ImmovableMage
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112 Mysterious Deployment in the Northeast
🕑 Added 2022-11-26 01:02:01 +0000 UTC– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 32 –
Terry used his five-point inscription ring to mark the position of the entrance and then returned the ring to his dimensional bag. Terry double-checked his mana cloaking and the concealment effect of his enchanted ring. Terry controlled his breathing. Finally, he began descending through the dungeon tunnel while focusing on his mana sense.
Dungeon mana is still apparent in the walls. Not just sparse mana crystals, but ambient mana everywhere. This dungeon is still active.
Terry furrowed his brow.
But the mana suppression is quite weak. Point in favor of the turning dormant theory.
Terry followed the passage until he reached a fork. He glanced back.
There was no reservoir room. With how narrow the tunnel is and considering that it’s not directly connected to a room… definitely not a normal entrance. Exit. Special exit.
Terry frowned slightly and became pensive.
If this is an exit that is normally reserved for dungeon divers after a special encounter, then who knows how far it goes down? Special encounters are more frequent in deeper locations.
Terry retrieved the ring with the five-point inscription again and pondered with a conflicted expression.
The Chara Settlement. The Libra Outpost. The location of our last transfer. The location from where I sensed the blood tulips. This dungeon’s entrance.
Terry felt hesitant. Inside the dungeon, it was not always possible to sense the markers outside, which meant that they provided little use to Terry. His current priority was to not get lost inside.
I have the map. I just need to keep a general sense of direction outside. Avoid the Wastes. Move towards Arcana. I left the signaling cube with the tulips and I can find the place again with the map.
Terry finally resolved himself to erase some of the marked locations in order to free up points for this dungeon. He created a new marker for the current fork and kept the inscribed ring on his finger.
Terry did not sense any mana signatures ahead and decided to take the left path. Before he made a step, however, Terry hesitated once more. He glanced toward where he had come from. While Terry was wondering what he was even doing here, his gaze landed on the floor. He noticed his own tracks on the thin layer of dirt.
“Hmph.” Terry stepped slightly into the air and relied on his cloaked boot mechanism to avoid leaving tracks from this point onwards.
Right. It’s not just dungeon critters I have to worry about here.
Terry glanced at his enchanted concealment ring.
It’s possible that the Tiv soldiers have magic items as well. I should be more careful.
Terry weighed his options.
Maintaining a constant detection field would stand out and draw attention. Detection pulses might work as long as I keep them thin enough to stay below their mana sensitivity.
Terry frowned and bit the inside of his lower lip.
If they notice the pulses though, then the pulse would immediately give away my position.
What am I doing here again? Being nosy, that’s right…
Terry’s thoughts drifted once more until he remembered another option. He retrieved a third ring and put it on the same hand as the ring with the five-point inscription.
Since I’m not using these constantly, the mana interference should be negligible.
Terry channeled mana into the third ring, and a slightly translucent purple vampire bat appeared in the air with fluttering wings.
Terry grimaced at the flood of additional sensory inputs. He clenched his teeth and guided the bat projection to check the path first.
Its mana signature is weak enough. Bats shouldn’t be a rare sight in dungeons either. I guess the color is a giveaway, but the light in here is weird to begin with. At least if the bat projection is discovered, it will not immediately reveal my location.
From then on, Terry fell into a routine. He relied on his mana sense for a first probe into new passages and followed up with the vampire bat projection. Like this, he made his way further down. He did not leave any tracks behind.
Terry reached a small room that appeared empty, and he thought of an additional check. He remembered the mana games he had used to play when he was younger. This gave him an idea to adjust the detection pulse approach to his current situation. He created several thin clouds of mana and guided them through the room to check for any invisible obstructions. To Terry's relief, the room revealed nothing, just like several rooms afterwards.
Eventually, Terry reached a large room with several structures resembling ramparts. The room was empty in the beginning, but Terry sensed a fire-aspected slime emerge from one of the walls. The dungeon-native creature appeared weak and did not pose much of a threat to Terry.
Most likely, it can’t sense me, anyway. That fire slime doesn’t look high rank. If it can’t rely on heat sense, then it can only rely on mana sense.
It did not surprise Terry that the slime did not pay him any attention. What did surprise him, however, was that the slime immediately left the room after it had scaled down the wall.
That’s a bit odd.
Terry narrowed his eyes. He observed the slime’s movements in his mana sight. It did not take long before other mana signatures appeared to join the slime. All of them moved together in the same direction.
Definitely odd.
Terry suppressed a tired yawn and followed behind the dungeon creatures. After a while, Terry reached a cliff. This was a large tunnel going straight down. Several smaller passages, like the one which Terry had followed, fed into this vertical shaft. Terry stared down pensively.
