Chapter Twenty-Five
Therodin stared at the innocuous cave in the cliff. That was how dungeon builders liked to hide their entrances when they first started. The more powerful ones liked to build ostentatious symbols of their power. Often with the populations they enslaved.
Lord Leo tried to pretend he wasn't a monster. This whole savior of Astovin was crap. Therodin and the Company would see all of them pay. And Barany was the beginning. The paladin glanced down at the felt sack before him. The most important item in the world lay in there.
Niss crept back. The human rogue moved with care in her black leathers. Her green eyes sparkled. "There's nothing in the cave. I can't enter it. The cave is part of the dungeon. I spotted a trap in the entrance."
Therodin nodded. "Easy to disarm."
She smiled. "Just a pit trap. Nothing to it once we begin the assault."
Therodin rose and drew his sword. "Lord Abzu, clad me in the strength of the earth beneath my feet and defend me from the enemies of this world!"
The prayer to his god, the Lord of Earth, surged out of the paladin and was answered. Granite armor formed around his body. Heavy plates of stone that would break a lesser man. He wore it with ease, his body strengthened by Lord Abzu's blessing.
Niss headed back to the cave as Therodin marched forward. Zarn fell in on his right, the dwarven fighter holding an ax in one hand and a mace in the other. His red, pleated beard spilled down the front of his breastplate. Aython strode at Therodin's right, the halfling wielding a massive, two-handed ax bigger than he was, the gauntlets he wore giving him the strength to use it.
Auniasiiriliiania and Empty, the two mages, followed with Corthin, the elven priest, at the rear. The three wore robes of various hues. Auniasiiriliiania wore robes of white with light-blue trim, her bronze magic symbols draped over her chest. Her elven ears twitched. Empty was cowled all in black, the human's face shadowed. Corthin's robes of bronze were a fine thing, his holy book of Lord Ishkur and Lady Kittu gripped in his hands.
The Company. The finest band of adventurers in the world. Therodin had built them up over a decade, starting with Auniasiiriliiania and spreading from there. Each was a danger in its own right. They had killed dungeon builders with Level 3 Monster Girls before.
Few could boast of that. Only Anguin Vobria in living memory was better, and he was inhuman. Wielder of the last Blessed Blade. But what Therodin planned was something even more daring than attacking Fuegin single-handily.
He expected to be seen as a monster.
A traitor.
He didn't care. He would cleanse this world of dungeon builders. So long as one of the vermin lived, they all would. And to do that required power. More power than any one man should have. Than even a company of men and women. All four of the races marched with him.
Niss disabled the pit trap. Already, the alarm would be ringing through the dungeon. Barany would be quivering on his throne hoping his monster girls could save him. He had used them to raid a village near here. Taken a few of the women, violating them for sport.
Therodin's blood boiled.
They moved into the cave and found a dead end. Not a real one. Already, Niss darted for a section of the cave wall and worked on a mechanism. Therodin moved up before the spot, flanked by Aython and Zarn. The halfling and dwarf stood ready.
"Now," Niss said and jumped to the side. The door opened.
A cockatrice stood on the other side. A green-scaled monster in the mocking form of a woman. Red hair spilled feathery around her shoulders, her round breasts heaving. She screamed. A thunderous roar slammed into Therodin's armor.
The paralyzing shout would have disabled him if he weren't armored in the bones of the earth.
Roaring, Therodin leaped forward and slashed his sword. He cut the cockatrice in half. Her body vanished into motes that he crashed through, entering the dungeon itself. Ahead, three more of the vile creatures appeared.
"Lady Kittu," prayed Corthin, "Goddess of Thunder, deafen us again the shouts of the vile dungeon builder's monsters. Ward us with your love as we strike against the demonic forces that invade our world."
A crackling hissed in Therodin's ear. It didn't really deafen him but blunted sounds. Made it feel like he had dunked his head underwater. His armor would protect him, but the others were vulnerable to a cockatrice's cry.
Auniasiiriliiania cried out,
"Gir Gi-Ku!"
A dazzling sword of light cut one of the cockatrices in half, her Light wizardry powerful.
"Sum Gidim!"
Empty hissed.
A chilly and spectral scythe appeared and sliced through another, her body bursting into motes.
Therodin reached the intersection where they stood and found cockatrices rushing in at him from all directions. He raised his shield as the first slashed claws at him. They scratched off his shield. Two others screamed, but their roars were muted.
Zarn's ax disemboweled a cockatrice to Therodin's right before his mace crushed her head and felled her. Aython's two-handed ax swung down with the brutal force of a falling star, cleaving his cockatrice in half from head to ass. Therodin's sword buried into his foe's heart. He kicked her off and turned.
To find a cockatrice. She grabbed his helmet and ripped it off, fury in her face. Then she gasped. She staggered and collapsed, a dagger buried in her back. One of Niss's. The rogue grinned from where she stood with the mages and priest. Her weapon clattered to the ground, the cockatrice dead.
"Illar Em"
Auniasiiriliiania chanted, her medallion sparking with magical energy.
A javelin of compressed wind took the last cockatrice in the open mouth as she went to shout. It threw her back and she vanished before hitting the ground.
"Too easy," laughed Zarn. "Haven't wasted my time on a dungeon builder this pathetic in a decade."
"That's why we're here," Therodin said and retrieved his stone helm. "Niss, he'll have traps. Take point. That should be all his monster girls save his companion."
"Yes, yes, I'm eager to meet
Lord
Barany," Niss said, a wicked gleam in her eyes.
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