NOVEL NEXT Chapter 30: A Chance
Eyeing the dark hole before him suspiciously, Dominic instinctively sniffed at the air. Lifting his lips and wrinkling his nose, he drew air through his teeth and into his nasal cavity where it was evaluated by sensitive olfactory detectors.
Musty, he thought to himself after a moment, and something else…. It was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place the smell. It was pretty strong, though. Straining his ears, he couldn’t hear anything move below. Not even the hint of water dripping. Nothing was audible which could indicate exactly what kind of space he was about to move into.
Searching the walls on either side of the passageway, Dominic looked for any sort of illumination. Torches, lightbulbs, heck, even magical glow stones would work. But the walls were as blank as any of the others.
Nothing for it, he sighed, huffing out a breath of air. Moving slowly and carefully, not sure that even this area was free of traps, he started moving down the stairs one foot at a time.
The limit of the light from the atrium was quite abrupt, the delineation of moving from light to dark almost startling. Even Dominic’s night vision couldn’t see what was beyond the edge of the torch-light. More sensitive eyesight or not, pitch black was pitch black.
Instead, he moved like he had in the cave before entering the dungeon in the first place. Switching to using his sense of smell, hearing, and touch instead of his sight, he continued moving cautiously. This would be the perfect moment for something to fall on him or shoot at him, but he hoped that by listening closely he’d be able to detect the sound of any trap triggering.
Either there were no traps in this area, or he was miraculously managing to avoid them despite not having his sense of sight. Despite his caution, so far, there had been no threat except that of missing a step and tumbling down the staircase.
And even that wasn’t much of a threat – he was far better balanced with three paws stably placed at any one time than he ever had been when going up or down a staircase on two feet. The constant tension was wearing, but Dominic remembered what had happened the last time he’d let his impatience get the better of him. He had no desire to fall and find that there were spikes at the bottom of this staircase too.
The stairs were even and straight with no bends or twists either way. They seemed to go on forever, but he’d probably only descended two or three flights in real terms; it just felt like longer because of the darkness and his slow pace.
When he reached forwards with a paw only to realise that there was no step ahead, he was knocked out of the state of concentration he realised he’d fallen into. Before he could fully internalise the fact that he’d reached the bottom of the staircase, light flared blindingly.
Snapping his eyes shut, Dominic struggled for a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness. Forcing his eyes open as soon as he could, he squinted ahead, his muscles tensed. If this was the precursor to an attack, he was ready to react.
Fortunately for him, no attack seemed to be incoming. However, when his eyes did adjust and he saw what was ahead of him, he froze.
The biggest warthog he’d ever seen was at the end of a long hall. Out of the corner of his eyes, Dominic saw that the light which had practically blinded him was from torches that lined the hall. But that was all he noticed: his focus was on the clear threat in front of him. Seriously, what is it with this dungeon and trying to ruin one of my favourite childhood movies?
But Pumba had never looked like this. The warthog was probably twice Dominic’s size, and it had two wicked-looking tusks jutting out of its face, each at least ten inches long. Although a normal warthog’s tusks curve backwards, this one’s tusks pointed mostly outwards, looking a little more like a cow’s horns than the sickle-moons they should have been. It was covered with leathery-looking skin and bristles. Its trotters also looked oddly sharp. It’s clearly enhanced in multiple ways, Dominic realised.
Oddly enough, though, it wasn’t attacking. Dominic might have thought that it hadn’t noticed him, but the way its piggy eyes were fixed directly on him revealed that that wasn’t the reason. Maybe it’s because I’m still mostly on the staircase? he questioned. Or maybe I haven’t got close enough.
Feeling like he dared to take his eyes off the porcine tank ahead of him, Dominic let his eyes inspect the rest of the room. Behind the warthog was something that sent satisfaction through him.
The altar. Finally.
And surely this one wasn’t a trap – quite apart from already having been hidden behind a puzzle, the warthog couldn’t be anything other than the boss monster. In fact, if it wasn’t the boss monster, then Dominic might as well give up and leave now – he was already doubting his ability to kill this one; anything more powerful would probably see him turn tail and run.
It was just...he knew what kind of speed warthogs could put on; had personally experienced it. And that was running away from him. This whole area looked to be designed to give the advantage to the incumbent.
It was about twelve feet wide and at least three times that long with a high ceiling. There were torches studded every five or so feet along the walls. No, not really torches. More like braziers, placed upon the tops of nine foot tall hexagonal pillars. The pillars weren’t free-standing, though, instead attached to the walls on one of their faces.
