TtOW! - Chapter 46: What's in a Name?

Let me tell you, boy, the Dungeon Diver’s handbook is crap.  It’s not even the bare minimum, so it won’t be enough to keep you alive in one of those labyrinths of death.  Every single dungeon is different, unique.  Every diver spends their entire career learning THEIR dungeon, that’s it.  They’ll be safe in their dungeon, and in no other.  So how could there possibly be a common manual that could teach you how to survive in ALL of them?

Not to say you SHOULDN’T read the handbook.  There are a few common rules, after all, and you better know them.  That’s what the handbook records.

For example, there are ALWAYS pit traps.  Always.  Watch your footing.

Second, if you see a named monster, you RUN.

What?  You want to know what’s so special about a name?

You IDIOT!

Listen up!  Monsters are expendable tools, just a part of the dungeon.  They are expected to die.  Why do you think the dungeon lets us kill them on the regular?  Because we’re so powerful that the dungeon can’t kill us somehow?  NO, you idiot!  It’s because the dungeon wants us to come back!  The monsters we face on the day to day are the bait, the sap it uses to draw in more prey!  It is EXPECTED that we will kill a bunch of them, and then the dungeon will feed on the idiots that get themselves killed.  Like you.

A monster with a name?

A monster with a name has been specifically chosen by the dungeon master.  It is treated as an individual.  It is invested into, nurtured, grown.

It is an elite, the dungeon’s contingency plan for when it is actually threatened.

A monster with a name will not be risked on the daily grind.  It will not be offered up to attract more divers.  It is not expected to die.

A monster with a name is only deployed in two cases.  One, the dungeon itself is about to fall and it cannot afford to hold anything back.  Two, the dungeon master has determined there is no threat to the monster, and it is trying to raise that monster's level.

You got that?  That’s right.  If you see a named monster…that means you’re its food.  So you run, and maybe, just maybe, you might live a few minutes longer.

-Professional Dungeon Diver Kaeso Cispius Pertacus, trying unsuccessfully to reduce rookie diver casualty rates.

***

The lead rat monster leapt to the side as a Flame Imp swooped down overhead, just dodging the claws on its hands.  He then leapt up, grabbing onto the imp’s back.  The imp spun around in the air, trying to throw the rat off but he clung tight and opened his jaws.

He then sunk his fangs into the fragile wings on the imp’s back.

The imp cried out and fell to the ground, where the other rats set upon it.  Several imps in the air behind them raised their hands, forming magic circles to bombard the rats.  But a beam of rainbow light swept across them, and their magic circles vanished.

The imp’s eyes went wide and they scrambled to reform the circles, but strings and nets of web launched at them, pulling several to the ground where the spiders were waiting.

And then the sound of thunder rang out as the boss-queen eliminated the remainder.

The rat monster shook his head.  The boss-queen was truly mighty.  It would be a long time before he could truly be of use to her.

“Look-watch out!”

Everyone turned to look around, unsure of who the call out was for.  As they did, one of the imps wrapped in spider webs managed to stick their hand towards the lead rat, a small bolt of flame shooting out towards him, too close for him to dodge.  The rat’s eyes widened and he braced for impact…

The flames crashed against a magic barrier, and then the boss-queen retaliated with her mighty beams.

“Analysis: Communication inefficiency determined.  Generating unique identifiers for friendly units to improve communication efficiency.”

The rats and spiderlings all turned towards the boss-queen, their eyes wide.

“B-Boss-queen, what what do you mean by that…?”

She pointed towards him.

“Unit designation: 01R.”

The rat monster shuddered as he felt the mana within him shift.  He trembled as he opened the sacred record…

And there it was.

[Personal Status]

[General Information]

• [Name: 01R]

The rat monster…no, 01R trembled even more.

The boss-queen had named him.

She had declared that he would be one of her elites.  He would not be just another nameless monster, to be treated as a mere extension of the dungeon.  He was now a true individual, whose deeds would fall under their own name in the eyes of the Aesdes above.  He could truly start to grow, receiving a greater share of the experience he earned on behalf of the dungeon, as well as a greater level of independence and authority.

