Chapter 166 (Patreon)

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The Creator, Occupied Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea

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The Ratten Warren was the first time the Crusaders truly struggled as they pushed deeper. The assault the Ratten performed was constant; the pressure not letting up for even a single second. Shields and other physical barriers, such as the Ice Crusader's ice walls, impeded the crusaders as much as they did the Ratten. The only success they found was in blocking the smaller pipes as they passed, forcing the ratten to either spend time unblocking them or redouble the assault through the main pipes.

Their other main obstacle was the size of the pipes; as the Crusaders passed through the labyrinthine pipe network, the pipes themselves got smaller. This forced the crusaders to crouch, sometimes half-submerged in filthy water, while still fighting off the rat's constant assault. Their Darkness Champion was the only reason the Shadow Ratten hadn't overwhelmed the group, despite their best efforts. The junctions in the network that they passed were when they were most pressured, assaulted on four sides instead of two.

It took nearly twenty whole hours for them to fight their way through the maze of a sewer, pipe-by-pipe and junction-by-junction. Unfortunately, the routes to the exits of all my floors were apparently information that the spy had leaked first. As they had with every floor before, they moved unerringly towards the exit, and the boss was in the way. The boss fight was interesting, but not especially notable. The personal mana-shields continued to work, as proved by the new clan of Shield Ratten that split from their initial clan, but it again proved a higher mana investment than I'd like for the Ratten.

When the Crusaders finally reached the sewer pipe that led up to the Fifth, they climbed one by one up the slick ladder, desperately defending themselves. The Shadow Crusaders were last, teleporting through the shadows to skip the ladder entirely. But the fight didn't stop there.

I called this invasion mode for a reason, after all. This wasn't just a fight to protect myself; this was a fight for my very existence.

The Fifth had been transformed, mostly by the fungus that now infested the castle. The moment they stepped out of the entrance room and into the hallway, they were under another constant assault, this time by a dozen varieties of fungal zombie. Bloaters, Slashers, Runners, Tanks, Smokers, Spitters and more kept the crusaders from even a moment's rest. And these monsters were even more disposable than the Ratten.

Given the right templates and enough mana to keep up with the rate at which the fungal zombies were dying, the numberless horde was replenished just as fast by the fungal hiveminds in the Mushroom Forest. This was compounded by the darkness and earth manabeings, golems and otherwise, that constantly interfered. The 'shortcuts' were locked and wouldn't unlock. There was exactly one fungal key available, in the deepest, most inaccessible part of the mushroom forest; I'd remotely dissolved the rest when the humans had moved to the Eleventh Floor.

The darkness that had lain across the outside of the castle had moved into the halls, making it impossible to see more than a dozen yards down any hallway. It was here that they finally stalled. After more than twenty-four hours of constant combat and two boss fights in that time, they were exhausted. It was sheer luck on their part that they came across one of the few rooms in the part of the castle they could access with only one door, a storeroom. They immediately shut it behind them and reinforced it with a dozen different wards. I watched as their mages exhausted themselves further, casting enchantment after enchantment against manabeings and monsters, making any surface of the room impenetrable.

Then, their mages collapsed, mana exhausted and minds stretched thin. The rest, not entirely trusting the wards, slept in shifts to make sure nothing got through them. They needn't have bothered. Despite my manabeing's best attempts, nothing managed to get through the walls. The hallway outside the room was packed to the gills, though, so that'd be fun whenever they decided to leave. I spread the rest of the fungal zombies throughout the castle, slowly filling it up.

By the time the guilders decided to leave their little cuck box, they'd have an even harder time pushing through the wall of angry fungal flesh. They'd need to leave the castle and push into the deepest part of the forest, hopefully after checking several pedestals and finding them inert. This would delay them even further, wearing them and their equipment out. Then, they'd have to fight their way back into the castle, still in the magical darkness of the floor and constantly assaulted by thousands upon thousands of fungal zombies. They'd then have to fight through the whole gauntlet: through the castle, into the sewers, over the rooftops, up the tower and through the final boss.

Hopefully, with all that to do, I'd have some breathing room to work a bit more on the Sixth.

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The Drunken Drakekin, Wyvern's Rest, The Eleventh Floor

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Jerrard Losat sat at the table, slowly nursing a mug of mead as he watched the tavern move and breathe around him. Species he'd never seen before laughed and made merry with more familiar figures. The Crabfolk were... less disturbing than their Scorpan cousins but still just as large, almost hulking, compared to the rest of the patrons. There were plenty of Drake-kin and Capriccio around, but the winged Drake-kin were entirely new, as was the damp-looking black-and-white-skinned man with a tail hanging through a gap in his chair.

Two Kobolds, half the size of most of the humanoids in the room, slipped between the tables carrying trays covered in drinks. A conversation at two tables behind him erupted into laughter, while one voice protested vehemently. Along one side of the large taproom, a stage was set up. A mixed-species band played string and percussion instruments Jerrard had never seen before, while their female singer, another one of those cat-people, filled the air with her dulcet tones.

Jerrard hummed, drawing his attention back to the table his party occupied. Harald still had his nose in that Runic translation guide, but he was nodding along to the beat of the music, though with a slight furrow to his brow. Duncan's gaze wandered as he scanned the room for threats, lingering in places and passing over others without a second thought. Jerrard caught his gaze and raised an eyebrow, but Duncan just shrugged and took another drink from his mug.

