Chapter 44: Negotiations

Chapter 44: Negotiations

More silvertooths spawned at my rippling wave of mana, spinning about with their red fins flashing and eyes already hungry for prey. Of course, it was that current nasty habit of theirs that was causing me to have to make more; with the Underlake's newest addition of roughwater sharks, who were more than happy to survive their blood-frenzy, their foolish posturing and territorial disputes had suddenly stopped going their way quite as much.

Idiots, the lot of them. Hopefully they'd be able to find some sort of equilibrium, because they were far too expensive to constantly maintain.

Fortunately, I was so irritated with their general existence that I was quick to turn my attention away from them, which meant that I felt when one of the cave spiders that had spun their web over the cove-facing entrance noticed something approaching.

Two approaching somethings.

All my various points of awareness swiveled towards the first floor by the time the two invaders stepped through into my Fungal Gardens.

The first was a woman, tall and lean, covered in pockmarked scars not from blades or fire, but seemingly fists and bruises that had merely been layered so many times they upgraded to scar. Her eyes were bright and her mana strong; Silver, I guessed. Strong enough to make it to the advanced adventurer stage, well above most commoners, though not yet at the upper echelons of Gold.

The boy at her side, however, wasn't either—he wasn't even Bronze, his mana still weak and untrained, arms skinny and eyes hooded. A child, really, with ratty brown hair and umber skin, wearing clothes that hardly deserved to be called so. He was...

Familiar, actually. Certainly not from my time as a sea-drake, given I hardly interacted with any humans when I had far better things to be doing, but some of my stolen memories reignited. Of every single human invader, they remembered a young boy, eyes welling with tears, telling them of treasures hidden within the mountain.New novel chapters are published on

Oho. My mysterious benefactor.

He looked decidedly less confident now, the woman shoving him forward as she slid lazy eyes over her surroundings. Neither carried weapons but she had cloth wrapped over her knuckles and feet, and she moved with the sort of grace I only saw in predators.

"Huh," she exhaled, raising her hand to brush through a collection of webs. The spiders scattered from her touch. "Not exactly the hive of death and destruction you spun to all those others, huh?"

The boy didn't respond. Smart, I thought.

She hummed, padding deeper into the floor. I'd kept the Fungal Gardens to look rather underwhelming in terms of threats, only a few constrictors and toads meandering around, and she appeared to have bought it entirely. Every creature was given no more than an appraising glance before she'd moved on.

One creature did get a second glance, though. A stone-backed toad who'd gotten too big for his britches made a sort of war-croak and charged at her, safely tucked beneath his clearly impenetrable armour.

She looked over, raised a foot, and squashed him so fast even the smear across the floor was a memory.

Ah.

I'd started to figure out the power of the invaders—though there were subtle differences between human and, say, merrow—so I was able to take a guess. There were two main fields of magic-users, either casters or enhancers; casters expelled their magic into the wider world, often being priests, getting their power by being a god's mana-gate to the world, mages by studying spells and rituals, or any numerous others. Enhancers used that same magic internally, strengthening themselves or giving themselves abilities and augmentations, and had their own suitably numerous styles they ran with; berserkers for sheer strength, warrior for enhancements and agility, and so on. Far too many piddly little details.

But it was important to know which group they were in. I knew the Priestess—the Thirteenth Priestess of Arroyo, to be specific—had been a caster, changing the water's temperatures and casting beams of lights, and Lady Luthia from so long ago had been an enhancer, reversing gravity over herself to run on the ceiling.

Judging from that little kick, I'd say this one ran more in the enhancer circle.

She grimaced, shaking her foot; something that had once been a living thing with dreams and emotions sloughed off to fall with a splat against the stone. "How fuckin' weak were those cowards you sent in here? This isn't anything like ol' Thiago's dungeon. A real pipsqueak of a challenger, eh?"

Perhaps she felt the thrash of my mana, because she laughed next, striding forward. "Well! At least there's something present here. C'mon, brat."

The boy trotted behind her, not out of obedience but instead the very real knowledge that if anything attacked them, it wouldn't be him winning. She was his only hope.

And I could only imagine what was outside the cavern to make him not just run away.

Though it didn't make sense. Three weeks since the last attack and this was what they'd sent to defeat me? Sure, I'd never defeated a Silver before, but this was one enhancer and a boy who'd probably never touched mana before. This wasn't a threat.

Gods, I needed a spy.

They trotted through my first floor, avoiding the various dips and curves in the terrain, at least taking the time to admire my more elegant sculptures of limestone or gentle slopes of whitecap mushrooms. The woman seemed to be using some sort of tracking artifact, pointing the roughly-carved stone at walls and letting it glow, though she seemed rather disinterested in the results. Fascinating. What was going on?

