What should you do if you catch someone trying to enter – or leave – a dungeon? Short answer – depends on if you think you can take them. Legally speaking, you’re supposed to order them to surrender and then haul them off to the nearest town, but since the minimum sentence for illegal dungeon delving is a year of hard labor, it's fucking rare for anyone to accept.
If you want to, no one will stop you from making the offer and then throwing the fuck down when they refuse. Just be sure you win, ‘cause no one’s going to be there to back you up if you fuck it up.
- Delver’s Guild Handbook, Section 10.3 – “Delver’s Legal Rights to a Dungeon”
I turned, my heart – which had been racing with elation – now pounding even faster in dread. The branches of the massive elder treant were shaking violently, and I could see what looked like a stream of dirt flowing up from the ground at its base, slowly forming into a ball high up in the air – just at our height, as a matter of fact.
“Go go GO!” I shouted, forgetting all about the Squad Comms. “Get up the cliff, there’s nowhere to hide here!”
We dashed around Zaire’s walls and up the short hop onto the rock where the treant had fallen. I could see wisps of smoke coming up from where my shots had impacted, but the trunk wasn’t on fire. Weirdly, the base of the trunk simply… stopped. I thought trees had roots like yucca…
Raylan was the first to the cliff and without hesitating he leapt onto the dead monster’s trunk and then off of it to grab onto the ledge above and pull himself up. I risked a quick glance back and saw that the giant treant’s attack was still forming. It looked small next to the giant tree, but I was sure the ball of earth was at least my height already.
My gun vanished into my Inventory as I scrambled up behind Raylan. I turned, grabbing Elin’s hand and yanking her up with me, the force sending us both stumbling back onto the ground as Zaire pulled himself up and rolled over onto the ledge.
I looked around desperately for somewhere to hide. What I had thought might be a fairly narrow ledge was much broader than expected, easily fifty feet wide. The ground sloped away from the edge of the cliff we’d just climbed, a mix of rock with patches of grass, and then ended in another vertical cliff face rising above us. We couldn’t see any of this from below because of the way it slopes, the raised edge of the cliff hides it from the ground!
To our right, there were a number of trees, not as tightly packed as down below. On our left, there were only scattered bushes that wouldn’t offer any cover. Unfortunately, Raylan was already running in that direction. The rest of us followed as fast as we could move, running towards the next cliff at an angle. I looked over my shoulder and realized that I couldn’t see the coming attack, though the upper portion of the elder treant was still visible.
CRASH!
A massive ball of rock suddenly blasted right through the edge of the lower cliff behind us, spraying debris everywhere. It had so much momentum that it kept going, smashing into the wall of the upper cliff and burying itself halfway in. I threw myself on the ground as pieces of rock went flying, my barrier flaring. There was a gasp from one of the others and I rolled over to see blood streaming from a cut just above Zaire’s left eye. Fuck, that could have killed any of us instantly!
Crouching low, I started moving back towards the edge. When I was close enough to peek over, I cautiously raised my head, immediately ducking back down and cursing. The massive tree-creature was already forming another boulder to throw at us!
We started jogging along the cliff wall in the direction of the trees, heading back towards where we’d entered the dungeon. As Raylan ran to join us, we passed below the massive projectile embedded in the rock above our heads and I shivered. A few seconds later, another massive CRASH! echoed throughout the dungeon. This time, the attack had landed far behind us, back in the direction where Raylan had been exploring. He winced.
he noted wryly.
I summoned my gun, wincing as I realized that the regular shells I’d given to Raylan to hold were long gone, dropped in the scramble. I extracted the expended slug from the chamber and restored it, then reloaded. Now I had three slugs in the gun and three regular shells in my bandolier. Reminding myself that survival was the number one priority, I reached into my belt pouch. Pulling out three more fresh slugs, I fed them into the magazine on the run.
The absurdly loud shrieks of the elder treant had quieted, so it was obvious when one of the trees ahead suddenly started its own grating cry. I darted behind the stationary trunk of the first tree, triggering Tactical Reposition just as a ball of dirt slammed into it.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Not holding back, Elin and I blasted away at treants as we darted from trunk to trunk. The monsters always revealed themselves by attacking as soon as we came in range. If they were smarter, we’d have been easily ambushed. Raylan had retrieved his bow and quiver from his Inventory and arrows thunked into the tree monsters alongside my slugs.
Zaire sent an Earth Spike thrusting straight up from the ground at a treant, but the advancing tree just smacked into it and bounced off before going around the obstacle. After that, he figured out how to angle them so that they emerged with points facing the monsters. The way the treants moved was disturbing. Their trunks would part cleanly near the base, and the top part of the tree would float towards us, hovering slightly above the ground.
