Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 36 preview (Patreon)

After dragging the tarzak up, I sliced open its body, took out the orb and then kicked it off, adding the corpse to the pile beneath me. It distracted the other tarzaks below for a few moments, just like the other three I had killed before, and I waited. It did not take long for the next monster to arrive and I shrunk back just far enough to get most of its body up before I killed it, repeating the process.

It was a dangerous game I was playing, since the deaths of the creatures were drawing even more of them near me, but I figured I should thin out the herd hunting me while I had the chance. It would only take a couple of them to coordinate, climbing up at the same time, before I would be overwhelmed or they grabbed my foot and dragged me off. Or the ones that were climbing up the sides might turn fully and make their way over, their little suction pad legs allowing them to ascend near vertical surfaces without an issue.

No, I had a couple more kills left before I would have to run and they were already too close that one of my major escape routes had been blocked off. The second was still decent, though it would mean risking breaking a leg if I missed the leap.

I repeated the process twice more before taking the jump, flying through the air to land on the shorter, broken hoodoo. I landed smoothly, grateful I hadn’t hit a weird outcropping – and for all the exercise I had done on building up my ankles before straightening and leaping again. Twice more, I bounced, once almost vertically against a wall, before I hit the ground a short distance away from the wall I had been hiding upon.

The tarzaks were looking for me still, the dumb creatures. It would take them a bit to figure out where I was, and rather than wait around, I took off running. There were nearly a dozen of them and likely more coming in, though if I was at full health, I might have tried killing them all.

As it was, the entire process of killing and hauling monsters up had set my muscles burning on my back and caused a twinge along my arms that left them feeling alternatively achy and numb.

Plotting my escape was relatively simple. So long as I managed to find the main jagged scar of the central floor, I should have been able to find one of the exits. There were two major ones going up, and a few lesser ways that were less popular – including one that involved a series of rope relays. Almost no one utilized that to go up, because of the lack of climbing stops. Sure, there were simple equivalent systems, but none of them as secure as modern-day ones, and hanging around, resting while razorwings came swinging by trying to kill you – or slice the rope by accident – was rather nerve-racking.

Definitely not a way the team was going down, and certainly not the way I was going up. Considering the geography of the place, and where we had been, I had a good guess of which entrance they’d be coming from.

The only question was whether I could figure out where I was, after the numerous twists and turns in the branched areas of the tenth floor. After all, there weren’t any good signs indicating which way was north or south or where the entrances were.

Attempts at adding such information to dungeons had been tried numerous times, but the monsters, the dungeons and general wear and tear of dungeon life had seen them fail. Just as often, people had taken action to either deface, remove the information or even provide the wrong kind, leading people to their deaths or to the arms of gangs that would take advantage of lost individuals.

Of course, that was mostly deeper, where there were fewer adventurers and the chances of getting caught were lower. Where attempts at trying to keep some semblance of law and order were in play. I did wonder how often all these things happened. How much of it was just stories blown up and doubled or tripled or more in proportion to the actual fact.

Humanity had a bad habit of doing that – expanding upon their perceptions and leaning into stories and anecdotes rather than facts. Look at the popular depiction of the Wild West being a lawless place, while historical research indicated that even the most lawless locations were often significantly safer than modern-day cities.

Or the on-going impression of lawlessness in cities like Detroit or New York, when both crime rates and homicides had dropped significantly over time. Where even a minor increase in such crime rates was decried as being too high and a massive increase, when we lied to one another and told stories using statistics that were cherry-picked and inflated.

Stories, in the end, held greater sway in the human mind than the truth. It was easier to believe the impression of an underdog being unfairly abused than to accept the facts for what they were. Once a story took hold, it was often difficult to shift the narrative, to make a mind change.

It required effort – not just on the storyteller’s side but also on the recipient’s side. In my experience, the vast majority of people had no desire to change their minds, especially when the information being provided is entirely opposed to their current view of themselves and the world, and was not to their benefit.

It was why, towards the end of my life, I started leaning heavily into other martial artists. Other people who had continued pushing themselves, were willing to do the uncomfortable thing. So few people were, in the real world, and it didn’t matter what age or time period.

None of that, of course, helped me right then. As I jogged along, keeping an eye on the surroundings, I looked up to the sky regularly. All in an attempt to jog a memory of the geography above, such that I could work out where I was.

The gloom and shadows of the floor set my teeth on edge, even as I was distracted by the occasional stab of pain or twinge from my body. Keeping away from the edges was trickier too, as the canyon passage I was in began to narrow. It forced me to slow down and pause near an outcropping where I was certain a curshavy stood.

Prodding it with the edge of my buckler caused an entire vine to reach upward, grabbing at my buckler and dragging me forward. I snarled, sliding carefully and snatching my belt knife out from my waist. While I liked punching things, I wasn’t psychotically tied to it and some things – like these plants – were just better dealt with with a knife.

Closer, closer, closer, I slid.

Vines moved and curled inwards, trying to grab at me. I cut sideways, slicing one of the reaching vines off. I missed a couple more that managed to land on me. I hacked a couple of times to cut the next vine, realizing that the thick sap was making my weapon blunter as it stuck to the weapon and hardened.

More cutting, until one vine wrapped all around my weapon and yanked it out of my hand. At that point, I was two thirds of the way into the gaping, twisted “mouth” of the creature, a hollow area that the plant used to trap and hold with inverted hooked thorns to stop their prey from escaping.

Rather than let them drag me in, I extended my spike into a single, broad attempt in my gauntlet and punched downwards and to the side. It pinned the bottom leaf to the soft earth, briefly. I tore it apart when I dragged my hand out, and did the same to the leaf closest to me, pinning it into the mass.

Punching and twisting, dragging my hands sideways, I focused on ripping the plant up. Doing as much damage to the leaves, limbs and grabbing portions as I could before I was finally close enough to start punching the body.

Shortened and stubbier, the gauntlet spikes pounded into the thick, wooden body of the curshavy. Hitting it was not as bad as punching stone, but striking hard wood with an already bruised fist was not pleasant. It took half a dozen punches before my fingers started going numb, the pain and sensation foreign to me as adrenaline and an overwhelmed nervous system just shut down.

I would suffer for it afterwards, but I’d managed to strip enough bark and pound sufficient holes into the creature that the pressure of the vines it was using to hold me slackened. I pulled away, tearing myself free and retrieving my knife on the way out to squat a short distance away.

Waiting.

No point leaving what was certain to be a decent amount of orbs and shards behind; not when I knew the tarzaks were at least a good hour away. They were persistent, not fast. I had time to wait for the curshavy to stop thrashing around. Time enough to rest, catch my breath, heal a few more wounds and get a little richer.

Which was, of course, when the shadow cat pounced on me.