Somnus V - Chapter 20

Kat materialized in the Tower of Somnus with a rush of motion. As soon as she regained control of her body she popped up, glancing around the squat stone building. Dorrik sat cross legged in the doorway, both of his swords resting gently on his lap.

 She exhaled in relief. There weren’t any stallesp around. Generally the Tower didn’t allow monsters to enter the waypoints, but that didn’t mean that hostile players couldn’t camp out in one, killing avatars as they entered the dreamscape.

 “It’s a strange moment.” Dorrik’s quiet voice drifted over from the doorway of the building. “I’ve been in this exact same doorway before, preparing for my final stand against the stallesp.”

 He stopped talking for a second or two, still as a statue as he continued looking out the open doorway.

 “So many things have changed Miss Kat. I have different abilities. I am friends with you. I am staying on an alien world experiencing a dangerously vibrant culture.”

 Dorrik’s voice became duller, almost bleached of emotion altogether. “My siblings lie dead, victims of stallesp violence and anger.”

 “Yet,” he continued, cutting Kat off before she could say anything to address the moment. “This view remains the same. A rustic valley filled with beautiful trees, dangerous animals and a river.”

 He turned, crest placid, draped across the back of his head.

 “It is easy to miss quiet moments like this. Our lives are always hurtling forward from one disaster to the next. For you, the stallesp are a constant if distant threat to your people. Someone is trying to kill you and destroy everything you’ve built. My clan is heaping pressure on me fit to bend and warp the hull of a starcruiser. I want to live up to their expectations, yet at the same time I want to explore the galaxy and learn more about the culture and customs of new races. For Kaleek-”

 Dorrik paused, blinking slowly.

 “Actually,” he remarked, reaching up to scratch at the scales on the side of his head. “I’m not sure that Kaleek has any real problems now that the active conflict with the stallesp has come to a close. I think he just has an office job that he finds overly confining.”

 “I’m glad one of us is having an easy time of it,” Kat said with a chuckle, drawing a smile in response from Dorrik.

 “Indeed,” the lokkel replied. “I just think that it’s important for us to enjoy the stillness from time to time. There is a galaxy full of threats and things that must be done, but if we take on that challenge fully, it will consume us.”

 “Emma says the same thing,” Kat said, a bit grudgingly. “I know she’s right, it’s just hard to put a moment aside to unwind. Even here in the dreamscape, I’m on a clock. Jackson and Millennium are at large and we’re racing them to level twenty four. I suppose theoretically we could try and power our way up through levels while ignoring dungeons, but that doesn’t feel right. I don’t want to sacrifice all of our foundation and growth just for momentary gains, no matter how important.”

  Dorrik stood up and walked over to Kat. It was easy to forget how much he towered over her, but that height was more reassuring than anything. The lokkel rested a hand on her shoulder.

 “Don’t worry Miss Kat,” he said solemnly. “You will reach level twenty four on time. There are always moments for reflection, but I do not plan on easing up on our pace too much. Trust me. We will protect Earth from itself.”

 Before Kat could reply, an ear splitting shout interrupted the two of them.

 “Finally!” Kaleek bounded over to the two of them, fresh from entering the dreamscape. “If I have to look at one more dataset, my brain would run out my ears. Who is ready to bash in the skulls of some defenseless lizards?”

 “No offense intended Dorrik,” he amended with a quick nod. “You’re hardly defenseless.”

 Kat couldn’t help herself. She burst out into laughter, and a second later, Dorrik joined her. As morose as things got, it was hard to stay depressed with Kaleek around. Really, in his own way, the desoph was the perfect antidote to the constant tension that was the modern world.

 “Come on,” Kat said with a smile as soon as she was done, “You’re right Dorrik, and your assurances are more comforting than you can ever know, but for now, We have a dungeon to raid.”

The three of them managed to pack up and exit the waypoint without incident, and their walk to the dungeon was surprisingly uneventful. At one point a river monster, what looked like a crocodile but for a back covered in barbed spines, rushed out of the water toward them, but the creature wasn’t quick enough on land to catch up with them. It was almost casual to defeat it with Kat and Dorrik peppering it with spells, arrows, and abilities while Dorrik sulked at his noninvolvement.

