Chapter 334: Easy, Peezy, Manticore Squeezy

“The dungeon is definitely aware of us,” I stated. It was not a mental attack that I felt with my new mental defenses, just an awareness that we were under scrutiny.

“How do you know?” Raelia asked as she looked up into my eyes.

I didn’t want to reveal my abilities openly in case the dungeon understood what we were saying. The Shimmering Labyrinth seemed to object to my presence—or my methods—and I thought it was trying extra hard to get me to leave. “I just do. We should watch what we say and do while we are inside its influence.” Raelia nodded slowly, getting the message. I turned to make sure the others had heard.

Konstantin walked forward and said, “I don’t feel anything.” It was just like Konstantin not to believe me. He needed to confirm everything himself.

“You need to have the sensitivity of a mage to feel the change of aether in the environment. Dungeons pull aether to themselves from the ley lines and environment,” Raelia stated, suddenly supporting me.

“A mage?” Konstantin muttered, amused, while looking at me.

“We found the dungeon. Are we going to enter or go back and inform the Council in Eternis?” Maveith’s voice echoed in the passage behind us.

“We should enter the dungeon and find where it exits to the surface,” Konstantin voiced. “We can decide what to do after that. I would prefer not to have to climb all the way to the surface as well,” he grumbled. I had to agree, as it took us over a day to reach this point, and we encountered no obstacles, but climbing out would take twice as long.

“Just remember, the dungeon can hear us,” I reiterated as we silently descended into the passage. It was still the same rounded, bored passage, but the slope was much steeper. A small trickle of water flowed down the center of the passage, but it soon vanished into a crack in the floor. We paused several times as Konstantin and Navek inspected piles of dust with shared interest—ancient manticore fecal deposits, according to Navek. When we encountered more writing on the wall, Maveith translated.

Maveith’s hand traced the glyphs carved into the walls. “It says ‘Freedom is at hand—follow the signs and fly to freedom beneath the true sun.’” Maveith seemed to consider before adding, “It says something like, ‘slave no more.’” I wondered how a manticore had learned the stone giant language and script as Maveith finished.

The intelligence displayed made me uncomfortable as we had noted that the greater doppelgängers in the Shimmering Labyrinth had been contracted—or enslaved—to the dungeon. I didn’t want to be trapped for eternity serving a dungeon. Still, it didn’t stop us, and we proceeded for a few minutes before encountering a smooth wall blocking the tunnel.

I walked up to the wall and sent an earth pulse from my boots. “The wall is about a foot thick, and a large chamber is beyond. A barrier makes it difficult for my spell form to give a clear picture of what is in the chamber beyond.”

“It must be an entrance to a dungeon room. You cannot cast magic from a corridor into a dungeon room,” Raelia noted. Everyone agreed with her assessment, and we decided to find out what was on the other side.

“Smashing the stone using your maul would alert the creatures in the room. What about removing the stone with your stone shape spell form?” I was looking at Maveith. No one else had any ideas on gaining access to the dungeon stealthily. We agreed to remain silent as Maveith worked slowly, removing the stone by hand, focusing on creating a hole in the wall. He quickly made a foot-wide hole at eye level and soon punched a smaller peephole into the room beyond.

Light poured from the hole, and we covered all but one glowstone. Maveith had the first peek into the chamber. Konstantin was second, and when my turn came, I saw a massive domed chamber beyond. Ragged, rocky cliffs surrounded the room, with a single massive pearlescent bright glowstone in the center of the ceiling. A large pool of water dominated the center with an odd green glow. Small bushes dotted the rocky soil, but the room had no cover. A brightly lit corridor was directly opposite us, heading to other parts of the dungeon.

I scanned the cliffs, looking for a manticore, but the cliffs were too jagged and had too many hiding places, and I also couldn’t see what was above us. I noticed the edges of the hole Maveith had made were slowly closing, as if the wall was healing. Maveith moved to enlarge it again, but I stopped him and let the hole close. Navek and Raelia got a quick look as the hole narrowed. When it was closed, I whispered to my companions.

