Dungeon at War: Dark Dungeon 03 Read online

  He said, “After that, the ten mages, along with hopefully two clerics that can charm the birds out of the trees, and ten paladins will enter the village. They’ll start to preach about Nysten’s gods, and how they don’t have to worry about getting tortured for spitting in the street, and what great opportunities they’d have without being under the heel of the council. They could even help the village create their own governance.

  “At that point, we believe the paladins and clerics, any that might be there, will try and intervene, and take back control. Usually Jennesar’s church plays the gentle fatherly figure, while at the same time ordering the council to be the oppressors. This will force them to show their true colors. They won’t have a choice but to drop their peaceful guise, or allow their village to be converted under their noses. When they attack, we’ll kill them in self-defense. I believe that will make the difference, and the people will see the truth of things.

  “Then our two clerics will re-sanctify the temple to the Nysten pantheon. I’ll open a portal, where a small amount of guards can come through and be their firm but not oppressive guards to keep order. That’s rather important, those that enjoy bullying should be weeded out of the selection on your end. We need to seduce the peasants to our thinking, they’ve been forced enough. Then the rest of us, minus one mage to run the guard and protect the people, and one paladin to maintain the church and give a weekly sermon, will head to the next village.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “Hopefully in there somewhere, we’ll find at least one or two young light affinities, who can be taken in by the one left behind, and trained as an initiate in the Nysten church. I’ll also be leaving a communication enchantment with those we leave behind, and portal back if they run into a large force from Jennesar trying to reclaim the town.”

  She asked, “So you want them to rule themselves?”

  He shrugged, “Honestly, I don’t care. If you want to try and annex them, go for it, just make sure you’re offering them the nicer solution. My goals are two-fold, sway the people to the Nysten gods to weaken the Jennesar gods. And to utterly destroy the Jennesar church. I’d like to make the peasants’ lives better than when I arrived, but that isn’t my true goal, it’s only the vehicle that will allow me to destroy my true enemies.”

  She thought about that for a moment, but he started to speak again before she arrived at a conclusion.

  “In my opinion. Your goal should be peace from the south, and the secession of any raids. You need to decide which is better, showing them another way and helping them as I destroy the master council and church authority, or trying to move in and rule them. All I can say is, in one you’ll be empowering them and most likely making friends and allies. In the latter example, you will be labeled invaders and conquerors, and they’ll forget very quickly just how oppressed they used to be.”

  She shook her head, “I don’t have the resources to take them over, so plan A it is. How many soldiers do you think you’ll need?”

  He shrugged, “Not many. There are seven villages, two small cities and one large. Which is why I specified ten paladins. When all is said and done, I expect we’ll need ten to fifteen soldiers in the villages to maintain law and order. Maybe fifty in the two smaller cities, and two hundred in the capitol. So… just under four hundred?”

  She smiled, “I can do that easily enough, and well worth it if Jennesar will no longer be our enemy.”

  One of the mages asked, “If you need us to be head of the guards, and help protect the people after you do all the fighting, why do we need to come along. Why not just have us come through the portal with the soldiers turned guards.”

  Nurien replied, “We want to convince them to convert, we can’t force them. We also want to try and set them at ease, convince them the torture is over. I want you all there to make nice with the peasants, maybe befriend the elders of the village who will be forming an interim government of sorts? I want them to trust you and know you before we bring in the guards. I’ll mostly be staying out of the way once I destroy the council and church, I’m the hammer that kills their oppressors, but they’ll also fear me.”

  She said, “This will be very long term.”

  He nodded, “Not for me, but for you and Carlton it will be. I’ll leave it up to you when you rotate out paladins, clerics, mages, and guards. Or when you pull them out altogether when Jennesar is ready to stand on its own again, as a friend and ally I hope.”

  Carlton said, “We probably won’t ever leave, though we won’t try to rule perhaps having one church in common will help things too. I need to think about this more, but for the short term, the plan has a lot of merit. Once you remove the threats of the council, and the church in self-defense,” Carlton smirked, “We’ll have time to figure it out and get the rest right.”

