Devil's Waltz Read online

  He pointed with his wand and fed it a globule of mana, pulling the Gargoyles to the sides. From the tip, a Fire Bolt raced the length the descent, thirty steps, and splashed against a human skeleton slumped against the wall. It fell over, cracked, and broke into dusty chunks. Though they weren’t suitable for bone designs, Rowan stowed a bunch into his pouch and pocket for ice designs. Bone marshmallows. Maybe Gabrielle could make better use of the stuff—for potions or whatever. He was already missing her, his support player, more than he should’ve allowed.

  Rowan swallowed a bitter lump in his throat and continued forward, a wide draft from upstairs blowing hair into his eyes. The welcoming hallway was vast; ten or so adventurers could fit side by side without shoulders touching. Whatever was buried here must’ve been a giant’s body, if giants existed in Aeon Chronicles. They probably did.

  The Ball Light cast diffuse shadows, and Rowan nearly mistook a lingering figure’s movement at the hallway’s end as a Gargoyle’s shadow. His pulse bumped in his neck. He pulled everything to a halt, examining the thing.

  Medium Shadow Elemental: Level 174

  Health: 1,030

  Mana: 24,500

  Stamina: 2,540

  Buffs: Physical Immunity, Corrupting Touch

  The elemental—the wolf-like beast—stepped into view and screeched a high-pitched howl. Its body of shadows, like Bird-man’s ravens but less oily, bristled at its jagged fur-like edges. It brought its front paw-hands together. A spinning black sphere grew between its nails.

  The charging attack’s look and feel was similar to Death Bolt, but larger. Maybe Death Blast? It would detonate and corrupt a wide area. Rowan simply threw his own variant to counter.

  At all the hall’s midpoint plumed a broiling explosion. Tainted ice and corrupting gas ate into each other, an echoing cacophony ringing up the stairs. The two opposing magics cancelled each other out, Rowan’s ice barely overwhelming the corruption, leaving a thick layer of frost on the stone.

  The canine lunged, enraged.

  Rowan fired three blasts in rapid succession. Ice clogged the hall. The Shadow Elemental imploded in on itself to a single point. Dead.

  At the bottom of the game interface, the experience bar filled by less than a percentage point. It was expected—the thing was a stupid elemental. All elementals in the game were fodder apart from bosses and lieutenants. But that Death Blast could’ve dealt serious damage if it’d caught him off guard, which could very well happen in here; so as an extra precaution, Rowan summoned thirty Ice Gargoyles as fodder units, sipping from Gabrielle’s flask. He continued onward with no reluctance. He was a World Boss, not any other adventurer.

  The hallway split into two at the end. An elemental charged from the left, two from the right. All three shrieked in sync, stopped fifty yards away. Those doggy maws flung blackish-brown spittle, so putrid that Rowan’s head swam as he caught a whiff even at a distance. This explained why the clay outside was stinky.

  Death Blasts charged from both left and right.

  No problem at all.

  For the duo Rowan was matched against, they positioned close together as if they were joined at the elbows. Siamese elementals. Brainless idiots. Tainted Ice Blasts encased both, Rowan paying little attention while his eyes kept watch over his minions. This was a good test to measure their combat-readiness.

  Gargoyles, Pigeons, and Mages handled the loner. Their bullet-spray of bolts were more than enough to counter a Death Blast. The torrent of individual bolts blurred together, merged into a continuous beam of sharp ice. The single corruption cloud diffused into tufts of black, the Ice Gargoyles’ hardened Mana Shields an effective buffer the corruption. Lucky.

  Three blobs of liquid shadows imploded. Screeching howls reverberated in the T junction of corridors. Seeing those doggy-humanoids suffer in death was intoxicating. He’d grown to hate wolves. A swell of cool mana and endorphins pumped in his flesh, tingled in his fingers. Such an exhilarating feeling. Nothing in real life compared.

  However, he couldn’t dawdle and indulge. The dungeon’s loot was waiting for its rightful owner: Rowan Black.

