Chương 16: Red Levers

With the memories of Limpy and their crushed companion fresh in mind, I let them run through the rest of the third floor without me. Echoing shouts and cries filled the dungeon as they rampaged through flesh and bone alike, making quick work of any foe in their way. I sat down in front of Limpy's corpse. My three skeletons surrounded me, watching as I contemplated adding yet another undead to our ranks. How much different is raising a zombie than raising a skeleton? [Besides the smell? Not too different. In some ways it's easier. Muscles and tendons can hold a lot more juice than dry bones. Based on the tier of soul you place in the body, they can be a lot more powerful.] Do you think I could put one of the rat's Minor Souls in him? [Now you're thinking like a real necromancer.] I closed my eyes and imagined my fish tank. I plucked out the last of the soul-guppies and laid my hands on Limpy's still warm body.

"Alright, Limpy. Don't let me down. Bind." The soul left my fingers and dove into the dead goblin's flesh. There was an immediate tug against my core as the soul navigated through the body. I guided the energy through each muscle and vein I could find, embedding the soul into the bones themselves. Something clicked inside the corpse, and I pulled away. Limpy's eyes cracked open, the whites now red with broken blood vessels. Blue soul-flame ignited in his pupils.

He sat up, groaning, the arrow still piercing through his skull. Blood poured out of the wounds, and he blinked.

"Hey there, little guy. How are you feeling?"

"Gahhhh," Limpy said, blood spurting from his mouth.

"Okay. A good start. First of all, we're giving you a new name. How do you like Arrowhead?"

"Baughhh." I pursed my lips.

"Okay. We'll keep Limpy." A cry echoed deeper in the dungeon, followed by a loud explosion. The room shook, sending layers upon layers of dust crumbling down from the ceiling.

"Are you all okay?" I shouted. Hollow called back.

"Dumbass pulled a red lever." [The red lever trick!] Karen chuckled. [I had forgotten about that. People love to pull red levers. Blue levers? Not so much.] Limpy crawled to his feet, bloody drool and spittle pouring onto the ground. Explosion looked at me, and back at him.

"What do you think?" I asked. Explosion tried to give me a thumbs up, but his fist burst apart.

"Good point," I said, not understanding a thing.

"Karen, that was really easy. What gives?" [The flesh was still warm. And it had flesh. Flesh carries the memory of life more than bones.] Limpy grunted. Stick ran into the room.

"We have found the exit! Oh! Oh, wow! What is that smell?"

"Meet Limpy. He's a zombie now," I said. In response, Limpy farted.

"Alright, well, let's go see what this floor boss is like." Stick guided us through the maze of catacombs, muttering to himself as we approached each fork and branching path. We had moved through more than a dozen rooms and two dead ends before the sounds of Grelgo's men complaining could be heard. To give credit where credit was due, they had done an excellent job of clearing the floor. Beheaded zombies and shattered skulls littered every room we walked through.

I would need to tell them to hold back on the skull-crushing, as it was both messy and wasteful.

"Explosion, Soulless, can you gather any bones that are still usable and bring them to the pile down below?" The soulless skeletons marched off without a word, and Explosion followed shortly behind. Karen, can you make your skeletons have more personality? [No. If you want personality, use souls.] I sighed and set a hand on Limpy's shoulder.

"Well, let's meet your old friends." He gurgled. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The goblins all sat in the penultimate room. Hollow wiped her blade clean of rotten blood, frowning at me.

"Stick wanted us to wait for you."

"Limpy?" Patch said.

"Are you okay?"

"Guhhh." I put a hand on the dead goblin's shoulder.

"He's alive again!"

"There is still an arrow in his head."

"Yeah. Hence the name." Patch shook his head.

"That's fucked up, boss." Stick bowed his head.

"Well, now that the Carrion King has arrived, shall we give him the honors of slaying this next foe?" Hollow rolled her eyes. I looked at her and smiled.

"If you think you've got it, go for it." Hollow grinned from ear to ear.

"It'll be my pleasure." Weapons clean, she turned into the room, blades spread outward in what was becoming a signature pose. A giant skeleton, almost identical to the one on the last floor, formed in front of her. It opened its jaw to roar, and Hollow leaped, using one blade to knock its jaw off entirely, and used the other to pierce through the fiery eye-socket. The skeleton crumbled. She ripped the skull off its shoulders, and pounded it into the dirt until it shattered, and the soul escaped into the ether.

[She's great,] Karen said. Yeah. She is. Hollow came back in, grinning.

"Not a problem. What's next?"

