Chương 27: Level Ten

"Dead end," I said. Freddie's bow twanged, and an arrow launched through a zombie's eye with a wet squelch. My skeletons took the other end of the room, hatchets singing as they rhythmically cut down an eight-foot tall skeleton standing before a statue of "Sir Melody the Songbird". The statue depicted a tall man playing the violin, a dagger in hand instead of a bow. The skeleton had wielded its violin as a hammer against us, the instrument now scattered into a thousand pieces around the room.

Its soul-flame eyes stared down at the slivers of the instrument's neck, radiating an aura of despair. Spike, Horn, and Nub took the moment to fell the skeleton like a large oak tree. The skeleton of Sir Melody the Songbird clattered onto the ground, and I placed my hand on its skull and said, "Harvest." The Notable Soul dropped into my tank with the other few I'd collected.

Three of the soul-cichlids swam about in my core, happily ignoring the seven minor souls that swam about as various colored guppies, and the two other soul-goldfish. The tank was crowded. Pride swelled. I was getting stronger.

"That never gets less creepy, man," Freddie said.

"You get used to it." I poked my head into Sir Melody's coffin, finding a few jewels and gems glistening in the blue torchlight.

"How long are these damn floors?" he groaned.

"They vary. This has been a doozy, though." We'd cleared around fifteen on this floor—each one just as ornate as the last. This had been the first actual dead-end. Freddie sighed.

"My companions will be long gone by now." Another rattle shook the floor, and my ears rang from the shockwave.

"Is he going to bring this whole place down on us?" Freddie asked.

"Shouldn't. If this whole tower could come down with just a few sticks of dynamite, it wouldn't be so intimidating."

"I'm not worried about the tower; I'm worried about the roof above us. More and more dust keeps coming down, and the pillars themselves are cracking." Another blast went off, this time followed by a loud CRACK! as the wall ahead of us crumbled. Shards of stone battered against me, leaving a dozen small cuts across my bare flesh. I grumbled, noting the several new holes in my t-shirt. I groaned. Grelgo stepped through.

"Ah! There you are. We'd been looking for you. Thought you got lost."

"I said no more explosives."

"And yet, they continue, and nothing bad has happened. See? You have nothing to worry about." [I'm going to send my rats to chew through his stomach while he sleeps.] My grip tightened around my blade.

"Enough. I won't take your disrespect any longer." Another explosion. Grelgo chortled.

"Okay. No more after that one." He spread his hands out.

"Looks like you hit a dead end, anyway. We can walk back together." He and his trigger-happy goblins walked back through the shattered wall, leaving Freddie and I staring. Freddie pulled me aside.

"You need to be careful with him. I don't know the politics of all this yet, but I think he is planning on trying something."

"I don't doubt it," I said.

"Just stay close. If he tries anything, I can handle it." Mostly a lie. I didn't doubt that Grelgo would try to kill me at some point. But I knew he wouldn't try anything now. Too much of the dungeon was unknown to do something so risky.

"We haven't found the boss room yet," Grelgo said as we wound our way through several more rooms.

"But we're close. I can feel it." We arrived in a hallway with several goblins panting and patching up wounds. They eyed us warily.

"Report," Grelgo barked.

"They're getting tougher. We lost two in the last room. Some of those new undead—" Grelgo waved his hand at them.

"Shame." I drew my sword and smiled.

"Let's get going, then." Pipes and exhaust vents jutted down from the ceiling, bursts of steam and rotten gas filling the room. Three upright wooden coffins sat in this room, pressed against the back wall. Each had a scrawling, illegible script around the edges. At the very center, they were stamped with a symbol I could only closely relate to a pentagram. Another burst of steam came out of a pipe above. The closer we got to the exit, the more evidence there was of the foundry being above us.

While the catacombs never became less regal, they morphed into something more… mechanical. As I inched into the room, the coffins shook.

"What are these?" I asked.

