DD - Book 2 - Chapter 5 - Clearing My Head

I'm changing it up! This will be chapter 5, showing how distracted Tali is, and I'll do some minor reworks and have the old chapter 5 go as chapter 6. This way Kass's decision won't appear be so abrupt, it'll be after Talia flails around for awhile.

It'll require a little rework, but not much.

The rest of lunch passed in a blur. Part of it was we didn’t discuss anything important, just made small talk and talked about local news. The other part was that, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get my brain to shut down. 

I wandered out of the cafeteria in a daze. Even though I wanted to work on something productive I knew that if I sat down to do paperwork, I’d eventually end up giving in to temptation and jotting down a few notes about the prospective changes coming to the dungeon; And once that happened, I’d eventually expand my notes to include others, extrapolate on synergies, and before long I’d end up with a full blown dungeon defense plan.

I shook my head. That wasn’t going to happen, I was going to do my best to keep my promise to Kass. I just needed a distraction. 

“Feel like getting some exercise George?” I asked.

The big spider jumped, backing away from the wall relief that he’d been busy probing, trying to pry off the wall. I never understood why he always defaulted to prying at the wall ornamentation when he was bored. It was a bad habit, and one that I’d been unable to get him to stop. Thankfully the walls around here were reinforced with magic, making it impossible for him to damage anything.

Once he was certain that I wasn’t going to yell at him George threw up his forelegs and started bouncing from side to side, purring the entire time.

“Yeah, I thought you’d like that,” I muttered. “Let’s head to the Ballroom.”

As the two of us crossed the Atrium I caught sight of a couple of Anthophilans as they emerged from the Greenhouse projection wing. The bee girls were whispering to themselves, and giggling. As soon as I saw them my brain started extrapolating how strong their evolved form might be based upon Bea, how their role might change, and who I could pair them with.

I pinched myself, using the jolt of pain to interrupt my own train of thought and refocus. Now wasn’t the time for planning. 

There were eight sets of nearly double doors along the far wall of the atrium, and I made a b-line for the one that had the etched brass plaque that read ‘Ballroom’. I held the door open just long enough for George to step through before I let the door fall closed behind me. 

The two of us walked down the dark slate hallway, past a number of small rooms containing both a number of lounging chairs, and a couple pens, with large crystal canopies. These little miracles of technology were what made the dungeon runs actually feasible. Instead of the participants risking life and limb in a blood match, everyone used projection chairs to create a magical clone into the combat area for the participants to control. It perfectly recreated everyone’s physique, equipment, and even allowed people to channel their magic through the clone. When you clone received the equivalent of mortal damage it simply dissolved and you’d wake up back in the projection chair.

There was a separate wing full of projection equipment for each floor, customized to the staff that worked there. Here, we had chairs that had an ethereal presence, so the spectral dancers that worked in the ballroom could rest comfortably, while in the bath wing they had baths for the various aquatic races.

Since we didn’t have a match or practice scheduled for the day all the chairs were empty, and the area was quiet. George and I strolled past them all, moving instead to the room at the far end of the hallway.

Beyond the glazed glass door was a modest office with two desks, two projection chairs, and a projection booth. Both desks were piled high with tablets. Mine contained all the research I’d done on the other dungeons, and plans I’d made for our matches, while Bella’s were all broadcast tablets, so she could watch multiple dungeon matches at once.

Honestly, Bella was the best subboss that I could have ever asked for. Although she didn’t like doing research she had a near encyclopedic knowledge of most dungeons, and adventurers, due to a near obsessive need to watch every match she could.

As my eyes passed over my own desk they paused, ever slightly, on the stack of tablets. My fingers twitched as I fought to reach out and start taking notes, but I managed to turn away. Notes later!

George scrabbled into his pen, which was little more than a recessed section of the floor with a blanket in it, stomped about to find a comfortable position, then immediately started whining at me.

“Alright, alright, I’ll get it,” I muttered, walking over to him. “I’ll see you inside.”

