DD5 ~ Chapter 7!

Manny the Manticore growled a deep, satisfied purr that didn’t at all match his gruesome visage. He looked at his paw, where a C-ranked adventurer was weakly struggling to push himself off of the foot-long claws that were impaling him. Manny shook him back and forth as the man’s friend tried their best to distract him. With a flick, the man was airborne. Manny snapped his jaws around the snack, swallowing the human and letting his powerful digestive system convert the body and equipment directly into Essence.

“What a purrfect treat.” Manny snapped his wings open as the other people went red with rage. He launched himself into the air, spinning in place until he reached a good height, then allowed his wings to angle downward. Mana-laced wind propelled him forward far faster than should have been possible, and in an instant his glide turned into a pounce. As Manny landed on his victim, another foolish C-ranker, the only Mage in the group raced forward and slashed a bright line into Manny’s flank.

Though it hurt, Manny only laughed lightly through the pain. The Mage screamed as poisonous and acidic blood instantly welted his skin and started creating black lines that crept along his veins. The huge Boss grabbed the C-ranker with both front paws, reared back, and used his amazing opposable thumbs to keep a grip while tearing the man in half. 

“Alex!” The Mage cried out. “No! Everyone, escape! He’s too powerful! I’ll hold him off!”

“We aren’t going to just leave you!”

“You must! I’m already done for!” The Mage hopped back and erected a barrier between the exit and the Manticore. He began channeling his Mana into the most powerful Invocation he knew. To his consternation, Manny simply sat down and watched the Mage as he channeled his power. Bright lines of power formed in the air and twisted into Runic formations that swirled around him. When he finished, he fell to his knees gasping for air. This spell formation was half barrier and half potent weapon. 

Whoever interrupted the lines would have hostile Mana rampage through them until the power source was spent. There were few things of the same rank that could survive such a blow, but it had a heavy cost. If the Mage weren’t already aware he was dying, this would have never been used. Or, if it were, it would have been a very careful consideration. He was too weak to walk more than a few halting steps, and every resource he had was utterly spent. The most infuriating thing was that the Manticore was still sitting there, simply studying the spinning formation. Ah, well. At least the others had escaped.

He looked back toward the exit, and went white wherever the black lines etched in his body allowed. His few remaining teammates were on the floor already beginning to decompose from the acidic poison in their bodies. Manny cocked his head to the side, and pulled his tail out of the tunnels in the floor that had been designed expressly for that purpose.

“You… monster!” The Mage tried to bellow, but the words came out weakly.

“Indeed.” The Manticore agreed, showing bright white teeth. “Beast, horror, monstrosity, abnormality, freak, mutant savage, titan.”

The Mage’s eyes rolled into his head, and he collapsed to the floor. The poison had taken him. I started working on the raw Mana that was in the air, siphoning it off while studying the formations. Very interesting, but it could be further refined. <Hey, Manny! Nice work. Question though: should I have named you a ‘thesaurus-icore’? Whenever you aren’t in a serious situation, you tend to monologue synonyms. I worry that that’ll come back to bite you.> 

“It is fun.” Manny informed me simply. “Confusion and despair in them adds a flavor that I simply cannot achieve by only frightening them.” 

After saying this and allowing me to remove the highly unstable spell work still drifting in the air, he popped the Mage into his mouth and chewed, apparently savoring his ‘special seasoning’. Alrighty, then. Of course, now I wonder what things taste like.

I checked on my other traps and - as I had hoped - the upgrades were playing havoc with the adventurers. There were people spreading the information, and people were moving more cautiously, rolling rocks or tapping the floor ahead of them with long pole. I laughed slightly at their antics, it was funny to see a man wearing heavy armor and weighing hundreds of pounds poking the ground with a stick. I had done more than that though, in fact I upgraded most of the simple mechanical traps into a Runic version of themselves. 

