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Throne Hunters Book 2, Chapter 7
🕑 Added 2024-05-24 13:00:12 +0000 UTCSam had sat up, her eyes wide, staring at her palms in wonder. Nessa lay back, her hand clapped to her brow.
“Incredible.” Vic leaped to his feet, eyes burning bright. “To think I’ve gone all these years without chasing down my second Throne. What a waste!”
“Can you keep it down?” asked Nessa, voice wretched.
Harald rose unsteadily. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” Eyes still clenched, she scowled. “I’m fine. Just leave me alone and keep it down for a moment.”
Harald glanced at Vic, who shrugged.
Sam wiped at her eyes. “So beautiful. So beautiful. I’d never imagined it would be like that.”
Harald stepped over to sit beside her and slung an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him for a moment, breathing deeply, and then looked up to meet his gaze. “Everything I’ve ever heard, all the sermons, the words of the Seraphites, none of it does her justice.” Tears brimmed in her eyes once more. “It’s so… so sad. How can she be dead, yet stir like that? How can we eat her for power as if she were an animal?”
Harald had no answers.
Sam rubbed the tears away angrily.
“Pah.” Nessa sat up abruptly and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Enough of this nonsense. Let’s get to killing.”
“That’s your reaction?” Sam stared at her. “Anger?”
Nessa picked up her pack. “It’s all beyond us, yes? So why waste our time trying to divine the truth? Ignore it, move on, keep fighting, keep killing. Anything else is stupidity.”
Sam wouldn’t let it go. “But you felt… nothing?”
Nessa buckled her blade to her hips, hands moving quickly, but then stilled, staring at the ground. “Yeah. You’ve got it right. I felt nothing.”
“Well.” Vic hefted his own pack. “I think we all know who needed more hugs as a child.”
Nessa slowly raised her face to glare at Vic with such lethality that Harald rose, unsure if he’d have to intervene, though the Fallen Angel alone knew what he’d be able to do.
“What?” Vic affected nonchalant surprise. “Oh, very well. I’ll leave well enough alone. Are we ready to test our new capacities? Which level did we determine?”
“The 10th,” snapped Nessa. “I’ll meet you all downstairs. Hurry up.”
Then she yanked open the door and was gone.
Vic sighed.
“What was that about?” asked Harald.
“Would it be trite for me to observe that women are complex creatures?”
Sam stared at him.
“What?” Vic spread his hands. “It’s true. Far more complex than we brutish men, who desire nothing more than to be mothered by gorgeous women we at once wish to conquer and be conquered by. Women on the other hand?” He let out a low whistle.
“For once I am in agreement with Nessa,” said Sam, rising from the bed. “The sooner we get below and stop Vic from talking, the better.”
“Someday soon I’ll explain why I think women are like cats,” said Vic cheerfully. “Feline beauties who -”
Sam strode out the door, slinging her pack over one shoulder as she went.
Harald studied his friend’s feigned surprise. “You know, you don’t have to cover for Nessa’s problems by drawing attention away from her all the time.”
“Don’t I, darling?” Vic patted Harald’s cheek gently and stepped up to the door. “Whatever else would I do with my time?”
Harald wanted to follow, but instead he extended his hand and willed the Goldchop to appear. It materialized in his palm, the heavy, gorgeous hand-ax gleaming in the sunlight. Harald grinned.
A new message appeared before him:
Artifact Acquired: Goldchop
Quality: Masterwork
Special Ability: Dancing Partner
Activation: Upon command, the Goldchop will animate and hover about its wielder, attacking any foe that comes within its reach. The Goldchop will duplicate itself as many times as the wielder has Ascended Thrones.
+2 to Dexterity while wielded
+2 to Strength while wielded
Limitation: The lethality of the Goldchop corresponds to the number of Ascended Thrones.
Harald felt a shiver of awe and delight as he willed the Goldchop to return to his Cosmos. He watched as it faded quickly from his grasp.
A Masterwork Artifact. To think that he had acquired an item worth 1,000,000 scales. It beggared the mind.
And for the first time, Harald considered what it meant for his father to have left him that Twilight Infinitum and a Masterwork Artifact. That was a fifth of his entire wealth. All placed in the vault in the hopes that one day Harald would be able to inherit that power.