“It is a perfect environment to give a manticore all the advantages—a domed chamber maybe seventy yards across and at least that in height. The good news is that it is well-lit. We need to find out how many manticores there are before attempting to enter.”

Navek huffed impatiently. “It has to be one, possibly two, if the female is in the same room.” Navek believed the dungeon only spawned one male and one female manticore and released them periodically to harass his people.

“Never assume anything in a dungeon,” Konstantin cautioned. “Delvers rarely live if they make a single mistake.” Navek looked agitated, but he had formed a hunter’s bond with Konstantin and nodded in acceptance of the wisdom.

“Konstantin is right, and we knew nothing about this dungeon. Usually, the Adventurer’s Guild will have a comprehensive guide for a dungeon. This time, we don’t know what to expect,” Raelia said softly, supporting Konstantin’s caution.

Navek looked a little agitated as we reached his lifelong goal. He wanted to rush in and destroy this dungeon so the manticores it released would never bother his people again, and he could get his final vengeance for his family. I sympathized with him, but I was not going to risk my life or my friends’ lives needlessly.

Konstantin said thoughtfully, “We should scout the room from just a small hole. Hopefully, the hole will go unnoticed by the creature within, and we can learn what we are facing.”

Maveith offered an optimistic opinion. “It could be a safe room.”

Raelia shook her head. “No, not something that large. That is definitely a habitat, and as Eryk said, perfect for a manticore.”

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We spent some time setting up defenses in the passage. If something came down the corridor from behind or the dungeon destroyed the wall separating us from the domed chamber, we could retreat behind the defenses. Then Maveith created a spy hole and kept it open until he ran out of aether. He could keep it open for about an hour before he needed to recover his aether.

During his second round of keeping the hole open, Raelia was watching the room and hissed softly in excitement. “A giant mole!” Konstantin moved her aside to look.

“Damn, the manticore just swooped down from above us.” Konstantin moved aside and let me look. A manticore was tearing apart a dog-sized gray-furred creature. It was completely oblivious to our presence as flesh and bone were consumed noisily. The jaws of the manticore easily snapped and crunched the bone, causing echoes in the room. Konstantin whispered to Maveith, “Keep just a tiny hole open.”

After the manticore completely consumed the mole, it went to the pool and drank its fill before turning around. I don’t think it noticed the dime-sized hole as it flapped its wings and flew above us. I let the hole close. I explained what I had seen, and Navek said excitedly, “It just feasted. It will likely fall asleep to digest its meal. If there were two, they would have fought over the meal. We can catch the one unawares.” The goliath hunter was too anxious to fight and not cautious enough, in my opinion.

No one else had a better idea, so once Maveith had recovered his aether, he opened a three-foot-wide hole before running completely out of aether. I entered first because, of course, I was accustomed to being the bait, but I also had the aether shield amulet. I stepped softly on the ground as I looked up for the manticore. Konstantin was the second one through. The hole was closing too quickly for the goliaths to make it through, so Raelia was the third one through. She immediately started to form a fireball upon entering the room.

I started backing toward the center of the room, looking where I had seen the manticore fly up to. A stone shelf about thirty feet up had a prone form of the manticore. It was facing the exit on the far side, but its eyes were closed. Konstantin moved to my left, his bow readied, and Raelia to the right, her fireball growing. We nodded to each other, indicating we were not going to wait for the goliaths. I backed up toward the pool of water, waiting for the manticore to notice me.

When it didn’t move, I intentionally scuffed my boots on the rocky ground. I wanted it to come to me, not for me to come to it. The manticore’s horrid face finally lazily opened one eye. Its sleepy look suggested that it thought it was dreaming. It yawned slowly, bits of flesh on its crooked teeth. With both eyes now open, it rolled to its feet and hissed, tensing and coming alert.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked in my poor stone giant. The manticore's quilled tail had arched behind it, but it suddenly paused, tilting its head in confusion. I hadn’t learned too much of the goliath and stone giant language on the voyage, but I could stumble through it.

The manticore had definitely understood the words, but I guessed the answer was no as the tail snapped forward, and a spray of poisoned quills swarmed toward me. My air shield protected me from a half dozen of the projectiles, but the air shield failed under the barrage, and my aether amulet flashed and deflected the last two.

