Fighting Them There Ch 10

Miriam's finger slowly traced the rim of her goblet. It was the physical action that she used to interact with her arcane implement when her move earth magic was on. The physical acts used to manifest the magic of mage-classed hunters were fairly removed from the magical effects they generated. When Sophie used her raven's strike, she physically swung a sword's blade into her target. The association between Sophie striking with her sword and invoking the raven's strike magic to inflict more damage was still fairly arbitrary and obscure. The Valkyrie knew which of her sword swings would do catastrophic damage to severely injured enemies, but the exact things she did to make that happen would be different from what another Valkyrie did to accomplish that effect. The arbitrary nature of the skill activations was simply more

obvious

for the mages. Miriam had a magic cup as her implement, and running her finger around the rim was the physical action she performed to make the stone platform they were on detach from the wall and descend slowly. Another Geomancer would probably do something else entirely with a cup to get that to happen, and if Miriam got a wand or orb she'd have to learn a whole new set of physical gestures to make the magic happen. With the implement she had, grasping mud required her to hold the goblet over her head, hands of stone required her to put her hand into the cup, and their current travel was being provided by a single finger tracing the rim of Miriam's goblet.

They moved at the speed of a slow walk. An elevator from Earth would have been much faster, but the entire tower structure was not unreasonably tall by North American standards. It was tall for Max, because the whole thing seemed to be about twice as tall as the Albuquerque Plaza office building from back home, but those members of his party who had spent some time in Los Angeles knew sky scrapers that were

three

times the height of that building and more. They'd started in the middle, and even at the slow walking pace their Geomancer could provide, getting to the bottom would take less than two minutes of actual travel. The time savings over running around on the stairs and picking their way through the maze of steps was very large. Even so, they were more than twenty minutes getting to the bottom because Miriam stopped the train eight times.

Avoiding the stairs as they were, the traps and dead ends affected them not at all. Seen from the vantage point of the platform, many traps were quite apparent, the mechanisms hidden beneath the steps only from the view of those on the staircases themselves. It seemed that there were trip wires set in some places that would cause blades, or weights, or fluids of some kind to come into the hunters' path. The most devious traps seemed to be that some of the steps were not held up by whatever magical force kept the rest of the steps suspended in the air. Attached to the blocks ahead and behind by wedges, a force such as the step of a hunter would likely cause them to come loose and crash down into the darkness. Hunters were much more durable than humans without magic, but Max still thought a fall from such a height would go poorly for him. And with the expected monsters at the bottom, becoming separated from the rest of the party to such a degree would likely be a death sentence. Perhaps even for a hunter as powerful as Sophie.

Monsters were the reason for the frequent stops. Their party's goal wasn't merely to get to the end and open the gateway home, the goal was to eliminate the monsters in the dungeon. Monsters that escaped their culling could someday still produce a dungeonbreak and find their way to one of the home worlds. Every one of them was an aspiring mass murderer, just trying to find the road that would lead them to innocent civilians they could victimize. When they saw nightmares, Miriam would stop the platform so that Kaitlin and Oscar could kill them from afar. They seemed like they'd be extremely dangerous in close combat, but given the stone boat upon which they rode, there was little reason to give them such an opportunity.

While Patala and Jotunheim had a great many kinds of monsters, Mictlan and Tartarus did not. Tartarus only brought three kinds of creatures: the imps, the nightmares, and the Tartarians themselves. But while they were limited in the number of species they brought to battle, every one of them had been bio-sculpted into something uniquely terrifying. The actual Tartarians were supposedly Earth-origin hominids before they were changed into hideous beasts, but it wasn't clear what the original form of the nightmares even was. Were the eight limbed nightmares ones which had had clawed appendages added, or were the four limbed nightmares ones which had had limbs taken away? Without going to their world and seeing their warbeasts in early stages of transformation, it wasn't a question the Space Force was prepared to answer. The standard size of a nightmare was about two hundred kilograms, but that could as easily represent the usual size of the Tartarians' bio-sculpting tools as the natural size of whatever dog, horse, or lizard the nightmares were made out of.

