Dungeon Duel (Rogue Dungeon 5) - Chapter Thirty-Four

The sudden shift in the Vault seemed to have jarred Lowen’s troops into action, quickly transforming the tense duel into a chaotic free-for-all. The remaining Heralds went on the attack, assailing the surrounding Troll Nation mobs with renewed vigor. Shots popped off at every corner of the throne room, Dungeon Lords gunning down the frantically fighting Heralds. One of the Divine casters summoned an enormous Golden Ichor Guardian—fifteen feet tall, half as wide, its body crafted from molten gold. Mac, flanked by a pack of mid-level Stone Salamanders, dropped off the ceiling and viciously tore into the lumbering creature.

They gave the dueling Dungeon Lords a wide berth, however. Even now, no one dared to interfere.

While Lowen was still distracted by the sudden unexpected changes to his throne room, Roark leveled his Tattooed pistol and put a poisoned, Enchanted bullet right in the tosser’s head. Lowen stumbled back a step, eye socket gushing golden Herald blood—badly wounded, yet somehow still alive.

“Bloody shame you didn’t get the helmet, too, mate,” Roark growled, adding his Cursed Slender Rapier to his off hand.

Roaring through gritted teeth, Lowen cocked back a fist, swirling Divine magicks coalescing around his hand.

“No mouthy half-breed is going to beat me!” the pain-maddened Herald bellowed. “The moment I return to Marek with your head, your traitorous bitch of a sister will be next.”

Lowen launched a barrage of Angelic Lances, but his aim was fouled by the destroyed eye. Roark dodged them easily, cold fury coiling in his gut. There was only one way to make sure the bloody bastard couldn’t lay a finger on Talise.

With a burst from his powerful wings, Roark cut the angle, driving inside Lowen’s guard with a distessa lunge. Lowen swung his Legendary Bastard Sword in a powerful but slow overhand arc. As a Herald, Lowen was higher level and had access to more powerful magicks, but Roark had always been the better swordsman. In a need to prove his nobility, Lowen had always leaned too heavily on spellcasting, not focusing enough time on the martial arts. Roark thrust, stocatta di seconda, planting the rapier to the hilt in the armorless space beneath Lowen’s raised arm.

The Herald spluttered, arm going limp and Bastard Sword clattering to the ground as his Health bar fell to its final ten percent, strobing madly.

Roark grabbed him by the gorget and jerked him close, shoving his Tattooed pistol up under Lowen’s chin.

“Enjoy the seventh hell, you despicable, overwriting ass.” He pulled the trigger, and the muzzle belched fire.

As the shot slammed home, Lowen’s Health bar flashed out its final critical warning, then emptied. He slumped, and Roark dropped him, stepping free of the man’s corpse.

Immediately, Roark’s mystic grimoire appeared before him, opened to the Quests page.

                                                                             ╠═╦╬╧╪

Congratulations! You have completed the quest Stealing Heaven’s Golden Throne!

You may ascend to the throne as Feudal Lord of the Radiant Citadel and claim it as your territory!

To accept the position and claim this Dungeon and its surrounding loyal territory, take a seat on the throne.

To reject position as Feudal Lord, leave the Radiant Citadel without taking a seat on the throne.

Warning: If you leave the Vault without accepting the position as Feudal Lord, you will not be able to return and accept later.

                                                                              ╠═╦╬╧╪

Roark let out a long pent-up breath, wondering in which world exactly his new throne was located.

Before he could venture any guesses, a cheerful ascending chime rang through the throne room, declaring that the Experience from the quest had pushed him over the edge to level 71.

[LEVEL UP!]

[You have 10 undistributed Stat Points!]

The clash around the throne room fell silent as Roark took wing and flew to the damaged hanging dais. He alit carefully just in front of the angled Golden Throne and took a seat, gripping the arms tightly so he wouldn’t fall over the side.

[Congratulations! You have ascended to Feudal Lord of the Radiant Citadel!

From the Feudal Lord’s Throne, you may command and deploy Citadel mobs, Vassals, and serfs, alter the layout of the Citadel and the loyal territory surrounding it, purchase resources or upgrades, and access Feudal Lord’s Whims to grant Divine, Infernal, or Undead Blessings.]

Twelve hundred pounds of reptile thumped onto his lap, clawed legs scrabbling for purchase. The dais groaned frightfully under the added weight.

“Hells, Mac!” Roark hurried to flip to the Floor Design page and repaired the throne room. Quickly, he accepted the changes, and the crumbling dais righted itself, along with all the damage the allied forces had done to the dungeon during the course of their assault.

Roark relaxed. A warning that he could only change the dungeon’s layout once per twenty-four hours appeared, but he dismissed it. If the message from Helen Rose was correct, it was distinctly possible they didn’t have twenty-four hours left.