  And how had the elementals not noticed the first explosion earlier? An aggravation radius like in other MMOs? A mechanic like that didn’t make sense for an AI-driven game.

  It didn’t matter. Rowan marched forth. Ice and corruption cleared with waves of his wand, and down the left passage laid another skeleton. He guessed it was the game’s way of telling him which path to take. Though he sent a force of Dark-ice Gargoyles and Dark-ice Pigeons to the right. One couldn’t make an assumption like that so lightheartedly.

  His guess turned out to be correct. The minions reported a dead end with wordless communication, then doubled back at his command. They would’ve idled if he hadn’t tugged their leashes. He needed the services of a Lich soon to handle all this wearisome micromanagement, and for one of those, he needed a crafting material many professions sought after: onyx. Not regular-quality onyx or ruby like those Zaine had in his storeroom, but High-Quality Onyx, which was an order of magnitude rarer.

  The maze of halls grew complex. The Medium Shadow Elementals were numerous, and the further he delved the smarter they behaved. Clever wolves!

  Maybe the tomb's ambient gloom warped Rowan’s mind, but it seemed as though each successive elemental had the cumulative experience of every downed elemental before them. One dodged his opening blast, its shadowy body morphing in a twist, but Rowan manually detonated the chunk of tainted ice as it flew over that grizzly shoulder and followed up with another. The wolf imploded as it clung to the ceiling like a cockroach.

  A group of scouts halted at another dead end, and Rowan sent them down an unexplored path. This was one convoluted tomb. For sure, Not Insane hadn’t built this. The halls that Rowan had already traversed spanned over a fifth of the island’s area, and no end was in sight. There could be multiple floors as well. Better get a move on. He’d already spent over an hour in this dimension.

  Ball Light held high, he briskly walked ahead and turned a corner.

  The canine face of an elemental stared down at him. “GRAAAAAAAHH!” it screeched, raised its paw, and charged a Death Blast point blank.

  Hot adrenaline cooked his skin, from his feet to his cheeks. He blinked back, less than a second to spare, a Death Blast exploding against the wall. His right arm whirled and madly flung ice blasts into the plume of corrupting gas. The canine pawed through unhindered—then died with a final screech, an ice blast to the nose.

  “Shit,” Rowan mumbled, chuckling. Maybe it was best to let his minions lead.

  He continued onward with four groups of scouting parties fanning outward while his personal guard of bony Undead slew any clever wolf that tried to jump from an unexplored corner or side-passage. They were definitely becoming smarter. One of the structure’s augments or functions linked the elemental beasts together, reasonably.

  It reminded him of something similar in a dungeon crawler he’d played a few years back. Every vampire he had downed added to the strength of subsequent ones, and the more he had slain the stronger the final boss had been by a staggering multiplier. He’d been forced to reload from the starting checkpoint twice. The key for that level was to take a stealthy approach and avoid as many fodder minions as possible.

  Fortunately, the elementals weren’t growing stronger; just marginally more intelligent.

  He sloughed on through miles of corridors autonomously, a skeleton here and there greeting him. A pair embraced each other even in death. How romantic. He would’ve gagged at the sight if it weren’t reminiscent of him and Gabrielle. She’d saved him with a similar embrace in Zaine’s lair, and she wasn’t here to save him this time or bolster his strength and defenses with her auras. This was a true test he needed to prove himself both to her and himself. He marched onward with renewed vigor.

  Elemental after elemental imploded in his wake. Hundreds of them. An achievement system would be perfect for bragging purposes. The
top players must’ve slain thousands if not millions of various elementals throughout alpha and beta. That seemed like one of the game’s core themes: magic elements and dumb elementals. Secrets hidden in plain sight was another. There had to be more. Large-scale siege battles probably counted as one.

  Finally, after he took care of a trio at a hall’s end, a draft of chilly wind blew from the smaller doorway. The mouth into the room was barely wide enough for two Skeleton Mages. He dared to peek inside instead of sending a Gargoyle ahead; a tight chokepoints like this called for a tried-and-true strategy. It was asking for it.

