Chapter 12: XCVII — Stone

  “By the binaries that guide your inner workings, so shall you guide us through this tribulation,” Harlan muttered. His eyes were closed, eight fingers, four from each hand pressed against his lids—the old native gesture of prayer to the System.

  Harlan opened his eyes and looked at Kayode, as though he feared the Great Lord might think less of him for it—as if Kayode were seeing the gesture for the first time. This wasn’t even the first time Harlan himself had done it in front of him.

  Well, perhaps it was the first time Harlan had performed it knowing a Great Lord was watching. The man looked almost self-conscious, a strange emotion to wear when death loomed only seconds away.

  “You prolly’ think me a fool,” he half laughed, “praying to numbers?”

  Kayode shrugged. “We need all the help we can get.” If the Ancestors wouldn't listen, they might as well try appealing to his Numbers.

  Then the arena began to change.

  The rock that formed the audience’s chairs twisted and warped, reshaping itself into figures—men, women, children—each clad in differing stone-carved attire. A cold blue glow kindled in their eyes, and then they began to clap.

  It started slowly, deliberate. Then it grew louder, faster—stone slamming against stone until the sound swelled into a thunderous, near-deafening roar.

  “What’s going on?” Someone asked.

  “They’re getting ready for the finale…” Kayode realized.

  5 seconds left.

  “Waiting on your orders, Great Lord.” Harlan looked at him expectantly.

  He wanted to argue that he only planned on taking command temporarily, and now that Harlan was back command should revert to him—the better leader. But Kayode knew that men would fight harder with a Great Lord at their head, and that was not to mention the massive morale advantage that was Sovereign’s Presence.

  He nodded to Harlan and turned his attention on the Falcons “Alright men!” Kayode growled. “Let’s give them something to cheer about!”

  And they slipped into formation, the ring of men closing around him.

  He picked up a sword from the ground, longer than his, but By the Blade made it feel like just another extension of his will.

  Still, out of habit, Kayaode took the time to test its weight. To feel its grip, and study its length, to scan its Skill—Edge-Spark was present. And when he was done, when he felt satisfied and ready to kill with it.

  The gates of death opened.

  The hounds came first, like they always did.

  The soldiers charged behind.

  The archers wasted no time shooting their arrows at the oncoming soldiers, not wanting to risk letting even a single one getting near the ring and breaking a section.

  When the Lupine Golems leapt for the men, not one shield flinched.

  Their paws clattered on the shields, and the Golems leapt into the air, and landed within the ring.

  That was when men flinched.

  That was when he saw the beginnings of panic.

  “Offence—blades inward. Utility—protect Support. Defence—shove on contact!” Kayode ordered, and the Falcon’s fear was replaced with action.

  His foot came down on a Lupine’s skull, cracking the Gemstone, and closing a wound in his shoulder.

  [You have slain a Lupine Stone Golem of the 1st Awakening.]

  Edge-Spark.

  And he shattered another Gemstone.

  Frost Guard.

  And he shielded himself.

  A kick to the jaw and the Golem’s eyes went white.

  Winter’s Teeth.

  And he picked up the stunned Golem by the chain and swung it down on two others.

  The Notifications flashed in his eyes, but his focus was on the Falcons. Kayode found that he need not be so worried about them.

  The edge of Harlan’s blade crackled, and he shattered a Lupine’s Gemstone. Other men did the same, having more drawn out fights with the Lupines but ultimately defeating them like Kayode had.

  The shield wall still held, smacking straight into the bodies of hounds which tried to scale it and sending the Golems bounding off the hard ground.

  He saw a Combustive Golem—its Gemstone already shattered—leap onto a shield and explode. Men went down, wolves spilled through the breach, but the wall closed almost instantly, blades dropping onto the Gemstones of every Lupine that slipped through the gap.

  They could do this. They could actually do this.

  Then the pillars rose from the earth—two only—each erupting along opposite ends of the arena. Atop them stood Stone Golems with feminine proportions, their forms slender and deliberate. A quill-like shape rose from each of their backs, and stone bows formed in their hands. Archers.

  What troubled Kayode far more was what he didn’t see: no Gemstone marked their bodies. And yet they were already moving, drawing their bows with flawless motions.

  “Archers!” Kayode cried a warning.

  But they were already firing—three arrows in each bow.

  Frost Guard!

  Kayode raised his shield in the air just in time for it to shatter against an arrow.

  Others weren’t so lucky. He saw an arrow go straight through a man’s eye, killing him instantly, and he saw another dig into the thigh of a Falcon.

