A Tyrant, Sort Of

The Labyrinth of Lost Echoes looked more like a traditional dungeon than The Dark Cellar. Aylin could tell that just from the entrance. Each step down the weathered stone brick stairwell had the air growing heavy and stale. Intricate carvings adorned the walls, swirling alongside them and glowing faint blue.

She, Granite, and Gritzn trailed behind the three seasoned warriors Skatikk had sent along. This being a second tier dungeon, even Granite didn’t belong here. Aylin had seen what the rock golem was capable of in the zero tier dungeon, but while impressive, he would still be made short work of by the monsters here.

That kind of hurt her head, recognizing the power disparity. The rock elemental had reduced the better part of entire rooms to rubble when activating his stronger skills. Aylin had specifically needed to tell him not to take the fights so seriously. Yet he wouldn’t stand a chance here?

And Aylin was only level two. A real level two, with no such racial bonuses, as Granite, or to a vastly higher extent, Lady Sable.

She, at least, wasn’t the only one who didn’t belong. Gritzn too needed to hang behind the real adventuring group. The tall, red-haired woman had been mumbling and sketching in her notebook the whole way down. Clearly, her divination powers worked through writing. Or, so Aylin assumed. It seemed fairly obvious.

Reaching the bottom of the stairwell, and entering the dungeon’s first floor in earnest, the leader of the group—the black-haired older man, Banr—turned a serious gaze Aylin’s way.

“Stay behind us. Do what we say, even if it doesn’t make sense. I don’t like bringing someone of your level into a place like this, but if you listen, you shouldn’t be in any real danger.” He frowned. “As little as can be expected from a tier two dungeon, at least.”

“Right,” Aylin said.

“And that applies to all of you,” Banr said, turning to the divination mage. “Gritzn?”

The woman looked up from her notebook. Her brow furrowed. “Yes, yes. Of course. Keep it moving. Rather not keep the dragon waiting, no?” She waved her hand impatiently. “More than that, I’m worried for Quil and her team. The more time that passes, the less I can do to find her. No dawdling.”

Banr shared a look with his two teammates—Vex and Rukni, Aylin thought she remembered their names being—then nodded. They turned and ventured forward through the large archway at the opposite end of the atrium. The same faint-blue designs swirled across the decaying stone. She couldn’t make out what was down the hallway: a light mist obscured visibility, making it impossible to see more than a few dozen feet in front of her.

Without further discussion, the squad began the delve in earnest—though this wasn’t a real delve, but a rescue mission. They weren’t here seeking experience and loot, but rather, finding evidence of Quil and whatever had happened. That didn’t make the dungeon any less dangerous, though. Still monsters and traps aplenty to watch for.

Some of Aylin’s earlier intimidation returned, seeing the three powerful figures advance through the misty, ancient-looking hallway. Banr led the charge. He had the most intimidating build of the three: wide shoulders, tall, with heavy armor and an enormous shield. Vex, the ranger, trailed close to his left, an arrow knocked and ready to be aimed. Likely, he’d have hung further back in a normal situation, but he was helping identify and clear traps—the same for the dagger-wielding Rukni who hung to Banr’s right.

Aylin couldn’t help but trace the walls, ceiling, and floor with her own paranoid eyes, though surely any traps these three veterans missed would be unidentifiable by her, too. But it was the least she could do to help, so she scanned her surroundings regardless.

Granite ambled along, unconcerned as always. Gritzn shuffled forward with a distracted gait, close to Aylin’s left, frowning down at her notebook.

“Take the first left turn,” Gritzn said. “Yes, I’m certain that’s what it’s saying.”

She received some odd looks from the team ahead of her, but a dozen feet further, the mist cleared enough to show a junction.

“And watch for the pressure plate,” Gritzn said. She squinted at her notebook, pen going suddenly still. “Or is that a trapdoor?”

“Pressure plate,” Rukni said, seeming amused. “There.” She gestured with her dagger. A second later, she casually jabbed the blade into the stone wall, then cut—with supernatural ease—a brick out of it. Wedging it out, she palmed her dagger to her other hand, then grabbed the brick. “Set it off?” she asked Banr. “Yeah?”

“Go ahead,” Banr said. “Back up, everyone.”

Aylin did so, retreating with the rest of the team. Rukni disappeared into the mist as they created a wide berth between her and whatever the trap was.

“Here we go,” her voice came through the fog a second later. “Doing it now.”

Stone hit the ground in a loud clink, and some mechanism in the wall groaned—followed by a bored-looking Rukni striding out of the mist.