“Shall we sweep up the rest of the debris, Dungeon Lord?” Zyra asked, arms outstretched, Tattooed pistols pressed against the temples of a pair of Lowen’s lackies.

Roark searched the remaining golden-fleshed faces around the throne room.

“I promised that defectors would be accepted without retribution, and I meant it,” he said. “If you’re done serving the Tyrant King, you’re welcome to join the resistance. But I warn you, at the first hint of treachery, you will be executed.”

As if any doubt remained that Roark could do so, several sets of eyes traveled to the cooling corpse of Marek’s former right hand. One by one, the Heralds threw down their weapons and extinguished their spells, then knelt in surrender. Reluctantly, Zyra sheathed her pistols.

“That was always your problem,” a voice echoed through the throne room. “Too much mercy.”

Roark’s heart stopped. His throat went dry. He knew that bored, aristocratic voice. He’d heard it often enough in his nightmares over the last twenty years to recognize it anywhere.

“Marek,” he breathed.

A burning wind laced with black sands tore through the air, howling eerily. As more and more sand filled the space, the howling morphed into icy laughter. Coalescing at the center was a nightmare of a creature nearly tall enough to reach up and rip the hanging dais from the vaulted ceiling. Its head was elongated and bent like a jackal whose snout had begun to melt, and its flesh hung in tattered flaps from bones as black as jet. A pair of massive crescent horns stretched upward from its head, and between them floated a gemstone the size of an ostrich egg. In its right hand, the horror held a massive gold-and-lapis staff topped with a falcate moon.

The nameplate [Undead God-Pharaoh] hung in spidery white text over the creature’s head.

“These defectors you welcome so readily betrayed their countrymen once and fought against their own liberation at every turn,” Marek said, eyeing the panicked surviving Heralds. “It takes a tyrant to know the only way to deal with them is the same way you dealt with him.” He gestured with a clawed hand at Lowen’s bloody corpse. “I always knew that worthless idiot would fail, but I had to be certain I would make the transition to the highest level in this world before I came after you myself, von Graf. Thankfully, he served one purpose, at least. Unbinding this…”

A crooked grin stretched the Tyrant King’s monstrous elongated head as he plucked the cooling World Stone from the air where it hung, as if it had been waiting patiently there for its master. Roark’s stomach knotted into a fist. Without the soulbinding in place, there was nothing whatsoever preventing Marek from claiming the item for himself.

“Once I finish eviscerating you, I intend to learn the Soulbinding Magicks of Hearthworld—quite a vexing problem that proved to be. But once I master it, I will never need to worry about losing my World Stone again.”

“Over my corpse,” Roark growled, springing to his feet and leveling his Tattooed pistols at the towering jackal.

A bolt of black lightning exploded from a claw-tipped hand, slamming into Roark’s chest and swatting him through the air like a gnat. He careened into a stone column, a searing flash of pain radiating along his spine, and crumpled into a pile of limbs. His heart battered the wall of his chest as he realized he couldn’t move; a disturbing numbness had swept over his body.

[You have broken your spine and suffered a Crippling Injury! Experience a 95% movement penalty for 5 minutes, or until you drink an Ultimate Health Potion.]

“You say that as though it’s a threat, but I mean to take it as a promise,” Marek said, insectile shapes skittering about beneath the surface of his skin.

“No.” The word rang out like a clarion bell, and in a flash of light, Randy Shoemaker appeared in front of Roark. A green aura surrounded him, vines crawling along one arm, green fire engulfing the other. “You’re a tyrant. A monster. A bully. And I’m done letting bullies do whatever they want and leave the wreckage behind. If you want at Roark, you’ll have to go through me.”

Marek hissed, the sound cool and amused. “I am the eater of worlds. I have seen civilizations fall to feed the terrible appetite of the World Stone. But you will stop me?”

“I can try,” Randy said, throwing both hands forward, unleashing a gout of green flame while vines exploded from the throne room floor, twining around Marek’s legs, bloody thorns scrabbling for purchase.

“Brave,” Marek replied, apparently unconcerned. “But an ultimately useless act. Just like so many acts of rebellion. You are outmatched.”

“He’s not alone,” Zyra said, stepping out of a pool of shadow, sheltering Roark with her body. “Roark may be a pigheaded fool of a Dungeon Lord at times, but he is our pigheaded fool of a Dungeon Lord and I’ll gladly die for him. Though”—she pulled free a curved dagger and twirled it with a flourish—“I’d much prefer to see you die instead. You might be able to stop one of us, but you can’t stop all of us.”