Must be that all the dungeon creatures in the slime’s entourage were climbers.
While this might have been a dead end for others, Terry simply continued walking through the air. It did not make a difference if he walked slightly above the floor to avoid leaving tracks or if he did so far above the bottom of a hole.
clank rumble
Terry furrowed his brow because he heard sounds of battle rise from the hole. From deep in the hole. He summoned the vampire bat projection and was immediately assaulted by the amplified scent of blood.
Such an intense blood stench in a dungeon…
Terry tilted his head from side to side.
Either there are many combatants or the dungeon has lost the ability to claim dead bodies. Terry was scowling. Or both.
Terry looked down into the vertical shaft and then upwards.
At the very least, this offers a straightforward path to retreat if necessary.
A slightly translucent purple vampire bat projection flew downwards. It was followed by thin clouds of naturalized mana whirring through the air. A concealed figure closely followed.
The further down Terry walked, the deeper the wrinkles on his forehead became. The dungeon’s interference was still blocking his mana sense from reaching too deep through its walls, and Terry was left to baselessly speculate why the Tiv army would pay so much attention to this particular dungeon.
During his descent, Terry saw many dungeon creatures appearing from the side passages. Various slimes, geckos, spiders, and even mana-corrupted monkeys scaled the walls to move further down into the hole.
The further Terry went down, the stronger the creatures that appeared were, which was as expected. However, strength wasn’t the only difference. At first, Terry had not noticed, but the stronger the creatures, the fewer of them he could see. This was less expected. Normally, the frequency of stronger creatures would increase further down to rival the number of weaker creatures on higher floors.
Odd.
Terry paused in the center of the hole and looked around. None of the dungeon creatures on the walls paid him any attention while they were rushing down. Terry knew he should feel relieved that his concealment was working, but something was gnawing at his mind.
Something felt off.
Terry suppressed another tired yawn and stretched. For a while, Terry stared pensively down. He closed his eyes and thought about abandoning whatever he was doing here, about returning to the surface and simply using the chance to leave this place.
Terry’s brow twitched. With his eyes closed, he thought he could make out a new sound in the area. He opened his eyes with a complicated expression and used his vampire bat projection to confirm the auditory sensation.
There. Terry looked towards a specific passage. The voices are coming from there.
Terry walked through the air, away from the hole, and into the passage. Terry could make out voices, but he did not find a direct path to get closer to the source of the voices. He had to follow another path beyond a fork instead.
After continuing for some time, Terry reached a cavern from where he could hear a sizzling noise. Terry’s eyes widened when he spotted the orange water that covered the whole bottom of the cavern. He surveyed his surroundings.
Is the dungeon connected to that acidic lake?
Terry looked up. The ceiling in this room appeared unusually high.
Was there a proper floor here at some point? A bridge? Anything?
Terry furrowed his brow.
If the dungeon relies on mana to protect structures against the orange acid, then the dungeon losing control would explain a change in terrain.
Terry stepped up into the air to get closer to the ceiling, where he found another passage to continue forward. He passed through several similar caverns without a hitch.
Eventually, Terry discovered something he had not expected in a dungeon. In front of another disconnected passage, there was a door. A magically reinforced door. Not a dungeon structure.
Dungeons don’t normally create regular keyholes, do they?
Terry narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the door that should not exist. He looked around with a quizzical expression.
What in the Wastes is Tiv doing here? I’ve never heard about anyone maintaining something like that in a dungeon. That would require constant supervision and maintenance. That would mean establishing a permanent presence and wrestling partial control from the dungeon to prevent the dungeon from tearing it down again.
Terry subconsciously shook his head.
But a permanent presence would be problematic for all sorts of reasons. Even putting the risks of damaging the dungeon aside, this is madness.
The risk of mana corruption and dungeon assimilation. The potential detrimental effects of longer exposure to mana suppression.
The constant struggle against the dungeon and its creatures.
The sheer number it would require—
Terry frowned when he recalled the number of soldiers outside and how much time it had been since he had first heard about this mysterious deployment. The extent of this entire operation.
Why? What for?
Terry continued shaking his head in thought. He peeked through the keyhole and saw nothing. He guided a thin cloud of his mana through the keyhole and, again, detected nothing.
Terry squinted at the keyhole.
The door is magically reinforced, but it’s a plain and simple lock… Intended to block dungeon creatures and probably not taking folks into account.
Terry puckered his lips and narrowed his eyes.
Screw it. I want to know what’s going on here.
He guided a denser ball of his naturalized mana into the keyhole to get an impression of the lock’s shape in his mana sight. Terry pulled a small metal ingot from his Academy bag and began reshaping the metal with the help of the spell imprint in his bracer.
