After the End: Serenity

It wasn’t long until the tunnel widened out and the group faced a large room. The rails split to go left or right, while ahead of them was a … Serenity wasn’t sure what it was. It almost looked like a bronze potbelly stove, with the loading door open showing the fire inside. The open area to either side of the stove was filled with rocks of some sort. The ones on the left seemed to have rust stains, while the ones on the right were black and grey. Behind the stove was a giant lump of rock that looked like it had been poured there and a small pile of metal bricks.

“I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be a smelter for iron.” Doyle picked up one of the bricks. “This looks a bit like steel. But that’s definitely not what a smelter should look like. That’s a wood or coal stove. I say we take the steel - maybe someone can use it - but the rest of this doesn’t make any sense.”

Serenity picked up another of the ingots. “Dungeons don’t always make sense. This looks like a reward. There are seven of these, which is the right number if it’s one for everyone except Moira. I’m betting this is here because the spinners don’t drop anything. Dungeons always have rewards.”

“Why?”

“No idea. Someone’s probably looked into it, but I just know they do. Maybe to get people to come into them?” Serenity shrugged. He didn’t really care why. What mattered here was that he’d need to split gear with Moira, and - “You know, I bet it’s reducing rewards less than if it were counting Moira, but also not giving her anything, at least not if I’m getting something. I wonder if that’s more rewards overall or less?”

Moira gave him a gentle push. “Doesn’t matter. Get your metal and let’s go, I’m expecting -”

Echo called out “Both directions! Sounds like one each, I think the left might be a double spinner!”

Moira sighed. “That.”

Serenity dropped the bar, then dropped his pack on top of it. He was grateful he hadn’t yet pulled out anything to eat during the stop. “Nightwitch, Doyle, get the spinner on the right. Everyone else, left! Moira, Echo, let’s see if the doubles can be hit with magic!”

It turned out that magic worked just fine on the double spinners, and there was only one of each. Neither got even close to the group.

They went left again. The tracks quickly led into another tunnel. At the next intersection, they were met by two double spinners (from the left) and one normal spinner (from the right).

Once again, they were able to take them all down before they reached the group.

It was really pretty boring.

“I think we’re supposed to go towards fewer enemies.” Nightwitch suggested.

“As long as it gets us out of this place faster. My legs hurt. These tunnels suuuuuuck.” Serenity turned to look at Echo. She didn’t usually complain, but everyone else was nodding along with her, and seemed to be taking the moment’s rest to rub sore muscles.

Serenity didn’t feel sore. Serenity pulled up his Status, and realized something that had been staring him in the face for … weeks probably. Ever since that fight with Kerr.

His Stamina was full. There was no way it should be full, after this much walking. He also seemed to have used a little healing without being injured.

No wonder he wasn’t sore.

Well, there wasn’t anything to do about that now.

The right-hand tunnel led them to another large cavern, but this time the tracks stopped shortly after the entrance. At the end of the tracks, there was something that looked sort of like a mine cart - only there wasn’t anything there to pull it, and it was loaded with enough rusty-looking ore that Serenity wouldn’t have wanted to push it by hand.

They stepped around the cart and looked around the room. It looked unfinished, somehow; the corridors had all been cleanly cut but this looked more like a cave.

The other big change was that the floor was flat. It was so flat that it didn’t really feel like a cave, but more like someone had decorated a room to resemble a cave.

“There’s noise coming from the left. It sounds like … crowd noise, behind a door? Not more spinners, at least not just spinners.” Echo sounded calm but a little puzzled.

Serenity followed Echo’s directions and found a wooden door set in the wall. When he was close, even he could hear the noise of conversation behind the door.

As he opened the door, the conversations near him quieted.

“Oho! New challengers! Welcome to my Arena!”

The speaker was a sturdy-looking fantasy dwarf wearing mechanic’s overalls, holding a comically oversized spanner as a microphone. The spanner appeared to actually function as a microphone; Serenity could hear the dwarf’s voice repeated in the distance.

“Quite a lot of you, aren’t there? Now, you have a choice! You can face all of us and all of my creations at once … or you can take on the Arena Challenge!”

Serenity just stared at the dwarf for a moment. This was ridiculous. He could hear all the exclamation points in the dwarf’s statements. “What’s the Arena Challenge?”

“I’m glad you asked! You will fight my creations. Since there are seven … yes, seven of you, you will need to go seven rounds! After the seventh round will be the Boss Round, and if you defeat my Giganto-Spinner, you will get a prize and be able to leave through the Back Door!”

It was the same numbering mistake that had been on the entrance. Serenity was fully planning to take advantage of it to get an extra person in, but he still wanted to ask more. Maybe there would be a prize per person, since it was more rounds per person? “But … there are eight of us.”

“Nope! Participant list is on the wall, you can see it yourself. Seven names. So Choose! Fight us all, or to the Arena?”

Serenity turned to look at the list. It wasn’t what he’d expected.

Arena Challengers:

Moira

Echo

Lancaster

Rissa

Nightwitch

Doyle

Liuyedao

“Ah … will I be able to enter with them?” Serenity had no idea why Moira was on the list instead of him, unless it was because he was a chimera.

“You’re linked to a Participant, aren’t you? Of course you can enter! Choose!”

Serenity looked at the rest of the group to make sure everyone was on the same page. The arena seemed like the better choice to him. “Arena?”

Everyone agreed, so he turned back to the dwarf ringmaster. “We’ll do the arena.”

“Good choice!” his voice boomed out, louder than before. “The challengers have chosen to face the Arena! PLACE YOUR BETS!”

He led them to a set of stairs that led down a corridor then around to a door. “Enter when you’re ready. Once you’re all in the arena, the fight will start. There will be a short break between matches.”