On the way, Dorrik and Kaleek pointed out the major landmarks from their last visit to the pass. Where they had placed traps, the spot where Dorrik had been forced to put his back to the wall and fight to the death against an unending horde of the mole-like aliens, even the dam that Kaleek had destroyed in order to trigger the flood.

It was a strange experience. Kat had fought so many battles beside Dorrik and Kaleek that their habits and reactions were almost instinctive to her, so hearing about battles they fought with another team seemed strange. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but the entire situation just rubbed her the wrong way.

That said, the rest of the nostalgia trek was fairly pleasant. Dorrik, usually overly verbose and intellectual, described the final battle in vivid terms. She could almost see the scene where he had put his back to the wall, a spear wound in his side and an arrow in his shoulder, and methodically killed three whole teams of stallesp as they threw themselves upon him, trying to push past him and out of the valley even as the water rushed toward their entire group.

Finally, just as they reached the dungeon portal, the stories came to an end. The portal itself was in a cave rather than a hole. There was a downward tilt to the cavern, making the floor’s flash floods a threat, likely as the Tower intended, but it was nowhere near as annoying to enter as the deep pits that Kat had been dealing with so far.

The second Kat teleported into the dungeon, all of that relaxation disappeared immediately. The three of them were sanding on a narrow wooden skiff that was being born down a choppy underground river at rapid speed. Around them, the walls and ceiling were made of crude stone bricks, all about two or three arms lengths from the end of their ship.

Covering those walls was something that looked like ivy except that it was dotted with blue flowers that glowed, providing light as their vessel surged and rocked in time with the quick current. There weren’t any side channels or stops for their group to hop off the boat, so for a second Kat began to wonder what the challenge of this dungeon would be.

Then, the glowing buds on the wall in front of them brightened noticeably. Kat’s instincts screamed for her to dodge, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. If she jumped to the side, she’d fall off the ship, and even if she could fly there was no way that she’d be able to keep up with the rest of the team. That was a sure recipe for being isolated and destroyed by whatever attack was coming.

Kaleek stepped in front of the two of them, spinning around to face Dorrik and Kat an eyeblink before the ivy erupted into a wave of scorching light that scoured his back. The desoph grunted and staggered a step toward Kat and Dorrik before his body flashed red with an activated skill.

“That hits the spot,” he gasped, strain in his voice as he forced a wink at the two of them. “Remind me to plant some of whatever these are when I wake up. I need a proper back scratcher to take my mind off all the nonsense at work.”

“What type of damage is it!” Kat shouted, grabbing hold of Kaleek’s wrist to stagger him. The light seemed to have a physical component, driving the warrior toward the two of them.

“Fire,” Kaleek grunted, hissing in pain. “It feels like my back has been dipped in lava.”

Kat didn’t waste any words on a reply. Her voice was better used chanting the words to Resist Fire.

Purple light flashed to her right as Dorrik unleashed a skill. Hundreds of spikes of purple energy raked back and forth across the walls as his Psi Energy ravaged the plants.

Between expending its energy in the attack and the damage it took from Dorrik’s response, the harsh blue light winked out just as Kat’s spell went into place, fortifying Kaleek’s already high resistance. The tunnel dimmed to the point that Kat’s sight switched to Nightvision, but there was still a bit of azure illumination coming from the ravaged walls.

Almost immediately, she began to cast Cure Wounds II. Kat couldn’t see Kaleek’s hit point totals, but taking an attack head on was never a good idea, even for a frontliner wearing heavily enchanted armor.

Her hands began to glow with golden light and Kaleek’s body began to greedily suck in her mana. Kat winced as color reappeared, signaling Nightvision’s end as visibility began to return to the tunnel.

She tried not to focus on the glowing vines. Dorrik was swinging his swords, sending familiar crescents of purple energy into the walls as she tried to push as much mana as possible into her healing spell.

