Dungeon Duel (Rogue Dungeon 5) - Chapter Twenty-Five

Rather than return to the encampment outside the Vault of the Radiant Shield, Roark had used the portal stone to transport himself, Mac, and the tank to the open grassland he’d crossed with Zyra what seemed like ages ago tracking down an ingredient for Kaz’s Gourmet quest. Roark was eager to get back to a smithy, but the tank was an enormous piece of equipment—fully as long as the trebuchets from back end to the tip of the barrel—and he needed the space to get acquainted with it.

While Roark worked, Mac took to flushing Lesser Venomous Skyrats out of the flowers and tall grasses, chirping wildly at each new pheasant-like beast he stirred up.

“Sorry, mate, I can’t hunt with you right now,” Roark said, giving the Adolescent Turtle Dragon an apologetic scrub around the head.

Mac nipped at his arm grumpily, then lumbered off to make his own fun.

Roark turned back to the tank. A thorough study of its outside revealed that he’d stolen a highly advanced bit of machinery. The many angled facets would do wonders at deflecting projectiles, and bolted to the sides were thick armored plates that had been forged and welded using a smithing technique Roark had never seen before. Unlike a carriage or the horseless vehicles he’d seen in the Other World, the tank had several wheels propelling wide bands of cleated track that would offer immense stability and prevent overturning or becoming mired in anything but a vast bog. It was a bloody beautiful piece of warcraft.

He’d seen the top bit rotate a full revolution back at Frontflip, but he couldn’t find exterior access to the mechanism that allowed it to spin.

“Into the belly of the beast,” he muttered, hopping onto the roof of the tank with a powerful thrust from his wings.

Shimmying through the hatch, he dropped inside. Not made for a crowd, the tank—especially not a crowd made up of creatures his size. He kept his wings folded tightly to his back as he painstakingly went over the interior. Two seats were stacked nearly on top of one another, one surrounded by a series of viewing ports and spyglasses, the other offering easy access to dozens of controls.

A small panel hung open near his feet, and when he crouched to look inside, Roark found a third reclined seat. He could see levers and controls through the panel, though try as he might, he was far too large to squeeze in there himself. A Changeling or a Reaver might stand a chance at it, but certainly nothing larger.

“Seven hells,” he cursed. He backed out into the main section and pulled up his messages, dashing off a request to the overseer he’d left in charge at the Citadel.

Druz, send three lower-level Trolls to Skybowl Meadow, preferably fairly intelligent sorts. Changeling or Reaver, nothing larger than six feet tall.

The overseer’s response came within the minute, and Roark went back to cataloguing the guts of the tank. The most heartening moment was when he found an access door to a cabinet filled with large projectiles for the long barrel protruding from the front of the swiveling part of the tank. A feral grin spread across his face as he counted twenty-nine remaining.

For the repeating crossbow on the top of the tank, he found belts of metal projectiles the size of his hand.

“Brilliant.” Those were the shots that had knocked him out of the sky and stolen two-thirds of his Health while he was in his Draconic Form. Now he had a good ten yards of the bastards to turn against Lowen and his troops.

Roark was studying how to load the top-mounted crossbow when a pair of level 6 Reaver twins and a Changeling he recognized from the smithy crossed the meadow.

Roark hopped down from the metal vehicle.

“Vang,” he said, nodding to the level 9 Changeling. The misshapen creature was one of the best smiths at the Troll Nation smithy and was slowly but surely working his way up to the Jotnar Evolutionary Path. Because of his choice of paths, he was smaller than the Reavers despite being ahead on levels, barely three feet tall altogether.

“Don’t look like much of a smithin’ project, does she, Dungeon Lord?” the Changeling asked, eyeing the tank warily. “What’s it you need a smith for?”

The Reavers might have been equally as confused, but their faces were hidden in the shadows of identical hoods.

“For your keen intellect,” Roark said. He slapped an angled panel of the tank. “This is called a tank.” He held up a hand to stop their protests before they started. “I know. Apparently, this is what our tanks are named after. The important bit is I stole this tank from the Devs’ and heroes’ homeworld, and I need a team who can operate it—the sooner the better.”