Contingent, of course, on his acquiring a Demon Seed.
Harald shook his head then hurried after the others. They paid the balance to the innkeeper and emerged into the midday sunlight just as the Twelfth Bell began to ring. The Humble Petitioner’s line wrapped around the plaza, but there was currently nobody in line before the main gates.
Nessa strode out in front, Sam a dozen paces behind, while Vic and Harald brought up the rear. They didn’t seem nor feel like a tight-knit group, Harald reflected ruefully. What had happened to Nessa? Why had her mood soured so?
There was precious little chance of finding out anytime soon.
They gathered before the Copper Gate and were processed just like the last time. Their information was collected, scales registered, and ingoing scale count in their windows marked down. Together they climbed to the Copper platform, where they drew forth their scale lanterns and listened to the guard’s terse instructions.
“10th Level, hey?” The guard, a bulldog of a man with a crimson eyepatch, roused himself when Nessa stated their intended floor. “Want me to keep the count?”
“Sure,” said Nessa. “Though we’re not going to be there long. We’ve two greenhorns with us.”
“Ah, then I’ll expect you back shortly,” agreed the guard, his interest dying back down.
Harald couldn’t help but glance sidelong at the distant Diamond platform. Would he one day stand there as the Deathforge Legion had done, and summon a portal to take him to the very depths of the dungeon?
He couldn’t believe it.
Nessa raised ten Copper Crescents, signaling to the portal that they wished to be transported to the 10th Level, and the huge polyhedron responded as ever. It whirled, spun, then abruptly froze in place, an iron pentagon facing them with ten gold notches marked across one side.
Not needing to be urged, Nessa raised her scale lantern, longsword held in her other hand, and strode up into the air, leading their party into the Fallen Angel’s corpse.
Harald felt excitement grip him by the throat. He summoned the Dawnblade, and his heart sang as the soapstone green ancient blade appeared in his fist.
Vic followed Nessa, and then Harald was up. He took a deep breath, raised his scale torch, and strode after them. Up into the face of the vast polyhedron, into that yawning abyss of a pentagon, which reached out to swallow him whole.
Then he was striding forth into an alien realm, in the dungeon, the ground uneven beneath his boots, the air filled with a thin and glowing green miasma.
Breathing hard, he whipped around, blade held at the ready, peering and actively trying to calm the fuck down.
“Easy, everyone.” Being in the dungeon had an immediate soothing effect on Nessa. Her tone sounded competent, calm, forceful. “We’ve a breather before they come at us. Easy.”
They’d appeared atop a rough stone dais in the center of a crossroads of sorts. The ceiling was lost some three or more stories up, and stairways and arches led off in each of the four cardinal directions into the green haze. The air smelled metallic, a subtle, damp tang, and bright green light filtered down from above with a liquid, rippling nature as if reflected off water.
Everything was in ruins. A broad flight of stairs leading up a dozen steps behind them was buckled and smashed. A gallery of arches to their right were half-tumbled down, huge ledges and columns rising to the second floor. A hallway extended ahead of Harald, the left wall having collapsed inward and near blocking it, while the left wall was a cliff of giant blocks, easily scaled and with ample handholds leading up into the glowing mist.
“I hate the 10th Level,” sniffed Vic, resting The Point over his shoulder. “The smarmy little Crypt Keepers with their beady eyes, the smell, the…” He waved a hand. “The pointless ruination of it all.”
“Sam, Harald, listen up.” Nessa was scanning their environs with sober intensity. “The Keepers will discover our presence soon enough, and that will trigger the rest of them. Our being here acts like a magnet. The longer we remain, the more will come, effectively ramping up the difficulty of surviving with each passing minute. There’s no defeating the 10th Level - you simply gauge when you’ve had enough and leave before being overrun.”
“Though!” Vic raised a finger. “The older generations had it worse. Apparently you couldn’t appear and chat like we’re doing back in the day without being immediately attacked. Very sad.” He shook his head in mock dismay. “What’s the 10th Level come to, I ask you?”
“All right.” Sam’s tone was taut with tension. “So: do we just wait here, or…?”
“Two options. Stay close to the portal so we can escape at a moment’s notice, or find more advantageous terrain where we can last longer. Risk and reward. Given it’s your first time down here? We’ll stay close to the portal. If I give the word, we leave. No arguing. Clear?”
