Chương 165

-0-0-0-0-0- Vannig Lagune, The Eleventh Floor, The Dungeon -0-0-0-0-0- Doris, the Oceanid, leaned forward, resting her head on her hands and her elbows on the shore as she looked down at the humans.

"I've never met a human before!" she stated, reaching out to poke at one of the little humans, probably a calf, who was barely the length of her forearm.

"You're... a lot smaller than I'd thought you'd be."

"Uh... Well, you're a lot bigger than I thought mermaids would be," the calf said, stopping her finger short of his chest.

"Normally they're our size... You wouldn't happen to be part Orca, would you?"

"That's what we were before The Creator elevated us, yes," Doris answered with a nod as she pulled her hand back. The water on the shore around her roiled and broke upon the shore particularly loudly as she shifted her weight.

"I'll admit, I like it much better. Having hands is so useful! It's much easier than grabbing things with your mouth."

"Us? How many of you are there?" The little female calf dressed in orca colours asked politely. Doris decided she liked that one.

"Hm. I'm not sure anymore, to be honest," Doris admitted, raising her eyes to think.

"With all the calves that've been born recently, the city is practically buzzing."

"A whole city?" The third human calf asked, sounding shocked. This one is wearing a necklace over his bare chest... The necklace. So that's what that call was!

"Yes!" Doris exclaimed, clapping her hands together as she leaned forward again.

"The Creator had an underwater city all ready to go when He remade us. It's beautiful! The buildings are all the right size for us, and we still have plenty of space to expand! The ocean floor is pretty barren, but that means there's lots of room to farm!"

"What would they even farm down there?" One of the fully grown humans standing behind the calves said to the other. Quietly, not something he was actually asking. Doris decided to answer anyway.

"We farm fish, of course!" She said, as if it were obvious because it was!

"But most fish don't like the open ocean; it's too scary for them. So, we grow kelp forests for them to live in and maintain reefs closer to the surface. We also farm shellfish and sea grapes in shallower waters."

"I thought orcas were carnivores?" The calf with the shirt on said.

"We were, and still are," Doris admitted.

"But sea grapes make excellent jellies and jams, which pair perfectly with a plate of salmon!"

"Do you happen to farm pearls?" the female calf asked. Doris nodded with a smile.

"We do!" She answered.

"Clams can get pretty big, even without being monsters, so some of the pearls are huge, even if the work is a little dangerous."

"Where is this city?" the shirtless calf asked, with a tilted head.

"Just below us, actually!" Doris answered frankly.

"Did you want to visit? I should probably ask the matriarch if that'd be okay first, though..."

"That certainly sounds... interesting. Who's your matriarch, by the way?" The female calf asked, after sharing a glance with the other calves.

"Metis," Doris answered, before putting on what she would call an 'accurate' imitation of her matriarch's voice." Queen of the Oceanids. Honestly, though, she's still grandma to most of us. But anyway, yeah, I'm definitely going to need to ask her. Oh, and if you use that necklace again, it'll signal whoever's closest that you're nearby, Oceancaller."

"What do you mean, Oceancaller? My name's Bruce," the shirtless calf insisted. Doris giggled as she sidled backwards into deeper waters.

"Whatever you say, Oceancaller," Doris teased.

"See you around, cuties!" Before they could answer, she slipped under the water and passed the offshore bar in seconds. The swim down the slope and into the deep waters was only a few minutes more, and she soon came upon the arches and columns of her home. Thonis, as she had explained to the human calves, was bustling. Oceanids swam serenely through the waters, going about their days. Almost all the older females were followed by a pod of calves that endlessly chattered and played amongst themselves.

Doris waved cheerfully to one such group and received a dozen waves from the excitable children and their tired-looking mother, Pasiphae. Doris sometimes pitied the members of her herd who had so many children. Yes, they looked happy, but it wasn't something they'd expected at the time. Apparently, it was something The Creator had done to boost their initial numbers, without thought. He apologized afterwards; He'd done it without thinking, as it was something he did with most new species in the dungeon.

Doris was thankful that The Creator had already adjusted their fertility so that she wouldn't be giving birth to so many calves at once... If she managed to find a mate. The main problem was that all the males had already been taken, and they weren't exactly roaming the ocean anymore. They couldn't just swim across another pod, where she might meet a male that caught her eye... Doris refocused as she made way for a disgruntled Oceanid Sharkherd, Neaera, as she herded a pod of sharks through a wide avenue.

Twice, Doris saw her keep them from lunging at the colourful pet fish following another Oceanid, Meliboea. Doris waved at them both as she swam past, between the ornamental columns that led towards the 'palace.' Doris snorted at the thought. It was only a palace in the sense that their 'queen' lived there. It was only slightly larger than the other buildings to house Metis and her mate. Doris surfaced, mid-transformation, as she ascended the steps.

