Advancing in Reverse

  The decision on who would go into the dungeon was a quick one. Adam needed to be there, because he understood the construction of Tower constructs the best out of all of us, and possibly better than anyone but the architect of this place. Other than that it was mostly a question of competence and compatibility, which meant that Will and Anna would go. And I had to accept that I would be in that group as well. My increased Self-Esteem nagged at me once more, forbidding me the safe retreat into self-dismissal. It might have been the same group that came in here, if not for Sarah’s current injury, but that just allowed us to take Clarence with us.

  And so, with a brief argument about Clarence leaving them behind, the members of the Lounge portion of the Guild agreed, and the five of us walked towards the ominous black-and-purple cylinder door.

  “What are we looking at here, Adam?” I said.

  “A dungeon. I expect that it will lead through to the Tower proper. It would not be very sensible from a design stand point to place the only entrance to a dungeon in Nothing if you intended for it to ever be used,” Adam said.

  “I follow your logic, Mr. Adam, but it does nonetheless appear that we are taking rather a lot on faith here. Will we be able to use this dungeon as a thoroughfare for the rest of my sorry band?” Clarence said.

  “A fair question. It is all but certain that the dungeon does connect the two planes. It… fits with how the world is structured. As for the feasability of a more permanent connection, that is what I am here for. If it can be done I will do it,” Adam said.

  “And I am grateful for it, and please do not take the thorough nature of my inquiry as a slight. I truly appreciate that you have considered these issues, Mr. Adam,” Clarence said.

  And they quickly began talking details with enthusiasm seldom seen from either of them.

  Anna took me aside, and spoke quietly.

  “It is like a twisted mirror. The same but different,” she said.

  “No, I think I can tell them apart. Adam is a nerd, Clarence is just extremely proper,” Will said.

  “They’re both our friends and we’re talking behind their back,” I said.

  “I don’t know either of them, really,” Will said.

  “Yeah, but you’re supposed to be the goody two-shoes paladin of the group. Now shut up and listen to what they’re saying,” I said.

  “No worries at all, Mr. Vorhal. I can understand that your friends banter comes from a place of camaraderie and with my perception abilities it can hardly be considered talking behind my back,” Clarence said.

  “So we go in. We don’t know exactly what’s in there or how it’s going to go, but that’s not the first time for any of us. Adam can maybe fiddle with the structure to set it up as a permanent passageway between Nothing and the second challenge area. Did I get that more or less right?” I said.

  “Very nearly. The only detail that you have missed, friend Alex, is that the dungeon will have to be completely cleared of threats. It is only during that reset period that we experienced in the Rock Toad Caverns that I can do anything at all with the structure, as it begins losing its stability,” Adam said.

  “Classic dungeonfucking then,” Anna said.

  “Pardon? That’s a curious turn of phrase, Ms. Anna,” Clarence said.

  “We go in, we kill all the bad guys, we take their stuff and we find a tavern to spend our loot in on beer,” Will said.

  “William is exactly correct. At least as far as your part in the plan goes,” Adam said.

  I looked at our group. It might have been the rest we’d managed to catch in Anna’s park and my tower, but we looked ready, weird and dangerous. Clarence with his shining shaved head and patched pinstripe suit, Anna in her black witch rags, Will in his shiny but battered plate armor and me in my ridiculous robes, boots and hat. Adam, of course, looked as much like a skinless mummy as ever, looking stranger and more dangerous than the rest of us combined. Now we stood in a semi-circle around the misty entrance to the dungeon and there was nothing to it but to advance.

  Will moved first, by unspoken agreement taking the vanguard position once again. It hadn’t worked out great in the Rock Toad Caverns, but I still had faith in this marching order. Not too much though, as I passed through the dungeon entrance right after him. It was that same strange sensation of traversal we’d felt more than a day ago in the last dungeon, and once again my sense of smell returned first. The air was very dry, dusty with a strange incense smell just barely perceptible. As my other senses came back to me I heard Will shouting.

  “Dodge! Dodge and roll!” he was yelling. I didn’t even wait for my vision to come back, and began rolling. I felt myself hitting the slick black stone before I saw it and tumbled away from where I’d entered the dungeon and a second later there was an explosion of sickly green light. Vision swimming and not at all certain where the attack had come from I yelled my first thought out loud. Adam, Clarence and Anna would be arriving from the exact spot that had just been blasted by spellfire.

  “Get it’s attention! Away from the entrance,” I yelled, but as my vision came back into focus, I saw that Will was already doing just that- charging, his armor reflecting both the purple flame sconces in the walls of this chamber and the green glow of the monster ahead of him.

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  It looked something like a sphinx- black furred, muscular leonine body, sharp claws and a tail, but with a nearly human body on the front, centaur style. It too was entirely covered in black cat-like hair, and its slitted eyes glowed with green flame. Its head must have been twelve feet above the ground. In its hands it held a scepter and a rod, both of gold, and there were gold-and-sapphire armor plates around its human waist and neck. The second time it cast a spell I heard the chanting, but then I saw Will leap at it shield-first, bashing it with inertia and force of muscle both in the abdomen, which forced the air in its lungs out in a wordless exhale, interrupting the spell.