  She nodded, “I approve the plan from my side of things.”

  Carlton said, “I also approve, I’ll have a group ready to go in the morning?”

  When Nurien nodded, Carlton continued, “Selwyn will be leading, and I’m sure I can get another cleric and ten paladins to volunteer.”

  Nurien smiled, “Thank you both.”

  She sighed. Now all she needed to do was convince the council they weren’t too thin on the ground for this. Nurien really hadn’t asked for much at all, not considering what he’d done for them anyway…

  Chapter Five

  Technically my avatar didn’t need to eat, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying lunch. It’d been a long morning. Although both Carlton and Catalina agreed with my general plan, they’d both had the need to develop plans for several scenarios and responses if things went south. Granted, they’d be the ones stuck holding things together after I did my killing and moved on, so I couldn’t blame them.

  Carlton, Selwyn, and Liren had left right before lunch, both to get their volunteers ready for the mission, and to brief them. Right then, it was just Catalina, Mina, Lila, and myself at lunch. The mages had begged off as well, so they could make arrangements for their absence and be ready for the morning.

  I couldn’t help but notice the sadness that hung around Catalina, but also a desire for revenge, which is probably the only reason she agreed to my crazy plan. Mina obviously doted on and loved the Duchess, I doubted there was anything she wouldn’t do for Cat.

  My beautiful dark angel never left my side, and was more than ready to bring death and destruction to our enemies. I wanted my enemies’ dead too, but for me it was more self-defense than true anger. I’d been betrayed, but I had no memories of it, and my life wasn’t exactly bad. I had two lovers, a dungeon I loved to run, and now a body out enjoying the sensations of a mortal world.

  Like the steak that I was eating.

  Catalina asked, “I know you’ve done a lot for us already, but it may soothe my council if I could assure them you’d help us if we were invaded from the east? The danger is minimal, but Jennesar has weakened us sufficiently we’d be in real trouble.”

  I looked at her and asked, “We are allies are we not?”

  She nodded slowly, “Bound by our word. I won’t betray you and will send my forces.”

  I smiled, “I think I understand, it’s not in official writing, and others might…” I trailed off.

  “Yes,” I said, “Duchess Catalina, I would help if you were invaded.”

  Humans. We already agreed to mutual support, why wouldn’t I help? It was obvious she was under a lot of pressure, and grieving at the same time, she had a lot of responsibility on her shoulders for an eighteen-year-old woman.

  She seemed to relax slightly at hearing my response, and I got back to more important things. Like the delicious steak on my plate.

  We spent the rest of lunch getting to know each other a little better, and I was kind of fascinated. I’d never seen Catalina from this angle, only the spell casting mob killing angle. I also noticed she was at least as smitten with Mina as the reverse, but there was a sadness there too which I didn’t understand. I
didn’t ask about it though, and she didn’t bring it up…

  Shit!

  I could hardly believe my senses as a female figure marched into my dungeon and started to destroy it. Not just the mobs, but the walls of the catacombs, the enchantments, all of it was being destroyed. The woman was beyond beautiful, and powerful beyond belief. Obviously, she was an avatar of one of the enemy gods I faced. Here in person, to destroy me. It was almost surreal as I tracked her destructive progress through the first two levels before I even tried to stop her.

  I felt fear, this being could truly destroy me. I also felt anger despite my earlier feelings about it, I was suddenly filled with rage. This was one of the beings that had imprisoned me, and banished me from the higher planes.

  This was my true enemy, and she was within my reach.

  It wasn’t until the third death, that I realized her havoc on me was killing the adventurers, the dungeon itself was going out of control, as she used not only the six spheres of magic, but the power of creation itself to fuel her attack.