After Terry had reconstructed a working key and unlocked the door, he pushed the door open to find an empty passage. He perked up his ears when he heard the sound of voices again. He was getting closer to the source.
***
“You have your orders!” spat Claude coldly.
The soldiers glared at Claude and everyone else that wore the same uniform and insignia as him.
Yujin inwardly cursed at this socially impaired nincompoop. With how standoffish Claude and his ilk were, she saw no way to salvage the situation without taking a clear stance.
Several of Yujin’s subordinates already had their hands on the hilts of their weapons. They had not unsheathed them yet, but they appeared to be at the end of their patience.
To make it worse, there were many soldiers that did not belong to Yujin’s original platoon. They had arrived with earlier platoons to reinforce the dungeon. These soldiers had been here long before Yujin had arrived. They had already lost their previous commander and many of their comrades in this dungeon. These soldiers were already filled to the brim with anger and despair.
These soldiers did not have the same respect for Yujin as her original subordinates did. That her own rank was the highest present did not make up for the fact that they had been here first, nor for their heated emotional state. To put herself against these soldiers in this situation would further erode Yujin’s standing among them. She had to carefully weigh her next actions. Orders meant nothing if no one was willing to follow them.
In the end, Yujin shared a glance with some of her trusted soldiers from her own platoon. They were the only ones whom Yujin could truly rely on, and seeing their expressions helped her make up her own mind.
“You owe us an explanation, Claude.” Yujin spoke firmly. Her voice stopped several of the soldiers from other platoons that were about to lose their temper with Claude.
“No, I don’t,” retorted Claude snippily.
“In that case, I have to pull rank,” said Yujin. “I insist.”
Claude sneered. “Your rank in the army may be higher, but in this location, I am the highest authority.” He pointed at the insignia on his uniform. “The ranks here are different.”
“Oh?” Yujin held his gaze. “Says who?”
Claude’s expression fell. The faces among the soldiers on his side flushed with anger.
“I’ve been courteous with you so far,” said Yujin. “I don’t feel that my courtesy is being reciprocated. So let me make this clear. I have orders to support the defense of this place, true.” She gestured towards some of her soldiers, who immediately blocked the exits and kept their hands on their weapons. “But I never received instructions to ignore the military chain of command.”
Yujin carefully maintained a deadpan expression. She knew that her portrayal was a stretch. It was perfectly clear to her who was supposed to be the authority in this place and it wasn’t herself. Even so, she could make a defense based on the literal wording of her orders, which should suffice to put some pressure on Claude and his troops.
“From where I stand, you, Claude, are guilty of insubordination,” said Yujin with careful enunciation. She spotted a few grins on some of the soldiers. One of them, a soldier from another platoon, even began clapping.
Next to Claude, the soldiers with a special insignia on their uniforms now put their hands on their weapons as well. They glared at Yujin and the others.
“I’m willing to postpone the matter of discussing an appropriate punishment.” Yujin spoke up quickly to deflate some of the building tension. “But I have to remind you that I have orders. If I see the fulfillment of my orders threatened by your presence, then my orders compel me to remove you.” Yujin spoke slowly and firmly, word for word: “As I see it, you are currently obstructing my mission by withholding relevant information.”
Inwardly, Yujin thought to herself that this was definitely the truth. Without soldiers that would follow her orders, her orders were meaningless. With Claude’s previous attitude, desertion and mutiny would be inevitable given the current precarious situation.
“I am to support the defense of this place and with how things are going, that requires more information,” said Yujin. “We are stretched thin and we won’t be able to maintain all positions, so I have to prioritize.
“And I can’t prioritize troop allocations if I don’t know for what purpose we are protecting this place,” continued Yujin with a determined look towards Claude. “I can’t come up with a strategy if I don’t know the primary objective to ensure. In so many words, I hereby order you to explain.” Yujin forced herself to ignore the bated breaths among the soldiers and focus entirely on Claude.
After more than a minute of silence, Claude finally spoke up. “This place is not just a dungeon. It’s a prison.”
“What?” exclaimed Yujin with surprise and a hint of irritation. “Go on.”
“It is of the utmost importance to protect this place,” stressed a woman who shared Claude’s special insignia on her uniform. “You are not qualified to get a detailed briefing.”
“What prison?” spat one soldier. “Why don’t you move your wasted prisoners to another location?”
“Or kill them!” A soldier with fierce eyes shouted. “Are you seriously saying that we lost thousands of soldiers because you were unwilling to kill a few prisoners?”
“Why even pick a dungeon as a prison?” More and more complaints spilled out.