  Behind me, Clarence materialized and quickly dashed to the side without having to be told. A quick spell from the sphinx left Will screaming in pain, momentarily incapacitated, as it turned back towards us once more.

  “It’s a spellcaster. I got it, just need thirty seconds,” I called to Clarence.

  “That is a significant amount of time, considering!” Clarence yelled back.

  I swore. I had an excellent plan for disabling it. Indeed, I’d come up with a plan to neutralize nearly any spellcaster. If I had the time to cast the stasis field spell on myself, which, judging from the three orbs of green flame racing towards my head I did not.

  The arena for this fight was a circular black room with cathedral-high ceiling and a burning brazier in its center. All around the walls there were inscribed golden symbols, nothing like the spellwork of the Tower, more reminiscent of hieroglyphic scripts from Earth. It was large, the size of a modest school gym, but nearly empty but for the monster inside it and sconces of flame every dozen feet or so, and bracketing one single exit directly opposite where we’d come in.

  I cast the shield spell, over and again in rapid succession, blocking the spells as quickly as it cast them, but no faster- and as the giant leonine creature approached me, I knew that spellcaster or no, it could easily smash my head in with its gem-encrusted rod.

  Then, from behind me there came a burst of orange, natural flame, hitting the monster square in center-mass. Anna had arrived on the scene.

  “What the fuck is this? Shouldn’t we be at the entrance of a dungeon? You call this a first encounter?” She screamed, as much to the rest of us as to the architect of the Tower of Infinite Evil, punctuating every sentence with a burst of her incantation-free firethrowing ability.

  The sphinx was not quite unphased by her attacks, but it was close. After a brief pause it kept advancing, and it would have got to us this time, but not while Clarence was alive. From the very shadows that the creature was casting in front of it he emerged, and I could not tell you if it was a feat of magic or preternatural skill. He sliced an onyx-black dagger against the sphinx’s inner thighs, as he ran through its legs and away from us. The creature wasn’t stupid- it had come after the casters first, but having an enemy with blades underneath you would be even worse than an unattended caster. And so the sphinx turned its attention to Clarence, raking with its claws and chanting new spells, finally giving me my moment.

  I chanted the words of Stasis Field, moving away from the creature, and then everything froze. Except for Anna, who had ended up in the area of effect of the spell by sheer chance.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Now we win. Probably,” I said.

  “You could just tell me your plan you know? We’re literally in frozen time,” she said.

  “It’s a wizard thing,” I said. And began chanting the long and complex Spellrod incantation.

  It was clear that the design of the spell was to be a massive battlefield anti-magic buff. The lengthy incantation, massive area of effect and friend-foe detection selection said as much. But if I had the time- like inside a time bubble- I could just cast it for any wizard duel I had the time to cast a second tier spell for. In a subtle way, the 4th tier incantation was even more overpowered than Anna’s cataclysmic pillar of flame.

  And the rod burst out from the aether and shattered the bubble itself as it formed. I hadn’t planned on that part, but it worked out well enough.

  “It can’t do magic. Now’s our chance!” I called. And began throwing conjured icicles at its joints, eyes and any other soft spot I could find. To the creature’s credit it only cast two spells that were drawn to the spellrod and into my mana field before realizing that it won’t be able to rely on its magic, and began charging as something between a cavalryman and a rampaging beast, first throwing Clarence fully aside to slide down the flick black floor, then turning to Will. And will roared a challenge at it.

  I hadn’t really seen him go all out before, but it was a thing to behold. The monster was so much larger than him that traditional blocks would do nothing, but each of its strikes that came down Will blocked anyways, by way of setting the joints in his armor, bracing his shield against the brazier, even dropping to one knee and hiding wholly behind it, setting every muscle in his body against the impact. His sword hardly lashed out, except when the sphinx tried to turn to us, the casters, at which point Will would lash out with precise rapid stabbing motions to the creature’s hamstrings and joints, too threatening to ignore.

  And all the while Anna and I rained ice and fire on the monster. Adam finally joined us too, and with the monster so distracted he could walk up to it, and use his most devastating attack. I hadn’t been in a great position to observe it last time, but he simply walked over to it, and with deliberate and precise, but painfully slow movements drew several symbols against its fur. And somehow, after doing so the barrier between air and flesh disappeared for Adam, and he stepped into the monster. It screamed then. And less then a minute later Adam burst forth from its chest.

  I had only a split second of relief before it went to shit again. My HUD spell suddenly displayed “Time until dungeon reset: 60:00:00”.

  And I got it. We’d come in through the wrong side. The sphinx had been the final boss, meant to be encountered at the end of this dungeon, coming from second challenge grounds. Which meant that we had only sixty minutes to clear the rest of the dungeon and for Adam to do his work.