Dungeon Champions

Chapter 11: Last But Not Least

After all of the delays with Britney, I expected trouble with the last of the Sisterhood’s adventurers. I picked up my pace, moving through the remaining sections of the dungeon with almost reckless speed.

No one dies when I can save them, I decided. I may not remember who Jordan had been on Earth, but this version of him was the sort of man to save others.

Along the way, I cut down giant bats, a hoard of small fire elementals, and a particularly irate magic-slinging lizardman who seemed to be functioning as some sort of miniboss. He was mad that I didn’t give him a chance to give his big epic speech he’d so carefully planned, and then also that I didn’t give him “time to get ready” like it was a date instead of a fight.

The wizard wasted more time trying to talk than it took to finish the fight.

He’d been wearing a pair of expensive-looking leather boots that remained behind when his body evaporated. I picked them up and my Tablet dinged. I focused and it appeared, along with a new option.

Notice: Battle Scholar, you may use your Tablet to identify most magic items. These boots are magical. Do you wish to identify them?

I did.

Curled Boots of Lizardfolk Logic: These boots provide Lizardfolk with a +2 bonus to their intelligence scores. It is possible to [Reforge] them so they work for other species.

“That’s not very useful,” I said to the boots.

The only reason I took them was because a petty part of me wanted to offer them to Britney. Maybe she’d wear them instead of her glass heels, or maybe she’d get really angry about me offering them.

I put them in my storage space and moved on.

The final marker on Corey’s notated map was just past the lair of the lizard wizard.

It was a medium sized cavern, but a large amount of it was obviously closed off, collapsed behind a cave-in. Big chunks of the rocky ceiling had been brought down. Rubble was scattered across the stone floor, making traversing the room treacherous.

In the center of the room was a giant crocodile-thing. Its armored body was easily the size of a compact car and it clawed at the rock wall with the focused intensity of a berserker. The creature’s webbed, leathery arms strained as it tore at the rubble. Powerful vibrations shook the ground with each strike, loosening more debris from the ceiling far above us.

Whatever had happened here, it was clear the creature was trying to get into the other half of the cavern.

Through the fallen bits of rubble, I was able to catch glimpses of the grotto beyond. Water trickled through a slow-moving stream that bisected the area that was easily twice as large. Around the edges, fungi grew in clusters.

There were also piles of dead mushroom monsters, and a handful of stone statues in various positions.

Roots from some unseen plant snaked down the walls and across the floor like gnarled fingers. They converged near a dark crevice in the far wall, as if drawn to something beyond.

Two things stood out to me.

The first was a faint smell in the air. It smelled like a campfire, but it was obvious the fuel for the fire wasn’t dry wood. It had an earthy, almost spoiled smell to it.

But I could also smell something cooking on the fire, and if I strained to listen between the roars of the angry monster, I could hear bubbling, like a soup or stew simmering away.

Which is what clued me in to the second thing.

A sultry, elegant voice rose in song. It was in a language I didn’t speak, from a throat I couldn’t see. But it was hauntingly beautiful. Sorrow, longing, and bittersweet joy were obvious in the words, and even without being able to understand them, I felt my chest tighten with an inexplicable ache.

As the unseen singer’s voice swelled, the monster’s frenzy slowed. The giant scaled head tilted, and two forked tongues snaked out to taste the notes in the air.

For a moment, the cavern held its breath.

Or maybe that was just me.

I leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the singer through the cracks. Was this the last Sister? Or was it some dungeon denisen, a monster trying to capture me or the lizard?

The moment broke when the voice let the song fade. Sluggishly the lizard remembered its mission and roared. Its claws returned to scraping against the fallen stone.

“...not ready to give up?” a feminine voice said a moment before the monster redoubled its efforts.

If nothing else, those few words confirmed my target was still in the room, just beyond the creature. Now I just had to figure out how to deal with it. I was suddenly very glad for my Cloak of Shadows allowing me to observe without getting seen.

The rock wall shuddered as a paw knocked some rubble loose. For a brief moment, the lizard stopped and snarled. The feminine voice said something I couldn't quite hear, and the lizard roared in response.

Instead of just clawing at the wall it started to throw its whole body at it, like a linebacker with an impressive health plan, and one of those new bubble-wrapped helmets.

THOOM.

“This is your fault, you know,” the woman called out in a scolding tone, talking loud enough to be heard over the cacophony the lizard was making. “If you hadn’t slammed into that statue, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

A chunk of cavern fell from the ceiling, crashing to the floor next to me.

“You should probably stop that thing before it gets to her,” Skullie whispered, unhelpfully.

“Got any suggestions?”

The lich made a chattering sound. “Stab it with the pointy end of your sword?”

“That…” I paused. “Yeah, okay. Sure. I can work with that.”

I called the Fast Sword of Bloodletting to my hand.

“Care to drop me off here?” Skullie looked up at me with wide eye sockets. “I’ll watch your back.”