  He shot Winter’s Teeth at the archers to take them down but the ice melted into nothing before even making it halfway to them.

  “They got me!”

  “They have archers!”

  “What do we do, Great Lord?!”

  And Kayode had no answer.

  Ranged Golems with no Gemstones on them. What could he possibly do about that?

  No, all Golems had Gemstones.

  Kayode looked around. It has to be here some—a glowing red stone sat on the length of both pillars the archers stood upon.

  But it was at the edge of the arena. Someone would have to go out there and destroy it. He would. But even Kayode could not reach both before being shot dead by the archers.

  He would need help then. Harlan? No, he was too slow. And someone needed to lead the men while Kayode was away from their ring.

  There had to be another way, there had to—

  They fired again, and Kayode saw a man drop, screaming.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  There was no other way.

  Kayode marched to the other side of the ring and pulled Clarke away from his position. The man first looked stunned, and then upon recognizing who he was speaking to, his face twisted into a scowl. “I—”

  “Shut up,” Kayode cut him off. “We need to destroy the Gemstones on those pillars to take down the archers,” he told him.

  He hoped the urgency of their situation might help the man think clearer. “I’m perfectly fine fighting behind cover, thank you very much!” He had hoped wrong.

  Kayode grit his teeth. “You won’t have any cover to fight behind if they keep shooting us!”

  Now Clarke was furious “Who do you think you are, ordering me about ‘Great Lord?’” and he spat those words. “You may have these dirty blooded idiots fooled but I know your House is nothing but that of a Wife killing Drunkard!”

  Kayode’s fists curled into a ball, his arm rose, and then he felt a hand close around it, holding his back.

  “Listen Boss,” Harlan said softly, eyes still on Clarke, hand still on Kayode. “We need you. Your Falcons can’t do this without you.”

  Clarke glared at Harlan, eyes burning with conflict, looking for a reason to back down without looking like a total coward. And finding none. “Fine! Fine!” he snapped. “Open up a path and I’ll head for the one on the left!”

  And Harlan began barking orders.

  An opening in the shield wall was created, and Kayode and Clarke bolted right through—and out into the battlefield. They split off in different directions, each heading for a different pillar.

  Kayode spotted a Combustive Golem coming for him and splayed his hand out to neutralise it with a shard of ice. A Falcon’s arrow hit it first, and it exploded harmlessly, sending a few Lupines flying.

  And then the stone archers were redirecting their aim from the wall to the two sprinting men.

  Three arrows flew at Kayode. He slid, dodged two and felt the last graze his neck, swung Edge Spark into the head of a leaping hound, and sprung back to his feet.

  The Golems fired again and this time he constructed a shield, dodging one, blocking the other, and the third punched into his thigh. He hit the stone hard and rolled.

  Kayode ripped the arrow free and drove it into the Gemstone of the hound snapping at him. The wound sealed shut—only for another wolf to clamp its jaws around the same fucking leg, tearing it open again and replacing the relief with fresh, screaming pain.

  He drove his fist square into that one’s jaw and watched the light in its eyes flicker, picked it up by the feet, and hurled it head first at the Gemstone affixed to the pillar.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  It struck, and both the hound and the archer collapsed into a heap.

  [You have slain a Lupine Stone Golem of the 1st Awakening.]

  [You have slain a Bowwoman Stone Golem of the 1st Awakening.]

  He turned to see the opposite Bowwoman turned to dust and rock, and Clarke sitting against a shattered Gemstone, an arrow in his shoulder and another in his thigh. His chest was still rising and falling, however.

  The men had broken formation, but it was not out of panic, but merely them breaking off to neutralise the few Lupine Stone Golems that remained.

  Once the last was downed, the audience fell silent, and turned to dust.

  “We did it?” a woman said in realization.

  “We did it!” another exclaimed.

  The arena was filled with elated cheers!

  The Falcons had made it through, and from the looks of things, with only one fatality.

  Kayode would have liked to mourn the dead man, he would have liked to brood over the fact that even just one life lost was a tragedy in itself. And while that was true. He couldn’t help but find the Falcon’s joy infectious.

  “The Ancestors guide us well!” one said, punching his fist into the air.

  “In our darkest hour they sent us our very own Great Lord!” one man laughed.

  Kayode smiled. For a moment he smiled. And then he was waiting for what came next, as he knew this was only the first of three Levels.

  [Dungeon Level 1/3: Complete.]

