped pull her across the pond, both casually avoiding even getting their toes wet with a little jump, and just like that they were through my first floor.

I gnashed teeth made of mana in their general direction as they marched through the sloping tunnel to my second.

But then they would face my maze—not a proper maze, true, given it only had a handful of rooms and not necessarily a complicated way of following the flow of the canals to find the end, but still certainly more of a challenge than the straight shot of my first floor.

I darted around before they could see me meddling, waking up all the creatures meandering around—the stone-backed toads and burrowing rats were still too fearful to serve as any sort of attack and my aquatic creatures were rather useless unless they got in the canals, but my kobolds raised their head with a confused warble. Seros bared his fangs.

It was time.

They paused at the entrance to the next floor, peering out at the... well, a bit pitiful mangrove trees, really. I'd mentally clocked them as further grown when comparing them to the diminutive kobolds but they really were only a few feet tall.

Something to fix after I survived this.

"Keep your guard up," Luthia murmured, eyes narrowed. "I don't know what this is, but something is aware here that shouldn't be."

Gui seemed to have shaken off the worst of his panic, raising his shield. "Of course, Lady Luthia."

They crept forward, even taking the time for Gui to dip the butt of his spear into the canal and inspect it for poison, I assumed. Finding none, they continued along its bank, hackles raised and blades ready. They stuck to the first room, moving slowly enough to barely make shift the stony dirt beneath their boots. One of my mangroves shifted as if in a breeze, deep underground; one of its thorned branches drifted closer to the adventurer's unwatched backs–

Luthia stiffened, sword going wide as a sound emerged, throwing her attention to the left as a... rat leapt at her?

I paused.

No, that was definitely a burrowing rat, roughly a foot long with its forked tails, charging furiously at her ankles with high, panicked squeaks echoing against the algae-dampened ceiling. She swept her sword but the bugger was fast enough she only cleaved through the tip of its tail, steel bouncing off the stone below.

"Lady!" Gui cried, lurching forward—his spear impaled it against the ground.

The rat continued to twitch and squeak through its death throes.

Huh.

"More monsters," Luthia spat, bringing her blades low as she scanned their horizons—and right on cue, another rat erupted from behind the wall separating another room, eyes rolling and tail lashing. She snarled and ran to meet it.

Carrying her just slightly out of view of the room behind them both, where now only Gui could see.

Something stirred.

With a slow, methodical pride, the serpent who had hidden herself in the loops between a mangrove's roots raised her head. A spark of mana traveled up her diamond-grey scales and her horns began to glow.

The man paused.

I could feel more than see the psionic mana drifting through the air, something soothing and rich; he was getting the full blast of it, eyes already losing their wary edge and his grip loosening on his spear. The horned serpent rose to her full height, horns level with his eyes, and began to hiss. It sounded almost like crooning, a song that only the two of them knew.

Gui had no defense.

His shield dropped with a clatter as he shambled in her direction, eyes fixed on the pale glow of her horns; she slowly uncurled from around the mangrove's roots, her scales protecting her from its deadly thorns, and started to slithe further back. He followed her blindly, footsteps muffled against the algae, and disappeared fully from the room.

And his partner's sight.

Luthia stomped on the twitching remains of the second rat and glanced back, short swords dripping with blood. "Gui?" She shouted, only to curse and whip around as another burrowing rat, driven mad by fear, charged at her ankles.

Okay. I was immensely proud of the horned serpent, already pumping poison into the man who hardly seemed to notice her fangs embedded in his calf, but I really needed to figure out where the rats were coming from.

I spread out my points of awareness, letting them filter through the surrounding rooms like pollen on a breeze—there. Hidden in the shadows, pale red scales crouched outside of a den of burrowing rats, the kobold owner peering through the leaves of a mangrove at the human invader. His fellow was in the opposite side of the room with her own den of rats, and the third–

Nowhere near. I could get a vague sense that she was awake and hunting, but she was on clear the other side of the dungeon, ignoring the humans entirely. But wasn't she the leader of the little trio? I peered into the thoughts of the first kobold, the one with the variegated scales; he hadn't seen her since the new hollow I'd carved for them.

Then I got to see him reach into the den of rats, his scaled hands protecting him from the furious little scratches and bites, and grab one. He dragged it out, the massive rodent nearly the same length as his whole arm, and promptly proceeded to shake it. Hard.

After a minute, the poor rat was so confused and panicked that when he set it on the ground, aimed at Luthia, it took off in her direction with a wild shriek and attacked.

Huh.

Maybe they would be just fine without the other kobold.

Luthia killed another two rats, but her swords were, well, swords—they weren't meant for slamming against the ground as she tried to kill opponents less than six inches tall. She snarled, sweeping lower and lower as she tried to keep up with the numbers.

The kobolds locked eyes from across the room.

Carefully, the male slunk his way closer, hiding behind the protective trunks of the mangroves; he waited until Luthia turned, still unharmed but now significantly more frustrated than before, and charged.

He didn't need to attack her, to try and claw her up with the little nubs he had on the tips of his fingers; all he needed was a push.

And Luthia the Bronze, off-balanced by the monsters built exactly of the wrong proportions for her to attack and confused about the lack of her companion, was just a second too late to turn when the kobold emerged from the underbrush and pushed her into the canal behind.

She sunk to the bottom of the fifteen-foot-deep water immediately, bubbles shooting up from her shout—she might have even made it back to the surface if she hadn't had the open cut on her arm from the cave bear's attack.

The silvertooths' blood-frenzy activated.

Bronze-ranked mana exploded through my dungeon, and I could have wept.