The manticore wasn’t happy when Konstantin’s first arrow stuck in the side of its neck. It dove off the cliff at Konstantin, Raelia’s fireball darting toward the manticore with its spread leathery wings. The explosion enveloped the manticore and caused it to tumble out of the air to the ground in a tangle of limbs and wings. Its mane was smoldering, but it was not even close to death—and it was angry. Konstantin was backpedaling while firing his bow. I intercepted the grounded manticore with my black spear.

Maveith’s arms were extended through the hole, and he fired an arrow into the manticore’s flank, causing it to turn around in surprise. This gave me the opportunity to drive Heartseeker into its chest cavity. The beast turned quickly, and my spear tip caught on its shoulder, penetrating deeply but failing to deliver a killing blow.

I saw the tail whipping behind it, and I cursed. I released the spear and rolled away as a second wave of barbs flew. A manticore was not supposed to be able to use this attack again so quickly after the first. One of the poisoned barbs pierced my calf, and I grunted in pain as the poison caused my leg to flare with intense pain. Even though the pain burned, my mind stayed clear and focused.

I didn’t want to show the dungeon my dimensional space kill, but I might not have a choice, as I went to one knee as my calf cramped. I pulled the spike the rest of the way through my calf and instinctively sent healing to close the wound.

Konstantin had discarded his bow, as his arrows were merely a nuisance to the beast’s thick hide. He had drawn both of his swords and yelled to divert the creature’s attention away from me while I recovered. The spear hampered its movements as the leaf tip point was likely causing significant internal damage.

Konstantin’s new runic weapon landed first with a flashing spark, shocking and paralyzing the other shoulder with an electric discharge that instantly caused the smell of ozone to assault me. He slide-stepped to the creature's rear and hacked at the tail, trying to sever the barbed end unsuccessfully with the Death Hunter blade.

Raelia had started to form a second fireball as I stood, with my healing far enough along to continue. My mind fortress muted the pain from the poison, and I pulled the broadsword into my hand. Using the large blade two-handed, I hacked down into the neck of the distracted manticore. I caught enough of the spine to shatter the vertebrae and sever the spinal cord. The manticore collapsed in a heap. It struggled to breathe as it could no longer control its body. It made foul sounds and curses in the stone giant language.

Konstantin hacked the neck again to prevent the beast from ever rising again. I then started purifying the manticore poison from my body and completing the healing. It was an ugly battle, but we won. The collector was immediately in my hand as I harvested the beast. In the background, large thuds sounded as Maveith used his hammer to enlarge the hole. The thick blue aether was pulled from the manticore’s body into the collector and quickly formed an apex essence of channeling.

I looked up to Konstantin, who made a smile, but it quickly disappeared. He nodded resolutely at our success. “I will go find the reward chest.”

“I will help!” Raelia voiced excitement at the prospect of treasure.

Maveith and Navek joined us in the room, and we watched the dungeon seal our exit. Konstantin and Raelia soon returned with a modest-sized, fancy-looking wooden chest. We opened it under everyone's watchful eyes. The simple latch flipped up, and the lid opened soundlessly. Inside was a bed of silver coins and a red leather-bound book.

Raelia took the initiative to peruse the pages. We waited for her to give her appraisal. “It is an air spell, a very complex one, more complex than something I can learn—maybe something to do with influencing the weather.” She closed it unhappily. I knew she had an affinity of only twenty-seven in air magic. I took the book and sent it to my dimensional space.

As Konstantin divided up the silver coins, I wandered to the pool of water. The pool was illuminated by a glowstone at the bottom, which is why it appeared to glow. The backlighting highlighted a handful of large fish swimming in the water. We would definitely be doing some fishing before searching for the dungeon exit.

“What are we going to call the dungeon?” Konstantin asked as we explored the room for harvestables. I was kneeling by one of the bushes. I thought the bush was a type of tea leaf, but I was not confident.

“What?” I said, looking up.

“We discovered the dungeon, so we get to name it,” Konstantin responded disinterestedly. “What should we call this dungeon?”

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