  Down a flight of steps, a congregation of three or four hundred elementals and a couple of bulkier ones meandered around a fountain-like structure. Everything refused an Examine at the distance, and no water poured from that bulbous tip. It didn’t look like the structure was meant for water anyway. It was more like an altar of some sort, definitely not a coffin or burial site. And now that his eyes adjusted to the faint ice-blue glow coming off the tip, the elementals were clearly circling it in some kind of ritualistic dance like an ant death spiral.

  Rowan watched for a good two minutes. They did not stop circling. They did not slow. Nothing happened while they danced on. The altar’s glow was dim and constant—no flares of magic or indications that something was being summoned. Very odd. How long had they been doing that? It could’ve been thousands of years of circling. Minions like these would idle or loop through any last orders till they perished. Maybe their master had a sense of humor.

  Oh well. A slaughter was on the agenda, and Rowan’s middle name was wolf-genocide.

  A classic baiting technique, he poked into the room with a low-power ice blast, then backed away in a heartbeat. A symphony of shrieks exploded through the tight space. His eardrums nearly popped, pain cracking into his skull from the sides. He swore blood leaked out of both ears, but there was no time to check. The first were already pouring through.

  Pigeons and Mages unleashed a dense spray of frost bolts, shredding into the deluge of rabid darkness.

  Rowan channeled Blizzard at the mouth of the room. They fell three by three and didn’t stop in their mad rush piling through the small choke. Ten, twenty, thirty imploded in pinches of liquid darkness by the time a vortex of tainted ice drilled through the doorway from within the room. Thousands of shards shredded the mass in in one fell swoop. Like yesterday, his experience bar filled to the brim, zero to one hundred thrice over.

  Ding. Ding. Ding. Level 150. Watch the bar fill like that was orgasmic.

  Then a spherical bulge pushed through the ice as though it was nothing but water. A Mana Shield. A monstrous wolf within. A werewolf.

  Pumping extra mana into the blizzard, Rowan slipped in an Examine.

  Greater Shadow Elemental: Level 197

  Health: 3,030

  Mana: 78,200

  Stamina: 9,240

  Buffs: Mana Shield, Black Shroud (Very-High Dark Resistance), Physical Immunity, Corrupting Touch

  Damn. Tainted ice technically counted as dark magic.

  The Greater Elemental’s mana bar was depleting at four or five percentage points per second, and in a sinking stutter of Rowan’s heart, its frozen sphere of a shield appeared in front of a Gargoyle. A spike of crackling darkness tore its body of ice in two before Rowan could react. He hadn’t expected an elemental to have a movement skill. Or chaos damage.

  Then the blizzard cut off. Why?!

  Because his mana was drained. Stupid. He was vulnerable.

  The werewolf seemed to notice as he did, turning with a sneer, tanking the spray of ice bolts with ease.

  Rowan blinked as it did, heart thumping. His free hand, on its own, reached into his pouch for that flask. He guzzled the heavenly blueberry liquid, blinking to dodge. A spike flew into the space he’d stood in and detonated with gassy corruption.

  Another spike hurtled at his face.

  He moved with pure instinct, a fractal of ice sweeping across his sight. He tugged on every minion, ordered a pile-on as he came out of the Rime Blink, then fell back to his trusty Tainted Ice Blasts though careful to avoid friendly fire—low-power blasts was all he could afford. Damn that mana-hungry blizzard. And damn the indiscriminately splash damage mechanics of this game. This canine needed to be downed before its brother joined in.

  Gargoyles got in one, two, three swipes before the their measly shield pools drained.

  The werewolf unleashed spikes in all directions, detonating in a ring of corruption.

  Rowan jumped backward as Pigeons fell, and at the corner of his eye, the last medium elementals tricked through the doorway—along with the other werewolf.

