Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 12 preview (Patreon)

Once the dark started to fall for real on the sixth floor, it grew dark extremely fast. Unlike other levels where glowing moss or other forms of luminescence formed, the sixth floor worked towards achieving the absolute pitch-black that one experienced only in deep caves, where no light sources – not from the sun, not from the moon or stars – could reach. It was an unnerving level of darkness, where even a hand held inches from one’s face was missing.

Luckily, we had Kira and our own sources of light. It made us – and any other group moving late at night or setting up campfires – beacons on the floor, flickering flames of hope that seemed unimaginably far away.

Kira’s wisps floated on all four sides, covering the distant approaches as we journeyed, extending the range of our shard lamps and torches. It made us a wider beacon of light than most others, I would think, but it also offered us a greater scope of visibility.

Though the stories of this hunter or hunters might abound, the truth was, stumbling across a herd of sleeping bramble goats or into a gorse bush of thorns was more of an immediate concern than an unknown monster. Never mind the all-too-common pitfalls of holes, uneven ground and the occasional ambush creature that sought to end us. Or – more likely – injure us enough that the next couple of monsters could finish the job.

This was less of a problem for people like Yorrick, who was wandering along near brambles and slicing them apart with his knife. I’d warned him about dulling the weapon but he had shrugged and pointed out that was what whetstones were for. After that rather reasonable point – and knowing he had a half-dozen other knives that were being treated better – I left him alone.

More to the point, I had a lot to watch out for.

“A lot of lights out there for a smart creature to home in on,” I muttered, as we crested another hill. The third on the way to where we needed to go, since we were choosing to climb them directly and move in a straight line rather than follow the dips and twists of the valley. It was the fastest way forwards, at least geographically, though it was exhausting after a long day of hiking.

Still better than adding another hour to hour and a half wandering the valleys, maybe stumbling on sleeping herds of bramble goats and who knew what else.

“Only five,” Sophia said, turning her head sideways. “And I’m almost certain that two of those are from dwellers.”

“How do you know?” Kira said.

“I spotted them when we started, before it got too dark. A tower and a strange, circular house.”

“So two circles,” Yorrick said, pedantically.

“Idiot,” Sophia muttered, though a little fondly. “The other three must be other adventurers like us.”

“Are there a lot who stay overnight?” I said, curiously.

“Not uncommon,” Kira said. “The sixth to seventh floors are common stopping points for most parties. It’s a lot to get through, and you know eight isn’t someplace most would want to stay.”

While I wasn’t as heavy into the research as Kira, I did at least have a rough idea about the challenges over the next few floors. In some ways, our version of the portal monster was extremely good luck – Haeros’ was in a solid floor, killable using normal means and was not too deep – but it would have been better if it was around before some of the more challenging floors appeared.

It meant that most adventurers had to slog through multiple, extremely difficult floors, and then, tired and worn, do battle with the portal boss to acquire the sphere that was required to create the portal orb. And that was assuming it was not otherwise destroyed in the battle – a likely occurrence.

“Why not push down another level?” I said.

“Why not here? There are a lot of places to stay, abandoned houses and huts from older dwellers and places guilds and other adventurers have built. Some believe the first houses were actually created by the monsters who rose up from below, you know.”

“I didn’t, but I can see that.” People would believe anything, after all. Even fake digital wealth. You just had to know how to say it and make them believe that you had all the answers and that when things inadvertently failed, it was never your fault.

When things began to slip, well, that’s when you started blaming everyone else. Easy.

“So, a nicer place to rest?” I muttered.

“Also, the goats are easier to kill than what’s below. There’s also more of them, so you get more shards for each battle,” Brand said. “If we were intending to farm shards or orbs, I’d focus here.”

“Higher chance of orbs from the minotaurs, though.” Yorrick patted the pouch by his side, and I had to admit, he was not wrong. Not every minotaur had an orb, but we certainly pulled more orbs from them than we did from the bramble goats. The goats, in fact, lived and died so fast, they were nearly as bad as fourth or fifth-level fault monsters. Maybe one every six or seven had an actual orb.

“There any useful things you can create with the goat or minotaur orbs, though?” I asked. After all, orb engineering or orb enchanting drew upon the skills imbued in the monsters. I could guess at the likely skill in a minotaur orb but wasn’t entirely certain what you’d get from the goat.

“Charge for the minotaurs,” Kira said. I was right. “And for the goats, it varies. Protection from food poisoning and some diseases is quite common.”

“Who’d want that?” Sophia scoffed.

“Every restaurant,” I replied. “Or many of them, at least. Put an orb that protects against diseases and food poisoning in a restaurant, and you’ve made it less likely to make your patrons upset.” Or you could have proper food safety policies, but I didn’t add that part. After all, while Tionerth might be vaguely in the late eighteenth century in some ways, it was also very medieval in others. Western medieval to be specific, so hand-washing was more of a suggestion than ritual.

“Oh,” Sophia said, quietly.

“Yeah. It might not pay as much, but there’s something to be said about consistent demand. There’s a lot to be said about volume.” Adventurers might pay more, but there were always restaurants opening up and orbs always failed after a while, the energy contained within not able to be replenished from ambient regeneration and the constant draw, never mind just their constant usage. It was what drove the economy of the entire city and, in its own way, the world.

Brand was uncharacteristically silent, so I flicked my glance over to where he stood, tromping along. He was moving tensely, watching his side. I frowned, something about the way he shifted troubling me.

I moved closer, called his name. Once, and then again. Only when I did it a third time did he turn, looking back at me. Smiled.

“You okay?”

A single nod, no vocal answer. That cold sensation ran through my body, set all the hairs on the back of my neck and body standing on end. Every iota of instinct were alerted, grown from dozens, hundreds, thousands of AI images and some ancestral instinct of the uncanny valley.

I sped up and stepped closer. My right hand hung behind me and turned away as I angled my body a little to the side. I clenched my fist and focused, the gauntlet growing the spike. I never managed to get close enough to him, because he noticed my movement.

One moment, he is staring at me, the second, he threw himself forward. His face transformed, jaws widening, muscles bulging like a cut-rate CGI Hulk transformation. I drop low, lunged forwards and swung my hand in a punch, fast and hard, not into the face but the body. Right into the center of the body, the spike in my gauntlet punching through his lower chest, tearing its way through.

The creature screamed, long and hard, as I gutted it, long ropy tendrils of intestines and other organs falling out of its body cavity, even as I swung away from the spot. The cry was echoed moments later by others, as creatures emerged from the dark, rushing down the hill, glowing red eyes and naked hunger.

I turned into the attack, as the hunter – the doppelganger – struggled to its feet, body already nearly half again as tall, regenerating around the grievous wound I had caused it. It turned, only long enough and far enough for my fist and the gauntlet spike to enter its temple, dropping it once and for all.

Then, I spun around to face the oncoming horde, as Kira, finally realizing what had happened screamed.

“Brand!”

There was no answer.