Something screamed. Aylin—and indeed, everyone present—winced at the unholy sound. She barely prevented herself from slapping her hands to her ears. Even Granite seemed annoyed, shifting in place with agitation. The wailing lasted for a good fifteen seconds, then cut off, leaving the dungeon eerily silent

“What was that?” Aylin asked. The mist had obscured whatever had happened. They only had the noise to go by.

“Dunno,” Rukni said. “Let me trigger it one more time, make sure it’s one-and-done.”

Rukni strode back into the mist, and a second later, stone hit stone for a second time. Aylin winced in anticipation, expecting another horrifying screech, but nothing came. Rukni returned.

“All good,” Rukni said. “Still step around it to be safe. We just triggered it in case we need to retreat in a hurry.”

That made sense. Aylin and Granite hadn’t been doing that in their delves, simply maneuvering around the traps they saw. Dungeoneering best practices hadn’t been something she’d learned from her clan, obviously. She tucked away the strategy in the back of her head for her own delves.

The group continued forward. Aylin found herself anticipatory for what a fight between three high-level veterans and a tier-two dungeon monster would look like. They were only on the first floor, and so in the least dangerous parts, but it would still be the most intense battle Aylin had ever seen. The highest-level warrior in her clan had been Elder Krag, at a respectable level eight. To her knowledge, these three were each in the thirteen to sixteen range.

It was a bit amusing Lady Sable had reached level nine in a matter of days. That took years—if ever—for other people. But most people didn’t clear hundreds of monsters many levels their senior in a single day, and call it a ‘casual hunting trip’.

It was probably ridiculous to be jealous of a dragon, but Aylin would admit she was, the slightest bit. Level nine in a few days. Insanity.

Combat found them soon enough. The misty hallways opened up to a room—tall, elegant, but decayed, as the rest of the Labyrinth—and the three warriors entered, leaving Aylin, Granite, and Gritzn to spectate from the entrance.

The heralding announcement to the fight was a bestial roar. The following encounter was a blur to Aylin’s eyes. An enormous nine-foot minotaur burst forward, seemingly from nowhere, charging with a battle-axe larger than her entire body raised above his head. One moment the beast was across the room, and the next, he’d arrived on the group of three classed goblins.

But the warriors moved with the same speed. Banr’s shield was raised above his head before Aylin even fully recognized that the fight had started. Not just that, but Vex, the ranger, had dashed away, and not one, but three black arrows had already sprouted from the minotaur’s neck, leg, and stomach before she recognized what was happening. The beast didn’t seem perturbed by the attacks, not slowing in the slightest. Its weapon crashed downward, searing like a meteor to the earth.

Axe collided with shield, and a deafening clang burst through the room. Banr held. The stonebrick beneath him splintered for meters in each direction, and Aylin gaped at the power behind the strike—and how stalwartly the goblin warrior had held against it.

The resulting brawl, Aylin simply wasn’t capable of understanding, much less tracking. These were some of the strongest warriors in the Bonecracker Tribe, which meant some of the strongest classed in a hundred miles. A level two like Aylin couldn’t hold a candle to them. They moved faster than a blur, even Banr, the strength-focused class, and the fight was indecipherable to her comparatively mundane senses. She’d grown massively in strength and speed since gaining a class, but the gap between her and them was still far larger than, say, she and a normal person. Or even Granite and a normal person.

Daggers flashed, arrows flew, and the minotaur rampaged, tearing up the room. They kept the creature away from the entrance doorway, which Aylin, Granite, and Gritzn spectated from. Well, mostly Aylin, who was the curious one. Gritzn was more than happy to stay further into safety.

It took only moments for the fight to end, operating at the speed of high-level classed—at least by Aylin’s inferior senses. Soon, the minotaur had been felled, and with not a single of the three classed seemingly bothered. A sheen of sweat was the only indicator they’d dispatched a monster that could rampage through a city. That minotaur would have wiped out Aylin’s entire clan, and all of its strongest warriors, without much effort.

Two emotions warred inside her. First, she was humbled. Seeing upper-level classed at work had been even more incredible than she’d expected. Second, and more dominantly, she found herself excited. That was her future.

No, that was her beginning. Aylin had no doubt that Lady Sable expected far more from her minions than a simple level fifteen. Though level fifteen was staggering from her own perspective, she knew it wasn’t outstanding for the world at large, only the relatively weak goblin lands of her home forest and even the Red Plains. If those devastating attacks were what a level fifteen could bring to bear, what could a level twenty five? Thirty? Fifty?

Assuming Aylin didn’t lose her place in Lady Sable’s service, or die in her efforts for advancement, then she would be finding out first-hand. The idea had her blood thrumming.

For now, she was weak. But seeing her betters at work only invigorated her to close that gap. She would wield power like that—far beyond it, even—some day. She swore it to herself.