NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 9: The Endless Tunnels
Hiral pulled both triggers on his Runic Hand Cannons, the bolts of Impact slamming into a pair of ants—which literally exploded. With his Killing Spree+ already capped at 25 stacks, he was fully buffed with a bonus 75% to all his attributes, and the additional effect—A Violent End—seemed to be going off almost constantly.
With the explosions ripping outward from the two ants into the crowded group around them, the jagged chunks from their own ruptured chitin acted like shrapnel carried along by the wave of force. Two deaths quickly became six, and then two more of those also exploded, expanding the field of carnage by another dozen feet.
Against the weak, Low-D-Rank, non-Elite enemies, overkill was a bit of an understatement.
“We’re a bad matchup for big groups of weak enemies,” Seena said, clawing her hand across in front of herself to scar a distant ant with her Cinder+.
Even that ability, one of her weaker ones, erased the ant’s health bar, only for it to fill right back up with what looked like flames inside. More than that, smoke smoldered out of the joints of the carapace, like a fire raged within the newly revived creature, and that wouldn’t be far from the truth.
From the Ashes+ had a chance to resurrect anything killed by one of Seena’s abilities, turning the restored creature into a mindless ally.
BOOOOM.
A mindless ally that exploded and triggered a cascading effect of From the Ashes+.
“Fine by me,” Yanily said, thrusting his spear out for a bolt of Chain Lightning+ to arc forward and connect with the nearest ant. Not even a heartbeat after his attack shot out, a second, twinned version followed in its wake, courtesy of his Cloak of the Tempest—the storm cloud-like item draped down his back—and fried the poor ant from the inside out. Not that its fellow ants fared much better. The ability lived up to its name as it arced out to other nearby monsters, rampaging through anything within thirty feet—and chaining well beyond that—like a starving beast. “In high enough numbers, these things aren’t bad experience.”
“Too bad we’re almost done with these Worker Ants,” Seeyela said, her Gravity Wells sucking up and crushing any ants unfortunate enough to get close, while the three hydra-heads breathed death on anything further away. “Looks like we’ve cleared out the area.”
“Probably for the best,” Hiral said, dropping the last two ants and then looking up into the rain. Lightning flashed in the distance—at least a few miles away—but that didn’t mean an Enemy wouldn’t show up. “We need to get to the dungeon and get back under cover.”
“Hiral is right,” Seena said. “There were too many ants swarming to just push through…”
“And waste the free experience delivery,” Yanily added.
“… but we might have to do that if it happens again,” Seena continued. “We should be able to get enough experience in the dungeon, and even if we can’t, we can use the entry hall as a basecamp.” Then she went over and tapped Hiral on the shoulder. “Lead on… and remember, not all of us can walk on water.”
“It was one time,” Hiral said.
“And watching Yanily drop down to his chin in the pool was pretty funny,” Seeyela said.
“Maybe for you,” Yanily said. “Then again, it was handy I fell into that much water since I pis… uh… piz, piz, piz, piz…” He mumbled and trailed off.
Hiral just shook his head at his friend and turned his attention back to the path ahead of them, his RHCs still in his hands. The landscape was quite similar to the first area they’d dropped into on the surface: a forest with thick brush and little visibility. The trees here were only sixty feet or so tall—small compared to the monoliths towering hundreds of feet in the other area—but the heavy bushes gave the smaller ants too many places to hide.
I can’t believe I just considered a three-foot-long ant “small.”
With another shake of his head, he pushed his senses ahead of the party, past the cratered terrain from all the explosions, and between the leaves on both sides of the narrow, glowing path. With his Atn as high as it was now, he’d been able to pull some of that trance-like awareness out of battle and into normal perception. It wasn’t anywhere close to perfect, but it did combine the input from all his senses to give him a feel for his surroundings when he focused on it.
The sound of the rain on everything it hit on the way down; where water pooled and splashed; the feel of the light breeze through the underbrush; the sight of how things moved in front of the widespread glow from the roots—it all contributed to the picture in his head. As far as he could tell, things were the same as before the first few ants had rushed out of the underbrush, intent on turning the party into lunch. Looking again at the devastated area of forest, that hadn’t worked out so well for the creatures. Or their reinforcements.
“Follow me,” he said, jogging ahead, senses peeled for any movement or sound that could warn of another attack.
Yanily’s soft footsteps trailed behind him, with the two sisters paired up beyond the spearman. In the very back, Left kept a second set of eyes out for any ambushes, while Right brought up the rear in case of attack. Anything that thought the unarmed double in black was an easy target was in for one very unpleasant surprise.
They’d considered using their flying mounts to move more quickly, but the tighter confines of the path—and the inability to see the roots from above the trees—had put a large kink in that plan. So, walking it was.
Unlike most of the glowing paths they’d followed to and from dungeons in the past, this one was barely wide enough for a single person. Little more than a trail through the woods. Then again, looking around, that was exactly what it was. Conveniently, the roots the party was meant to stick to were thicker than the average root in the woods, and a slightly different color—a bit more orange—which made them easy to keep track of.