  [Dungeon Level 2/3: Open.]

  And the great doors looming above the arena split wide. Beyond them yawned a rift of featureless white.

  “We’re—we’re not actually going through that, are we?” Clarke asked, arrows removed and wounds healed.

  All eyes fell on Kayode.

  “It’s the only way forward,” Kayode said, and began marching towards the gate.

  He saw Harlan next to him, the Falcons dutifully behind him, and Clarke lagging further behind still, picking up shattered Gemstones and stuffing them into his satchel.

  Walking through the portal felt like being washed over by invisible winds.

  Kayode emerged in a room not completely dissimilar to the arena in size. But that was the only similarity it shared to the previous Level.

  Smooth, towering walls replaced the crowd, and the ground beneath them was divided into a grid of identical squares. Each bore a massive glowing blue Gemstone underneath, and floating within was a sideways eight.

  Infinity, Kayode realized. That was what he was looking at.

  “So, what new shit are we facing now?” Harlan growled, jaw tense.

  A moment later Kayode heard the murmuring of the newly arrived Falcons.

  [—Round 1 of Dungeon Level 2—]

  [Rules: Occupancy of each tile must not exceed the displayed value. Violators will be terminated.]

  [Round 1 of Dungeon Level 2, Starting…Now]

  The infinity symbol beneath Kayode’s feet flickered—and became a red zero. Around him, others changed as well: some ones, others twos, a few threes.

  Kayode did not move yet. He added the numbers on the tiles. One thing he noted was that, assuming each number represented the number of people who could share a single squre, there were at least enough squares for everyone.

  “We need to cooperate,” Kayode ordered. “Pair up where the numbers allow it. Singles stay put. No one crowds. No one panics. Move only when you know where you’re going.”

  For half a heartbeat, it almost worked.

  Then someone screamed.

  Sovereign’s Presence broke. Men surged in every direction at once, fleeing for salvation as panic drowned out reason and order alike.

  Fuck!

  Several numbered tiles lay close at hand, but Kayode ignored them and broke into a sprint for the farthest square he could see—a lone one at the edge of the chamber.

  He slid across the stone and came to a stop within its bounds. When he looked back, all he saw was pandemonium.

  Falcons tripped over one another in their rush for the nearest squares. Others fled tiles they already occupied as more people piled on, pushing them over capacity—the Gemstones flaring red in response.

  Kayode’s orders died on his tongue. He knew they wouldn’t hold.

  This wasn’t like the previous Level when cooperation offered reward.

  Here, it was only a restraint.

  After all, once a tile was over capacity, there was no reason to be the one who stepped away—certainly not because a Great Lord told you to.

  [Round 1 of Dungeon Level 2, Complete.]

  The Notification flashed.

  And at first nothing happened.

  Then Kayode saw it—three of them at once, each standing on a tile blazing red and numbered ‘two’.

  A man’s foot turned to stone. Then another’s. Grey crept upward across all of them—ankles, knees, thighs—hardening flesh and cloth alike as it climbed.

  They screamed together as the Dungeon’s magic took hold. Hands clawed at legs that would no longer obey, bodies straining desperately against an immutable fate, rooted to their tiles like statues half-formed.

  The stone reached their chests. Cries fractured into sobs, into broken pleas.

  “Ancestor hel—”

  “By the Sys—”

  “Plea—”

  And then there was silence.

  Three figures stood where living men had been, faces immortalised in expressions of pure, undiluted terror.

  No one said a thing. Harlan, Clarke, the remaining five Falcons.

  Three dead, just like that.

  Or were they? Maybe they were alive, still conscious, still thinking. Just immobile and trapped. Maybe they’d be statues forever.

  Maybe, if Kayode shared their fate, he’d be stuck in this loop until the world ended around him.

  [Round 2 of Dungeon Level 2, Starting…Now]

  Kayode’s tile flashed a zero and flared red. The remaining blue tiles had spread farther apart now—and not one could hold more than two.

  Again the room exploded into action. And something else too, violence. He saw Falcon draw their blade on another, saw one loose an arrow on their comrade.

  Kayode sprinted for a ‘one’. Another Falcon was already there.

  The man’s eyes widened in terror, certain Kayode would kill him. And if it came down to a choice between the Falcon and himself—Kayode knew he would.

  But it hadn’t come to that. Not yet.

  So Kayode turned and ran for another tile.

  He found two men wrestling over that one, cursed under his breath, and sprinted for a third.