Mac growled and trundled over, a snarl on his face. A pair of Stone Salamanders clung to his shell, licking their bulbous eyes as they regarded the Tyrant King with unimpressed gazes. Mac glanced at Roark, resolution and love burning in his eyes, and then a cloud of purple smoke, sizzling with arcs of cobalt electricity, enshrouded him. War drums pounded at the air with a pulsing, driving song of might.

Evolution…

But how? Why now? There had been no golden light, no ascending chime of advancement. The Adolescent Turtle Dragon hadn’t gained any new levels…

The only plausible explanation was that Mac had been withholding his Evolution for a more powerful path but had now chosen a different evolutionary pathway in order to protect Roark.

When the smoke dissipated, a creature twice Mac’s size emerged. A behemoth shell—equal parts snapping turtle and armadillo—covered in golden plates and inscribed with glimmering runes covered his back. Powerful limbs, as thick as trees, covered in brilliant cobalt scales ended in talons that glowed like hot forge coals. The Manticore-like scorpion stinger was gone, replaced by a spike-riddled tail capped with a spiked-studded ball that buzzed with arcs of blue lightning. And, instead of one bearded dragon head, there were three—each one affixed to a long swaying neck. The scales of one head were fiery orange, another electric blue, the third an eye-searing yellow.

A tag briefly floated above Mac’s head: [Elemental Turtle Dragon]

The newly evolved creature hunkered down, its three heads turning in unison toward Marek. With a roar, Mac belched out gouts of potent orange flame, a gale-force blast of frigid blue ice, and arcs of crackling white-hot electricity. The triple strands of deadly magick wove together in a column of elemental fury that slammed into Marek, the tyrant’s Health bar momentarily diminishing. With a flick of his wrist, Marek conjured a seething black barrier that absorbed the elemental attacks. But the real damage was already done.

Every other creature in the room had seen the truth. No matter how powerful Marek seemed, he could be hurt, and anything that could be hurt, could be killed.

Randy threw more Arcane power against the Tyrant King, hurling green fire with one hands and spears of twisting green foliage with the other. Zyra joined the effort, slinging a barrage of smoky daggers through the air and lobbing orbs of green acid.

Roark gritted his teeth, desperate to join the assault on the Tyrant King, but unable to move. The paralyzation timer seemed to tick down years instead of seconds.

Slowly at first, but then in a rush, more mobs joined in. Rock Lords and Mantids, Bloodleeches and Reavers. And it wasn’t just Roark’s forces, either. The Heralds they’d been fighting moments before joined the ranks, staring down their former liege with spells at the ready and weapons drawn. Suddenly Zyra appeared at Roark’s side, helping him drink an Ultimate Health Potion. The countdown disappeared, though his Health vial had only regained a third of its contents.

Roark leaned against the veiled Orbweaver Ravager as he stood.

“You’re done here, Marek,” Roark said through the pain. “Give me the World Stone Pendant and I’ll make your death quick—though the heavens above certainly know that is a mercy you don’t deserve.”

The Tyrant King smirked, glancing around the room. For the first time, there was something lurking in those cold eyes of his. Not fear. Perhaps never that. But uncertainty. Mac had wounded him. Surely Marek had seen his filigreed Health vial flicker just as everyone else had. And if one Turtle Dragon could hurt him, even a little, then what could a hundred of the deadliest mobs in Hearthworld do to him if they weren’t frozen by fear?

“Such reckless ambition,” Marek whispered under his breath, “such wasted potential.” Then, louder, “This isn’t over, von Graf. I have what I came for”—he hefted the World Stone Pendant in one hand—“and it’s only a matter of time before I return with an army capable of crushing you and your pathetic resistance under heel. Celebrate your utterly hollow victory. It won’t last long, and once I’m finished with you, I’ll turn on this Other World.” He grinned, his muzzle filled with sharp obsidian teeth. “Yet another notch to add to my belt.”

He paused, crooking a clawed finger and tapping at his chin.

“Lowen did manage to do one thing right, though. Sow chaos. Yours is not the first world I’ve conquered. If you can sow enough chaos and introduce an enemy that no one else understands, then people are as likely to call you savior as tyrant when you rid them of their problem. So let chaos reign.”

The gem glowed in his hand, burning with amber light, so bright it hurt to look at it. It only lasted a moment, though, and when the light finally dwindled, all that remained of the Tyrant King was a purple afterimage momentarily seared into Roark’s vision.

Marek had fled.

The allied mobs cheered with joy at their perceived triumph. Even Zyra and Randy were giddy at having survived. The Heralds, however, didn’t celebrate. They had spent as much time living under the Tyrant King’s boot as Roark. Their eyes roved around the throne room as they hunched their shoulders in suspicion, likely wondering the exact same thing Roark was:

Where had the bastard gone, and just what had he done?