The more comfortable Hiral got with his increased perception, the faster he pushed the party, moving from a brisk walk to a quick jog, then even up to a spirited run. They cut through the forest fast enough that even if one of the roaming ant-scouts caught wind of them, they were long gone by the time others arrived. One mile quickly turned to two, to five, to ten as they drove deeper into the ant territory. A few small skirmishes barely slowed them down, Hiral picking some of the scouts off before they managed to push their little heads through the bushes with an RHC shot into the underbrush.
Even with the ants posing little threat to the group, Hiral had a constant edge of stress lying heavily on his shoulders, and his eyes frequently went to the sky. The tree canopy above them was mostly of the needle variety, with a few of the leafier variants, and provided decent cover from the majority of the rain. Still, more than enough water squeezed its way through for him to feel like an Enemy could find them within the woods. The fact nothing had—yet—felt like too much of a miracle for him to hold out hope for long.
Then again, it took them days to find us in that first zone. Maybe we have time.
But “maybe” didn’t stop him from regularly watching out, and part of him was almost surprised when, four hours after they left the Disc of Passage, they found the familiar rune-covered entrance to a dungeon. A few hundred feet off to the side, there looked to be the edge of a mountainous anthill, and Hiral spotted his first non-worker-ant.
Hive Guardian – Mid-D-Rank
While the beast still wasn’t Elite, it was significantly higher in level than the other ants the party had dealt with—not to mention more than twice as big. Serrated mandibles as long as Hiral’s arms extended from its face, and its armor was clearly thicker and more durable. Oh, and there were dozens of them.
“More experience?” Yanily asked, joining Hiral as the party stopped to look at the ant swarm seeming to take notice of them.
“Only if we need it after the dungeon,” Seena said. “In we go,” she added, shooing them towards the entrance.
“What if they can follow us?” Yanily asked.
“Then we’ll get that experience a little sooner than expected, but I don’t think they’ll be able to.” She pointed towards the glowing runes inscribed around the doorway. “Now stop stalling.”
“Yes, boss,” Yanily said, heading down into the dungeon’s entry area with Seeyela at his side.
“I know that look,” Hiral said as Seena stared at the ants charging their way. Still a solid two hundred feet away, it’d take them long seconds to get to the pair. “You’re considering setting them all on fire.”
“Just one fireball?” she asked.
“You’re worse than Yanily sometimes,” Hiral said before pointing towards the dungeon entrance.
“Even if you will one day become my apprentice after you die, you should not compare my mistress to the speared one,” Li’l Ur said from Seena’s shoulder.
“The speared one?” Hiral asked. “You do remember his name, don’t you?”
Li’l Ur quickly looked away from Hiral, then back again with defiance in his small, blue-flame eyes. “Names of the insignificant are… insignificantly… insignificant…” He trailed off, then seemed to get caught up playing with Seena’s hair.
“That’s not quite fair, but, yeah, c’mon,” she said to Hiral, patting Li’l Ur on the head at the same time, and the two of them darted through the door.
Like before, Hiral felt a shiver pass over his skin—as if breaking the surface of water—when he entered, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. A few more steps took them around one corner, then another, and they were in the entrance hall, with the dungeon interface at the far end.
That was all the attention Hiral gave the room for the moment, turning back and leveling his weapons at the entrance tunnel in case the ants could follow them. The rest of the party fell in beside him, weapons drawn and ready as they waited. When nothing came charging through for thirty seconds, a minute, two, he finally let himself relax and sheathed his RHCs.
“I think we’re clear,” Seena said.
“Too bad,” Yanily whined.
“Don’t worry, Yan,” Seena said, thumbing over her shoulder at the dungeon interface. “We’ll get you something to stab pretty soon.”
“We going in now?” he asked.
“Short rest and food first,” Seena said seriously. “I know this is probably Low-D-Rank, but we still don’t have a tank or healer. I want us to be sharp.”
“I’ll get some of Nivian’s stew heated up,” Seeyela said.
“I’ll help,” Left said. “It always needs more salt.”
“Pretty sure Nivian didn’t give us any salt just so you couldn’t do that,” Seeyela said, and the party set up camp with an easy, practiced motion.
Four short hours after that, they stood in front of the dungeon interface, the tattoos showing on Hiral’s Second-Skin of Ur’Thul since he’d reabsorbed Left and Right to enter. Seena waved her hand above the crystal, the familiar image of Dr. Benza appearing off to the side.
“Welcome, challengers, to the Endless Tunnels Dungeon,” the image said. “Please choose an option.” A blue notification window sprang up beside him.
Enter Dungeon
Help
“Hrm, no Tutorial option?” Seeyela asked.
“Maybe because something at the connected Asylum is broken?” Hiral offered.
“The doc didn’t even respond when you said the word, and he usually did before,” Seena said. “Ah, well, that’s not why we’re here. Everybody ready?”
“Ready,” the others all said at once.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s do this. Enter Dungeon.”
The blue portal spiraled open in front of them.