TS - Chapter 30

The dragon’s wings flapped once and it was in the air.  A blink of the eye later, the downdraft from its ascent hit the three of them, blowing Kat’s hair everywhere and threatening to push them into the ground.  On instinct she reached out with her domain, weakening the pull of gravity around them to help their group fight back against the sudden assault.

Kat’s eyes widened as the giant reptile disappeared into the sky, flying rapidly toward the solitary mountain she had spotted earlier.  From the nearby village, an alarm bell started clanging, almost thirty seconds too late to do anything useful.

“So,” Kaleek said slowly.  “I think I’ve figured out what the ‘Sky Tyrant’ is, but I have no idea how we’re supposed to kill something that big without skills or magic.  Maybe the town over there has tanks or a bomb or something?”

Kat looked at the village.  The houses were well made, but they were constructed of wood.  Most had hay or thatched roofs with a couple of the larger residences having what looked like slate shingles.  Only four of the more impressive buildings near the center of town were made out of stone, and that stone looked to be roughly hewed.

“I don’t think we’re going to find a tank,” she replied.  “Everything about this area screams agricultural and medieval to me.  It looks like we’re going to be stuck using swords and knives.”

“The alert did say that the dungeon would be as challenging as a full floor worth of silver dungeons,” Dorrik said, his head still tracking the dragon as it disappeared into the mountains.  “I do not find it surprising that the Tower would make such a test incredibly difficult.  In all honesty, I am surprised you are bringing it up in a negative light.  I thought you would be more unhappy if we were to skip a floor’s worth of dungeons without some sort of significant challenge.”

“That’s true,” Kaleek said thoughtfully.  “If we just had to fight a couple monsters and kill a boss to bypass an entire floor that would be beyond annoying.  I can’t imagine jumping that far up the Tower without even getting a chance to blow off some steam.”

“Hey you!” A shout interrupted them before Kat could say anything in response.  A teenage human boy was running toward the three of them, rubbing sleep from under his eyes while waving a walking stick above his head to grab their attention.

“There was just a dragon attack!” He yelled.  “We need to get back to Elmdale!  We can worry about gathering up the lost sheep once things calm down.”

The teenager immediately turned and began running back to the village.  Kat shared a glance with Dorrik and Kaleek before shrugging.  They didn’t really have anywhere else to go and it was pretty clear that they were expected back in town so there wasn’t any real reason for them to avoid the village.

Kaleek began following the running human and a second later, Kat was following him.  As they traveled, Kat began to notice large burn marks scarring the landscape.  There were only two or three of them, but evidently the town’s dragon problem wasn’t new.  Something had been starting large fires around the village during the past couple weeks.

When they entered the town, no one really challenged their arrival.  Citizens were running back and forth.  Some were holding bows or pushing what looked like makeshift catapults, but most of them were carrying children or essentials as they rushed back to their homes.

Dorrik, Kaleek, and Kat stopped near the town square.  Watching the commotion while occasionally looking to the sky.  There wasn’t any sign of the dragon, but at the same time, there hadn’t been much warning before it originally attacked.

An elbow nudged her in the ribs, snapping Kat’s attention back to the town around them.  A pair of villagers wearing heavy gambesons made of heavily treated wool and carrying crossbows jogged up to them.  The one on the left, a man with darker hair, squinted at them for a second.

“I don’t recognize the three of you,” he said finally.  “Are you travelers?  Perhaps knights sent by Baron Hawley?  We’ve been begging for help with the dragon and its orc minions for months so any help sent by Lord Hawley would be appreciated.”

Kat glanced at her companions before stepping forward.  As their team’s human representative it only seemed fair that she should be the person in charge of interacting with the new floor’s decidedly human denizens.

“Just travelers,” she said, “although we are certainly willing to help a hand.  We were out near your grazing fields when the dragon swooped down.  Almost scared the pants off of the three of us.”

“You were there when Tyrassius attacked?” The man asked worriedly.  “Did you see any of the orcish raiders or have they not descended from the mountain yet?”

Kat glanced at Kaleek but the big otter just shrugged.  Dorrik shook his head, his crest practically twitching with agitation and excitement.

“I do not know what an orc looks like,” Dorrik replied, “but no I have not seen anything that looks like a raider.  Outside of my companions, the only armed individuals that I have seen were fairly clearly town folk.”

“Right,” the man said, nodding to himself.  “Travelers.  If you don’t mind helping, you should follow Stella.”  He motioned toward the woman at his side.