These particular nightmares seemed optimized for climbing. They had long limbs like gibbons or spiders, and they ended in gripping claws like those of a bird. They clung to the bottoms of the stairs, waiting for hunters to pass over them so that they ambush them with claws and fangs and spiky tails. Oscar's dummy arrows pierced their flesh. Some tried to take cover behind the stone slabs, but they were too large to be protected from Kaitlin's sight. Her powers did not require her to see the enemy's entire body to coagulate their brain. As they lost their grip upon the stairs one by one, they fell into the darkness. Their bodies did not look like natural animals, which of course they were not. The impression they gave was of puppets whose articulations had been severed from their strings. The lasting image Max had was of their faces. While he knew that anthropomorphizing literal aliens was a dangerous thing to do, he couldn't help thinking that the final expression of the nightmares was one of... disappointment.

Imps were able to shoot back, as many of them had glowing runes on their gremlinish bodies that imparted them the ability to attack at range with elemental magic. Imps were otherwise the physically weakest creatures in the Tartarian army, and were not prepared to go claw to blade with front line hunters. Imps generally tried to act as the second line of Tartarian forces, keeping out of close combat by using terrain or nightmares to prevent the hunters from closing. That was probably their plan for the tower dungeon as well, they stood on stairs and landings that enjoyed wide gulfs of empty space protecting them from hunters on other staircases and paths. However, with Sophie's ability to run on the air, the chasm provided no protection at all. Danny intercepted various snowballs and flame bolts with his shield while Sophie ran around blenderizing the imps.

Max considered his contribution to be holding Miriam's mana tether. It wasn't glamorous. He didn't get any kills or whatsoever. The accomplishment of getting the party quickly and safely to the bottom of the stairs where it met an imposing door belonged to Miriam. Max just saved her mana by holding the leash attached to her neck. Her contribution was very important, and Max was content to know that he had a hand in it.

Alex, on the other hand, was fuming all the way down. Unable to reach his foes, he raged. "Drive me closer," the Executioner suggested to Miriam, "I want to hit them with my sword!" He was out-voted by the other members of the party, and he was very angry.

####

Fiona looked at the board. Vertical and horizontal lines meeting at right angles. Her immediate thought was that it was like a Chess board. But when she discovered that the red and white playing pieces were placed at the corners rather than within the squares, she changed her assessment to consider that the game was like Go. One could easily

play

Go with the board and playing pieces provided, but this particular set had been made for a game from another world entirely. A game called Vuhshahk.

"You place stone each turn." Ulzhari was explaining the rules of this ancient game. Apparently the Berserker was considered quite good on her home planet, and even had an official ranking that was three-moon, which was better than four-moon. "If you can't place stone, you lose." The orc began placing some playing pieces into positions to better explain things. "Each stone is soldier. Soldiers are cowards. They will go where you tell them, but they will not go where they can see an enemy unless they can hear a friend. Soldier

sees

in straight line, but can

hear

around corners." She pointed to a stone, and then pointed to the intersections in each cardinal direction. "There is soldier here. These are the eight spots that alone enemy is too afraid to enter." Then she traced a box around the stone. "These are the eight spots soldier can support a friend. Can place stone here even if see enemy."

The game seemed similar enough to Go that the Night Caller could probably play. Although she assumed that she'd lose embarrassingly badly against a ranked opponent like Ulzhari. "How do the soldiers fight?" The pieces were called

soldiers

, Fiona knew that they'd come into conflict somehow. If they didn't fight, they'd be called like

farmers

or something.

"Soldiers are cowards." While that seemed like a fairly contentious thing for a member of the military to say, but the orc said it like she was describing the weather or the time of day. "If they are surrounded and cannot see empty land, they will be captured." She demonstrated capturing a stone with four stones, capturing a stone on the edge with three stones, and capturing two stones with six stones. That part looked very much like Go to Fiona. Ulzhari then put down a block of nine stones, there by three. "If there many soldiers and some can hear only friends," she pointed to the one in the middle, "then no can be captured. Important for late in the game."

"What do the captured pieces do?" Fiona recalled that captured chess pieces reduced tactical choices, while captured Go pieces were simply worth points at the end.

