Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 91: A friendly neighbor

Arwin did his best to avoid touching the dead Rot Giantling too much as he worked the crumpled helmet off its pulped head. It was largely a fruitless effort, and even washing the helmet off in the lake didn’t manage to completely remove the vile stench engrained within it.

Time and the water had taken a heavy toll on the metal. It was covered with a thick layer of rust and the barnacles felt like they’d welded themselves on. Arwin had to use a little bit of energy from [Scourge] just to pry one off, revealing even more rusted scrap.

He wasn’t so easily deterred. The metal had withstood several hits from his [Scourge] empowered swings, and even [Shieldbreaker] had needed several blows to properly destroy it. There had to be some redeeming properties to the metal even if it was completely rusted over.

“You think this is magical and just has hidden properties?” Arwin asked Lillia, who stood beside him peering into the lake.

“I think it smells almost as bad as the corpse behind us. That should count as a magical property in itself. Psychological damage to anyone you fight when they realize you’ve been walking around with that awful thing on you.”

“You literally tried to eat it,” Arwin pointed out.

“That was experimentation. I wasn’t planning on sticking it on my head and strolling around with it.” Lillia scrunched her nose in distaste, then shrugged. “But, if there is magic, it’s probably covered up by all the buildup of shit.”

“Probably,” Arwin agreed. He looked back at the corpse. In the past few minutes, he’d managed to work off the one remaining intact leg of the giantling’s greaves and a chunk of the chest piece. He broke several other pieces off, removing plates of everything that he could until he had a small pile. The rest of the armor was so deeply embedded and fused with the monster’s body that even Arwin couldn’t be bothered to try and remove it. There were some things that even the world’s strongest bath could never fix – and the metal looked warped beyond use by the giantling’s body.

“I see that look in your eyes,” Lillia said. “You’re about to ask me if I’m willing to carry some of this crap, aren’t you?”

“You were willing to take the flesh back.”

Lillia heaved a sigh. “Fine. Just… try to wash it a little more, please.”

Arwin did just that. He wasn’t eager to smell the awful armor for much longer either. While he scrubbed away at it in the lake, the others scoured the room for a way to open the door to the next level down.

It was nearly thirty minutes before he decided that he couldn’t possibly clean the armor any further with just water. He broke it into pieces and stuffed it into Lillia’s bag. He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed over to rejoin the others.

They were huddled at the edge of the lake farthest from where he’d been working. Lillia sat beside it, her eyes screwed shut and lips pursed with concentration. There was a large pile of rubble and garbage stacked up beside her consisting of everything from fish bones to moss-covered rocks.

“Any luck finding a way down?” Arwin asked, setting the bag at his feet.

“I think so. We’re working on it right now. There’s something at the bottom of the water that we think might be a key.” Reya nodded past Lillia into the murky depths. It was like staring into a bowl of thick stew. If there was anything down there, Arwin certainly couldn’t see it. “But it’s really down there and Rodrick only saw a flash of it.”

“I was about to ask,” Arwin said dryly. “I’d rather it be somewhere underwater than on the Rot Giantling’s body. At least it might be a bit pre-washed.”

“I wouldn’t get too optimistic,” Anna said nasally, her nose pinched shut between two fingers. “I have no idea how Rodrick saw anything through that murk, much less how Lillia is going to actually manage to find it again if it is down there.”

“Hold on. I think I have something.” Lillia’s tongue protruded from her mouth and she pulled her hands up. A net made of shadow rose up from the water, pulled shut at the top. It flopped onto the ground and melted into a pool of darkness, leaving behind an assortment of bones, rocks, and sludge.

“Nice,” Rodrick said.

Lillia pulled a small tendril of shadow out of the ground and poked at her winnings. She pushed some of the trash over to the larger pile with the tendril. The dull green light coming off the moss covering the walls glimmered off a spec of silver buried beneath a pile of algae.

A shadowy tendril looped around the piece and pulled it free. It wiped the sludge away, revealing the body of an old key. Lillia grinned. “You spoke too soon. I got it.”

“So I did,” Rodrick admitted. “All the power to you. Figured we were just going to be heading back.”

“I still can’t believe you saw anything down there,” Lillia said. She stood and took the key from her tendril, shaking the last drops of dirt off it.

“The light was reflecting off it. I think I just got lucky,” Rodrick said with a shrug. “It wouldn’t have done me any good on my own. There’s no world where I was going to dive into that lake and get fourteen diseases named after me.”

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“Are you recovered enough to keep going?” Anna asked Arwin. “You’re the one that spent the most energy in that fight.”

“Yeah. I should be fine. It’s been a good bit since the last fight.”

Lillia headed over to the outline of the passageway in the wall and studied it for a few seconds. She used a tendril of shadow to wipe some of the grime away to reveal a small keyhole beside the doorway.

“I’m going to open this,” Lillia warned, putting the key into its slot. Arwin walked to stand beside her, summoning Verdant Blaze to his hands and ensuring he was between anything that might have come from the passageway and the others.

