Dungeon Annihilation 3 - 7

Good morning!

Regan/Earle

It took exactly two days for me to reach a burned out point while going over the records from the gnome city. I wasn’t exactly tired, more along the lines of needing something else to use my brain on or I would snap.

The Cyber-Oni had done a wonderful job going through all the background information that I was able to acquire around the floating city. Just the readings on the interaction of mana around the city and in the maelstrom were a gold mine that allowed me to understand the energy better than ever. I felt I could now correctly adapt certain technologies from Earth that had a tendency to react differently. Gunpowder for instants.

To be sure, I needed to test it. Thankfully, that was easy to do on a small scale. I also needed to test a large scale device, but again the perfect situation was already sitting in my lap. The Viscount Neil was an eye sore for Louella and she’d asked me to deal with him. I already had his lands mapped along with his town defenses.

Thirdly, it’d give me the perfect opportunity to show Helicilia my power. If she was any weaker, I would just try to overwhelm her with the Heart ring and collars, but even with my improvements, I’d rather not have a repeat of Yoshida. Her mind was much more useful in one piece. Even more so if I could get another follower like Julie.

Forming my avatar on the roof of my tower, I walked over to one of my Night’s Fury. I’d taken some of the excess mana over the last few weeks to make a few more along with pilots. I was planning to start scouting the entire continent soon but wanted to wait until I hit tier three before launching such an operation. Mainly due to the other dungeons out there.

“Want to tag along?” I asked Set who was floating near me.

“If you would allow me,” she replied with a nob.

I ordered the pilot to take us to the side of town that Helicilia was staying and to remain cloaked. Setting down on the roof, I hopped out and slipped into her room via the shadow realm. Or at least I tried. A decent warding prevented me from entering the room easily. Unfortunately for the caster, they probably didn’t expect someone with the mana reserves of a dungeon to attempt to breach it.

With a push, my hand sliced through the barrier. I wasn’t going for subtly so she should know I was here. With a pop, I appeared in the room and was met with the sound of dripping water. Looking around, I found the woman trying to cover herself while also having one hand pointed at me. I didn’t resist and took in my fill.

“Are you quite done?” she demanded with rage in her eyes.

“No, but go ahead and get dressed.” I turned on the enchantment I was using on Louella, but Helicilia much stronger. It would take time for it to have any affect on her. I would need to use a low setting as she might catch on if her emotions shifted too quickly.

She grumbled under her breath but did as I said. I sighed as she put the last of her garments on. Her body was quite the piece of art in my opinion. Almost like her body had been crafted to entice men. “What do you want? And how did you get through my ward?”

“You asked me to prove to you that I was worth working with. I have the perfect thing in mind, so if you’ll come with me,” I said holding my arm out like asking for her to take a walk. She stared at me for a long minute before she stared to reach out. “Also, the method of our transport is top secret. If you agree to go with me, I will be expecting only one answer at the end of the night.”

She jerked back as expected. “Then why so I accept to go!? Just because you think it will convince me, I highly doubt it!”

I reached under my coat, more of effect, and pulled out a black strip of cloth. “I guess we can go the old fashion route. A nice blindfold.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said like she couldn’t believe I would even suggest such a primitive idea.

I sighed and leaned against the wall. “Look its either this or I render you unconscious. You decide.”

“Fine! Blindfold me.”

Grinning, I moved over and wrapped her eyes before shifting us through the shadow realm into the Night’s Fury. I motioned for the pilot to take us to our destination.  The town was only a few weeks by mount. In the Night’s Fury, it would take us just over an hour to reach it.

“Are we moving? I feel like my weight has shifted, but I can’t tell for sure.”

I stroked her hand. “Don’t worry. We are well on our way.”

Once outside the town, I shifted us through the shadow realm to the top of a nearby cliff. It overlooked the town perfectly. With a flourish, I pulled off her blindfold. “Welcome to Onwil home of the Neil family nobles.”

The town housed several thousand people that served the Neil family. It looked much like a European town with stone buildings and a rough wall surrounding most of the town. A castle slightly up the hill from the town was the residence of Duke Neil and family. Including the son that had pissed the little countess off.

“Well… I’m waiting,” Helicilia commented with her arms folded across her chest.

“Yes. Yes.”

Sikara appeared from the shadows and kneeled. “It is ready master.”

“Excellent.” I stepped to the very edge of the cliff and turned back to face Helicilia. It never hurt to have some theatrics. “Behold the power that Nyx has bestowed onto me.” I snapped my fingers and activated the device and turned around to watch the fireworks.

Five seconds went by before the town vanished as a mushroom cloud replaced it. Several more seconds passed before the shockwave from the explosion washed over us, impacting the cliff side, throwing debris into the air around us. The clouds that had been in the sky were ripped apart as the mushroom cloud of smoke and debris moved further into the air.

“Beautiful. Don’t you agree?” I said in awe. It was twice, no, three times more powerful than I had expected. The reactions of the mana feeding each other to make it all that much worse. The town was gone, completely erased from the face of the planet.

The display went on for another minute or so before the reaction started to break apart. The energy was pulled into the Verre Crystal, the green crystal plant that was made using Lust and Nedali. I knew that rampant mana would have adverse effects from due to my storm experiment in the valley. If allowed the reaction to go on too long, I would have fire elementals to deal with.

Helicilia was sitting on the ground, having not risen after the blast knocked her over. She stared in awe at the destruction in front of us. “Amazing… Such power.”

“I take it that you like what you saw?”

“You said this power is completely yours?!”

“That’s right. I may have gotten it from my goddess, but she cannot take it from me.” I noticed that the sun was coming up and gestured to Set. “Let’s talk more on this later. At least now you know I’m not talking out of my ass.”

“What…” was all she got out before Set used her magic to knock her out. It was rather easy when she was in direct contact with her brain.

“I have several uses for you. I need you to have your mind in one piece.”

I loaded her up and we quickly left the now crater that was once a city once Sikara had retrieved all the evidence. Privately, I couldn’t wait to see what this led to among the mortals. If Helicilia worked for me, then the necromancers would be dealt with that much easier.

Once back at the valley, we dropped off Helicilia and returned to the dungeon. I planned to spend the day in a new form in Jade Wind, but before that I needed to make a few changes at the dungeon. Using the nuclear bomb had allowed me to absorb several forms of radiation. There were several ways that I could use this to kill adventurers, but that wasn’t my goal for today.

Moving to the entrance, I created a magic script under the floor and in the ceiling that would emiting alpha radiation. It was just enough that anyone entering the dungeon would feel fine as long as they didn’t stand around for too long. However, once they left the dungeon they would quickly start to get sick.

I would like to see if Lelune could treat radiation sickness. My, or rather Nyx’s priests and priestess would have the knowledge needed to help people afflicted with the illness. Not only that, I set the scripts to ignore people that worshipped Nyx. That would throw off the scent from my dungeon after a while.

I didn’t have to wait long before the first divers of the day showed up. I watched to make sure I didn’t over do it on the power. As they moved through the entrance, it didn’t take me long to detect the new corruption in their bodies. The partial death of some of their cells. Lelune’s healings might relieve the symptoms, but given a few hours they would start to feel sick again.

I did some calculations based on the group of ten that came in. It would take roughly five visits to the dungeon to cause death. If they were able to dive the dungeon after the fourth visit, I could only say that was incredible. With my new follower drive initiative complete, I moved to the Jade Wind core.

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