For once, his voice didn’t boom.

Serenity looked at the group, shrugged, and led the way into the arena.

The arena was surprisingly small, perhaps fifty feet from one side to the other, and it was round. The floor was solid rock. There were doors spaced around the bottom of the arena, and the one opposite their entrance was already open.

As the last person - Liuyedao - stepped into the arena, a single spinner came through the door and a loud voice boomed “BEGIN!”

Doyle and Nightwitch started shooting. The spinner made it to the middle of the arena before collapsing.

“ROUND ONE COMPLETE! The next round will start in five minutes, PLACE YOUR BETS!”

The door behind them had closed as Liuyedao walked out it. “So … do you think they always come from the far door? Or should we go to the middle, just in case?”

Liuyedao clearly felt paranoid about the “arena” setup. Serenity had to admit that he approved.

“Middle, I think. I don’t trust the dungeon to be that helpful. It’d be reasonable for it to use the door behind us to train us to not assume things.” Apparently Doyle was also a believer in constructive paranoia.

They moved to the middle of the arena.

The second-round enemy was a double spinner, which came from the same door they’d used to enter the arena.

The third round was a spinner and a double spinner.

Nightwitch wouldn’t stop grumbling. She wanted to put up an earth wall, but wouldn’t be able to until the dungeon awarded experience at the end of the level.

The fourth round was two spinners and a double spinner. One of the spinners made it to the group, but Liuyedao killed it with his extended blade before it got to attack.

The fifth round was three spinners and two double spinners. Serenity held off the second double spinner until Nightwitch and Moira could kill it.

By the sixth round, they were more tired from the constant waiting than exhausted by the fighting. Unfortunately, the plates they’d made to protect the three melee fighters were in bad shape - they could really only take one hit, and they hadn’t had long enough to replace them.

Round six was five spinners and three double spinners. The ordinary spinners were spread out, but the double spinners were all grouped together. Serenity took a step forward, towards the double spinners. He couldn’t go farther than that without leaving the mages’ backs uncovered, but the step would mean the double spinners came to him.

Two charged him at once. He aimed for the connection between the top and bottom spheres on the one that was slightly ahead, and slashed sideways. As it hit him, his knife hit the connection and slammed it into the other spinner.

He wasn’t sure if his attack had taken it out or if it had been the other double spinner, but between the two hits it wasn’t moving well. He hacked at the connection again and it sparked and died.

Serenity could see where the rear double spinner was falling to Echo and Moira. He didn’t need to worry about it.

While he was busy with the first one, the second double spinner had spun back up to speed and was trying to dodge around him, aimed at Lancaster’s side. Serenity couldn’t allow that - Lancaster was busy with the ordinary spinners - but his angle was terrible. He didn’t have enough room to attack away from Lancaster, and slashing towards Lancaster would just throw the double spinner into him.

So Serenity dropped into a crouch and lunged at the last double spinner. It jarred his arm and the backlash heated his knife, but the double spinner stopped.

“ROUND SIX COMPLETE! The next round will start in five minutes, PLACE YOUR BETS!”

Rissa was healing Liuyedao. Lancaster was slashed, but his wounds were already scabbed - he must not have been as badly hurt. Serenity could feel his injuries fading, and checked his healing. He had about half left, he’d be fine.

“Nightwitch? Can you avoid us on your big AoE? If you can take out the little guys, we can probably manage the doubles more easily.” Serenity hadn’t wanted to ask until they reached the last mass fight. AoE spells were always mana hogs, and Nightwitch probably wasn’t getting everything she spent back between fights.

Oddly enough, Serenity’s Stamina was still full. He pulled some jerky out of his pack to eat during the quick break.

“Hm, yes. One. We need to put our backs to a wall for this to work. Over here.” Nightwitch led the group to a spot between entrances. It didn’t seem to matter which two they were between. “It’s a good thing mana recovers quickly in the dungeon, I’ll still have enough for a fight after that spell.”

“It does? I hadn’t timed it.” Echo leaned against the wall. She looked completely exhausted.

“Yeah. It’s even faster if -”

“BEGIN!”

Everyone jumped to their feet as the doors opened. Eight spinners and five double spinners was definitely the biggest threat they’d faced yet. Fortunately, both of the closest doors had single spinners, and once the spinners were all in the arena, Nightwitch unleashed [STARS FALL].

Even the double spinners took some damage. The ordinary spinners all fell to the ground, sparking against the rock.

The double spinners all seemed to pause. Moira and Echo kept up the barrage, and two fell before they reached the group.

Liuyedao had the longest reach, so his attack was first. He slashed at the joint, but was slightly too high and his extended blade skidded down the double spinner towards the joint. It didn’t do much damage, but it did knock the golem into the one headed for Serenity, slowing them both down.

Lancaster muttered something and swept his sword down before the double spinner reached him. He didn’t touch anything, but both sets of spinning blades were knocked downwards. The lower ones hit the ground and the SCREEECH sent the double spinner sideways, away from the group.

“Well done!” Serenity still didn’t have any skills. It was annoying, but there still wasn’t anything he could do about it. As his double spinner untangled itself from Liuyedao’s, Serenity was able to walk up to it and knock it back into Liuyedao’s, tangling the blades further.

With the melee keeping them busy, Moira and Echo were able to finish the last three off.

“ROUND SEVEN COMPLETE! Ten minutes until the final fight! PLACE YOUR BETS!”

“Ten minutes.” Moira sagged against the wall. “I hope that’s enough time to get some mana back. I’m about dry.”

Nightwitch and Echo agreed, and all three leaned back against the wall with their eyes closed. Rissa touched each of them on the head and started channeling one of her skills. “This will help. I can only use it once a day, but - it should help. I’m not sure how much.”