“I love it when she gets like this,” whispered Vic. “If only all of Flutic were a never-ending dungeon.”
Harald had to agree. Nessa had shuffled off the anger and wounded pain she’d evinced since Ascending to her second Throne, and now stood like a warrior ready, shoulders back, blade down by her side, expression intent.
“Yes, Delve Captain,” he grinned.
“Yes.” Sam bit her lower lip, then shucked her pack and set it in the center of the dais by the portal. “Why’d we bring our packs, then?”
“Because you never know,” said Nessa. “Most likely we’ll just grab them on our way out, but in the dungeon you have to be ready for any eventuality. Shut up, Vic. Harald, you take that side of the square. Sam, you’re there. Vic, between them. Once they start coming, call out if you’re feeling pressured. Harald, Sam, mind your swings. The last thing we need is one of you slicing Vic’s arm off.”
“Please,” said Vic. “They’re only Level 1. I’d cut my own throat in shame if they accidentally took me off at the elbow.”
Harald stepped up to his edge of the stone dais. It was perhaps three yards a side, with two rough encircling steps leading down to the ground floor of the intersectional chamber or hall or whatever you’d call this space. Then there were about four or five yards of open floor, and then the gallery of archways started up, the main one leading into the next room proper, the others into smaller alcoves whose depths were hidden by the shifting green mist.
“Why did the guard above offer to count?” asked Sam. “Count what?”
“The 10th’s been a trying ground for as long as anyone can remember,” said Nessa, not turning around. “The longer you remain on it, the more impressive. The goal for anyone under Level 4 is to pass the ten-minute mark. That indicates real staying power, though as Vic said, these days it’s not the same as the years of before. It’s thought that to match the accomplishments of the old-time raiders, you should cross the twenty minute mark.”
“Of course there’s a record,” said Vic. “I’ll bet you an entire Copper Crescent that you can’t guess who holds it.”
“Seraphine the Skyward Blade?” asked Harald.
“We have a winner! I was joking about the Copper, though.”
“How long did she remain down here?” asked Harald, glancing at his friend.
“If the guard who did the count can be trusted? Three hours. By herself.”
“Oh come on,” said Sam. “That’s impossible.”
“Isn’t it?” Harald could hear Vic’s grin. “If you think people got excited over Harry-boy here, you should have seen the frenzy that ensued. The city went mad. Surely you heard?”
“Guess I wasn’t listening to that kind of talk, before.” Harald forced himself to relax his grip on the Dawnblade. He’d been throttling the hilt. “I was kind of averse to all things dungeon-related.”
“I read about it in the Gazette,” said Sam. “But I didn’t think it was true. By herself? I assumed something ridiculous had taken place.”
“Something ridiculous did take place,” agreed Vic. “Its name was Seraphine.”
“There.” Nessa’s tone was sharp and quiet and pure business. Harald twisted about to see where she was pointing with her longsword up the dozen broad steps. A shadowy shape had emerged from the mist just enough to be distinguished as a silhouette.
Perhaps four feet tall, it stood unnaturally still as it observed their party from the top of the steps.
“It’s starting,” said Nessa, raising her blade into the Tower Stance, hilt by her temple, its length pointing straight up. “Eyes on your quarters.”
Harald tore his gaze away from the shadowy shape just in time to see movement in what he’d thought was an alcove. A subtle swirling of mist, and then a second Crypt Keeper was there, slight and cloaked as the first, its face hidden within a deep cowl.
But this one was stalking toward him, picking up speed as it passed through the archway, its bare feet clicking on the rock. No, not its feet, the curved talons at the end of each withered toe.
Harald resisted the urge to summon the Goldchop right away. Instead he entered the Roof Stance, Dawnblade held high overhead, its point back and up and ready for a vicious downward slash.
He could sense movement all around them now, like a great snake uncoiling, but he kept his gaze locked on his own Crypt Keeper.
It hissed and burst into a run, coming right at him, its arms emerging from within its tattered robe, drawn back to strike, clawed and vicious as it darted at him.
Harald fought for calm, waited till the small figure was at the base of the first step, and then struck, nerves getting the better of him so that his swing was too forceful, too wild. The Dawnblade flashed down, a great diagonal chop, but the Crypt Keeper was nimble and swayed aside as it came up.