Rocks fell as the attacks destroyed stone and vines together, turning the already choppy water into a maelstrom. Kat was able to keep her balance, after twelve floors in the tower her reactions and agility were at the point that waves and uncertain footing didn’t do much to her anymore, but Kaleek wasn’t as lucky.

A second spear of blue light hit him in the back, sending the big desoph stumbling into her. The attack was nowhere near as blinding as the first, but even a pace or two away, it was still hot enough that Kat could feel her skin pricking under the onslaught.

Kat braced herself against Kaleek, her hands still glowing gold as she fought against the constant damage being inflicted by the vines. Kaleek did his part, grimacing in pain as the magical ability kept transferring damage through his armor.

The desoph’s entire body was pulsing with crimson light and he didn’t look like he was in as much pain as when he took the first attack, but Kat knew that it was only a matter of time. Between Fire Resistance and Kaleek’s defensive skills, Cure Wounds II wasn’t demanding a huge amount of mana anymore, but that would only last until Kaleek ran out of stamina.

Then it would be a race to see if they could reach the end of the river before Kat’s mana pool dried up.

A falling rock knocked the boat slightly off course, slamming it into the side of the tunnel. Dorrik and Kat managed to keep their balance, but Kaleek half fell. For a fraction of a second, Kat’s mind was filled with the mental image of the blue beam of light zipping past the prone warrior and destroying the rear third of the ship.

Without thinking, she shifted gravity, doubling her own weight while halving Kaleek’s. The boat rocked dangerously from the sudden change in distribution, but Kat was able to catch the desoph before he fell, leveraging him back into position in front of the beam.

Another pair of purple crescents flew past, carving chunks out of the stone ceiling, and the vines went dormant once again. Kaleek dropped down to one knee, panting for breath.

“Okay,” he gasped. “Never mind. I don’t think I need an office back scratcher this time. Having to sit still and just take spell blasts is miserable. Remind me to buy a shield or something at the next town.”

“How does it look, Dorrik?” Kat asked, fishing out a mana potion. “Do we have any chance at disabling some of these vines? I should be able to heal Kaleek through a couple more blasts, but this isn’t exactly what I’d call ideal.”

“I believe we are fighting a particularly large specimen of Crenlon’s Creeper,” Dorrik replied, his arms still swinging with mechanical precision as he sent a steady stream of Psi Blades walls ahead of them. “The entire tunnel seems to be one large creature that’s capable of gathering mana from the air through its flowers and concentrating them to fire blasts of energy. Normally they are much smaller than this so the energy blasts are much more manageable. After the fight is over, I must discuss the power scaling on this monster with Kaleek in order to determine how much stronger it is than a standard room sized creeper.”

“A lot,” Kaleek croaked. “I think that first blast actually burned a hole in my armor.”

“Fascinating,” Dorrik said enthusiastically. “Regardless, the only way to deal with Crenlon’s Creepers is wide area damage. If we can prune enough of the plants, it will interfere with its ability to gather energy. Unfortunately, almost all of our skills are better suited to individual targets.”

Kat found herself nodding along. Most of her combat abilities were designed to destabilize her opponents. Only Gravity Spike had anything approaching an area of effect, but it relied upon using a target weight against itself. She might be able to crack and break some of the underground passage’s walls, but the spell wouldn’t actually do anything to the plant itself.

Realistically, her only option was to hand her Pseduopod a knife and have it hack away at the heavy foliage one slash at a time, but seemed both foolish and doomed from the start.

She took a pull from the potion in her hand before tossing its glass ampoule into the water. Her mana reserves had grown enough since the class evolution that it wasn’t easy for her to run out of power in one battle, but at the same time her mana regeneration hadn’t grown nearly as fast. That meant potions. Actually stopping to drink during combat was a borderline death wish for an agility focused build like hers. In the dungeons they’d conquered, Kat had gotten into the habit of drinking a mana potion whenever there was downtime. It was an expensive way to handle the problem, but spending a couple marks was better than running out of mana at a key moment and dying.