“You can’t do it yerself?” Vang asked, making the Reavers cringe at his disrespect.

Roark glanced at what must look like a monster of a vehicle to the tiny Changeling.

“It’s deceptively tight quarters inside,” he explained. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

After a short introduction to the little Roark knew, one of the twin Reavers took the reclining seat in the front of the tank and began working the levers.

The tank lurched into forward motion, then stopped.

“There’s something called a tutorial for it, says it’s like Skill Training,” he called back to them. “Brace yourselves, I’m going to start!”

The tank started and stopped, turning and backing up, while in the cramped main section, the other twin tried to take the top seat surrounded by viewing ports.

“Ah-ah-ah!” snapped Vang, elbowing her aside. “That’s my seat, girlie!”

“You’re not even tall enough to get into it.”

“Don’t matter.” Vang dug his claws into the seat and scrabbled his feet against the metal panels behind it, leaving black scratches. Finally, he heaved his Changeling body up onto the chair. “Made for a Jotnar, this seat was, so’s he could call his demands. That’n down there’s made for an assassin.”

With a grunt, the remaining twin took the lower seat and started checking the spyglasses.

“It’s some type of crossbow with sights,” she said, excitement creeping into her tone. “There’s a tutorial available for it as well.”

“There’s a second crossbow on top,” Roark said. “Madly effective against flying mobs.”

“.50 caliber rifle,” she said absently. “That’s what the tutorial called it. And this is a turret gun.”

Roark nodded and turned to Vang.

“Think you can get them working together by tonight?”

Standing on the seat so he could see out the view ports, Vang stroked his chin, a calculating gleam in his eye Roark only ever saw in other Jotnars.

“Mayhap with a quest, I could,” he hedged.

If that was all the payment required, it would be easy enough to grant. Using his Dungeon Lord’s ability to make quests, Roark fashioned one and offered it to Vang.

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Tank Commander

Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord and Leader of the Troll Nation, has issued a Training Quest for the leader of the Troll Nation’s first Self-Propelled Combat Vehicle.

Objective: Train your underlings to drive over a series of obstacles and fire the Tank at a series of targets within the specified time limit.

Obstacles remaining: 6

Targets remaining: 6

Time remaining: 8 hours

Reward: 1,000 Experience, 1,000 gold, and official title of Tank Commander

Accept? Yes/No

“You want to sit in the boss seat and wear the boss pants, then become the boss.”

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“How’s that?” Roark asked.

Vang hmmed as he read it. “It’ll do, I suppose.”

Insufferable little creature. Though Roark had to admit, he found Vang’s spitfire ambition amusing. It was no wonder the Changeling had angled for Jotnar over the other Troll Evolutionary Paths. Roark opened the access panel to the stored projectiles.

“I’ll leave you with twelve of these,” he said, moving the rest to his Inventory.

“105 Shells,” the Reaver in the lower seat correctly absently.

“And three of the belts for the repeating crossbow—” Roark continued.

“.50 cal,” the Reaver corrected again, slipping past him and grabbing a string of the projectiles. She flipped open a metal plate at the top of the crossbow, carefully placed the first projectile in, then slammed the plate back down and racked an odd handle backward.

“Yes, right. .50 cal,” Roark said. “Everything else I’ll take with me to Curse.”

“Firing,” the Reaver said, attention focused on the spyglass. “Hang onto something down there, brother.”

“Hanging on,” her twin called back.

Suddenly, the barrel jerked, rat-tat-tat-tat, shaking the tank with a thunderous cacophony.

Roark grimaced, certain he’d been deafened permanently. When he looked up, Vang was shaking his fists and shouting what looked like a colorful string of remonstrations at the Reaver, who acted as if she couldn’t hear, either.

Messaging Vang that he would return when the time limit on the quest was up to collect them, Roark slipped out of the tank and hopped down to the quickly passing grass. He followed the torn-up grass back to the clearing, used his bow to shoot down one of the Skyrats Mac was chasing in circles—much to the silly beast’s delight—then ripped open a portal scroll and stepped into his private smithy in the Cruel Citadel’s Keep. Mac, thrilled at the prospect of being home again and with a belly full of Skyrat, immediately curled up against the hot stones of the forge, where he could absorb the most heat.

