SS - Chapter 31 - Fallen Foes

“Anyone have a light?” I heard Camille quip somewhere in the pitch black room.

I sighed to myself before holding out my hand and summoning half a dozen candle sized flames. With a quick flick of the wrist I sent the tiny flames flying into the darkness, having them hover in several different places around the room. The flickering purple flames didn’t provide much illumination, but they were enough to break through the gloom.

“What happened? Why’d everything go dark?” Selena hissed, her eyes practically glowing in the darkened room.

“I shattered the core,” I explained, gesturing to the shattered crystals at my feet. “And since it was both managing and supplying all the magic in the dungeon, all the magical lighting and traps immediately shut down.”

“Wait, that was the core?” Selena gasped. “I was expecting some sort of perfectly cut gem, hidden away in some immaculately decorated chamber, like the Sovereign stone.”

“That’s the way that storytellers like to depict them, but no,” Gabriel said. “Dungeon cores are natural crystal formations that seem to appear out of nowhere, absorb the ambient magic, and use that magic to create dungeons.” 

He flicked his weapon, causing it to glint in the low light as it shrunk down, returning to its original form before he tucked it back on his belt. “They may be a good source of magical crystals, and monster materials, but the truth is they’re just magical parasites.”

While he explained Camille skipped through the darkness before bending down at my feet, using her wind magic to gather up all the core’s shards before dropping them unceremoniously into her pouch. “Good haul! Not only did we replace all the stones we used coming in here, but we’ve almost completely replenished the supplies we brought from Iskel. These’ll keep us running for another six months, if not more!”

“That’s not surprising, considering how deep this dungeon was, and the fact that we shattered the core,” I muttered, stepping past her. I carefully made my way through the dark towards the massive shadow still laying in the middle of the room. Crouching down I experimentally poked the oversized reptile, making sure it wasn’t going to move before running my fingers across the scales. 

“Even though I find that oversized, multi headed snake terrifying, and I’m glad it’s dead, I’m actually glad it didn’t dissolve like the rest of the monsters,” Deirdre quietly declared while she dug through her pack. “I can grind down the fangs, venom glands, and even the eyeballs, to make medicine with.”

“And we can use its scales and bones to make some new magical weapons and armor,” Gabriel added. “I can’t remember the last time we had a chance to harvest something this strong, they usually dissolve almost instantly.”

“We need to make sure not to waste a single piece, it’s far too valuable. I’m sure Millie will even want to make jerky out of the meat,” I muttered.

“Ewwwww….” Camille cried, jumping to her feet and making a disgusted face. “I’ll stick with the bread thanks!”

“It’s magically infused meat,” I snapped at her. “It might not be the most pleasant meat you’ve ever eaten, but it’ll replenish your magic in an emergency. It’s good to have in a pinch!”

Camille still stuck out her tongue, and made a gagging motion, so I snatched up a pebble by my feet and threw it at her. She flinched away from the tiny projectile and frowned. “Hey….”

After pushing myself to my feet, I turned towards the rest of the group. “We can’t carry this thing out of here now, it’ll probably need a dozen people to carry it, even when cut into pieces. We’ll have to come back and get it.”

“Don’t forget the Ravagers,” Gabriel said.

“Right, them too. Hopefully we can find a way to get a wagon close enough to the dungeon entrance so it doesn’t have to be hauled all the way back on foot.”

There was a quiet whoosh sound, as Deirdre finally dug out the adventuring lantern out of her pack and lit it, illuminating the room far better than my tiny flames. I immediately snuffed my own flames in response. 

“So, can we head back outside? I don’t exactly enjoy being in a pitch black room,” Camille whined.

“Fine,” I sighed. “Let’s get out of here, we can always discuss how to handle this stuff once we get back to the village.”

As I turned towards the door, a shadow moved near the entrance causing me to jump, and pull my blade. After fighting our way all the way to the heart of the dungeon, everything should have been dead, yet something was still moving around.

When she saw my reaction, Deirdre immediately raised the lantern and pointed it towards the door revealing…

“Hup!” Maid Alex declared, raising her hand in greeting. I stared, open mouth, at the tiny maid. 

“I thought you said it would be a bad idea for you to enter a dungeon,” I finally said suspiciously.

The tiny construct first pointed to the podium where the core used to reside, then crossed her arms across her chest. “Hup!”

“Right, technically it’s not a dungeon anymore,” I grumbled. “So why did you follow us here?”

Behind Alex all her retainers immediately held up their pikes, which had some sort of feather duster attachment over the end. They mimed cleaning the walls for a minute, then snapped to attention again. “Hup!” they simultaneously declared.

“I’m going to need help with that one,” I declared, turning back to the rest of my team.

“I think they’re saying they’re going to ‘clean-up’ the dungeon,” Selena said thoughtfully. “At least, that’s what I got out of it.”

The squad of maids all nodded at her guess.

“I’m not exactly sure what ‘cleaning up’ entails, but sure. Go nuts,” I declared. “But since you’re here, could you maybe call a couple extra maids to carry any remaining monster corpses back to town? It would save us a trip.”

Alex nodded once, turned back towards the door, and whistled loudly down the corridor. A couple seconds later several squads of maids poured into the room, immediately falling upon the hydra like a flock of vultures. It took them less than a minute to sever each of the heads at the base of the neck before disappearing back out the door, holding their spoils above their heads.

“They scare me sometimes,” Selena finally said, once the first group of maids had disappeared.

“You and I both,” Camille agreed.

It only took a couple of minutes of watching the maids pull apart the massive monster to convince me that we wouldn’t be needed here anymore, so I stepped up to the tiny head maid. “Do you need anything before we leave?”

She shook her head, and pet me on the leg. “Hup hup hup.”

“Right…” I muttered. “We’ll just leave you to whatever it is you feel you need to do then.”

Alex saluted again, before bouncing out of our way and disappearing into the darkness at the far side of the room. 

“What do you think they’re doing?” Selena asked once we started making our way back through the maze of dark rooms. In each room and corridor there was at least one group of maids, poking the walls or inspecting the deactivated traps. Each and every one of them had a serious look on their face.

“I have no idea, but they obviously think it’s important,” Gabriel muttered. “I’ve never seen them that focused before, usually they bounce between jobs like hyperactive toddlers.”

“Unless they’re on guard duty,” I said, correcting him. “Those ones barely move until their shift ends.”

“True, but the question then becomes, what are they doing that’s so important?” Deirdre asked.

I shook my head, unsure. After seeing the maids working so frantically as we walked out I considered going back, and questioning Alex further. Before I could the little maid came storming out of the back of the dungeon with several dozen other maids, carrying the body of the hydra, sprinting. “Hup, hup, hup, hup!” she declared excitedly as they ran past.

A rumble sounded deeper in the dungeon, the ground started shaking, and it didn’t stop.

“Anyone else feel a sudden sense of dread?” Camille whispered.

“Run, now!” I shouted. 

We only had a handful of rooms left to travel through, and we absolutely flew through them, not stopping until we stumbled out of the dungeon entrance and back into the late afternoon sunlight.

The rumbling inside the dungeon intensified, growing steadily stronger until I saw the first room in the dungeon collapse, getting buried in rubble. Just a couple seconds later the entry corridor followed, filling up with dirt and debris and sealing away the structure.

No one spoke for a moment, we just stared at the structure in shock. It took me a moment, but once I regained my senses I immediately turned on the head maid, towering over the tiny construct as she slowly tried to back away.

“Alright,” I growled, “Explain yourself!”