“You just want to be able to escape if I die.”

“I would never! My only objective is your safety. We’re besties.”

I chuckled quietly at the lich and did as he asked, taking him out of my armor and propping him up in the doorway. It would be easier to fight if I didn’t have to worry about something shattering him.

While I was arranging my new, undead friend as a certifiable doorstop to an entrance that had no door, the lizard made progress. One arm, easily half as wide as I was tall, raked across the opening it had made, clearing a swath of debris.

The creature hissed in triumph.

Using its newfound victory to my advantage, I sprinted across the room. Instincts screamed at me to dodge falling chunks of rock and I did so with the grace of a dancer. First I spun right, then left, then slid across the ground in a baseball slide, right under the lizard.

I said hello by dragging my naked blade against its exposed, soft belly.

It wasn’t an instant kill.

But it did piss it off.

The lizard turned, ignoring whomever was in the grotto. I rolled to my feet, barely dodging another dislodged bit of stone. “You see how you’re making this worse, right?”

It roared in response and reared back, ready to bash its front legs into the ground.

A rock shot out from the cavern beyond, narrowly missing the lizard’s head. Red-rimmed eyes shot back to the hole it had made and the lizard paused, almost as if it was unsure who to attack first.

I took the opportunity.

Launching myself forward, I shoved my Fast Sword of Bloodletting into the monster’s side. Its thick hide caught the blade and held it. The lizard spun toward the attack, and I circled around it. I tried dismissing the sword, but it was held in the monster’s scales and no longer qualified.

Cursing beneath my breath, I summoned the Axe of Felling to my hand. Then I jumped onto the lizard’s unprotected back, kicking off the hilt of my embedded sword for extra height. I landed, wrapping my thighs around jagged scales.

The monster went nuts, flailing and arching its back.

Riding the thing like a cowboy on a bucking bronco, I slammed my axe into its hide, trying to chop through it. It was like hitting non-Newtonian fluid with a hammer. I just couldn’t pierce its defenses, but that didn’t mean I was going to give up. My supernatural strength and enhanced combat prowess made staying upright and in place no big deal. I just had to keep trying and eventually I’d get through.

The lizard’s head whipped around, snarling. Its jaws snapped mere inches from my face, but I batted the attack away with the flat of my blade.

My eyes met the creatures.

A shimmer of magic tingled across my arms, turning my skin gray.

“No!” the feminine voice screamed, almost cracking under the anguish. “Don’t look at it!”

Suddenly, my inherited memories snapped into place.

Basilisk. I was fighting a damn basilisk. This was its Stone Gaze attack, and it was supposed to be its strongest attack.

I laughed.

The tingle of magic across my skin continued. Between my incredible Endurance—giving me the ability to resist magical attacks—and my Tyrant’s Armor reducing the damage taken, it was like the tingle of menthol and wintergreen oil on a sore muscle.

Gray skin returned to the new bronze, as my near-immunity to such attacks became evident.

Confused, the basilisk didn’t seem to know what to do. It held my gaze, growling furiously, but it didn’t seem to understand its attack wasn’t working.

I leaned back, holding my axe high above my head. When I could draw it back no further I slammed the weapon forward, right between those red-rimmed eyes.

The magical assault stopped as blood squirted from the gushing wound. That wasn’t enough to finish the battle—its hide was still too thick to pierce easily—but between the cut across its belly and the smack to the face, it was starting to slow down. The basilisk listed to the side, stumbling a few steps.

I leaped off its back sending it sprawling with a kick on my way. Landing heavily, I sprang back to end the creature’s struggles.

But it had a little more fight left in it.

As I got close it lunged and caught me around the middle. My Tyrant’s Armor shrieked under its teeth.

The woman in the cavern gasped. Skullie made a similar noise from across the room.

I didn’t flinch.

Instead, I dismissed my Axe of Felling and called the Accurate Dagger of Cruelty to my hand.

With cold, calculating precision, I drove the blade into the basilisk’s snout. It hissed in pain and tried to retreat, which activated the Cruel bonus damage on the dagger.

I grabbed at its face, wrapping a hand around one of those foot-long teeth. Pulling on the fang unbalanced the thing as it jerked, reflexively fighting my pull.

Which meant it wasn’t ready for my dagger to carve an eight-inch furrow down the side of its face.

The basilisk shuddered and let go of me. As soon as I was free, I called my Axe of Felling back to my hand and brought it down between the lizard’s eyes once more. Perfectly placed, the axe head sunk deep, driving the monster to the ground.

It twitched a few times as it died.

I retrieved my axe from its head and sword from its side just as it started to glow.

“You can—”

I’d started to say “You can come out now” but the woman was already pushing through the rock wall. She was tall, with lots of exposed caramel skin. Vaulting over a fallen rock, she slid forward, ripping a silken wrap off her head.

Coils of dark hair sprung free. Some of them were braids, like dreadlocks, while others were curls.

And they all ended in small serpent’s faces.