“Keep firing Psi Blades,” Kat replied, not bothering to turn off Cure Wounds even though Kaleek was fully healed. Already the flowers further down the tunnel were beginning to glow brighter. “Hopefully you’ll make a dent in it sooner or later. Preferably before we run out of mana and potions.”

“Maybe you should stop empowering Fire Resistance,” Dorrik offered. “I’ve done significant damage to the Creeper by now. I’m sure that Kaleek will be able to withstand another attack without your spell’s help. That way you can help preserve your mana reservoirs and I can get a more accurate report on how much damage the oversized Creeper is actually doing.”

  “No thank you please,” Kaleek replied. “This hurts a lot already I-”

The rest of his sentence was cut off as another beam of blue light hit him in the back. Almost immediately, Kat felt Cure kick into high gear as it began repairing the attack’s damage. Kaleek’s eyes were distant and unfocused, his breath coming in short ragged gasps as he stared past her.

“Come on,” Kat whispered, trying to push more mana into Cure Wounds II, “stay with me here Kaleek.”

The desoph warrior just groaned. Maybe it was supposed to be a response, but nothing intelligible left his mouth. His body wasn’t accepting more mana. It was like a cup full of water, any more would make it overflow.

Kaleek didn’t have any wounds that needed healing. Kat’s spell was repairing the damage as fast as it was being dealt, but that didn’t take the pain from the attack away. Her mind frantically whirred through her options, but there really wasn’t anything.

She cast Shadow between Kaleek and the beam of light, lessening some of its burn, but beyond that, none of her abilities would help. Gravity Plane and her domain could redirect physical attacks and she was already using one of her resistance spells, but ultimately, her repertoire revolved around not getting hit.

The tunnel plunged into darkness as the Creeper ran low on mana again. Kaleek dropped down to one knee, the red glow of his skills flickering and fading as he ran out of stamina. His action upset the boat’s balance, and Kat had spend a moment fighting against the ship’s rock and sway as the current dragged it onward.

In the distance, she heard the crash of falling water. Her mind whirred as Kat tried to assess how far away the noise was, but kept coming up blank due to the persistent white noise and echoes of the narrow tunnel.

“Waterfall!” Kat shouted, ending Cure Wounds II so she could refocus her mana. “Dorrik, I’m going to cast Levitation on you, get ready!”

Mana surged through Kat as Dorrik shouted back over the growing roar.

“I am ready Miss Kat!” He had sheathed his swords and was drinking a dark yellow stamina potion, replenishing his reserves after the machine-like onslaught he had unleashed on the tunnel.

Around them, the vines were beginning to glow brighter once again. Kat bit her lower lip. Kaleek was still out of it. He was awake, but there wasn’t anyone driving the vehicle. Theoretically she could try to lever him up to use as a shield for their battered ship, but Kat wasn’t sure she would be able to move him fast enough to block the attack.

The flowers were shining more brightly now. The tunnel was almost as bright as day, and a blast of blue energy could come at any moment.

She shook Kaleek. Up ahead, Kat could see where the river ended, disappearing in a churning froth of white as it crested the waterfall. The desoph flopped back and forth, but his eyes were still distant and unfocused.

The world seemed to slow as the mana residing in the walls flowed toward one of the flowers just above the waterfall. Time was up.

“Jump!” Kat screamed, grabbing Kaleek by the shoulders and reversing gravity.

She Leapt just in front of the mana blast. The shot easily destroyed the boat, shattering it into nothing more than burning timber before disappearing in a cloud of steam when the blue streak of light hit the water itself.

 Steam burned her skin, prompting Kat to close her mouth and eyes. She didn’t have enough endurance and fortitude to shrug off the damage, but that didn’t mean she needed to offer it any vulnerabilities to exploit.

 Instead, Kat tracked her movement by sound. Her domain couldn’t extend far enough to cover all of Kaleek, meaning that unless she cast Levitation on him, the two of them were doomed to fall eventually.