Paetor and Lilliette soon joined the three of them, pink-faced and slightly out of breath. Jerrard smirked, raising an eyebrow as the two settled on the bench beside him. Lilliette had immediately grabbed a flagon and brought it to her lips, but Paetor caught his eye. The younger man smirked and raised a mug of his own in a toast. Jerrard returned the silent toast, then let his gaze wander again.

Through the crowd, his eyes settled on his wife. In a small, shadowed booth, Isid sat with a Drake-kin dressed in loose linens and leather. From their information, he was the captain of one of the ships docked at the port. The negotiations had been going on for about twenty minutes now. Even though he couldn't hear what she was saying or read her lips past the privacy enchantment, he could tell from her body language that she was relaxed and that their trade would soon conclude.

"I definitely know that song from somewhere..." Harald said, the first word he'd spoken all evening. Jerrard turned to face him, and the man's gaze was fixed on the singing cat-woman. Beast-kin, as he'd heard they were called. As Jerrard focused on the song, he had to agree that the flow and the beat were familiar, but the words themselves weren't.

"The tune is from an old lullaby," Lilliette answered, slamming her mug on the table. Her flush had crept down her neck, now. "It's called 'Dawn after Dusk.' My mother used to sing it to me all the time. The words she's using are completely different, though; she's built a whole new song by speeding up the tempo."

"I remember that one," Haythem added, rejoining the table with a fresh platter of drinks. Jerrard finished his mug and took a new one with a grateful nod as the man put it in the middle of the table. "It was about reassuring scared children that the night always ends, and the sun rises every day, right?" The little ball that floated after him bobbed, then settled atop an empty mug, still quietly playing along with the band.

"Well, with the situation we're in, I can't say it's inappropriate," Jerrard commented, watching the amber liquid of his drink swirl in the glow of the mage-light candelabras. "The Children probably feel it worse than we do. This is the second time the island's been invaded, and it's not even been a year since the last one. Hoping that dawn will come is all they can do, at the moment."

That got sombre nods and a minute of silence at the table as the song wound down. After a brief round of applause, the singer thanked the tavern and the patrons, called the band 'Teto and the Ocaloids,' and then launched right into their next song.

"Funny name," Paetor stated, before bobbing his head again. "But I've gotta admit, they've got some great music. Another dance, Lilliette?" The lightning mage beamed and practically jumped from her seat, grabbing his hand as she dragged him off to the cleared-out space the tavern used as a dance floor. While the singer launched into some lyrics about birdbrains, Jerrard turned back to his wife just in time to see her exchanging a cloth bag for a capped tube. She shook hands with the blue-scaled drake-kin, and they parted ways. Jerrard caught her eye as she approached, flicking them down to the tube. Isid nodded with one of her confident smiles. Jerrard finally let himself relax, taking an extra-large swig as Isid plopped down on the seat next to him.

"Phew! All this dealing made me hungry," Isid exhaled as she leaned against him, taking the opportunity to slip the tube into his bag. The tube disappeared into the space-expanded bag with nary a whisper, and Jerrard secured the flap tightly without even looking. "When's our meal due? I've got the weirdest craving for something right now. Pickled cucumbers, maybe?"

Jerrard chuckled lightly and pulled her closer against him, tilting his head to rest it on hers. He loved his wife and all her quirks.

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The Cuck Box, The Fifth Floor, The Dungeon

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David sat silently on his bedroll as he watched the various templars, guilders, and his fellow heroes. More than half were asleep, their shadows eerily still as the large magelight in the middle of the room cast its glow about the stonework. The mages had woken as they recovered their energy, though only long enough to eat a quick meal of warmed rations and water before they fell back into slumber.

"Why don't we just give them Red Bull again?" Bobby asked someone near him. David heard Karen sigh before she began to explain.

"Just like energy drinks, Wideawake potions are addictive, unhealthy, and best saved for emergencies when we have no place to rest or recover normally," she lectured. "It's far better for the mages to actually sleep and eat than just down another potion and move on like nothing's wrong. Eventually, they'd just shut down, besides a dozen other side effects. You should know all this; didn't they have combat stimulants in the army or something?"

"Nah, that's just scifi-nonsense," Bobby waved her off. "Besides, the nazis' did that shit in WW two, and look where that got them." Apparently, Bobby pronounced World War Two as Double-ya, Double-ya Two. You learn something new about the people around you every day.

"You think there's a potion that actually gives you wings?" Vikram asked from his spot against the wall. David wondered how he was tolerating the cold stone, but then again, Vikram was a fire mage. He was probably perfectly comfortable. Temperature-wise, at least.

"I don't know, man," Bobby answered, scratching his stubble. "But, I heard that when fire mages get powerful enough, they can fly on jets of fire, like the firebenders from Avatar. The kids' show, not the blue space elves." They lapsed into silence as Vikram studied his hands. For a moment, David watched the indian man's eyes glow like molten fire before they faded back to their normal brown.

This place was changing them, David admitted to himself. From everything he knew, Mana was transformative, even with the gods' blessings protecting them from mutating into monsters. While the blessing might force their body to keep the same shape, it still lets their mana strengthen their muscles and enhance their nerves. It reinforced their bones and sharpened their eyesight. Mages had it worse; the sheer amount of just one kind of mana flowing through their veins did things to them. The glowing eyes, the way their element would briefly manifest in their hair or on their skin as bits of the mana escaped their bodies...

Would the freaked-out people who got summoned into a church recognise the heroes they'd been moulded into?

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