The mindless creatures impaled themselves on the spikes, driving them deep into the wood. Sometimes the treants got stuck on the spikes, other times they crashed right through, only to run into my shots or Elin’s Spells. I didn’t think Raylan’s arrows were doing much, but at least he was trying.
Each time one of the lesser treants fell, the elder one would scream its rage again and fire off another devastating boulder, smashing many of the normal trees behind us. We were forced to keep dashing forward at every opportunity, running from one fight to the next. I was only able to recover a few of my shells, having to reload several times from my pouch until finally it was empty. I tried a few rounds of my normal ammo, but it struggled to penetrate the thick bark of the monsters.
We each took several hits from the dirt balls fired by the smaller enemies. The attacks might have looked stupid, but just one of them was strong enough to hammer my barrier down. A second, coming from a different direction, smashed into me while I was exposed and knocked me down. My breath exploded out of me from the impact, and I almost lost my gun when I hit the ground.
I scrambled to my feet and made a dash for the nearest stationary trunk. Tactical Reposition triggered several times as we moved forward, but I was down to half mana in no time. Then I realized that through the trees ahead of us there was no more open ground, just a sheer wall of rock with a large opening leading into the dark.
CRASH!
Another flying boulder smashed through the trees a dozen yards behind us, shattering their trunks and sending branches flying like oversized arrows. I fired my final slug into a treant ahead of us as a Pain Bolt smacked into it just above the remains of an Earth Spike already sticking out of its trunk. The creature started to topple, eliciting yet another piercing scream from the elder below.
“Let’s go!” I yelled, and sprinted past it towards the opening in the rock face ahead. My teammates' footsteps thudded into the ground behind me as we practically threw ourselves into the dark.
CRASH! BOOM!
A boulder streaked through the air where the last treant had fallen, sending a spray of rocks and debris against the cliff and into the cave after us. The cloud of dirt and dust dimmed the light from outside and I stumbled to a halt, staggering and nearly falling as someone ran into me from behind. Before I could say anything, light bloomed from above Zaire and Elin, casting a dim glow around us.
I leaned against the wall of the cave to catch my breath and felt a small surge of mana as Tactical Reposition triggered again. I smiled wearily as another rock smashed into the area just outside the cave.
The cave angled to the left, deeper into the cliff, but was relatively level. The passageway was maybe eight feet wide, less in some places, and about the same in height. I came to an abrupt stop when I realized that many of the spikes of rock hanging from the ceiling above us had their pointy ends broken off – and all of them at about the same height. There was enough room in here for even Mason to walk about comfortably, but it looked like that hadn’t always been the case.
I pointed.
Raylan commented,
I thought for a few moments. As I tried to concentrate, I became aware of a wide variety of aches and pains that were getting distinctly more uncomfortable as the adrenaline of the fight started to recede.
I moved to the front of the group and leaned tiredly against the wall. I filled my empty bandolier, then quietly loaded my gun. Raylan sat down with a quiet groan and Zaire was about to join him when Elin stopped him.
As she started examining the grey-skinned Earth Mage in the dim light, I realized he too was covered in small cuts. Muttering softly to herself, she pulled the large medical kit out of her Inventory and went to work cleaning and bandaging his cuts. He hissed in pain a few times as she applied generous amounts of alcohol to the wounds.
She sniffed.
It took her several minutes to finish with Zaire, then she moved onto Raylan as Zaire took his place sitting on the ground. She didn’t need as long with Raylan, who seemed to have done better at dodging or just been luckier than Zaire. Then Raylan took the watch while Elin went to work on me.
Wasted hells, that stings, I cursed to myself as she poured alcohol into a ragged cut on my shoulder. I forgot how much cleaning a cut hurts. I hoped I was done with that forever, but I guess not. I had a flashback to Sis- to Hazel bandaging my hands after I’d cut them on another kid's teeth a year and a half ago. She’d been almost tender with my cuts, then proceeded to paddle my butt until it was bright red for getting in yet another fight. Not going to miss that!
She finally finished, then handed the kit to me and gave me an expectant look. Sighing, I was about to start returning the favor when a big surge of Essence finally hit. I had just enough time to realize we’d been hidden long enough for the System to decide the fight was over when PAST started yelling at me.
[YOU HAVE NOW GAINED THE REQUIRED AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE TO BE PROMOTED TO LEVEL 4! CONGRATULATIONS, CITIZEN! WHEN YOU ARE READY TO PROCEED, SIMPLY SAY ‘LEVEL UP’!
YOU HAVE ALSO GAINED A LEVEL IN BOTH TACTICAL REPOSITION AND SPEED LOADING!]
“Fuck PAST, I thought I turned the volume down!”
[Level up announcements are always made at full volume, Gunner Ashley! Well done!]
Admit it, you missed PAST's all-caps juuust a little bit, didn't you? Fortunately, thanks to this shoutout, you don't have to miss Across the Mirror's Edge!