Shit.
Harald had overcommitted; he fought to reverse his blow, but the Keeper was fast, much faster than the ashen walkers, a claw swinging for Harald’s side—
Then the point of a blade burst out its temple, extended another two yards, needle-thin and terrible in its power, only to retract just as quickly as Vic turned back to face his own charging foe.
“Don’t shit the bed, Harry-boy!” Vic’s call was high with elation.
Harald immediately recovered, cursing himself and his clumsy swing, and shoved the dead Keeper off the top step. It was shockingly light, and the cowl fell away to reveal its horrific visage. Wizened and withered, the brown skin was little more than shrunken parchment over the skull, is mouth lipless and rimmed with yellowed incisors, its jet black eyes staring balefully up at nothing. Wisps of straw-like hair clung to its otherwise bald head, and it looked to have been dead a century, perhaps two, its body desiccated and rolling to the bottom with barely a sound as a handful of Copper Crescents appeared in the air above it.
More movement.
A trio of Crypt Keepers had appeared in the main archway that led to a hallway beyond. Their black eyes gleamed as they prowled forward, but once they cleared the arch they spread out and raced toward him, hissing and reaching with their clawed hands.
Harald took a deep breath, raised the Dawnblade so that its alien length glimmered as if underwater, and realized that he was no longer afraid, no longer a bundle of jagged nerves.
Instead, he laughed, leaned forward, and as the fastest Keeper reached the bottom step, swung the Dawnblade with all the precision and power that Nessa had drilled into him over the past month.
The tip of the blade passed through the front of the Keeper’s skull, cutting through the right temple, shattering its eye, passing out through its right cheekbone. It felt like hewing through dried, decayed wood. There was no blood splatter, and no time to celebrate his first kill. The Keeper on the left was charging up toward him even as the third on the right was leaping over the corpse of the foe Vic had slain.
Tamping down the laughter, Harald engaged the Dungeon Square, practice and instinct causing him to step to the side as he reversed his strike to come up from the opposite angle, and slashed off the Keeper’s outstretched hand as if it were kindling.
The monster screeched and dove at Harald’s feet, perhaps seeking to tangle him up, but he was already gliding back to his original spot, Dawnblade flashing up again to catch it in the jaw and shatter its skull.
The third lunged at him from the top step, too close to be rebuffed, so Harald slammed the pommel of his sword into its withered face with all his strength as its claws tore grooves into his leather armor.
Its face collapsed as it stumbled back, and with a hefty kick to its narrow chest Harald sent it sailing down the steps to crash down beside its dead companion.
Battle was joined on all sides of the dais. He dared a quick glance around. Vic was singing a filthy tavern ditty as he skewered rushing Keepers in the face with The Point, not even bothering to adopt a combat stance, while Nessa faced a half-dozen foes, her blade dancing between them and keeping them at bay. Sam had summoned her Shield of Valor, which had positioned itself on her right flank, even as the Thornguard guarded her left, allowing her to stab down the center at another trio of Keepers who hissed and lunged up at her.
But that was all he could afford to take in.
Looking back, he saw six Crypt Keepers emerging from the main hall before him, each identical to the last, though these hadn’t bothered to keep their cowls down. Noseless, sharp-fanged mouths opened, eyes burning with hate, they glared at him as they broke into a rush.
“All right,” said Harald, settling back into the Tower Stance. “All right. Here we go.”
Comments
Traellium
As a joke, I like to think that Lindon is on the 100th level, he strolls up to you, says "apologies" then you die in a sea of black flame.
Amber Gregory
Well, it doesn't sound like Gloomies. Another demon? Thornvale?
Phil Tucker
It's gradual, but there are hints here and there that he's already improving in subtle ways.
SirWins
Btw since scales improve beauty and looks. Is harald better looking bow with two thrones? Or is it a more gradual process.
nadpnw
Wish I was Pastoric rn
SirWins
So many exciting possibilities with the demon seed. I like the team but sometimes i wonder how a solo harald route would go if he takes a similar solo route as his father and seraphine the number one raider. He would probably be corrupt like his father I guess but get power quicker with him pushing the seed.
Suplely Maple
" I shall ascend to you when I have resolved a trifling matter." He's murdering the dwarves, isn't he?