  I started to try to save them, they were meant to be killed in challenges, not squashed by a mad goddess’s anger. The anger and power coming off the avatar was out of control, as if I’d somehow wronged her instead of the other way around. But then I noticed the fear underneath her anger, roiling out of control, and understood. She was using her anger to overcome her fear, of me.

  I wasn’t sure how to stop her. I tried to crush her with tons of stone, and I tried to drown her in water. But she would just wave her hand and the threat would disappear. I’d never been in a fight like it before, she was using creation itself as the weapon, instead of the six elemental spheres of magic. I also got the sense she was drawing power from herself, her true self in the higher planes, which meant I probably couldn’t match her power. I no longer felt any satisfaction from her fear, I was too scared myself.

  My mind raced through several scenarios, all failures as the goddess ended me. I had to find a way to cut her off from her main will, so I was fighting just the avatar, and not the goddess’s overwhelming power.

  I thought of only one way to do it, but was reluctant. To do it, I’d have to cut my own avatar off as well. It would be desperate, but it might just work. The goddess had gotten remarkably far down in the short time I’d been desperately planning.

  I hastily built a new large empty room, and my avatar took a portal into it alone, and I could feel Lila’s anger and frustration as the portal closed. I’d also have to apologize to Catalina for running out of lunch without a word, but only if I survived.

  The enemy goddess’s avatar reached the teleport alcove on level eleven for the next level, and I redirected the target to the new room. As soon as she appeared I surrounded the entire room with a globe of invulnerability. My awareness of my avatar vanished, he was on his own, or I was. But… so was the goddess’s avatar, she too was cut off and had limited power to exercise.

  It had been my only chance, I’d made it a fair fight. I summoned an earth elemental, on the outside of the globe, and used its eyes to watch, for my senses couldn’t penetrate the barrier, and I’d have to know when the battle was over, and who’d won…

  Yeah, great plan I accused myself. Lock myself up in an impenetrable spell bubble with a crazy goddess? Yeah, awesome idea you idiot. I’d used the last few seconds before I was cut off from my main essence in the crystal prison, by casting the most powerful defensive spells I’d created, while at the same time topping my power off. Maybe that would give me an edge? I also once again bemoaned limiting myself to three elemental spheres in an attempt to appear mortal and unconnected to the dungeon. I was as powerful as the goddess, our bodies as strong as possible on the mortal plane, but I was limited to Earth, fire, and light.

  The goddess had no such self-imposed limitations. But then, she seemed to fight with creation rather than actual magic, so maybe that wouldn’t matter as much as I feared. When she appeared and the globe surrounded us, she gasped. I felt similarly cut off, smaller, and quite a bit less intelligent. Though, truthfully, I was still smarter than any mortal, and able to cast multiple spells while keeping track of thousands of things at once.

  But still lesser, and no doubt she was too.

  She glared at me, “What is this!”

  I didn’t answer her, there was no point in talking. She wouldn’t answer my questions anyway, and I had no need to answer hers. I merely smirked to rile her up and then cast that explosive stone spear, and I released a bolt of light slightly before the spear to lead the way. She looked totally shocked and scandalized that I’d actually attacked her, and my spells just ceased to exist.

  I smiled. Creation magic took more power and would drain her faster than my spells.

  Of course, when she tried to wipe me out of existence, I was forced to reply in kind with my own creation power. At the same time, I brought up the spell form and cast two light bolts at once, the master level kind that would destroy her protections. I suppressed the frustration when she snuffed them out, and cast two fireballs at the bitch.

  The truth was, neither of us would win until one of us was drained of power. I kept trying to use spells to force her to use creation both defensively and offensively. While I just had to use it defensively. In theory, that should be enough for me to win. The elemental spells I cast took much less power than the creation magic she used to wipe them away.

  But then she cheated, she didn’t attack me directly with creation, merely created a two ton stone already moving at me at a high velocity. I took a chance and let it hit me and smash me into the stone wall in the back of the room. My robes protected me from direct damage, but I was sore all over from the impact as I returned the favor, using earth magic to cast the large stone at her, which exploded as it neared.