Her tail swung ponderously behind her as she looked about the entry room.

"Grandma! Where are you?"

"In the kitchen, dear!" Doris followed her grandmother's voice into the kitchen, her wet, bare feet padding the cool tiles as she poked her head into the decently-sized kitchen. Grandma Metis was pulling a tray of... something, out of the oven.

"What are you making?" Doris asked, looking at the disks of light brown with dark brown chunks.

"Something called Cookies," Grandma Metis answered as she put the tray down on the benchtop. She turned away, took off those bulky gloves, then turned back. The old Oceanid squinted at Doris, crossing her arms.

"Well, what do you want, Doris?"

"Hm?" Doris froze, a cookie already in her mouth.

"Ah. Ahem. Someone found the Oceancaller Necklace! A group of humans! They're so small!" Metis sighed in fond exasperation as Doris launched into her retelling. Grandma was the best! -0-0-0-0-0- The Creator, Occupied Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea -0-0-0-0-0- Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. There was so much happening in the dungeon now that I was more thankful for Polish and Old Man Losat's help with every passing day.

Without the ability to split my attention so effectively, I'd have been lost and overwhelmed, forced to focus on only one thing at a time. As it was, I was barely keeping on top of things. On the Twelfth Wave, Taura and Cadmus taught the wyrmlings to fly. Drakeridge was the largest settlement on the Twelveth, though with so many Children moving to the southern plains, that might change soon. Huea and her necromancers were with that migration. However, I knew they intended to travel all the way to the volcano.

The three groups of friendly humans exploring the Eleventh were getting into hijinks left and right all across the Elemental Isles. I was constantly going over and adjusting traps, monsters, and environments throughout the dungeon, editing old murals and ruins to turn the nonsense runes into proper Runic. The ratten were calming from their near-frenzy as word spread that the crusaders were close.

They'd agreed to a ceasefire until either the Crusaders pushed through and killed them all, or they managed to push the Crusaders back. They'd taken the fact I'd had a number of them sent downward already to mean they were to die with glorious purpose, to the last, since their species would survive. I tried to convince them otherwise, but they were as fanatical as the Crabs had been, just in a different way.

On the Third, the crusaders were preparing for their push to the Fourth, after fortifying their portal to the hells and back. While ordinary soldiers and weaker guilders held the line, the main group of templars, summoned heroes, and guilders forced their way into the slide to Mushu's old arena. On the surface, I watched with glee through my mousy spies as soldiers collapsed at their posts or failed to turn up for their shifts.

They'd noticed their food spoiling, and managed to save some, but they'd had to start rationing until the next supply ship came. On that note, any ship that lingered in port mysteriously sank, and the harbour was getting pretty hazardous from all the masts sticking out of the water. Pan, the Life Templar, was too busy in the barracks healing sick and hungry soldiers and guilders to do much else. At the same time, the (comparatively) weaker summoned heroes guarded the portal with an honour guard of soldiers.

Easy pickings, with a couple of caveats. The portal was in the town's main square, next to my old church, the bank, and the main drag. One of the only upsides of the crusaders occupying the port town was that I'd been infiltrating it for as long as it'd existed. I'd watched it be built, stone by stone. It just so happened that the town's sewer system ran directly under the portal, and I just so happened to have access to Earth Golems capable of moving through stone like it's air.

One part of me coordinated the boss fight on the Third; the manashield enchantment seemed to be working, since Mr Laser Eye's beams were proving... ineffective... against the Chimeric Tiger and the manticore adds that'd replaced Mushu as the floor boss. All three monsters were large and powerful, the Chimera most of all. With three tiger heads and the snake tail, each imbued with a different affinity, it was a true force of chaos on the battlefield.

Beams of energy from the four mouths immediately forced the guilders to raise shields, and the heads could stagger their attacks so one head was always casting, while the others planned. The snakehead's dexterous body kept the guilders in sight at all times, even as the monster passed one of the pillars supporting the roof. The Manticores, on the other hand, with their wings more suited for enhanced agility than true flight, leapt around the edges of the arena.

They shot their quills into the guilder's defensive formation, keeping them on the back foot. Wherever Mr Laser Eye's beams swept across any of the monsters, glowing hexagonal plates of mana appeared, absorbing as much as they could to strengthen the shield and reflecting the rest, acting like disco balls as they moved around the arena. They still lost, of course, but they occupied the crusaders long enough for the other part of my plan to go into action.