 She shifted gravity slightly, creating a pull from the direction of the waterfall that helped extend her stamina empowered jump. Kat had just passed the apex of her Leap when she was directly over the falls. Cool mist enveloped her body, deadening the sting from the steam as she continued her arc downward.

 Kat opened her eyes. Below them was a massive pond covered in oversized lily pads with a dungeon altar at the center. Most importantly, the chamber was lit by white orbs floating in the water. There wasn’t a single Crenlon Creeper in sight.

Dorrik drifted downward about five paces to her right. Kat rapidly surveyed the room as she slowly fell downward, adjusting gravity to aim herself and Kaleek toward one of the lily pads.

Then she saw it. A pair of eyes, barely visible above the water’s placid surface as it watched the three of them descend. Kaleek was still insensible and useless, but that wouldn’t stop Kat.

Scald took a decent chunk of mana, but its effect was impressive. The water exploded into steam, and a second later the dungeon boss jumped out of the water.

It was a huge frog. There really wasn’t much different about the boss when compared to North American bullfrog other than the fact that it looked like it outweighed an elephant.

The monster opened its mouth, and a pink tongue, about as big around as Kat’s arm, darted through the air toward Dorrik.

The lokkel got his swords up in time, slashing both of them into the fleshy cylinder and knocking the attack enough to the side that it didn’t hit him square in the chest.

Instead, the tongue wrapped itself around one of his swords, trying to wrench the weapon from Dorrik’s grip.

Kat reached out with her mind, casting Levitation on the frog. The spell took a lot of mana given the monster’s huge size, but its croak of surprise when it hung helplessly in the air rather than falling back to the water was well worth it.

Dorrik pulled back with his trapped blade, stretching the tongue taut before slashing downward with his second sword. Blood fountained from the wound, and Kat locked her gaze on it as she began casting Overpressure.

Three spells at once was a lot. Kat might have a new class, but that didn’t mean that she was ready for the intense strain on both her mind and mana reservoir. Still, as taxing as the process was, it was by far her best option.

The dungeon boss yanked its tongue backward, but it was too late for that. Dorrik slashed both of his swords toward it, sending a pair of purple crescents into the helpless monster’s side. It opened its mouth back up, seemingly vomiting dark blood everywhere as Kat’s spell continued to force more liquid through the complex vein network that filled its tongue.

It kicked its legs, webbed feet stretching uselessly as it tried to turn and follow Dorrik, but it was no use. The huge frog was an aquatic creature. It didn’t belong in the air and it had no answer for Dorrik’s constant stream of ranged attacks even as its life steadily gurgled out of its half open mouth.

By the time Kat touched down on one of the lily pads, she was exhausted and the boss was dead. She cut her spells, letting the limp monster fall some fifteen paces to the surface of the pond.

Gently, Kat set Kaleek down and took a step back from him. Her body felt like she’d thrown it down a hill, but ultimately there weren’t any marks and bruises on her.

“That’s it?” She asked, watching the monster splash down. “That might be the easiest boss I’ve fought yet. I can’t believe an iron tier dungeon would have something so-”

Kaleek groaned at her feet, rolling over onto his stomach. His thick metal armor had a hole the size of a dinner plate in its back, revealing shiny, hairless pink skin underneath. She pursed her lips, reconsidering whether she should opine on the dungeon’s difficulty level.

“If you don’t mind,” Dorrik called out from above. “I don’t appear to be moving downward and I would be very grateful if you could manage to avoid dropping me in the water. At Kaleek’s insistence I’ve tried swimming, and it didn’t end very well.”

Kat rolled her eyes. Mana swelled in her chest and about a second later she replaced his Levitation with Flight. Dorrik dropped a pace or so before he got the hang of the spell, swooping down toward the lily pad where Kaleek was slowly and painfully coming to his senses.

 “So that’s it?” Kat asked. “Dungeons done, onto the thirteenth floor already?”

 “I think we may need to fix Kaleek’s armor first, but that’s it. Dungeon’s done. Back to town and onto the thirteenth floor.”

 Kat sighed. “And then, only eleven more to go.”

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