“We never used to have problems with orcs,” he continued, “but then when Tyrassius showed up, they started raiding the village.  We only managed to take one captive and it seems like they worship the dragon, following it around as it raids and attacking the settlements after its arrival.  We’ve already had a couple incursions.  They usually run away after burning down a building or stealing some sheep, but those sheep are the lifeblood of our village.  We can’t let them kill all of them.”

“If you haven’t seen them yet,” he finished, “that means that there’s still time if you hurry.”

The woman nodded at the three of them and walked past, leading them back the way that they came.  Near the edge of the village, a dozen farmers clutched pitchforks and flails.  Kat pursed her lips as she looked them up and down.  To a man, their knuckles were white and bloodless as they clutched their unfamiliar weapons tightly.  Their eyes were wide, nervously flicking back and forth with all the bravery of a rabbit that had just heard flapping overhead.

Kat clicked her tongue, shaking her head to herself.  The farmers might be able to provide bodies, but all of them would be next to useless in an actual fight.  Theoretically they might’ve received some sort of training as Eldmale’s ad hoc militia, but that didn’t mean that they were actually prepared to risk their lives in a fight with raiders.  At best they would know which end of the pitchfork was pointy so they could aim it at the orcs.  Most of the time.

“The orcs haven’t been sighted yet,” Stella called out as they approached.  Almost instantly a wave of relief seemed to wash over the crowd.  “Now don’t relax yet.  That just means that they are on their way.  If we act quickly enough we can stop them from raiding the flock again.”

Kaleek leaned over to Kat, putting a single hand on her shoulder as he whispered into her ear.

“Why are we going along with all of this again?  I’m sure these villagers need our help or something, but I’m not sure how that will actually aid us in taking down that big flying lizard thing.  I don’t mind lending a paw to those in need, but I’m getting a bit of whiplash here running from one emergency to another.  I don’t think I even fully understand what’s going on other than that there are marauders of some sort that we are killing because they might steal some game animals.”

“I’m not entirely sure either,” Kat replied.  “We don’t really have any leads other than that the bad guy is a ‘sky tyrant’ and that dragon sure looked like a ‘sky tyrant’ to me.  The villagers seem to know at least a little about what’s happening, so helping them might earn us some information.”

“On top of that,” she finished with a shrug, “I don’t think any of us have fought without magic or skills in at least a year.  It’s going to take a little bit for us to figure that out and I’d prefer to do it against orcs rather than the dragon.”

“What are orcs anyway?”  Dorrik asked, loudly enough that the farmers could hear.  A couple of them frowned in his direction and one spat on the ground before grumbling.

“Look at ol’ four arms here.  Doesn’t know what an orc looks like.  Ow’s he supposed to help us against the buggers if he ain’t even seen one?  Couple’a swords on his back, but he ain’t even fought the most common monster outta the wilds.”

“Enough Roderick,” Stella interrupted before an argument could start.  “There are three strangers with sharp looking weapons that say that they want to help.  None of them have the look of a noble who is carrying around Daddy’s sword.  Orcs are common here, but they might not be common everywhere.  I’m not going to turn away a swordhand or four just because the person attached to it is a foreigner.”

“Now,” She continued, her voice dropping to a growl, “we are wasting time that could be better spent protecting our livelihood.  Let’s get out to the flock before the bandits manage to run off with all of them.”

Roderick opened his mouth to say something back but a sharp glance from Stella was enough to silence the man.

About twenty seconds later, Kat and her companions were following the dozen or so villagers out toward the field where they had fallen from the sky.  Something about the entire scenario was bothering her.  Kaleek was right that the dungeon level was moving incredibly fast.  The second she thought she was about to catch her breath, something new happened.  First it was the dragon swooping down out of nowhere.  Then it was the panicking villager.  Now it was an imminent orc attack.

She paused. Orcs, dragons, and humans.  This wasn’t anything like the Tower at all.  Pretty much every race and monster in the dreamscape had been drawn from some exotic planet.  There wasn’t anything alien about their current opponents.  If anything, the entire scenario resembled a role playing game back on Earth.

“Dorrik,” she called out, but before she could finish her thought a guttural bellow silenced her.

A half dozen humanoid creatures, each of them wearing only a loin cloth and between three and four paces high, were circled around four scared looking sheep.  Heavily scarred grayish green muscle bulged from their thighs and biceps making them look more like gigantic bodybuilders than anything resembling an athlete and every one of the interlopers had a savage looking ax topped with a head made of hand knapped obsidian.

Stella acted first, firing a crossbow at one of the marauders.  She clearly wasn’t a sharpshooter, but the woman was competent enough to hit one of the unsuspecting orcs.  It bellowed, the bolt sinking a handspan into steely muscle before coming to a stop.

The orc spun around, the wooden shaft of the crossbow quarrel still vibrating in its arm. It reached up, snapping off the rear three quarters of the projectile and tossing it aside contemptuously.