Even an area where there used to be a pillar trap that would crush someone into the ceiling had been replaced by an interlocked series of gravity Runes that would all activate at once. It had the same effect, but was far more spectacular to see in action. A person would walk into the trap, and suddenly be smashed on the floor like rotten fruit. I was starting to feel better; senseless violence always calmed me down.

Let’s see… violence, cultivation, upgrades. I watched some fighting for the rest of the day as I tinkered with various things, but all too soon our flight was reaching its conclusion. This was unfortunate, because as we approached, we were able to notice a strange distortion in the air. Casual inspection revealed what appeared to be a thin dome of light that covered a crater of some kind. Closer inspection told me that this was some kind of Runework that was suspended in midair. 

I was entranced by what I saw… was this the Wards Tom had spoken about? How did they keep this in place without binding the Runes to something? What would happen if we touched it? …I’m gonna touch it.

~ Dale ~

“The Wards of Fek’koff are active!” Tom’s bellow echoed around the area. “Dale! We mustn’t touch the Wards! Warn the dungeon!”

“What’s happening?” Dale shouted back even as he noticed a strange distortion in the air… in the direction they were traveling. Uh-oh. “Cal! Cal! Don’t touch the Wards! Tom says something bad will happen!”

<Dale. They’re so pretty.> Dale had never heard the voice in his head sound so sleepy. <I just want to get a little closer…>

“Why are we still moving?” Tom looked on in horror as they got ever closer to the Wards. “No! The lure! It must also be active… they must be trying for rare and powerful resources if they would risk the lure… Dale! The Dungeon! You need to find a way to have it not examining the Wards! If it can somehow see them, it will be drawn in and the Wards will destroy this place!”

Dale started running toward the entrance to the dungeon, the world around him seeming to move in slow motion. Even so, the Wards were creeping ever closer, and starting to resolve into squiggles in the air; Runes that were unreadable at this distance. Dale stopped short, knowing that there was no way to make it to the Core of the dungeon in time. Instead he started focusing on his connection, then flooded it with as much Mana as he could. 

He was blasted off his feet as the ground under him swirled and scattered at high speeds. A pulse of raw Mana traveled straight to the dungeon’s Core, guided only by their connected soul. 

<Ow!> Dale had never been so happy to hear pain in another being’s voice. <How the abyss did absorbing Mana hurt? That shouldn’t be - Dale! What did you just do to me?>

“Cal! Listen! The Wards have a powerful lure written into them! If you look at the light, you as technically a monster will be drawn to them! You need to stop our travel, Cal, we are going to hit the Wards!”

<What in the world are you… talking… about…?> Dale sent another pulse of Mana, burning the soles of his feet and scorching the leather of his shoes. <Ow! Will you stop that? ...oh. I see. Navigation Bob, pull back, pull back!>

Dale couldn’t see what exactly was happening down there, but he knew that they were too close - and moving too fast - to avoid the Wards. They were going to hit them, it was only a matter of how hard and how directly. He turned and ran back to his teammates. They had all been shopping together, so he knew roughly the area they all had been in. He moved over to them at Mage-speed, then collected them into a bearhug as gently as possible and jumped straight up. 

Dale had a good view of the area underneath of him, his empowered jump taking them nearly a hundred feet in the air before they began to slow. Parts of the flying island had already passed through the glowing barrier, with no apparent ill effects. The dungeon was trying to course-correct, that much was obvious. The land was lifting toward him, and the mountain was tilting back to arrest their momentum. Then something changed.

As far as he could tell, the area of the dungeon that was directly under the dungeon’s influence came in contact with the Ward. There was a thunderous cracking sound, and a tremor ran through the dungeon as it rebounded. The Ward wasn’t safe either, shown by the quickly spreading cracks that ran along the entire thing. Several tons of stone and earth ran off the dungeon, raining into the crater below. The island began to tip the other direction, screeching and vibrating where it came in contact with the highly energetic wall.

Slowly the sounds quieted, and the dungeon came to a stop, resting a few hundred feet above the Wards, which were slowly but visibly repairing themselves. <Hey, Dale. You think they know we’re here?>