  When the explosion cleared, she was standing there without a hair out of place. Damned goddess.

  But then, that was exactly what I wanted her to do, use her power, while I took some hits and gained an edge on power usage. My power use was much less than the bitch’s avatar was. Still, it wasn’t without pain, and it wasn’t without risk as we traded the force of creation by our will, and the spells of the elements.

  I wasn’t sure why she didn’t use magic, she was a goddess and certainly had to know all the spells, probably all of them ever made on the mortal plane. Maybe she was arrogant, maybe she just didn’t want to lower herself to use mortal magic, or maybe she was just so used to using the powers of a goddess that it never occurred to her.

  Either way, I don’t know who was more surprised, me or her, when my last stone and fire spear spell impaled her body, and exploded it into mush.

  I was bruised, battered, had several bruised and broken ribs, was bleeding from my mouth, and generally felt like I’d been put through the ringer. But I still had a little power left, and I exercised it then. Her power was gone, which is how I’d won, but the small shard of her godly essence remained stuck in the globe of invulnerability, waiting to return to her godly body once it dropped.

  I reached out with my remaining power, and tore her essence of will to pieces.

  It was a little petty, and would only diminish the true goddess by a very small amount, which she’d easily recover in centuries if she was allowed the time that is. I wasn’t planning on allowing her the time though, and it’d felt good.

  Besides, I thought it might scare the piss out of her core will up in the higher planes. As far as the goddess knew, her avatar simply stopped being for no apparent reason. She’d never know what happened to her avatar. I smiled, because I knew that would freak me out badly.

  The globe dropped and I felt the connections being reestablished with my core essence, and magic and power flooded my body to replace what was used. I brought up the simple spell form for healing and filled it with light magic. I groaned as ribs cracked and moved back into place, and my muscles were soothed and repaired.

  I used a bit of creation myself, to clean up and fix my enchanted robes.


  Then I went back to the palace, though I wasn’t sure why. My steak was cold… damn it. I carefully warmed it with a little fire magic, but now it wasn’t rare anymore.

  The Duchess looked curious, but accepted my apology without question, which was a relief. I was a little worried about that though. She’d get reports about the dungeon and an avatar, and put the timing together. She wasn’t stupid.

  Lila was another story altogether, though she held her peace until lunch ended and Catalina and Mina took their leave for a council meeting. Then she grabbed my hand, and would have dragged me to our assigned guest room suite, but I manfully walked next to her knowing what was coming. That, or I didn’t want to look like a fool being dragged around the palace.

  But once again, I’d underestimated my sexy dark angel.

  As soon as the suite door closed she turned and kissed me with a passion that took my breath away. So… not mad then?

  She broke it and said, “I was angry with you at first, but I realized I would have been way outclassed without access to creation. All my coming along would have done was forced you to build me another body, and that’s if the goddess hadn’t just destroyed my essence as you did to hers.”

  “Wait, you,” I stopped talking as the memories flooded into me from my core self. Of course, after I’d left, Lila had gone into my core mind through the bond, and watched the whole fight through the earth elemental as my other self had.

  She kissed me again, “You were wonderful, and I’m so turned on right now I can barely think. Take me to bed, now.”

  So, I did. I had to admit, violence kind of got my blood going too. Not during the violence, because that would be sick and a little twisted. But the after part, and the still living part. The adrenaline and joy of still being alive and victorious over my enemy. Plus, Lila was sexy as hell, despite not being a part of hell anymore, she still dripped seduction at will without even trying, all focused on me.

  She was everything to me, and I mean that. She was my lover, my friend, my warrior, my protector, my confidant, my dark angel, and my servant, all rolled up into the sexiest package I could conceive. She was beyond precious to me. It was a very good, and very long afternoon as we alternated between making sweet love and rutting like wild animals, several times. I also supposed I didn’t have to be anywhere until the following morning.