Kat 's eyes flickered to Dorrik and their gazes locked.  Crossbows were meant to punch through armor and penetrate deeply.  If a direct hit left seventy five percent of the bolt exposed, then the orc’s muscles were basically as tough as boiled leather on their own.

The orc bellowed, hefting its obsidian ax over its head.  Its five companions turned their back on the trembling sheep, charging fearlessly toward the ragged mob of villagers.

“Treat them like they’re wearing armor!” Kat yelled at Kaleek as she broke into a sprint.  Instinctively she tried to trigger Shadow Step only for the skill not to respond.

Kaleek caught up to her in an instant, grunting a reply as he hefted his greatsword.  Behind them, Dorrik led the farmers as they stumbled hesitantly toward the orcs.  Kat didn’t have the time to look back at them and gauge their progress, and although her senses were far beyond the average person’s, the hidden floor had stripped her of her supernatural hearing.  She could hear the urgent footfalls and panicked breathing behind her, but beyond that, Kat had no way of knowing if it was a dozen villagers at her back, or if the rest had cut and run.

Not that it mattered.  

A wide smile split her face as Kat reached her first opponent.  Her knife seemed to spring into her hand as the orc swung its ax at her.

It was fast.  Despite the weight of the weapon and the monster’s clumsy looking bulky body, the axe slashed through the air far quicker than an ordinary human could track.

Kat ducked to the side, letting it pass just over her head and slam into the ground with enough force to bury the axe completely. 

She slipped past the attack, making a quick mental note to not bother parrying the orcs.  Without serious magic to reinforce her, a single strike would be enough to break both of her arms.

The orc rotated its hips in a flash, jerking a knee upward toward Kat’s chin with enough force to pulverize concrete.  She bent backward, limboing under the strike even as she jammed the point of her knife into the monster’s calf.

It only sank a couple fingers in, but after watching how it handled the crossbow bolt, nothing surprised Kat.

She jumped backward a fraction of a second before the orc’s elbow crashed downward before it even managed to plant the leg she had stabbed.

Kat dropped into a crouch, tensing her legs to leap at the monster as it effortlessly pulled its ax from its berth deep in the soil.  Instinctively she reached out with her gravity domain, only for a thrill of surprise to run through her.

It was still there.  Kat felt like she was trying to push her ability through a wall of wet sand in order to reach the orc, but she could feel the gravity around her and even change it a bit, albeit nowhere near her normal levels.

More than that, her speed and reflexes were still operating at a superhuman level.  Her opponent might be as fast and strong as an olympic athlete hopped up on anabolic steroids and street level chrome, but now that she’d dodged three of his attacks, Kat was feeling more confident.

It was fast, but she was faster.  It reacted quickly, but she was quicker.  It was strong and tough, but she-  well, she was stronger and tougher than almost any unaugmented human.  No need to get carried away.

With a savage grin she jumped forward, straight toward a horizontal swing of the orc’s axe.  Gravity snarled and fought back against her mental control as she pushed herself upward and pulled the monster’s arm down.

A confused snarl blossomed on its face as Kat grabbed hold of its forearm with her left hand, using it as a vault to push her almost weightless body up and over the swing of its attack.

Suddenly she was at eye level with the orc, and before it could check its swing, her knife was flashing downward toward her opponent’s face.  It tried to jerk its head out of the way, but Kat’s enhanced attributes did their work, letting her track every minute movement of the monster's neck and redirect her stab with surgical precision.

The knife stabbed deep into the monster’s eye, bypassing its thick bones and armored skin and thrusting directly into the orc’s brain.

It twitched once, falling to the ground beneath Kat as she floated downward, feather light, and landed on the soil next to its spasming body.  A quick glance over the battlefield revealed the dire straights the rest of her companions were in.

Dorrik and Kaleek were each fighting an orc on their own, leaving another three of the hulking brutes for the rest of the village.  Already four of the peasants were down, two with broken bones and concussions, but the remaining two were bleeding and unmoving, great slashes torn in their bodies by the marauders’ heavy obsidian axes.

Even Kaleek was not totally unscathed.  Dorrik fought like his usual self dodging and redirecting the orc’s attacks with lighting quick and technically perfect movements of his right sword all while his left opened up cut after cut on the orc’s arms and chest.  On the other hand, Kaleek was taking a beating.  He was used to relying on his enchanted armor and stamina powered skills so that he could stand toe to toe with large opponents, and without that assistance his armor was battered and dented even if he was still grinning like a lunatic and standing tall.

