79. Moonlight Escapades
“Yo what the fuck?”
The doors open with a suitably theatrical creek, letting early morning sunlight stream into your lair.
Your Dungeon.
Four figures are framed in the doorway. The one who spoke is holding a bow of some kind, one hand raised as if to push the doors ajar. Your eyes adjust, enough to make out pale grey skin and dark leather armour with too many pockets.
Aith T'sidd, Dark Elf Trapmaster, level 11
To his right, a tall, green skinned and feral looking humanoid dressed in fur scraps is holding a staff tipped with a dear skull.
Bog Grabb, Half Orc Spiritcaller, level 10
Farther left still, a human with a small buckler and a thin sword stands almost in a dancers pose, buckler held high and behind her head, sword out and low.
Emaline Waters, Human Fencer, level 10
Rounding out their party, almost literally, is a rotund and squat figure. His gut threatens to burst out of his shirt with every movement, and he holds what at first glance appear to be war axes in both hands. Then he shifts, and you see them more clearly. Frying Pans.
Samm_wise Sams_son, Halfling Gourmet, level 15
Hero names are weird.
The one who spoke, the 'trapmaster' seems most confused, but the entire party has wide eyes as they take in the Kobolds.
“That's a lot of uniques!” The human remarks, her eyebrows furrowing.
“Tink of da looot!” shouts the half orc in some strange accent.
The dark elf turns looking askance at the spiritcaller. “Dude. Wrong game, wrong species, barely passable accent.”
The half orc shrugs and then speaks again, the accent gone. “Whatever. Spoilsport.”
You glance to the side, meeting Amanda's eyes.
“The forum said this place was tough for your level, pay attention!” the gourmet shouts over the brewing argument.
“Are all heroes like this?” you ask your necromancer, who shrugs.
“Kinda, yeah.”
“How did you live like that?”
She rolls her eyes at you.
Oh. Oh yeah. For about ten minutes until you choked her out and then her hero abandoned her.
The silence between you is broken by a ululating warcry from the Fencer, which from the looks that her teammates are giving her surprsed everyone.
It's not even a skill, as far as you can tell, just a long unbroken yell of rage and pain that makes you take a half step back. Then she leaps forward, sword rising behind her head ready for a devastating slash against your mildly stunned kobolds. Flames trail in the air as she activates some attack or other, her eyes narrowed to slits.
Click
The floor drops out from underneath her as she hits the pit trap. Her eyes widen in shock, her stance falling apart as her feet windmill for purchase that no longer exists. Her momentum carries her forward so that instead of dropping into the water before she impacts the edge of the pit as if she ran head first into a wall.
Or neck first. She had been going pretty fast.
The rim of the trap slaps into her throat. Her hair flies past her in dirty blonde flutters as suddenly it's travelling faster than the rest of her. Then she drops with a splash, and another crack of impact. You can't help but wince. From the sound of it her head caught the edge of the outflow pipe as she went in.
The remaining three adventurers look askance at the pit in the floor.
“You know, Sam,” begins the dark elf, “I'm not sure these are the monsters that attacked the merchants.”
As the players descend into bickering once more, you roll your eyes. It's like they expected you to just stand there all day and wait for them. Instead, you step forward until you're next to Sapphire. A small huff of flame escapes you as you grin at her.
She huffs back, looking positively draconic herself as the flame licks out from between sharp teeth.
Your entrance corridor was about sixteen foot long, and then a further six feet to the doorway. With your Occult in the mid thirties, reaching the end with your fire breath was trivial. Sapphire's occult was 0, but her Combat Empowerment gave her an effective range of sixteen foot. Same with Hyena.
You gently nudge the other kobolds out of the way as the three of you edge closer. The two of them would have to close just under half of the entrance to be effective. Amanda will be in range from where she is.
You started letting the fire build in the back of your throat, rising in intensity. The air you exhale with every breath makes the air shimmer and warp. The Heroes don't so much as glance at you.
Finally, you're in position. With a flick of your tail, you signal Amanda.
“Hey!”
The three adventurers pause in their argument.
“Dude. Weren't they further back then that?”
“Well I might have NOTICED if someone wasn't still going on about-”
Unfortunately, you may never know what they were arguing about as you focused your efforts on your sub par stealth skills, as the half orc's words are cut off by a ball of sickly light impacting his chest. Before they can do much more than blink in surprise, another ball strikes the dark elf.
The rest of Amanda's experience gain will have to wait, as that seems to jolt them out of their stupor. The dark elf reaches for his quiver, the orc readies his staff and the halfling raises his pans in some slightly martial arts looking style.
The three of you bathe them in dragonfire, and don't stop until you hear the tolling of your level up.
You dump the points into Intelligence and Integrity, as you have with your last few levels, and then close your jaws with a soft snap.
It was almost anticlimactic, in the end.
While I wrote this, I attempted to create a new writing playlist. I have a generic one for helping me focus, and another for if I need to write something sad (For this story it's only really been broken out for the short chapter where Red wasn't sure if Amanda would respawn or not). A friend sent me this – so if you want to listen to the crap I did while I wrote, that's here I guess.
A huge thank you to my patreons NA, Spockk Kirkk, Un Casualsniper, Tyrant615, Jakelandiar, Curious Krissy, Torish 12, CBK and Ted.
(Yeah, I figured out hyperlinking. I'm a smurt)
There's also a discord