  There, he found two dead Falcons—and stopped. He tried not to look at their corpse and turned his eyes to the room.

  Men who had once trusted each other with their lives a single Level ago now cut viciously at each other’s throats.

  This was the point of the Level, Kayode realized—to turn men against one another. To build them up, only to make them crush each other with their own hands, just as they had crushed the Golems before.

  Could he have inspired cooperation if he was stronger? He wasn’t, so Kayode wouldn’t think about that.

  He just looked away.

  Kayode spotted Clarke crawling toward an empty tile marked one, his face twisted in a grimace, a spear jutting from his side. Kayode didn’t know how the unlucky bastard had managed to get himself in that state, and didn’t care.

  He searched for Harlan and saw him not too far from Clarke, and safe—standing in a square as well. He tried to meet the man’s eyes and saw it on Clarke.

  Don’t do it.

  Don’t do it, you moron.

  Don’t—

  Harlan dashed for Clarke, dragged him by the cuff of his collar and into a safe tile.

  A Falcon shoved another into Harlan, and the man went stumbling.

  Kayode winced.

  Harlan regained his balance and kept on charging towards safety.

  Almost there.

  Almost there.

  Almost there.

  Harlan entered the tile and—

  [Round 2 of Dungeon Level 2, Complete.]

  Kayode let out a long breath. He could have sworn it had caught Harlan outside the tile.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  But he did not get to enjoy his relief for long.

  “Why didn’t you move?” a Falcon screamed, his voice cracking as the tile beneath them pulsed red. “Why didn’t you fucking move—now we’re both dead!”

  The other man swung first, a wild, trembling punch. “I was here first!” he sobbed. “You saw the number—you fucked me over!”

  Stone was already creeping over their boots.

  “No—no, wait! Please!” one of them begged, clawing uselessly at his own legs.

  The other laughed, sharp and breaking. “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

  Then his eyes snapped to Kayode—bloodshot, frantic, shining with something close to hatred.

  “You were supposed to save us, Great Lord!” he screamed. “You were supposed to—”

  Stone swallowed his mouth mid-word.

  Silence came again. It was only Harlan, and Clarke left now.

  The older man opened his mouth “I—”

  [Round 3 of Dungeon Level 2, Starting…Now]

  Kayode’s tile flared red—and he was already running, sprinting for the furthest blue he could see.

  He slid to a stop atop it, boots scraping stone. The tile glowed bright beneath his feet.

  Then the number flickered.

  Zero.

  Red light bloomed.

  “Shit—”

  Kayode was moving again, pushing for the next blue—but it flashed red before he even reached it.

  He skidded to a halt, breath ragged, heart hammering, and finally looked up.

  Harlan stood a few paces away. Clarke beside him.

  They looked just as pleased as he felt about this new trick of the Dungeon.

  And he was running again.

  From blue to red, blue to red, blue to red, blue to red, blue to—it didn’t change.

  Kayode fell to his knees, heaving, sweat pooling beneath his feet as he gazed thankfully down at the stagnant number one.

  He searched for Harlan and found Clarke instead—in a blue grid at the other side of the Level. He saw Harlan a few steps from him—limping. Limping?

  Harlan had a foot that had turned to stone. Kayode realized he really hadn’t made it into the grid in round two—at least not all of him.

  Harlan was limping toward Clarke, one hand outstretched.

  A glance at the number two glowing beneath Clarke’s feet told Kayode why.

  “Please!” Harlan begged.

  Just two steps. That was all it would take. Clarke could save him—could pull him into the square, could keep him alive—but he didn’t move.

  He just stood there, watching Harlan limp toward a destination he had no chance of reaching on his own.

  If Clarke wouldn’t move, Kayode would move him.

  Sovereign’s Presence!

  “Clarke Oak!” Kayode roared. “I command you to protect that Falcon!”

  He felt the Skill leap from him—felt it slam into Clarke’s psyche, felt it claw and strain for purchase.

  And felt it fail.

  “No!” Clarke shouted, panic-strained and ugly. “I—I can’t risk it!”

  Whether it was Clarke’s Level, the Tier of his Class, or the simple fact that he held no respect for Kayode’s authority didn’t matter. The command did not take.

  Clarke didn’t move.

  And moments later, the System gave him no further reason to.

  [Round 3 of Dungeon Level 3, Complete.]

  And Harlan stopped limping.

  He stared down at his legs as his remaining boot began to grey, flesh hardening into solid stone. At first he laughed—a strangled, pained sound—then he was sobbing. “You were right, Martha… you were always right,” he whispered as the stone crept higher. “W-why did I have to go and get myself killed?”