"On turn, you can place captured soldier instead of your soldier. Mostly that is done end of game to fill enemy territory, but sometimes you can make them traitors to capture other soldiers." She demonstrated infilling some pieces such that all the pieces were surrounded. "Sometimes capture can put the board to how it was before. When happens, the captives die and the disputed spaces cannot be entered by any soldiers." She placed 4 red stones and three white stones. Then she placed a fourth white stone and captured one of the red stones. Then she placed a red stone to capture the white stone that had just been placed and left it in the original state with four red and three white. Then she took the newly placed red stone, the captured red stone, and the captured white stone back to their bowls. "These two spaces were fought over, and soldiers won't go into them. Because they are afraid."

Feeling that she now knew the game well enough to still get completely thrashed by a serious player, Fiona decided to change the subject. "How can you be so OK about being Max's sex slave? You're joining a

harem

, you're going to belong to him."

Ulzhari thought about what the human was asking. "I feel like there is language barrier. Of course I join harem. What else would I do?"

"You're a hunter!" Fiona yelled at the Berserker, aware on some level that she was really yelling at herself. "You're powerful and important. You don't need to accept a man being above you. Max has no right to be lording it over us. We're not his harem slaves." She hadn't got through her invectives before she'd lost count of her pronouns.

"If man survives hunter life," Ulzhari mused, "he will return in triumph. He will have honor, and stories, and strength, and wealth. He will join harem. Women of wealth and status and beauty and strength will want to be in harem with him. He will have easy life. His children will want for nothing." She made an expansive hand gesture. "If woman survives hunter life," Ulzhari continued with an accusatory tone, "she will return in triumph. She will have honor, and stories, and strength, and wealth. She will join harem. Men and women of wealth and status and beauty and strength will want to be in harem with her. She will have easy life. Her children will want for nothing." The orc made an expression where her lower lip pulled up, making her tusks look shorter.

Unsure of what several of the gestures and turns of phrase meant, Fiona retreated to more familiar ground. "We're going to be in high demand. As sought after as the men. Why should we submit to being in a harem? Why should Max dominate all the women? We can be in charge of things ourselves."

Letting out a heavy sigh, Ulzhari began explaining like she was talking to a small child. "I hear in North America you have too many men, your harems are very small. But for me, there not too many men. My harem will have one man and several women, because that's how it

is

. If I don't join Max's harem, I'll probably be the strongest in my harem. If I join Max's harem, I will be with other hunters. They will outrank me in some things. In dungeon, Max will be our leader. In sex, we will listen to Sophie. And I will submit to Miriam, Chaeryn, and

you

in some things." She held up two fingers. "Firsts, most of my time is mine. Sophie and Max may take

you

to bed more often, but doubt that they will want

me

in their bed more than few times a year. Almost every night, I will sleep alone. Seconds," she waggled her fingers again, "Sophie and Max are very good at sex. Why should I be in charge of sex when they are better than me?"

Fiona seemed unconvinced. "We're hunters, we're women. If Max is in charge of our dungeon raids and he's in charge of us sexually, what is left?"

Ulzhari made an unfamiliar, yet clearly dismissive gesture. "We play Vuhshahk." At first it seemed a flippant answer, but the orc seemed sincere. "Max commands us in dungeon, but most days we are not in dungeon. Sophie commands us in bed with Max, but most nights we are not in bed with Max. Harem has demands upon us, but the seals are very good. And most times, harem ignores us and we play Vuhshahk."

They played Vuhshahk. Max and Sophie were nowhere to be seen. Fiona lost and Ulzhari still had quite a few moves that she could make. Victory in Vuhshahk was the same whether the winner had one move left or many.

####

"Do you need a mana recharge?" Max asked the Geomancer. She had maintained a move earth magic for over twenty minutes and she looked sweaty and tired. The red haired woman let out a sigh and nodded, and then turned away from him and bent forward. Her ridiculously short skirt didn't require much encouragement to put her ass on display, and her butt cheeks were not hefty enough to make her butt plug - her Essence lock - invisible to curious stares. Rolling her skirt up to reveal even more of her freckled rump, Max gave her a hard underhand swat that landed right over her crack.