Kat took a deep breath and took off toward him.  Part of her wanted to throw one of her smaller knives at the orc, but she already knew that the blade would do next to nothing against the monster’s thick skin and corded muscle.

Instead, she grasped her knife in both hands and dropped into a slide about a pace away from the invader, a tug of gravity helping pull her along the ground as she skimmed past the monster.

Just as she reached her target, Kat lashed out, stabbing her knife into the orcish equivalent of an achilles tendon and sawing as hard as possible.

For a second, its leathery skin resisted her knife.  The orc lifted its other leg to stomp on her only for Kaleek to launch a blistering series of heavy swings with his greatsword, forcing it to cross its arms and focus on defense.

Then, the tendon gave way.  The orc, who had been trapped with one leg in the air, collapsed to the ground, barely giving Kat enough time to scoot out of the way.

She popped back up to her feet, and broke into yet another sprint toward the peasants.  In the brief time that she had helped Kaleek another two of them had been killed by the marauding orcs that treated them as little more than quavering and shaking trees to be felled by their obsidian axes than as real opponents.

“Aim for its eyes!” Kat yelled over her shoulder at Kaleek.  “They’re its weakness!”

He yelled something back, but Kat couldn’t hear him over the clamor and clash of battle.  A second later she reached the villager formation.  One of the orcs had another crossbow bolt sticking out of a pectoral muscle, but it was basically ignoring the injury.  The humans were doing their best to keep the monsters at bay by banding together and forming a pincushion of thrusting pitchforks, but the dull farm implements couldn’t even leave a bruise on the raiders so the massive barbarians simply ignored them.

She launched herself into the air toward one of the distracted orcs, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead as she twisted gravity just enough to extend the leap.  At the last second, her foot snapped out, heel striking the base of the monster’s neck in a textbook perfect side kick with all of her accumulated momentum behind it.

The orc staggered forward, but the attack that would have crippled or killed a human barely managed to stun it.  One of the farmers took advantage of its momentary distraction to try and bash the creature’s knee with his flail, but the wooden farm implement simply broke, unable to damage the monster’s heavy bones in the slightest.

It whipped around, swinging its axe in a horizontal slash that left the air billowing its wake.  Kat ducked under its arm as she fell, planting her knife deeply into the orc’s abdomen to arrest her descent before she hit the ground.

Her target rotated its body, trying to recover from its overextended swing, and Kat kicked off of its torso landing five or so paces away, just outside of its weapon’s range.

The orc bared its teeth growling angrily at her as it pressed its index finger to the bloody hole she’d left in its chest.  Without breaking eye contact it brought the finger up to its mouth, a sickly purple tongue snaking out to taste the thick blood coating its finger.

It staggered forward, the snap of Stella’s crossbow echoing across the battlefield a heartbeat later.  The villagers surged toward the orc, pitchforks scratching its heavy skin and pushing it further off balance and toward Kat.

Then, it bellowed something incoherent.  For the first time since Kat had entered the tower, the dreamscape didn’t translate someone else’s words.  It kicked one of the farmers away and then broke into a sprint with the speed, momentum, and elegance of a runaway freight train as it fled from the fight.

Kat rotated slightly as she took in the rest of the battle.  Kaleek had managed to finish off his opponent as had Dorrik.  The other two orcs had scratches, and one had a long but shallow cut on its forearm, but it was more or less unharmed.  Without the addition of their trio, there was no way that the villagers would have survived, but evidently their participation had been enough to drive the invaders off for now.

Kaleek stomped up to her, his armor battered and covered with dents and blood.  He slid his greatsword into the harness attached to his back before crossing his arms in front of him.

“Aim for its eyes,” he said in a singsong voice that Kat suspected was an attempt at matching hers.  “Are you kidding me?  I’m fighting a giant that moves as fast as an agility fighter.  How in the name of all that is good and pleasant in the galaxy do you expect me to target its eyes?  What are you going to say next, ‘its weakness is its heart, just stab it in its heart somehow.”

“Hey now,” Kat replied, sheathing her dagger.  “Stabbing it in the eyes worked for me.  Maybe you should work on your accuracy a bit.  Still, that was a good fight wasn’t it?”

Kaleek’s face split into a toothy grin.

“Yeah it was,” he said happily.  “Honestly?  You should keep being friends with whoever it is that runs the Tower notifications if it gets us more encounters like this.  Or pissing them off.  Whatever you did, this is the most fun I’ve had in months.”

A bell began clanging in the distance and the groaning villagers froze.  Stella took a step away from the cluster of town militia and stared at the center of town where a yellow flag was rapidly being pulled up a flagpole affixed to one of the few stone buildings.

“Oh no,” she gasped.  “The orcs must have kidnapped the town princess!”

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