Chapter Twenty-Two

Natural Evils

Wraith waited in the reeds shrouded in darkness with the rest of his party as they waited. Wraith could feel something tracking him something that was his, he did not know what it was and had ignored this feeling for days but now he planned to use whatever was coming as a distraction. He watched as under the light of the setting sun five ships gliding across the wind came from the east.

“So, they continue to hunt me even now,” Wraith said closing his eyes and reaching out for Marith’s presence. He could not feel her, but he did encounter another female he had met. “Aura,” he whispered remembering the human he had lain with. “So, you have come with my enemy and have pitted yourself against me. A pity, you will have to be punished.”

The rest or Wraith’s party were hidden about the lake having cloaked themselves from Dryad’s sight. They couldn’t enter her dungeon and remain undetected, but they were safe on the outskirts of her territory. They watched as the ships circled around and the bottom of the ship opened up lowering down a ramp and ranks of soldiers in white and gold trimmed armor filled out and began marching towards the lake.

The water rippled and the trees swayed as Dryad detected the presence of the intruders and mustered her minions. Elves with glowing green eyes emerged from the base of the willow tree and ran across the top of the water with longbows strung and arrows at the ready. Treants lumbered to forward picking up rocks to hurl and warriors made of wood and vines carried emerald green great-swords and charged forward to intercept the human army.

When the minions had stopped their advance Wraith stood up and Faceless rose next to him and they and the rest of the party pulled two canoes out of the reeds and set them in the water and began paddling across the river. They landed on the island and Wraith looked back at the fires that were starting to burn through the forest.

“This is how it ends for you Dryad,” he promised a smile tugging at his mouth. He drew his dueling wand and rapier and descended down. They immediately felt Dryad take notice of them and Wraith felt a thrill at her sense of alarm.

What is the meaning of this? Dryad said incensed. To send minions into another dungeon is a declaration or war when I torture you for your master’s name, I will raise your home’s to the ground!

“Oh my dear,” Wraith said with a laugh, “You should examine us more closely, we are not mere minions we are your rivals who you have cast aside. I am afraid that you will not be waging war on anyone again.”

You think you can fight me while hosted inside your minion’s body, Dryad laughed, that is a new one but don’t think I don’t have ways of getting around the rules to deal with you. Just because you are hosted in a minions body doesn’t mean your safe.

“We have no minions Dryad you saw fit to that,” Wraith said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a dungeon to destroy.”

They walked down the corridor and came to a fork in the tunnel. Wraith motioned to his party and they spilt forces and began traveling down each tunnel to cover as much ground as possible. While ordinarily, this would have been a bad strategy Wraith new, they needed to explore as much of the dungeon as possible before any of Dryad’s minions could extricate themselves from the battle above and make their way back to assist her.

Wraith emerged into a circular room with lit by green-glass lanterns casting the area in an eerie glow. There was growling and a pack of dogs charged Wraith and his half of the party. Wraith extended his rapier but then, the dogs vanished. A moment later they appear behind them their teeth tearing into them getting through the gaps in their armor. Wraith struck out with his rapier decapitating and skewering another as Fear and Faceless burned and stabbed the rest.

They pressed forward going off at a jog. Choker-vines tried to yank them off their feet and roots tried to trip them into falling into walls of spears, but they burned and cut their way through the traps. They ran down endless tunnels and rooms encounter the few rogue monsters that had been left behind until they finally rounded a tunnel and heard the distant battle cries of the other half of their party. They took off at a run and caught up with them just as they finished off a giant multi-headed turtle whose fiery breath had scorched the walls of the room.

“Stairs are over there,” Furry said pointing her massive great-sword at a spirals staircase made or roots and large flat stones. “How many levels do you think there are to this?”

“I am guessing at least five or six, each one will be slightly larger than the other,” Wraith said. “We’d best hurry one way or another that battle up above isn’t going to keep her minions occupied for very long and I don’t fancy getting swarmed.”

They leaped down the stairs two at a time and divided up again and began traveling down the tunnels. Fear grabbed Wraith by the shoulder and pulled him back.

“Let me handle this,” she said and extended a hand.

She made a series of gestures while chanting under her breath. A pinpoint of fire appeared and then grew larger and larger until a ball of fire the size of a bolder roared in front of them. Furry gave a push of her hand and the sphere of raging flames began rolling in front of them searing the roots and burning away all the plants in their path and trigger traps and destroying them.