"Nnnngh!" Miriam groaned and pushed her tail end into his hand. "Thank you, Master." She said it with hooded eyelids, then suddenly her eyes widened and she pulled away from him into a rigid standing position. Her face, and much of the rest of her skin colored until the contrast between her hair and flesh was much more subtle. Her skirt hadn't fallen, and her butt was in most ways even more on display than it had been when she was grinding on Max's hand. Sophie came up and whispered something into the Geomancer's ear, and Miriam shuddered. Then Sophie slowly and deliberately pulled the skirt back into place, upon which Miriam shuddered again.

Danny watched the whole scene play out without moving a muscle. "Wow." Even after Sophie covered it, his eyes were locked on Miriam's newly spanked ass. The light was dim at the bottom of the stairs, but with the enhancements from his Sentry class, Danny had no difficulty seeing her nakedness. He had difficulty looking away.

Kaitlin was less enamored with what she had seen. "I'm sure this kind of perverted weirdness is normal for your party, but there are other people around.

Try

not to be gross."

It was Max's turn to blush. "Sorry. Miriam has used a lot of mana, and I can refill her with the motivating strikes. They're just... it's just

like

that." The blond Phantasmist seemed unimpressed. "I'm not going to hit you. You're not one of my... you're not part of my normal party and I can't restore your mana that way."

Still wearing a blindfold, Alex didn't exactly see what had happened, but the magic made sure he was aware of what had happened in fairly intimate detail. He looked pretty upset. "I'm not the kind of man who'd let you fuck my ass like that anyway, bed shitter." Letting out an exasperated huff, he pointed at the door. "After we get done, maybe you girls want to feel how a

real

man can take care of them." He pulled on his crotch in case there was any doubt as to what he meant.

The Phantasmist pfffted, amused by Alex's antics. She turned back to Max and pretended to be conciliatory. "Look, I get that your class works that way, and you don't really have a choice." She looked meaningfully at Sophie and Miriam. "

They

had a choice. I have a choice. I

choose

not to be a whore." She said it with real vehemence.

His expression of embarrassed contrition vanished, and Max looked angry. "Miriam and Sophie are

not

whores." He walked over to Kaitlin and found that he towered over her by nearly fifteen centimeters. She shrank from his irate glare. "They are my valued party members, and for the moment that makes them

your

valued party members too. You should

be nice

to them." His words came out with real force, and Kaitlin shrunk before him.

Sophie came up and put her arm around Kaitlin's shoulder. The Valkyrie was almost the same height as Max, so she was still very obviously taller than the Phantasmist. She leaned down and whispered something into Kaitlin's ear that cause the shorter woman to freeze up in surprise and alarm. Sophie's heavy hand patted Kaitlin on the shoulder possessively. "Danny?" she asked sweetly and at a much louder volume, "do you see any traps on that door?"

She could as easily have asked Oscar, because Ranger was as perception-focused a class as Sentry was. Having actually been asked for his assistance, Danny tore his eyes away Miriam and began analyzing the door with similar thoroughness. There was a blue light from under the door that though faint and flickering still promised that there were will-o-wisps on the other side. "There are basically three traps. Mechanical, magical, and military." Those were the three classes of trap that prospective dungeon raiders were taught about in school, so if all three were present it meant that the door was

very

trapped. "They've set up a spell circuit to release a spell of some kind. There's a chute up there that dumps something like flaming oil or whatever above the archway, and there's about twelve nightmares waiting to pounce on us as soon as the door opens." Indeed, the total package.

The mechanical trap was the easiest to understand, and thus the easiest to circumvent. Stuff came out of the chute, the back end didn't really matter at all. The Tartarians probably had a means of triggering it from inside, but the danger would be the same if it dumped its contents because of a trip wire or a pressure plate. So long as any of the hunters were in the belch path, then they were in danger. The magical portion of the trap was harder to predict. What would trigger it? How frequently could it trigger? How many times could it trigger? What would the area affected by the magic be when the trap triggered? Max wasn't sure he would know the answers even if he knew much about Tartarian magic, which he assuredly did not. Humanity as a whole didn't know everything about the magic available to human's own hunters, as Max's own class would solidly demonstrate, the magic available to hostile aliens was a constant font of unwelcome surprises.