I lowered the crystal canopy that was hanging over his spot, and when it got low enough it locked into position and began to glow. George immediately went still as his conscious mind was transmitted to the dungeon.

Once he was secured I grabbed my glaive from the weapon rack at the back of the room and laid down in my chair. Normally I’d change into my combat outfit, and put vambraces on my spider legs, but since this wasn’t an official practice I wasn’t going to bother.

After lowering the canopy, and locking it into place, there was a sudden flash and suddenly I found myself somewhere else. 

The ballroom was a colossal cavernous room that simultaneously gave the impression of opulence, and abandonment. The left wall was covered in massive arched windows that ran from floor to ceiling and were surrounded by red velvet drapes, while the right had huge wall murals surrounded by marble and ivory reliefs. Gold candelabras were dotted around the area, providing light at ground level, but obscuring the ceiling in gloom. All this was covered in a layer of dust, and cobwebs.

I wish I could have taken credit for the set design, but this was how the Ballroom was set up when I first arrived several months ago. I didn’t see a point in making changes to the basic layout, so I only made minor tweeks to my boss' arena.

I strode across the space, heading towards the orchestral stage at the far end. The orchestra didn’t get involved in the fighting, but they still had an important part to play. They set the pace for both the staff, and myself, once someone reached my area.

Most of the floor was covered by a massive marble inlay design containing a lot of browns, greys and gold, but right before the orchestral stage this pattern changed to a more simple checkerboard pattern using alternating dark and light grey tiles. This was my boss' arena.

George was sprinting back and forth across the space, jumping occasionally and bringing his entire weight down on one of the three foot wide square tiles. 

“You can’t open the trap doors that way, you know that,” I snorted, drawing his attention. “They only open when the arena is activated.”

My fuzzy friend bounced up and down on the tile a couple more times before finally turning toward me, raising his front legs, and hissing. 

“A challenge is it?” I laughed. “Have it your way.”

I skipped to the front of the stage and depressed the hidden switch, triggering the boss fight. The lights in the ballroom went out, and a handful of different colored spotlights illuminated the tiles. After a beat a pre-recorded song started to play.

George immediately charged, across the area, barreling towards me. Before he could make it all the way the lights flashed, white lights turned yellow, yellow turned red, and tiles that were previously lit by red lights fell away. Undeterred, George hurled himself across the pit that had opened in the floor in front of him.

“Too impatient,” I declared in a sing-song voice as I pranced out of the spider’s path and tapped him lightly on the side with the haft of my weapon. “That’s one to me.”

The spider huffed, and skittered off using the side of the stage to avoid the nearest pits and gain some distance. As he did the lights changed, the open pits slammed closed, and white lights shone down on them while the others all rotated again. 

“You can do better than that!” I called as he retreated.

Once he got a decent distance away he twirled on the spot and started jumping from side to side. The big spider bounced from tile to tile, landing perfectly within the boundaries of each before leaping off again. When he landed on a red tile, but bounced off before it flipped open again I raised an eyebrow. His timing was getting much better.

As he approached I couldn’t help but notice that his attack pattern was similar to how Chelsea moved, bounding back and forth as she approached her prey. Charlotte’s form had to be much larger than her daughter’s but I could imagine that she approached her prey in a similar…

I was thrown out of my musings, and off my feet, by George delivering a monstrous headbutt to my midsection. I bounced wildly, flailing with all my limbs as I tried to regain my feet, which I did… just as the pattern changed and the red tile below me fell away. 

My stomach jumped all the way into my throat as I plummeted downwards for several long seconds, falling into the endless abuse under my stage. When the darkness closed in around me there was a flash of light, and I woke up back in my chair back in the office.

I blinked. I’d never been so distracted that I’d been defeated by my own mechanic before. As I reached up to reconnect to the dungeon I had another thought, one that made me groan.

“George is going to be completely unsufferable after this.”