  It reached his hip.

  “What’s going to happen to our girl…” His voice broke. Then it sharpened into panic. “What’s going to happen to my little girl!?”

  He began punching the stone encasing him, striking it as hard as his failing strength allowed. He managed nothing but to split the skin of his knuckles.

  Still, he punched.

  “I can’t die! I can’t die! I can’t—”

  Harlan froze mid-swing, arms locked in motion, stone stained with his own blood. His tears were hidden behind the stone now encasing his features.

  [—Level 10—]

  [—Skill(s) Acquired—]

  [Class Skill ? Sovereign’s Presence — II — Active: Fear is as much a tool of control as honour or duty. If you will it, those around you will find your presence daunting and your threats serious.]

  [Class Skill ? Royal Cohesion — I — Passive: A Ruler must not fracture. Your body enforces cohesion, skin hardening into a seamless living armour as flesh and bone bind under stress, reducing physical damage.]

  Harlan wasn’t dead. He was going to be alive in the next Loop. This should have pleased Kayode. Brought him some measure of peace. He stormed over to Clarke and punched him in the face.

  He felt teeth give beneath his knuckles and saw blood spray from the worm’s mouth as it hit the ground. It was the sort of effect a grown man might expect to enjoy hitting his son.

  The damage done was both a testament to the power of the Kingdom Maker Class, and how much stronger Kayode had become since joining the Red Falcons—especially given that Clarke had recently bragged about achieving Level 12.

  “How dare you. I’m going to—” Clarke’s blade glowed, he swung it at Kayode.

  Kayode leaned back too slow. The edge kissed his cheek—and sparks flew where flesh should have split.

  For a moment the man just stared at him, stunned.

  “You’re not going to do anything,” Kayode told him. Sovereign’s Presence. “Unless you want me to gut you here and now like a fish.”

  That instantly calmed the man, and he stood there, staring at Kayode like he was some ferocious beast. Clarke took a step back.

  Kayode had been hoping Clarke would give him a reason to kill him. In fact he already had. But they still had one more Level, and Kayode was well aware that in this Dungeon he needed all the help he could possibly get.

  [Dungeon Level 2/3: Complete.]

  [Dungeon Level 3/3: Open.]

  And the wall to the far side of the room split to a yawning swirling pit of white.

  Kayode walked towards it, past the statue of a frozen Harlan, and turned to see Clarke still standing where he’d left him, eyes up in horror at the pit. He saw his end there. “I…I don’t want to go in there.”

  “You will move,” Kayode growled, “or I will cut you apart right here, piece by piece.”

  He saw the man flinch—then jump, scrambling after him in blind panic.

  Kayode’s new Rank of Sovereign’s Presence was strong enough to drive a man toward what he knew was almost certain doom, because it made the alternative feel like an absolute certainty.

  If Kayode had it just a few seconds earlier, Harlan would be alive. He clenched his fists hard until it hurt. Until blood was lubricating his palms.

  Then he was through the gate.

  Kayode emerged into something that looked like a church, though so vast in scale that he felt like a rat within it. Its impossibly high walls were etched with old divination-style symbology: the Eyes of the Ancestors, rendered in a manner Kayode associated more with ancient tomes than modern churches.

  At the pulpit, where a priest might once have delivered sermons, knelt a statue of a soldier wrapped from head to toe in ancient lamellar. Its eyes glowed a bright blue, and on its forehead and chest were the largest Gemstones Kayode had ever set his eyes upon. In one hand it held a book as large as Kayode’s bed; in the other, a sword taller than the ceiling of his room in Asoburgh.

  And then it spoke.

  “Forgive me, masters!” it bellowed, the sound shaking the chamber. Its lips did not move. Only the Gemstone at its core flickered—brightening and dimming in time with its voice. “For though I know I have sinned, I have served my penance for hundreds of years with no end in sight,” it continued, the words strained, almost breaking. “I have lost faith that you still judge my service—faith that you ever intended to free me from these shackles.” The Gemstone flared. “And yet you send me more sacrifices to make in your name.” Its voice hardened, despair curdling into resolve. “I shall carry them out. Not because I believe you are still listening—but because an Oathguard never breaks his promise to the Great House of Okarfor.”

  [—Dungeon Level 3—]

  [Objective: Survive the Forgotten Soldier for 30 seconds.]

  The statue's eyes flickered red.

  And then it was rising.