Yujin’s expression darkened. She could think of potential reasons for picking a dungeon as a location. A death in a dungeon would not leave any trace. Dungeon interference obstructed signals and mana senses. That being noted, there were also obvious downsides to maintaining a permanent presence in a dungeon. All in all, such a thing went against common sense.
“These are none of your concern,” spat the prison guard next to Claude. “These decisions have been made by the people that have ordered you to this place. Unless you intend to desert, you should worry about how to achieve your mission instead of why. The security of this place is paramount. That’s all you need to know.”
Yujin exhaled sharply. While the tension in the room had eased somewhat with the final revelation of their purpose here, she was sure that this was only a temporary relief. She decided to press the issue.
“Let me repeat: This—” Yujin stopped herself when she noticed new messengers arriving. The messengers looked ghastly.
Yujin immediately stepped forward to receive the message. The fact that the messenger handed her a written note showed that this was sensitive. While reading the message, Yujin’s complexion became pale and a cold sweat appeared on her forehead.
“You did well.” Yujin spoke to the messengers and did not dare to dawdle. “Tell them to retreat into the dungeon and hunker down in room C-5.” Then she turned to the second messenger. “Relay the info to those fighting below and tell them to move up to T-12. Depending on the movements from the tears, we need to adjust course. If we’re lucky, we will be able to all join up to make a stand.”
“What did you just say?!” Claude spoke up with indignation. “You have orders to—”
“Yes, I do,” interrupted Yujin testily. “But orders won’t fulfill themselves. You need soldiers, and right now, our soldiers are getting decimated out there. It will be a miracle if any of us survives the day.”
“What are you—?” Claude stared at her in disbelief.
“Shut up!” roared Yujin. “I would explain if you stopped interrupting, soldier.” Yujin took a deep breath and then addressed the soldiers while focusing her gaze on her trusted subordinates. “More hellspawn have arrived outside. They have made quick work of the undead, and most of our comrades outside are already dead.”
In an instant, the atmosphere became grave.
“This is not just a scouting or raiding party,” said Yujin. “The worst risk we had identified has now materialized. A whole swarm has appeared at this dungeon’s entrance. Behemoths that can change size. Worst of all, there is already one confirmed spellweaver among the pharohs.”
The mention of a spellweaver triggered grimaces of despair. Rarely, champions emerged from the hellspawn hives. These champions were always a cut above the others of the same rank. Some champions demonstrated an ability for structured magic. From the perspective of the spellwork in this realm, it looked wrong, but it was nevertheless structured magic and not just a mana ability.
Aside from power and mana, spellweavers required intelligence. The hellspawn that were able to weave spells were the most troublesome to face. Structured magic also meant that it was difficult to judge their abilities. Just like two mages with the same mana could pose vastly different threats depending on their mastered spells, the same applied to spellweaving hellspawn.
After Yujin had spoken, even Claude paled. He shared anxious glances with the other prison guards. “This…”
“Will this place truly fall? I don’t want to die,” wailed one of the prison guards.
“Do something!” yelled another prison guard at the soldiers. “You have orders to—”
“Shut up!” Yujin glared at the prison guards. “This situation is beyond what we can handle with the forces we have. We will make our last stand. Unless you want to die on your own, you will fight with us this time. If we can hold out until reinforcements arrive, then—”
One of the soldiers from another platoon sneered loudly. “What reinforcements? I heard there won’t be any more reinforcements.”
“And this changes what exactly?!” demanded Yujin. “We can fight or we can lie down and die. I myself prefer to die fighting.”
“Damn right!” “Commander!” Several of Yujin’s trusted subordinates shouted with hardened resolve.
“Let’s go,” said Yujin. She stopped in her tracks when she noticed that Claude was still rooted to his spot with a pale but pensive expression.
“Do you have a better idea?!” demanded Yujin with narrowed eyes. “Something worthwhile to share for once?!”
“Is…” Claude hesitated. “Is the situation really as dire as you say?”
“I don’t have the habit of demoralizing my own troops,” hissed Yujin. “If that is all, then—”
“Wait!” exclaimed Claude, but he did not continue speaking his thoughts.
“I’ll say it.” The prison guard, who had wailed for her life before, now stepped forward. “There is a way to bring down the number of hellspawn.”
Claude’s expression darkened, but nonetheless, he nodded. “It’s a risk, and it’s…” He shook his head while his voice trailed off. “No, if this place falls either way, then we have no choice.”
“Care to enlighten us?” prompted Yujin with annoyance. This whole dance of coyness was entirely inappropriate, given the urgency of the situation. “What exactly can we do against the hellspawn?”
“Release the Savage,” replied Claude solemnly.
***
Comments
Sesharan
I am positively salivating with curiosity. There’s so much going on here, and I want absolutely all of the answers.