But it was only when they reached the very edge of the newly-enlarged rock pond that something finally got her attention.

Nicau seemed faintly shocked when he emerged through the pond unharmed, though I had to work overtime to keep the idiotic silverheads from ramming his legs. The woman jumped across in a single bound, shook her hands clean from some imaginary dust, and continued pushing him in front of her as they traveled down to my second floor.

Alright. Showtime. I had the bears wake up, in preparation for anyone attempting to flee, and I had their guards suitably lowered. No more playing around.

They both stopped when facing my Drowned Forest, eyes wide, and I took great pleasure in both that and the alarm ringing through the connected roots of the floor, the mangroves shifting and twisting their branches in that direction. With the cloudskipper wisps, it could almost pass for moving in wind, though the light breeze present wasn't near strong enough if they paid it more attention.

The woman whistled, rocking back on her heels. "Well I'll be," she murmured, padding to the closest mangrove. "You're a beaut, huh? Never seen the likes o' you before."

You're damned right you've never seen anything like them before.

They marched on, her still pointing her tracking rock at her surroundings with bored indifference; Nicau hung awkwardly at her side, too terrified to leave her, too terrified to disobey. My creatures stayed out of sight, gnawing at the bit but listening to me; I had to use only scraps of mana in separate rooms to keep from the invaders sensing my commands but I was getting better at it, as long as I had time to prepare.

A threefold purpose of my first floor. It truly was coming in handy.

And then they came to the fourth room, one with a massive, spanning canal and a few inconspicuous stepping stones marring the shifting water. Mangroves hung overhead, billowing moss below; another seemingly normal room. The woman seemed almost annoyed at the lack of challenge.

She did send Nicau over the river first, though.

He wavered at the edge, fists tight at his side, but managed the first delicate hop onto the stone; he nearly slipped off its moss-covered surface but held, arms thrashing. The next jump was easier, and the following even moreso—under a minute and he was safe on the other side, though panting heavily. Baby.

The woman shrugged, rolled her shoulders, and made to follow the same path when I released the hold I had on my most ambitious creatures.

Kobolds poured into the room behind her, hooting and hollering and waving their bone-spears in the air; each barely came up to her shoulders but they were numerous and uncaring of their personal fates. I saw her eyes light up.

"Finally!" She roared, and leapt into the fray.

The first kobold swept at her, chittering and hissing; she reared back, fist glowing from within like an ethereal torch, and slammed the kobold's muzzle so hard the poor thing hit the ground before it'd even had a chance to show off.

She did wince, retracting her hand; even with the cloth wrapped around her knuckles, scales were built for brunt force damage, and human hands decidedly weren't. "Fuck," she hissed, pulling back. "That's why I stick to other humans– oh no you don't."

The other kobold who'd tried the sneak-around approach promptly got its face introduced to the ground as well.

Nicau dropped to his knees, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his head; no kobolds attacked him, though. I had other plans.

Easily two dozen kobolds charged the woman and she answered in kind, fists and kicks flying; she switched up her seemingly normal strategy, tripping and twisting and deflecting attacks with all the grace of a siren. Group fights were simple for her and as opponents, kobolds were cheap and she knew it—which was why I had called for Seros.

From around the corner, a shadow darkened, and Rihsu strode into the room.

Her nine feet dwarfed both kobold and human, tail lashing and fangs bared; the woman paused halfway through choking out a writhing opponent and locked eyes with her, both squaring each other up.

If she'd had problems with punching scales, I couldn't wait to see what happened when she encountered Rihsu's armoured bulk.

I could see almost the exact moment she decided the fight was no longer worth it, throwing the kobold down and taking a furious step back. "Lluc didn't tell me to clear this damned thing," she spat, and turned. Not back the way they had come, where Rihsu now prowled from, but instead to Nicau, who stood hunched and cowering across the canal. She wasted no time in jumping to him, but even with her enhancements, it was too wide for her to risk it; and not that she had to. Why, she'd just watched Nicau march across those stepping stones with no worse for wear.

So she didn't even look down as she stepped onto their backs.

Her foot landed on a lichenridge turtle's shell and it surged upwards, jaws snapping blindly; it fit its maw around her ankle with a bonecrunching crack. She had just enough time to open her mouth, eyes wide with shock, before the turtle dove off its perch into deeper water.

Strong as she was, she was unprepared. Its weight dragged her into the depths.

Rihsu howled, a fierce, bellowing sound, and dove into the water after; electric eels and silvertooths and greater crabs swarmed at the motion, wrapping around the struggling Silver, churning the water scarlet.

And in all the confusion, in the thrashing water and deep, guttural yells, the chieftess kobold had no issue marching up behind Nicau and bopping him quite cleanly on the head with her spear. He crumpled to the ground.

Mission success.