One of her most valued monsters.  Her inner circle.

In fact…it was not just any name.  It was a name patterned after her own.  She did not mind being associated with him.  No, she was practically declaring him part of her family.

And then she pointed to the next rat.

“Unit designation: 02R.  Unit designation: 03R.  Unit designation…”

01R’s eyes widened.

Not, that wasn’t it.

She wasn’t declaring him as elite, one of the few.

She was declaring that ALL her monsters were elite.

That ALL of them were part of her family.

That all of them were valuable to her.

That all of them would be nurtured and grown, and not expended.

Despite their weakness, despite their mishaps, she had acknowledged their loyalty and repaid it in full.  She was rewarding and trusting in them, even as she was forced to cover for their lack of strength.

01R felt a fire fill his chest.  He looked around, seeing the same look in the eyes of the rats and spiderlings.  He stood to his full height, bowing his head towards the boss-queen.  The other monsters followed suit.

He renewed his vows.  He would one day repay the wise-mighty-gracious boss-queen, whatever it took.

Even the treacherous one could not help but tremble, clearly moved by the sheer generosity and kindness of the boss-queen.  He could not even speak in the face of the boss-queen’s brilliance.

Meanwhile, Lilussees tilted her head in the corner.

“Hm, should I, like, tell her what she did?  That, like, naming monsters is kind of a thing, or something?”

She thought about it a bit more and then shrugged with her first two legs.

“Oh well, she already did it so, like, whatever.”

***

Cassius winced again.

Just what WAS that rainbow attack?

Whatever the strange knight was doing, it was not only disrupting his monsters’ attacks.  Every time she fired the beam, the dungeon’s own mana straight up vanished along its path.  For a brief moment, he could no longer perceive that part of the dungeon.

He gulped.

It wasn’t exactly damaging.  The dungeon’s mana restored the area in a second, but it was uncomfortable for the new dungeon master.  Like getting poked in the eye, or having a bright light suddenly appear in the middle of the night.

But worse was the fear, the uncertainty.

He had absolutely no idea what that was, what it could even be.  He knew elite mages had ways of undoing hostile spells, but nothing like this.  She was somehow erasing mana itself, and not just the ambient mana floating around.  She was erasing a dungeon’s mana, which belonged to the dungeon alone.

As far as he knew, that shouldn’t be possible.

But he shook his head.  It would all be over soon.

For the Hot Devils were converging on her location.

The Hot Devils should be a great counter to the knight.  They were not the strongest of beings, nor gifted in the arcane arts.  Instead, they wrapped themselves in cloaks of mystical fire, that could set mana itself ablaze.

This made them extremely resistant to magical attacks, whether from spells, or from enchanted weapons.  So whatever mystical powers or exotic artifacts she had on her person should not be nearly as useful against the Hot Devils.

And of course, mystical fire was still fire, so they would deal damage to any creature foolish enough to attack them at close range, as well.  And with all the focus she put into ranged combat, she could not also be an expert in melee combat.  They would endure whatever she could do at a distance, and then overwhelm her up close.  She and her monsters would burn to death.

***

“Warning: Denser magic signatures on approach.  All friendlies, please evacuate to monster hangar until hostiles are identified and analyzed.”

“““Yes yes, wise-mighty-gracious boss-queen!”””

The monsters scrambled into the monster hangar, just as the new signatures rounded another corner.

Like the imps, they were red-skinned, horned humanoids, only these were just slightly shorter than an adult human.  They lacked the wings of the Imps at well.

[Hot Devil (Level 7)]

[The Inferno Realm burns all, even magic itself.  These Hot Devils have filled themselves with this conceptual fire, allowing their flames to burn hostile spells and unravel their structure.  However, they lack the ability to control the flames, which prevents them from using magic themselves as well as sapping their physical strength.]

