Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Eleven

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Marko joined Logan and Inga on the viewing deck. All three cheered Treacle on.

In the end, the minotaur scored even better than Inga, beating the point spread in his favor. His Deadly Labyrinth Machine was exactly that—an intricate clockwork labyrinth with a ticking time bomb mechanic built in for added effect. The walls of the labyrinth grew closer and closer every ten minutes, forcing the dungeoneers to hurry into traps or bumble into various automated monsters, all fueled by Treacle’s AFS Core Improvement, otherwise known as a Augmented Fulgur Stone.

The dungeon was so well laid out that Treacle’s Ugknot Calflings were able to kill most of the dungeoneers. The lure was a pair of powerful magical crossbows—one that could fire bolts like a machine gun and the other that was basically a Stinger missile. It was anti-dungeoneering technology at its finest.

Two adventurers, Daggers McFinn and Sir Rosencrantz Brandybutter, made it through the warren of horrific traps and into the inner sanctum. Once inside, they didn’t survive for long. Treacle defended his pedestal with a magic crossbow in each hand, all the while sucking on the jawbreaker. It made for an awesome image, especially as his death trap dungeon ticked down—Marko had definitely helped with the sound design.

Daggers died under a hail of crossbow bolts.

Brandybutter took a single bolt to the chest and met a grisly and truly spectacular fate—exploding in a geyser of severed limbs and gore.

The minotaur walked away with a total score of 93.9.

Historically, it wasn’t a score that would put a dungeon guardian in the top six, but every year was just a bit different. There was still hope.

Inga was amazed at how well he’d done. “Treacle certainly had the wow factor, but the dungeon was very expensive as far as Apothos goes. Also, the structural economy was rather extravagant. Since the scores are weighted, Apothos usage is critical.”

Logan was thinking the same thing. And he had some ideas when it came to that.

Treacle’s round ended at 3:00 P.M., and Wintersylver—their primary competitor—would start constructing her dungeon at 4:00 P.M. Logan had been up for nearly twenty-hour hours, so he used the lull in action to grab a little fungi shuteye. At just before 7:00 P.M, he cracked bleary eyes, stretched his spongy limbs, and trudged up to Viewing Deck #9 still feeling worn out from the past few days. He got there just before Wintersylver was set to begin and was happy to find the rest of his cohort waiting for him near the railing.

“Hurry!” Inga called, waving him over with one hand. Thankfully, they’d saved a spot for him, or he would’ve been stuck watching the event from one of the crystalline projector screens scattered throughout the various club rooms. “It’s just starting.”

Marko grinned as Logan joined them and held out a thick sheet of parchment. “Ji-Soo sent me a note,” he said, chest puffed up with pride. “She was so impressed! And Kyvandry Spencer thought my design was bold if, and I quote, “a little self-indulgent.” A reporter wanted to do a write-up on me for Monsters Weekly. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if I was going to walk away from those dungeoneers.”

“But you did,” Logan said, clapping his buddy on the back. “And it really was something to see.”

The words guttered and died on Logan’s lips as he saw the grandeur of Wintersylver’s dungeon, the Lair of the Snow Fiend. A grand archway carved from enchanted blue ice led into three interconnected caverns, each bigger than the last. There were no mazes to navigate, no false rooms, no secret passageways. It was deceptively simple in design, but everything was beautifully polished to perfection. the last of the three chambers was her inner sanctum—a vast audience hall of blue-white ice, powdered with glittering snow and multi-hued stalactite-like icicles.

The middle cave was completely dark, though there were more icicles hanging down like overgrown bats from the transparent ceiling.

Treacle nodded. “Three rooms, she’s going to do well on Structural Economy. No wasted space. No unnecessary Apothos expenditure. It’s a gamble, though. She better have some good traps, and her minion management is going to have to be on point.”

“Agreed,” Inga said. “I’ve done some research on her. After that unpleasantness on Thursday night, I took a break from reading the tax code to look up exactly what kind of dungeon core Wintersylver is. She’s classified as a White Wyrm—a rare type of ice Wyvern. So, look there, in the first cave, she’s using Foot Freeze to trap as many of the dungeoneers as she can.”

The icy ground seemed to be just snow, blown in from the entrance. That wasn’t the case. It was a deceptively cleaver snare.

Brandybutter was caught first. His plate mail immediately started to ice over, lightning forks of hoarfrost racing across the metal, freezing the joints so he couldn’t move a muscle. Hallsee the Sad and Feathers the Cleric didn’t fare any better and both ended up caught in the frosty deathtrap.

Inga kept up the commentary as the dungeoneers painstakingly progressed through the space. “She could’ve used her Flash Freeze ability, which would’ve killed one of them, but it’s prohibitively expensive, since it’s an insta-kill spell. Instead, she’s using practical, low-cost spells and abilities to amp her Apothos Usage score. Calculating, but clever.”

From the snowy sides of the cave came spinning cyclones. At first, Logan thought they were more traps, but no, he saw fiendish faces snarling within the swirling snow.

