Chương 45: Forming Up

At first, all I smelled was dust. It was like the attic of my grandparents' house. I stepped to the edge of the balcony. It was made of patinated white marble, and it overlooked a massive underground cavern from a wall near the top. This cavern's walls were bare stone, dark gray, but there was enough glowing lichen and other plants that I could make out the general shape of the cave. The bottom floor contained thousands of buildings arranged in a city-like grid.

Most of their walls were made of plaster and white marble, and they had clay tile roofs that had gone gray with layers upon layers of dust. Vines and other plants grew in the cracks in the old brick streets.

"What the hell is this place?" I breathed.

"Never been in a Labyrinth before?" Anchor scolded.

"Never this deep," I said.

"Wait, you have been in Labyrinths before?" he asked.

"I was joking. I didn't think any of us had."

"One, it was a bad joke. Two, remember what I said about chatter?" They all nodded. I glanced back out over the balcony railing. Already, groups of lights followed roads through the city in the distance. There was an explosion of dust across the way, and in the distance, a Dupe's screams echoed through the cave. Steel clanged somewhere in the city, and the air thrummed when someone used an Art.

"Other teams are down there," I said.

"They're getting ahead of us. Come on. Anchor, what direction do we go when we reach the bottom of the stairs?"

"Head left and travel down the road for a short while." I nodded, then turned to the side. A stairway built into the side of the cavern wound down to the main level of the city below. As we descended, I stared out at the buildings. Most of them would've once had wood ornaments, but most of the exterior wood had crumbled. The Labyrinth Keepers didn't seem to care to maintain the wood, but the stone was pristine—even when it came to the regular houses.

We raced down the street at a light jog, following Anchor's directions.

"What's our listed objective?" I asked.

"Reach the tower and disable the enemy command post," Anchor said.

"Enemy?" Sage asked.

"They mean simulated enemies," Brawl answered.

"The sappers have loaded this place up with monsters."

"Keep your eyes peeled, then," I said.

"We're up against the clock, and there are far too many crevices for things to hide in. I don't like this."

"Should we take a different route?" Sage asked.

"Something that's less direct but safer?" I chewed my lip for a few seconds, then shook my head.

"No. Stay on course. We need to be fast. And we need to show them that we can follow orders if we have to." They all nodded, and we continued on down the roadway. Our route turned through the remains of a market. Most of the stalls were gone—anything that wasn't made of wood—but I didn't mind. It was open enough. At least, that was, until a faint growl seeped out from across the way. A trio of ruin-hounds puppies emerged from an alleyway, and behind them stood a full-grown ruin-hound.

It was nearly triple the size of the pups, and its head rose as tall as mine. It bared a maw of yellow fangs.

"Go, go!" I hissed, pointing down the hallway (and motioning away from the giant, mangy wolf).

"Our task is to complete the objective, not to kill as much as we can. Don't worry about killing if we don't have to."

"I can stick that thing with an arrow," Anchor said, reaching for his bow.

"There's no need to run from the fight." I stopped and grabbed his wrist.

"Don't waste your arrows. We don't know what we'll need on the way out or the way back." He glanced at the wolf, and his fingers twitched." Don't engage," I said, keeping my voice firm.

"You want to win, don't you? We don't need a repeat of yesterday." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Anchor lowered his hand and gave a nod. We continued on, racing across the open rectangular plaza, then, on Anchor's instructions, dipping back into a hallway. We ran down it nearly ten steps before a wall exploded in front of us. A trio of black balls tumbled out, then unfolded into monsters made of black, oily tendrils—almost like living seaweed.

They were shaped like men, except they had four legs, and they all carried rusty swords. They let out a screech, then folded back into balls and rolled toward us.

"Shamblers!" Sage called.

"They're all Irons!" Anchor said.

"Call it, Levi."

"Brawl, hit the one on the left," I said.

"Anchor, hit the one on the right. I'm going for the one in the middle." Brawl swung his flail and smashed one of the Shamblers as it rolled toward us, almost like he was playing tennis. The iron head of the flail smashed through the Shambler's body, and when the beast unfolded, it was only half intact. Its strands were leaking black blood all across the ground. Anchor was taking aim, but if I stood around and did nothing, the second monster was going to close in on Brawl and get too close.