They sprinted down the tunnel after the flaming sphere as it cleared the path. There was a roar as a green scaled reptile leaped through the fire and pounced at them. Wraith dropped to the ground and rolled under the reptile pulling his duel wand free and firing up into the monster’s head spattering its brain’s across the ceiling. Another drake leaped through the fire and Faceless appeared out a shadow behind it and buried both of his daggers in its eyes.

“You are going to have to try harder than this,” Wraith called out to Dryad as he sprang to his feet.

They continued again but slower this time as they caught their breath. Furry walked up beside Wraith and looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

“You never explained who it was that you gave that book to or why you did so, we could have killed him but you let them go. Why?” Fear asked.

“Do you trust me?” Wraith asked.

“No, I am a dungeon,” Fear laughed with genuine mirth.

Wraith smiled. “True trust is not in our nature and even as we are, we must accept that loyalty is not something our kind is known for. To answer your question let me ask you one, do you know where you come from?”

Fear looked at him askance. “I come from my dungeon,” she answered as if he had asked the most ridiculous question ever.

“And before that? Did your core spring out of nothing? What were you before you are now? Do we have parents what made us? Every other species has an answer to this question, we even know where the gods come from, but I have never heard legends about our own creation. We are so secretive I doubt we even know anything about our own species, only our sparks care to keep records of us and those are just memories past down from generation to generation.” Wraith said his thoughts allowed.

Fear’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Why does that even matter?” she asked.

“If we do not know ourselves, we do not know our strength and our enemies will have the upper hand. Humans, elves, and dwarves reproduce in the thousands, but we don’t even know where we come from or if we can reproduce. When I first made this avatar for my core, I like you was the plague with its human desires and I lay with a human. I felt life stir in her womb and now I wonder what that child will be. Will it be a human and one day die and become like us? Perhaps I am not the first dungeon to discover this,” he said gesturing at his body. “and there are others out there who live among the humans and they are the reproducers of our species.”

“What does that have to do with the giving that woman the book?” Fear asked bringing the conversation back around.

“Because I do remember, I remember being a human once I remember being impaled by a sword and this core cracking, and then I remember awakening as a Dungeon. That woman is part of that old life, she is part of these questions I have. Am I human or Dungeon were we all humanoids once? We have lived in secrecy for so long we are a secret to ourselves. That woman was my wife once and despite who I am now I still feel for her and now I no not whether to protect or destroy her.”

Fear was remained silent as they continued through the next series of tunnels until she, at last, broke the silence. “What would you do with this information?” she asked.

“I would strive to make our kind like other species, to grow our numbers till we no longer need fear the mass of the other races,” Wraith replied.

“How would we survive and compete?” Fear asked. “If we were so common there would not be enough heroes to go around.”

“You don’t see my vision then, let me share it with you. Imagine a world where every dungeon was like us and walked the world as an avatar with our core securely guarded in our dungeon as we ruled over the other races and harvested them for their souls as needed. We would govern the cities of the elves, human’s and dwarves and control their population.” Wraith said a fervor in his voice and a gleam in his eyes. “We would farm them like cattle letting them continue to live and trade work and farm but under our governance, we would stop them from waring with each other and killing each other without us to gain from it. Their cities would become our dungeons and we would walk with each other as you and I do now trading and working with each other we would be able to put aside our savagery and brutalism in mindless competitions of seeing how powerful a mortal we can slay to instead focus on unraveling the mysteries of the universe and compete with our ideas and discoveries.”

“You would seek to have us give up our traditions and laws?” Fear asked after another long silence.

“I would seek to make them pointless; we should not be the creatures that live in fear of discovery; we are the apex species and we should live as such,” Wraith said.

Their discussion was brought to an end as they met up with the party again and looked down massive steps lit by green lanterns all along it. Up above Wraith could hear the distant footfalls of a running feat as some of Dryad’s minions tried to get back from the fight to stop them but they were too far behind and wouldn’t reach them in time. Wraith breathed in mana feeling its rich thickness in his core and knew they were there.

“Dryad is at the end of this tunnel,” he said to his party in case the others hadn’t already sensed it and so that the mortals in their party weren’t caught off guard.

“Let's not keep here waiting then,” Furry growled and took up position beside Wraith.

They descended down the grand steps and stopped at the entrance to a massive cavern.

“At last,” Wraith whispered as he gathered up his mana and strength to fight.