"The dead that—" one of Grelgo's men started, but Grelgo pushed them aside. A single word echoed through my head. [Ghouls.] Ghouls? [Zombies empowered with a soul greater than their bodies can contain.] I swallowed, gripping the Carrion Blade in two hands. The blade, as usual, sent a pulse of instruction to me. One foot forward, arms held out at an angle. Deep breaths… A coffin blew open in a spray of splinters.

Slightly taller than me, a pale figure with bulging muscles, sharp teeth, and stretched skin, burst forward. The differences between a ghoul and a regular old zombie were as clear as day. Zombies were unsettling. Ghouls were fucking terrifying. The ghoul crossed the room in a blur of rotten flesh, drips of saliva spattering across the floor. It met my blade with a single hand, grabbing on tight and attempting to rip it away from me.

When I pulled back, it latched its other hand onto my wrist, overgrown fingernails digging deep. I yelped and backhanded the ghoul. The creature snarled, but it relinquished its grip, raising both claws to swipe at me in unison. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The Carrion Blade rang through the air as I cut through both the creature's arms. They squelched lifelessly on the ground beneath us.

Unfazed, the ghoul lurched forward, opening its jaw wider than should be humanly possible, wicked fangs jutting outward. I let the blade move me, spinning away from the ghoul's chomp. Teeth slapped teeth, and it staggered. I swung the blade back, digging deep into its spine. The ghoul howled and collapsed on the floor. Freddie sent an arrow into its skull, then another. Its legs immobilized, it clawed forward towards Freddie, refusing to die or give in.

My three skeletons arrived, their axes primed and ready to dig into the ghoul's neck. One after another, they swung down, and only on the third swing did the neck sever and the soul escape from the body.

"What the fuck was that!" Freddie shouted.

"Three arrows to the fucking brain!"

"And three chops of the axe," Grelgo muttered.

"Tough bastards." The two other coffins exploded open, two more ghouls bursting onto the scene to avenge their friend. I waved my sword in a wide arc to keep them away. Pointless. One leaped over the sweep, claws spread out, and landed feet-first on my shoulders. It opened its jaws and lurched downward to rip through my scalp. An arrow whistled forward, catching the ghoul in the open mouth and shattering a few teeth. Black, ichorous blood poured onto me, the stench of rotting flesh flooding into my nostrils.

I coughed and tried to use the arrow's momentum to swing the ghoul off of me. Its claws dug in deeper, each point flaring with pain, and it brought me down with it. I dropped my sword, raising both hands up to catch the ghoul's throat, shoving it forward with every ounce of strength I could muster. Even with the arrow jutting from its mouth, the thing moved as if nothing had happened at all. Arrow after arrow flew past us as we rolled on the floor. I dug deep down, reaching into my core for help.

There was a single ability that I had not used—one that I had gathered from the Major soul on the last floor.

"Tendrils!" I yelled, and plucked out Sir Melody's Notable Soul. Blue veins shot from the palm of my hand, whipping forward and piercing through the ghoul. The veins expanded, becoming more akin to the tentacles of an octopus. Each was an extension of my body, a new muscle to bend. I hammered the ghoul against the ceiling and then the floor. The tendrils pulsed, and I squeezed. Blood poured out from the gashes in my shoulders—a slew of cuts and scrapes covered me from head to toe.

I stood regardless, ignoring the pain as I constricted the ghoul and squeezed. Bones clattered next to me, and I was thrown from my feet yet again. Swinging one of my skeleton companions, the second ghoul crushed Spike's skull and slammed the rest of its disassembling body into me. It grabbed Nub, crushing the last flickers of life out of the skeleton's eyes, and charged me. Two connections, severed in the span of seconds. It was as if a tether had snapped inside of me—a rubber band thwapping against my core.

The same loss that I felt when Limpy had been destroyed. Rage. I squeezed my tendrils tighter around the first ghoul. Bones popped. Skin ripped. The ghoul twisted, clawing at freedom but finding no release. Using the ghoul like a hammer, I raised it high, crushing it into the ceiling, and brought it down onto the second. A spray of ichor painted the walls, and I squeezed harder still. I slammed again. And again. And again. There was a cry of shock from elsewhere in the room. I didn't care.