Behind the warthog was the altar. Although it was similar in construction to the other two he’d already encountered, it was more ornate. In fact, there was a statue of some sort of elvish gremlin thing in the centre of it, a glowing blue ball about the size of a baseball held in its clawed paws. Is that the treasure?
Perhaps. But even if it was, Dominic needed to get through big, tusky, and tanky over there first.
Returning his attention to the hog which still hadn’t moved an inch except to breathe, he tried to work out a way of overcoming this challenge. Right, it’s probably going to be stronger than me. It’s bigger, so it’s got more weight to throw around. But I can do this – lions take down elephants, don’t they? Baby ones, at least.
Based on the shape of the room and what he already knew about warthogs, it was bound to charge at him, and it might easily be faster than he was. Those tusks were also going to be a pain – literally, if they caught him. Other than that…. I need to get onto its back, he decided. If I can bite at the back of its neck, it’s not going to be able to do anything to stop me.
Getting to that position was another problem, but Dominic decided it was time to stop stalling. There were no obvious advantages that he could give himself, and since the warthog clearly knew he was there, patience would serve him no purpose.
Nerves making his belly feel like butterflies were having a party in there, Dominic stepped down from the stairs as confidently as he could. He found an inane thought passing through his mind. If this doesn’t give me enough Prey Points to level up, I’m going to eat my hat. Well. Tail tuft, perhaps.
As soon as all four of his paws were on flat ground, it was like a starting gun had been fired. The warthog exploded from standing still to charging flat out, barrelling towards Dominic like a missile on four legs.
Clenching his jaws to try to stop himself just turning tail and running, Dominic instead forced himself to charge towards the warthog.
As they looked about to collide, an impact that would undoubtedly end up with the smaller lion being the loser, Dominic instead bunched up the muscles of his hindquarters and went soaring above the warthog’s head.
An instant later, he knew he’d messed up. Not only was the warthog moving faster than anticipated, meaning that he missed his target, but there was another problem. A moment after landing, white-hot pain stabbed him in his left hindquarter and his health bar dropped noticeably. Staring over his shoulder, it took him a second to realise what had happened.
He’d expected the warthog to take a bit of time to slide to a stop, but instead it had seemed to kill its own momentum scarily fast. It had then whipped around with scary speed and gored him with its right tusk.
Dominic whimpered in pain and wrenched himself sideways, off from the piercing tooth before his porcine assailant could do more damage with it. But then he was on the run, completely outclassed by his opponent.
It was all he could do to dodge the tusks which came sweeping around to stab him once more, the idea of retaliation never far from his mind but proving impossible to achieve in reality.
When the warthog changed tactics, Dominic was unprepared. After dodging a swipe from a tusk, the lion was blind-sided when the warthog suddenly charged at point-blank distance.
He was forced under its body, its hooves scrabbling over him painfully. It was then that Dominic realised why its trotters had looked different – they were sharp.
However, painful and bleeding wounds aside, the warthog had actually given him an opportunity here. Dominic gathered himself and jumped at the warthog’s backside, digging his claws in, satisfaction running through him as he saw his opponent’s blood now.
The warthog wasn’t taking it lying down, though – it squealed deafeningly and started doing a furious dance. Kicking and jumping as much as it was capable, it managed to shake the lion off. Dominic slid across the floor uncontrollably, finishing up against a wall with a painful thud. Apparently, his claw-hold hadn’t been as good as it needed to be.
From his position, the boss still leaping and shaking as if it hadn’t realised he’d let go, Dominic managed to catch a glimpse of the marks he’d left on the warthog’s rear and he understood. The warthog’s skin didn’t just look thick and tough, it was thick and tough. Despite his enhancement, his claws had barely sunk in.
I bet it won’t hold up so well against my teeth, though, he thought savagely. It was looking like his initial plan to get on the warthog’s back and bite through its spine was going to be the only one. Unless it had a weaker spot on its belly, anyway. Well, perhaps I should try Plan B - if even that will work.
Dominic leapt aside as the warthog charged at him once more. This time more aware of its surprising speed, he’d leaped further to the side so that he wouldn’t be caught. When he whirled around, though, he was savagely glad to see that the warthog had something else on his mind. Or rather, on its head.
A bump, to be precise. From when it hadn’t quite been fast enough to stop and had collided with the wall, all its momentum intact.
If his mouth still twisted that way, Dominic would have found a grin stretching the corners of his lips. Maybe I have got a chance.