As the crusaders started the battle, on the surface, an incredibly thin coat of stone crept up the portal frame's side, moving slowly and carefully to avoid notice. It reached the top near the end of the battle, without any of the guards so much as twitching. The thin layer of stone pushed its way under the space core on all sides simultaneously, and with a quiet pop, the gem slipped from its housing, straight into a hole beneath it. The hole was only there when the core fell and was gone within the next second.

The first sign the guards had that anything was wrong was a buzzing, then a low whine. They turned to the portal to see the glow of its arch fading, the image through it flickering, then disappearing entirely. By the time they'd gathered their wits enough to raise the alarm, the core had been whisked away through the sewers and into a prepared tunnel. The stone golem responsible flowed down the tunnel, closing it behind them using the stone around the hole. It was the perfect crime.

-0-0-0-0-0- The Guardian Arena, The Third Floor, The Dungeon -0-0-0-0-0- First Crusader Haliet ended the fight decisively, twisting his sword one final time as he drove it into the monster's last head. Once he was sure it was dead, he wrenched it from the eye socket and let the monster's blood pour out onto the flagstones. The arena was finally silent, besides the noise of his fellow crusaders gathering themselves. Haliet glared at the three-headed beast, his eyes flicking between its heads.

Even when they'd killed one, the others had remained active, making it a far more drawn-out battle than they'd intended. By all accounts, this floor was where they were supposed to have encountered the 'Children' of the creator for the first time, specifically the 'Immortal' monsters that acted as trials. Instead, their chambers were abandoned, and the Guardian had been replaced with these three... abominations.

"So many affinities, and the knowledge to use them," Gregg whispered, and Haliet turned to see him standing over one of the quill-tailed tigers, its core in his hand already.

"That enchantment... those hexagonal shields... It's adapting."

"Be silent," Haliet commanded, his voice echoing in the relatively small arena. Seeing he had everyone's attention, he continued in battle-sign. Move quick to the next floor. Prepare area spells. Rats are numerous and aggressive. Nods and grunts told him his commands were received, and the group moved silently to the door, which opened as they approached. Automated, he saw Artic sign. Tied to Guardian's death. They descended the staircase behind the door and quickly found the entrance to the Fourth.

The hallway the stairwell opened onto was less a hallway and more of a sewer pipe. Barely large enough to fit two hunched men abreast, the sides of the sewer had thin ledges separated by a stream of brownish, sludgy water that led away, deeper into the dungeon. Along the sides of the main sewer, pipes of various sizes jutted out, some dripping foul water into the stream below. The darkness within them swallowed all the light that shone into them in only a foot or so. Follow the water flow, Haliet ordered.

Watch all sides. Block feed pipes. After making sure his orders were heard, they followed the tunnel for a dozen or so yards before finding it subtly curved to the left, making it hard for those at the back to see those at the front, despite the light enchantments everyone wore. A shout came up from the back of the group.

"The stairway's gone!" It was the next moment that they realized they were already under attack. The noise of thousands upon thousands of rats abruptly began echoing up the pipe from either side. Haliet saw countless eyes appear and disappear as the rats crawled over one another to reach the crusaders first. Artic moved first, freezing the water beneath them into a dirty brown ice that filled the sewer ahead. Orange light burst from behind them as the summoned hero Vikram did likewise with his fire.

Then the rats began pouring out of the smaller pipes, and the vermin were amongst them within seconds. The smaller ones, Haliet soon found, were more dangerous than the larger. He'd been told that the rats swarmed in groups, each exhibiting their own type of mana or style of fighting. Here, he found one wreathed in lightning, who shot a bolt at him. The enchantments of his armour absorbed the bolt, but the bright flash was enough to distract him, and he suddenly felt claws on his back.

As Haliet whirled, Artic moved, a blade of ice cutting through the rats in one smooth motion. He continued his turn and saw the few that survived the strike slip into the shadows. Haliet stomped, channelling a spell as he did, and a pulse of light erupted from under his foot, throwing back the growing horde in a cone, facing away from Artic, who fought at his back. The sharp light pierced and burned, though some survived by being behind their fellows.

A reddish rat as tall as its hip, wreathed in flame, screeched and launched fireballs from its hands. Haliet raised his shield, and with a pulse of light, the fireball dissipated on his shield. The sound of combat intensified, as did the rhythmic thumping on the ice wall beside him, hairline cracks slowly growing and an ominous glow shining through the dirty ice. Soon, though, a pulse of shadow magic swept about their legs, deepening the shadows thrown by their light enchantments.

Razor-sharp tentacles grew from those shadows, lashing out at all the rodents around them, even those shadow-rats that tried to take advantage of the darkness to launch an assault. Haliet smiled grimly. Their work was only just beginning. -0-0-0-0-0-