The anger fed me— cured me—of my loss. I painted the room with black gore, pulverizing each ghoul into the other. Both became nothing but pulp. The energy of the notable soul faded, and my tendrils disappeared. The souls of both corpses escaped into the ether, and I was left with my eyes shut, panting. My core burned. [Brutal.] When I opened my eyes, Freddie stared at me, shaking. Or was I shaking? Only one of my skeletons remained—Horn. Its helmet had been dented in, the horns broken off.

Its ribs had been shattered, an arm crusted to dust. It lay on the floor, blue-flamed eyes flickering.

"You're a monster," Freddie stuttered. Grelgo and his men walked into the room, whistling. He stopped at my discarded blade, looking down on it with pity. His finger twitched.

"You sure handled that." My nostrils flared, and I almost launched a soul at him to stop from grabbing it. But he never tried. I picked the Carrion Blade off the ground and moved past Freddie and the goblins. To my last remaining skeleton. It tried to stand, but was too broken. Not only had the rib cage been shattered, but the spine had been severed—cracked. The power of the Common Soul pulsing inside couldn't repair that much damage. It rolled its neck around to look at me, flaming eyes wincing.

It clicked its jaw, head lowered. It's not your fault, I signalled. Sorry that happened. I can put you in a stronger body. One less frail. {Thank… you…} the skeleton signalled, voice weak, barely a whisper compared to someone like Sir Gideon. I had activated Commune without even realising it. I closed my eyes and harvested the soul back into my core, where it dropped as a lethargic goldfish. Freddie's eyes were on me, brows squishing together.

I wiped my face clean of rotten blood—more smearing it around than anything else.

"Does anyone have a clean rag?" Grelgo reached into his pocket and tossed me a snotty handkerchief.

"Knock yourself out." I let it fall to the floor. A heavy stone door sat at the end of this room. While I had gotten out the worst of my anger, I craved more destruction.

"You think that's the boss room?"

"Aye. That's what the last one looked like," Grelgo said. I pushed the door open. A frigid chill cut through the air, and my breath condensed in the sudden temperature shift.

"Ah! Company?" A gravelly voice choked out.

"Don't mind the mess." My vision cleared, revealing an ancient laboratory amongst the catacombs. Pipes funnelled into the room from all directions, most jutting down from the ceiling above. A man in dark robes stood over a table of bones and turned to meet my gaze. He wore an old, cracked leather plague doctor mask, dark orange lenses covering their eyes. The man from the fifth floor. [I… I am not sure. This isn't right. This is…] Karen's voice faded away, disappearing like a distant thought.

The plague doctor tilted his head to the side, a scratchy voice filling the room.

"I'm glad we meet at last. And in a mood, too!" He grabbed a cleaver off the table and smashed it down into the skeleton they were assembling, snapping several bones in half.

"I've been so bored, waiting for you to finally arrive. To get a proper test of what you're capable of." [You should leave. Travis, this isn't…I'm not sure…] I marched forward. Don't worry. We can handle this guy. The plague doctor raised his hands and cackled.

"Come and play, he who thinks he can control this place!" The bones around the room shuffled and clattered together, spiralling into something that I wouldn't quite call a human form. Four legs, six arms, and half a dozen skulls sat atop ever-broadening shoulders. The same style of abomination that Hollow fought on the last floor. The same creature who almost killed her. Just far, far uglier. The bone monstrosity shook the floor with each step, six arms swinging in every direction.

It moved with a precision that none of the other dead managed—no wasted motion, no stumbling over its own limbs. And its eyes. Instead of blue, they burned orange. What does that mean? [The soul. It's no ordinary soul. Major tier but… twisted.] A long pause spanned between us. [Travis. The man in the mask. His energy. It's the same energy—the same power you have.] I raised the Carrion Blade and swallowed. Grelgo's men gathered around me, expressions pale. Even Freddie stood at the back of the room, bow drawn.

So he hadn't run off. That was good. I'm going to need a better explanation than that, I signalled to Karen. [Lets just say that I have a pretty good idea of where your skulls have gone.]"Oh," I muttered.