Though Roark had promised he was going to Curse the ammunition for the tank’s guns, he was far more excited to inspect the weapons he’d taken from the soldiers in the tank’s interior—semiautomatic pistols, according to Randy.

Setting the tank’s projectiles aside for later, Roark took out a pistol and turned it over. Weightier than he’d expected. A bit of tinkering revealed the slide mechanism Randy had shown him to eject the magazine as well as a feeding mechanism for the barrel. Like the tank’s ammunition, the projectiles in the gun—bullets—had an exploding cap attached for propulsion.

Pure genius.

He’d seen black powder’s deadly power in bombs, but this construction would prevent the usual issues that made it so unreliable and generally annoying to work with. Humidity and rain wouldn’t affect these bullets, and they were far easier to maneuver than the same amount of loose powder. Presumably, they had also been measured beforehand so each bullet would deliver a similar burst rather than chancing too little or too much in the heat of a battle.

He took apart the rest of the pistol, carefully laying out its mechanisms and various components on the workbench. That he would leave for reference until he’d finished with the others. He fished the rest of them out of his Inventory. In all, he’d recovered four pistols from the soldiers in the tank—two more exactly like the first and another smaller version with only slight differences in build.

The smallest he took to the Enchanting table along with an engraver’s awl to begin the painstaking process of carving runes and affixing precious stones. The moment Roark began inscribing it with the containment circle and rune Yasuc to alchemically bind a Flawless Lapis Lazuli into its barrel, however, a line of spidery white text appeared to stop him.

[Error! You cannot add Hearthworld runework to Old World Glock 26! To Enchant Old World weapons, you must Tattoo the surfaces with Old World Flash Art. Explore Flash Art options in your grimoire.]

Intrigued, Roark opened the tome and found a newly added page covered in simplistic images much like the glimpses of tattoos he’d seen in taverns popular with sailors along Traisbin’s coasts. Swallows, ships at full sail, peacocks, springing panthers, astrolabes, roosters, pigs, skulls, snakes, daggers dripping with blood, hearts, and beautiful nude finfolk women.

One by one, he moved over the colorful images.

The smiling finfolk granted a hefty bonus to the wielder’s magick and spells. Snakes added a Counterstrike Speed Bonus, while the panthers increased Strength, and the roosters and pigs affected Constitution and Health-Regen, respectively. Moreover, it appeared one could combine Flash Art pieces to create more complex Enchantments. By itself, a dagger added Bleeding Damage to the weapon’s base damage, but when combined with a heart, it also doubled Backstab Damage.

[You have unlocked hybrid Smithing-Enchanting specialty: Flash Art Gunsmith! You are now capable of Tattooing Old World weapons and armor with 1 piece of Flash Art!]

Blinking the text away, Roark selected a skull with a dagger stabbed through its cap and a snake coiling through its empty eye socket, but when he attempted to carve it into the ridged handle of the Glock 26 with the razor-tipped awl, another line of text appeared to stop him.

[You cannot Tattoo Glock 26 with Death’s Head Revenge at this time! To combine 3 pieces of Flash Art, your Tattooing must be at least Level 3.]

Roark grunted. He’d forgotten how frustrating it was to be at the lowest levels of a new skill. Fine, one image at a time.

He selected instead a simple grinning skull and carved it line for line into the pistol. When he’d closed the last contour, the piece of Flash Art glowed brilliant red like a living coal and settled into the handle. Immediately, the weapon’s information changed.

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Glock 26

Old World Weapon

One-handed Damage: 99 - 108

Durability: 171/175

Level Requirement: 16

Magazine Capacity: 10 Rounds

Semiautomatic Class Weapon: Fast Attack Speed

Enchantments: Death Comes for Us All

Effect: +10% Necrotic Damage
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That was admittedly a significant improvement on its own, but once he could combine that with other bits of Flash, he could imbue these already powerful weapons with some truly savage boosts.

A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth as he glanced from the tank projectiles and belts of bullets to the pistols.

Time to see how many skill levels Tattooing that stack of Old World weapons and ammunition would get him.