  Two more Ice Gargoyles disintegrated. He was running out of front-line fodder minions. He switched to a cast of Construct Minion, throwing a handful of bone into the air.

  Bone bounced off the ceiling and walls, catching their attention. Both pair of squinting eyes angled downward. Spikes flew at the marshmallows, a few out of the twenty dustified. They fired a second round of spikes, but the chunks were not bombs! A lucky break. Rowan finished his chant. Four fresh Gargoyles lunged forth, mist expanding into the corridor.

  Skeletal Mages finally broke through a shield and downed the first werewolf. It died with a dramatic black hole implosion with a whistling sucking noise, claimed a low-mana Gargoyles.

  No time to celebrate. One left. It could be done.

  A blueberry addict, Rowan guzzled from the flask. He grabbed another handful of bone from his pocket, tossed the chunks. The chant left his lips in an unintelligible rush; he had to start over again. God dammit.

  The werewolf released two rings of corruption one after the other, three Gargoyles falling.

  He was down to his two prized Bone Gargoyles. He had no choice but to send them in.

  Pigeons and Skeleton Mages discharged bolt after bolt, drawing ever more mana from Sazar’s Ring’s bottomless well. They’d already brought the second werewolf down to 40%.

  The werewolf appeared by a Mage in a twist of dark mana, then eviscerated the animated jigsaw-bones with a series of rapid-fire spikes. Gaseous corruption filled the hallway and chunked Rowan’s shield by 17%. He blinked back and pulled away the squishy ranged minion, then restarted his chant a second time, only to be interrupted by a spike to the face. He blinked to the right.

  Screw the chant.

  Furious heat boiled up Rowan’s jugular. A quivering string in his head snapped. He pumped the entirety of his mana into his wand, bellowed a mighty war cry. He pulled everything back and blasted the fat werewolf with tainted ice over and over and over. Solid ice and frozen pieces of bone plugged the corridor by the time he was through and emptied of mana. He had just enough reserves to take out the remaining 25% shield points. It was finished. Everything had perished save for two Ice Pigeons and an Ice Gargoyle.

  Palms on knees, flask empty, Rowan fought for air while his mana and stamina bars refilled at a bug’s crawl. He consumed an ice Gargoyle to speed up the regen and dispersed his own tainted ice before it could melt and drench his boots. He hated soggy footwear—the last thing he needed while treading through these tunnels, risking death at every other turn.

  A grim reality settled on him. The truth was undeniable: he was far weaker than he had thought, especially in tight spaces and without Gabrielle’s support. His strength was large-scale extended warfare in open plains. Underground tunnels with poor lightning and low ceilings were his weakness, and he’d walked into it with little thought given.

  Damn.

  He slumped against the wall and did just that—some much-needed thought and self-evaluation.

  What if he misplaced all his health points down here? He wasn’t sure if Gabrielle could resurrect him if he died in this pocket dimension. Could he cheat the respawn timer in this pocket dimension? Were there hidden mechanics? Not Insane’s dueling skill had to be very extensive and complicated if it generated all of this with a single use. This couldn’t be his persistent home-world pocket
dimension; it’d be too similar to Ambiguous’. There was a reason this dungeon had been placed here. Perhaps as a trap in case Not Insane lost his own duel… to lure greedy players. Like Rowan.

  What if there was no treasure? The tomb could just be a tomb and nothing else. It might not be a tomb in the regular sense at all. The word could be interpreted in several ways.

  Rowan swallowed a mouthful of damp air and stood. Maybe a retreat was necessary—play it safe by regrouping with Gabrielle. The town and the Dark Humans came first.

  Time to leave. For real. Rowan re-lit his Ball Light.

  And a forest of goosebumps blossomed down his body, up his arms. A figure was blocking the corridor. A figure he recognized all too well, his heart skipping beats.

  Gabrielle stood in the way, a hand on her hip. Her expression beneath that oversized hat was far more serious and menacing than usual. She was mad as hell. “Hello, Rowan. Where do you think you’re going? Aren’t you going to finish this dungeon?”