Dungeon Annihilation 2 - 4

Evening everyone! I hope its been a good Friday for everyone. 

Louella

“Die!” Shouting as I unloaded more than enough mana into the simple lightning spell, I cooked the Hunter until it was charred black. I took a deep breath, the tension in my shoulders draining away. The others in the party averted their gazes, not that I blamed them. Most people probably didn’t like watching their leader lose their cool like that. 

“Don’t mind her. She is just blowing off some steam.” I heard Ezal whisper to the others. I didn’t bother to say anything. It was the truth after all. 

We continued down the street for a few minutes. There was a Hunter every block or so, but they were close, if not a bit weaker, than Pride’s first form. They also carried more money. Just from the ten we’d killed so far, we had gathered nearly two gold worth of silver. Not bad if you could come straight to the floor through the teleport matrix like us.

We were about to turn down another street, probably the last one for the day when the sound of fighting reached us. Peeking carefully around the corner, I saw the annoying dragon-kin and his two female companions. They were fighting three Hunters but didn’t appear too pressed.

The dragon-kin, Earle I think he called himself, made a quick jab with his saber and a black light lanced through the Hunter. Blood sprayed over Earle before the Hunter collapsed to the ground. The woman that needed to find some more concealing cloths used a burst of darkness that tore a second Hunter into pieces. The other women, the most recent addition to his group took a bit longer to kill the monster, but she still made easy work of it.

I pulled my head back not wanting anything to do with the group, but I found I wasn’t fast enough. A small blade made of writhing shadows impaled the wall next to my face. Earle looked at me with a glare then seemed to realize who it was. He gave me a smile that seemed to say we had been friends for years. I sighed and moved forward into the opening, waving the others to move as well. 

“Lady Countess!” The way he said my title caused my eye to twitch. “You need to be more careful with your sneaking around! I could have taken your eye out.”

“Mister Earle. I see you’re making good progress in the dungeon. To my knowledge only a few parties are this deep in the Gothic City.”

“Yes. The ladies are quite formidable. If I don’t try harder, I might be left behind. I truly hope if that happens, you’ll be kind to take me under your wing,” Earle said with a chuckle.

I returned the smile. “I’m sure I could always find a spot for you in one of the stables. I say, you would fit right in.” 

Rather than Earle, the woman named Raven stepped forward as she tightened her grip on her weapon. My party reacted likewise. Both Earle and I held up our hands before something happened. I really hated Earle, but I didn’t want his blood on my hands unless he earned it. Unfortunately, associating with Ivan doesn’t warranty that, yet.

“Stand down, Raven. We can’t afford to kill the lord of this town,” Earle said patting her shoulder. I didn’t miss the fact, that his tone said he could easily do it if he wanted.

I glared at him before I cleared my throat. “Please be sure to spend some of the gold you’re making in town.”

“Of course!” Earle said with his cheerful tone back in full strength. I groaned then just motioned for the those to leave. I’d lost my will to continue anymore today. I felt like that short interaction had negated all the stress relief of the last few hours. 

Making our way back through the streets, I soon realized that we were being followed, not that they were trying hard to hide it. Earle and his women followed us from a distance. After another street, I finally had enough. Spinning around, I slammed my foot down. “What the hell are you doing?!”

Earle grinned. “Leaving the dungeon of course. The teleport matrix is in this direction.”

Ezal grabbed my arm and turned me back around. “There. There,” she murmured prompting me to take a deep breath to try and calm down. This Earle must have hounded me in another life. I was sure of it. There was just too much annoyance for only one lifetime inside me. With a glare, we continued moving back to the matrix.

An all new headache started to form when we reached the structure. Ivan and his slaves stood around it like guards. Sparks started jump from my hands and I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself if he started anything. At least I wouldn’t mind killing him.

“Countess Louella,” Ivan acknowledged me with a bow. The fact I was no longer a bought noble was probably killing him. Now he couldn’t be as rude as I was sure he wanted to be. We would still need to be careful.

“Sir Ivan,” I replied doing my best to suppress my glare.

“Ivan! I was wondering where you ran off to!” Earle shouted from behind me.

“Mister Earle.” Ivan looked between the two of us. “Keeping interesting company?”

Earle laughed like Ivan told one of the best jokes he’d ever heard. “You must have been a comedian in another life my friend. That was hilarious. No, the Lady Countess was sneaking around and I almost took her eye out.” he shrugged with a sigh. “After that, killing Hunters seemed to lose its glimmer so we decided to leave for the day.”

“I am right here! If you plan to insult the lord of the town you both are staying in. Do it where she can’t hear you!” Arcs of lightning started to pop between me and the ground as my anger reached a new height. I had never met anyone that could make me this anger. I was less anger when I learned that my father was okay with step-mother trying to kill me.

“You are most right. My apologizes,” Earle said with a half bow.

Deciding I’d had enough. I shoved my way through the slaves around the matrix then sent a glare to the rest of my party to join me. Turning my glare on Ivan, I gave him a warning. “If you intend to block passage of other adventurers then be prepared to pay a tax for lost profit to the town.” With that I slammed my fist on the rune and the light washed over us. 

Back on the first floor, I stormed out of the room the teleport matrix was housed in. Unable to hold back my anger, I screamed and threw everything I had into a lightning bolt that slammed into one of the pillars outside the room. I kept it up until there wasn’t anymore juice in me. After an almost solid minute, the lightning finally died down and I stood there breathing heavily.

“You okay?” Ezal asked from a distance.

Looking over I saw the others looking on worriedly. At least it wasn’t a pitiful and more along the lines of friends. I mustered up the energy to smile. “Better now.” Giving everyone a glance, I told them to go on ahead. Ezal waited for me. “I swear I’m going to kill them. Kill them both.”

“That might be all well and good, but Ivan has a slave militia that you’d likely have to kill before you could get to him and that Earle’s strength is still relatively unknown. He managed to kill that Hunter in one strike after all.”

“I know.”

“You seem to need some assistance,” a dark voice whispered in my ear. I spun around as the Dungeon host peered from around the pillar that I’d unloaded my rage on. His twisted shadowed form almost twice as tall as any man. I felt like I would have nightmares every time I saw him. If I wasn’t so exhausted when I went to sleep nowadays, I was sure that was the case.

“Mortals are not supposed interfere with the development of new dungeons,” Ezal replied for me.

The spots of light that made up the eyes of the host turned up like it found that amusing. “I will reassure then. I have plenty of knowledge and you don’t have to worry about that. Besides.” The host suddenly stretched his neck while keeping the rest of his body where it was, before I could react his head was right in front of me. “I would be influencing you.”

“What assistance could you provide?” I asked holding my hand up to stop Ezal as I knew she wanted to say something.

A third spot appeared on the shadowed blob that made up the host’s head as it formed a terrorifying smile. “It depends on what you need. Gold? Power? Death?”

All of them were enticing. I was almost tempted to sic the host of Ivan and Earle, but another part of me wanted to do it myself. No, what I really needed right now was money. I could make a lot of pieces on the gameboard of Thonaca and Lecazar move with money. 

“Gold seems like the easiest,” I replied.

The host extended his hand and soon the sound of clinking filled the air as coins started to rain from the member. It wasn’t long before a pile that was higher than a dwarf sat before me. I gulped as I noticed a few platinum coins in the mix. “Gold, then.”

“Surely you want something in return?” I asked.

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