Inga winced. “Ah, yes. Those would be her blizzard elementals.” She grimaced and tapped at her chin with one slim finger. “I must admit, it’s rather disconcerting that she’s unleashing such powerful monsters right away.”

In the end, the blizzard elementals killed both Hallsee the Sad and Feathers the Cleric. Morty Mimsy was able to use a fire wall and a fireball to get the rest of the part out of a tight spot. Brandybutter helped, with an enchanted flaming sword, courtesy of The Magnificent Mimsy. The flaming blade dealt additional damage against the elementals. Working together, the raiders were able to kill her frontline minions, but they’d lost both a spellcaster and their healer in the process. It was a costly victory for the raiders, and one that would ultimately cripple them in the long game.

Which was Wintersylver’s plan, Logan had no doubt.

The middle cavern was a gloomy, eerie place, full of drips and ghostly, whistling winds. The floor was stone, but there were various frozen ponds scattered seemingly at random throughout the room.

The party crept forward through the darkness, avoiding the icy patches no matter the cost. The frost floor in the last room had extracted a terrible toll, and it was clear they wanted to avoid paying that price again. But Wintersylver had planned for that as well.

Marko laughed and shook his head. “Oh, she’s good. That darkness, the cold, that wind—I love that she went classic. Do you know what the lure is? A dragon-slaying spear, a dragon lance, if you will. There’s also a ton of jewels and treasures, all endogenous, so they’re cheap.”

“Look!” Inga pointed. “That whistling wind is covering the sound of her Stalac-Frights.”

Marko closed his eyes. “Stalac-Frights. Let me guess, giant ice spears that fall from the ceiling? Lovely. Just, lovely. I can appreciate a pun that kills.”

That was exactly what Stalac-Frights were, and Wyntersilver had positioned the deadly spits of ice only above the stone sections of floor, devoid of the frozen pools. She’d known the dungeoneers would avoid the icy pools—which meant so also knew exactly where to place the traps for maximum devastation. Daggers McFinn, the party rogue and point man, had been able to effortlessly dodge the falling Stalac-Frights, but Sir Mediocritus wasn’t so lucky. He took a spike to the top of the skull. It impaled him straight through, killing him where he stood.

The failing spikes also caused the remaining party members to panic. They quickly realized the deadly, oversized icicles were only above the stone sections of floor—which immediately pushed them toward the frozen pools.

Wintersylver was ready again.

The ice ponds cracked and slender lizard people, covered in white scales, slipped through the fissures. They moved on silent feet, lashing out with wicked fangs and razor-sharp talons made from black ice. The creatures overwhelmed Morty Mimsy before he could even utter a spell.

“Frost Bites.” Inga nodded. “They are her less powerful minions, but those Stalac-Frights distracted the adventurers, making them easy prey for the weaker creatures.”

Arfgar broke away from his teammates and bolted toward the exit at the far end of the chamber. There were two huge piles of snow flanking the door. Both looked harmless. Neither were. One slid down to engulf the barbarian completely. The other let out a room shaking roar.

“What are those?” Marko asked, breathlessly.

“Avalanche golems,” Inga replied, leaning forward against the railing as she studied the layout. “They’re essentially living avalanches.”

“Live-a-lanches,” Mark whispered. “Diabolical.”

Daggers McFinn tried to dodge the golems, but he was soon swamped in snow.

Brandybutter turned to flee, but one of the avalanche golems slapped him with a big hand studded with sharpened sticks and pine needles.

The paladin staggered back, only to find himself covered in a swarm of Frost Bites.

Wintersylver, in the inner sanctum, was in her full wyvern form, and at least fifty feet long. She threw her head back and roared in victory, her lithe body wrapped around her pedestal, where the dragon-slaying spear lay.

It hadn’t even been forty-five minutes and not one of the dungeoneers had even come close to making it into her inner sanctum. Her dungeon was as simple as it was lethal.

Inga sighed. “I’m rather disappointed. Wintersylver’s personal arsenal is legion. She has a freezing breath weapon called Arctic Blast. Her Hoarfrost Gate Glaze can stop adventurers in their tracks, completely paralyzing them. Then there is her Subzero Scales ability, which encases her in impenetrable frost armor. Did I mention that she can create ice walls at will? Because she can. And she can also beat her wings to generate Terrifying Wind, which is, of course, terrifying. And blustery. Not to mention Slam Bite, Glacier Tail, and Numbing Embrace. Much as I hate to mention it, she is a truly formidable opponent.

“Agreed,” Treacle muttered. “She’s going to score very well. Even I can tell she still has plenty Apothos left.”

The judges flashed their scores over her dungeon.

Logan put his hands over his eyes and turned off his senses. “I don’t even want to know. It’s just going to freak me out.”

What he did know for a fact, was that he had his work cut out for him. Especially since he was on his own, without a symbiotic partner to back him up, and he only had a fraction of the weapons that Wintersylver had.

Of course. She was a White Wyrm. And he was fungaloid. Even at B-Class, he just didn’t have her arsenal.

What did he have? A whole lot of spores, and a whole lot of rot, and he was going to use both as best as he could. He might not win, but he was going to try his best, and suddenly, he couldn’t wait to compete.