As it rolled forward, I speared it, stabbing through its outer coating. There were just Irons. No way was I wasting a Presence on these guys. My spear pierced through, and I kept pushing until it had rammed all the way out the monster's other side. It tried to unfold itself and attack me, but attached to my spear, I had it locked in place. As its head sprang up, I wrenched my spear to the side, sending it tumbling to the ground.

Before it could fold back up and keep rolling, I jumped atop it and drove my spear into its head. It may have looked like it was all one substance, but it had a pair of beady black eyes in the sides of its head, and I stabbed straight through them. After a few stabs, the Shambler went still. I glanced over at Brawl. With no second enemy to get in his way, he'd kept his foe at a distance and was beating it back with wide swipes of his flail.

Finally, he delivered a heavy smash, ripping through its head and reducing it to black mush. It fell still, just like mine. The third was already dead. Anchor had shot straight through it with an arrow, and it was stuck in ball form, with a hole all the way through its body. There was no time to harvest the Presences from the monsters. It was far more critical that we completed the objective.

"Form up and keep moving," I said.

"Anchor, keep watch behind us. I don't want those wolves sneaking up and catching us off guard. Sage, Keep watch to the left, and Brawl to the right."

"Understood," Anchor said immediately, and the others replied with a chorus of agreement. We continued on, racing down the street, following Anchor's instructions. When we reached an intersection, there was just enough room that I could see a tower peering over the tops of the other nearby buildings, taller than anything around it. It had white walls and was round, but there were plenty of ledges on the outside. And a single flag, dyed bright blue and bearing a glowing runic sigil, beckoned us.

"That's our target," Achor said. As far as I could tell, the route the map was taking us was the most direct route. We continued on at a jog, moving quickly. A trio of different ruin-hounds attacked from the side, but Sage alerted us. Anchor blasted two with an arrow and I stuck one with a spear before it could pose a serious threat. When we reached a narrow hall, a golem blocked the way.

Cracked pillars made up its entire form, reminding me of one of those wavy, inflatable guys that would flop around in front of a car dealership. Only this golem was far shorter and wider—it took up half the hallway—and had glowing blue eyes.

"What's that?" I asked.

"A pillar golem," Sage replied.

"Steel-tier. It's basically a troll."

"Pillar golem. Made of pillars. Right." We couldn't go around it. But much like the mud wraith that I'd killed earlier, it seemed to have a crystal inside its head, giving it power. I didn't want to get cocky, but it was only a Steel. I'd dealt with worse before.

"Brawl, can we get a resonance skill from you?" In my quick mental calculation, that was the fastest way to take it down. Not the most efficient, but fastest.

"I'll distract it, and I need you to annihilate its head."

"I understand, Brother." I raced forward, ducking under one of the golem's racing fists, then dove between its legs. Its upper body swivelled toward me, fists poised and ready to strike, but before it could hit me, a swell of pressure washed over it. Brawl's flail smashed into the golem's head and crushed the rock to dust in an instant. The glow faded, and the golem collapsed into a heap of inanimate rubble. Without another word, we kept moving.

The closer we drew to the tower, the more hollow clatters came ringing out of the adjacent alleyways—something akin to a horribly tuned and muffled xylophone. Finally, two streets away from the tower, a cluster of skeletons leapt out from cover. They were made of yellowed and blackened bone, and a few had formations of softly glowing blue crystal jutting out of their skulls or shoulders. There wasn't a shred of flesh remaining on them, but they still moved, and they carried rusty weapons.

One held a chipped sword—something that reminded me of a Roman legionaire, and another carried a spear just like mine, but with a bronze head.

"Animated corpses," Anchor muttered.

"These are common enough in Labyrinths," Sage replied.

"Especially in the lower city levels."

"You know that?"

"I was a very bored child, and I did nothing but read. And mess with my arcane senses. I can tell you what approximate tier they are—these are all Irons." The skeletons weren't interested in letting us take our time to discuss what they were, though. I pointed forward.

"Brawl, clear the way. I'll follow. We take out as many as we can, then continue on to the tower. A couple undead aren't going to stop us."