Instead, they were each covered in an aura of fire, which emitted multi-colored sparks of light.  NSLICE-00P read significant mana signatures from the fire, which did not appear to act as normal fire should.

In any case, NSLICE-00P opened up with an experimental barrage, testing an assault rifle, a mana beam, and a magic missile.

The magic missile burned as it approached the flame, the mystical fire burning the spell structure and using the mana to fuel itself.  The mana beam faired likewise, the infusion of mana into her laser projectors now becoming an exploitable weakness.

But the bullets from the assault rifle?

The fire was not hot enough to melt the lead before it struck, so one of the creatures cried out as bullet holes appeared on its chest.

[You have slain Hot Devil (Level 7)!]

[Gained 3 Personal XP and 3 Dungeon XP!]

“Status Update: Resistance to mana-based weapons, weakness to conventional weapons observed.  Testing Equalizer.”

NSLICE-00P raised her hand and fired a rainbow beam at another of the monsters.  The flames and the anti-magic beam collided, each trying to defeat the other.  But the Equalizer was not magic per say and the Hot Devil had no ability to control his flames, or adjust them to a new energy type.  The flames tried to assault the spell structure, but the Equalizer was not a spell in the first place.  The flames had no effect upon it.

The Equalizer, on the other hand, was destroying the very mana the flames were composed of.

The Hot Devil froze and blinked as its fire went out.  It suddenly began coughing, crouching over on the ground.  Its body’s strength had been sapped to fuel its magical flames, and in turn began to be sustained by them.  So it was no longer used to breathing the normal air on its own power.

And then a magic missile struck it on the head and it fell over.

[You have slain Hot Devil (Level 7)!]

[Gained 3 Personal XP and 3 Dungeon XP!]

NSLICE-00P kept one hand to channel the Equalizer while using the other as an assault rifle.  Her missile panels slid open as well, prepared to launch another barrage if the monsters began to overwhelm her position.

“Status Update: Hostile analysis complete, hostile capabilities and countermeasures logged and recorded.  Friendly units may redeploy at this time.”

***

Cassius just stared with his jaw dropped.

First of all, that exotic weapon was apparently NOT a magical weapon.  However it was launching those little metal projectiles, they were apparently purely physical by the time they landed.

So the Hot Devils’ flames were no barrier against them, and the strange knight could cut them down as easily as the flame imps.

But the second problem was even worse.

That strange rainbow beam could not only not be countered by the mystical flames, it could erase them entirely.  Hot Devils were not exactly the most powerful monsters, so their flames could be overpowered.

But erased entirely?

Cassius trembled as he watched rat monsters of all things attack the coughing, flameless Hot Devils.  The Hot Devils were entirely specialized in holding Inferno Realm flames within their bodies.  So if they somehow lost those flames, they were weaker than even the Flame Imps.

Just who or what WAS this strange knight?!

Cassius shook his head and took a deep breath.  This was not the time to panic, the strange knight had almost reached the end of the labyrinth.

He grimaced but he had no choice.  He created a second labyrinth, even larger and more convoluted than the first.  He took some time to adjust it himself, adding more twists and dead ends.

He hated spending some of the dungeon perks on another room.  He was supposed to be spending it all on expanding his monster army to assault Castra Turannia above.  Every bit he spent on purely defensive rooms would weaken his horde by that much.

But he had no choice.  The strange knight had proven remarkably lucky and made it through his first labyrinth in record time.  He needed more time to summon monsters.

And to probe just how deep this strange knight’s secrets went.

Author’s Note:

Thank goodness 00P still likes serial numbers right now!  Can you imagine if fantasynamegenerators…err I, alone, with my own creativity, had to think of names for all those monsters?

But more importantly, now I can stop referring to 01R as ‘the rat that she healed that one time’!

Anyways!

Can 01R live up to his glorious and affectionate name?  Can Cassius find a way past this strange knight’s weird capabilities?  Will NSLICE-00P get lost in this new and specially designed labyrinth?  Tune in next time, to find out!