"Time to go to floor four! And uh, please, can we hold off on destroying any more skulls? They're becoming a commodity."

"What's in it for us?" Patch asked.

"Uh. Extra meat for every skull you find?" Patch stood, raising his club up high.

"To floor four!" As we climbed, the catacombs grew, twisting and turning and becoming more and more maze-like. The actual construction and aesthetics of the higher floors had changed little, though. Wooden coffins slowly became made of stone. The skeletons or fleshy zombies in loculi were adorned with fine jewelry and given ornamental daggers. Plaques hung over doorways, engraved with names, spouting off titles and heroic deeds of those buried beyond. The weapons were an unwelcome change.

As it turns out, a skeleton with a flimsy dagger is a lot scarier than one with only a bony fist. But otherwise, the rooms were the same as before. Stone bricks, cobwebs, dust, and stale air. Floor four took twice as long to navigate as floor three, even with me helping push forward. We lost two more of Grelgo's scouts as we continued onward. One with an axe to the skull, and the other after falling for another red lever trap. Only four of them remained if you didn't count Limpy.

If Grelgo was supposed to be this amazing leader, why were the people he sent… so weak? … and dumb?

"Look! Another one of those levers!" one shouted, standing over a red lever jutting out of the ground. Above him, a boulder sat precariously on top of a ledge.

"Stop," I said.

"Please."

"Third time's the charm," the scout said.

"You never know what will happen. This might be the one." I sighed, and looked to Patch, who held both hands on his hips.

"He's got a point, boss. This could be the one." I pointed up at the boulder.

"What the hell do you think that is, then?" Patch yelped.

"Ah! Boulder!"

"Please, if you're going to pull the lever, at least use a rope or something." The goblin hovering over the trap grinned and snapped his fingers.

"You're an absolute genius!" He unwound some rope from his bag and tied it around the top in a loose knot. He fed the rope out, taking several steps away. I waved everyone forward into the next room.

"We're almost out of this one, can we just get a move on?" Hollow was the one pushing forward still, Explosion, the two soulless skeletons, and Limpy at her side. I'd given them all blades that we picked off of the dead, marginally improving their combat capabilities. None of the combat was too straining, but my core ached nonetheless. Even the thought of raising another dead in my state felt like a fast track to misery.

While Zombie-Limpy may have been a more capable undead servant than someone like Strong, the connection between us held my core the tightest. Each swing of a sword, each dodge, and each wound he took, squeezed a little bit more than my skeletons.

"Pulling rope!" the goblin shouted as the rest of us moved into the next room. A wave of heat blasted behind us.

"Ahhh!" The goblin screamed. A fireball blasted out the wall next to him, setting the room ablaze into a terrible inferno. The fury died after a few seconds, not leaving a single cobweb or speck behind. The goblin became nothing more than a burned husk in the middle of the floor. [Misdirection! I love it!]"Guess it wasn't the boulder after all," I said.

"That's the problem with wise guys," Patch said.

"You always run around acting so smart, but when you're wrong, you look twice as dumb." I rolled my eyes, silently cursing the now flame-scarred boulder that hadn't moved an inch. We finished advancing through the fourth floor after a few more rooms, encountering a similar boss to the last two. Except instead of one giant skeleton, there were two. Patch joined Hollow, and as a pair they disassembled them both, leaving the skulls intact for me to harvest without breaking them.

The Notable Souls of the skeletons were still far too big for me to contain within my core. So when I harvested them, I immediately released them back out into the dungeon itself. Feels a little wasteful, is all. [I agree, but until you get stronger I don't know if you have a better option. You could always try to bind them to a torch or something if you want to hold on to them for later.] I growled. Why didn't you say that earlier? [I'm distracted by my rats. We have almost cleared out a faction of squirrels camped outside the tower. Pests!] You're waging war against the local wildlife outside? Aren't there more important things you could be doing? [I don't judge you—you don't have to judge me.] You judge me constantly. She didn't respond, her presence moving elsewhere. I handed the giant skulls to the Soulless, who began the long journey back down to the second floor to add them to the pile. Everyone stared at me, expectantly.

"What?" I asked. Stick scratched his head.

"Sometimes you get this haunted look on your face and stare off into the void. It's a bit scary, is all."

"Sorry. Just arguing with the dungeon." Stick nodded slowly, despite his eyes showing confusion.

"Should we head back and resupply, then? I'm getting a bit hungry, and—""Meat! Food!" Patch said, and the remaining scouts raised their weapons to cheer alongside him.

"One more floor," I said.

"Let's see what floor five has to offer."