The key clicked as Lillia twisted it and the door slid across wet stone in a smooth motion. Beyond it was a short hallway that led to a set of grandiose wooden doors flanked by two familiar looking purple torches. More green crystals ran along the ground and jutted from the ceiling. The light coming from the moss mixed with that of the torches. It refracted through the crystals and shimmered and danced in a silent play across the walls, their shadows the puppet masters.

“Big bugger ahead.” Rodrick’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Isn’t it a bit soon?”

“Not if we’re at the end of the dungeon.” Arwin squinted into the darkness “It could be on the smaller side.

“Can we handle the last room?” Anna asked, her staff tapping against the ground as she walked to join him in staring into the hall. “It’s probably a good bit stronger than the giantling. That could be a little rough.”

“The strongest monster in a Journeyman level dungeon might be difficult,” Lillia agreed. “We won’t be able to let Arwin handle the majority of the fight again. It won’t be safe.”

“Getting strong never is,” Rodrick said. “I vote we go. There’s no power without risk. That’s how the Mesh works.”

Rodrick’s words weren’t wrong. If they wanted to get strong enough to challenge a powerful guild, they couldn’t play things safe – but no amount of power was worth losing another friend.

“I think we can handle it,” Lillia said. “I’m in support.”

“I am too,” Reya put in. “I know I can’t do too much yet, but I can distract and support you from the backline. I think we should be able to beat anything that Arwin can hit, so as long as he’s not held down, we should be fine.”

“That’s hardly true. I’ve been able to handle the monsters so far, but there can be a big disparity between monsters, even in similar tiers. Don’t forget the Wyrm is only Journeyman 8,” Arwin reminded Reya. “The difference is that it likely has Titles and Achievements that have boosted its growth, while most of these monsters haven’t.”

“Do you think that’s likely in this situation?” Anna asked.

Arwin shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s no way anything here would be as strong as the Wyrm. If it were, it would have sought a stronger area. The Wyrm we fought could easily hold its own against something a whole tier above it.”

“You think it’s as strong as an Adept Tier monster?” Anna swallowed. “And we want to kill it?”

“That’ll come when it comes. For now, we focus on us,” Arwin said. He nodded to the door. “I’m willing to push ahead. I think we can handle it.”

“Then it’s settled.” Lillia rolled her neck and stepped to the side so Arwin could get past her. “Take the lead?”

“How gracious of you,” Arwin said dryly. He stepped past her, dismissing Verdant Blaze as he walked. The hall was too thin to swing the weapon properly and it would be nothing but a hinderance. Everyone fell in behind him as he arrived at the large doors and pressed his hands against their surface.

They ground open. Arwin blinked as bright orange light spilled out from the room and into the hallway. Beyond them was a massive stone cavern. Metal braziers full of dancing flame that burned on nothing but air lined the walls.

At the far side of the room was a large hole that dropped into the darkness. It was pitch black despite all the light filling the room. Above the hole was a ledge that led to an unlit passageway.

“Gee, I wonder where the monster is hiding,” Reya muttered as she stepped into the room behind Arwin. “Definitely not in the giant cavern. Maybe it’s going to drop from above.”

Arwin’s eyes flicked up. He could just barely make out the domed ceiling in the distance – it didn’t look like anything was there. Even though he was pretty sure he agreed with Reya’s implied guess that the monster was in the hole, there was no way he wasn’t going to double check after a fate-tempting quip like that.

“Don’t make too much fun of the Mesh or it’ll screw with you,” Rodrick warned.

“There’s no way it’s actually listening.”

“Probably not, but that doesn’t stop everything from going wrong when you tempt fate,” Anna said. She adjusted her grip on her staff and looked around the room. “That’s a pretty big hole, though.”

“So it is,” Arwin agreed. “Let’s go see what it’s got hiding in it, shall we?”

“You first,” Lillia said, only half joking. “I’ve got your back.”

He summoned Verdant Blaze back to his hands and headed out. Every step echoed through the room and reflected back at him. He crossed the middle of the room and drew closer to the hole, slowing as he approached.

This thing better pop up soon. I really don’t want to make Lillia go fishing again.

A distant rumble shook the ground beneath Arwin’s feet. He froze in place as the tremors grew stronger and small stones rained from the ceiling, shattering as they struck the ground. Purple torches ignited from where they’d been hidden in the darkness all around the room.

Arwin lowered into a fighting stance. The second purple room in a dungeon – and almost certainly the last one. This was the strongest monster in the dungeon.

He didn’t have to wait long. A massive, boney hand rose up from the hole. It had to have been larger than ten men stacked on top of each other. It slammed into the ground, jagged fingers digging furrows into the stone. A second hand followed after it.

The tremors intensified as the upper torso of an enormous, skeletal giant pulled itself up from within the darkness. Old metal armor adorned its chest. Any designs that had once been present on it had long since worn away. Its yellowed ivory teeth, each one as large as a small boulder, were frozen in the permanent leer of death.

Huge chunks of crystal jutted out from the skeleton and grew across its body, veins of translucent green running throughout it, working so deeply into the bone that it was hard to tell where it started and gem began. The monster’s mouth ground open to reveal rows upon rows of jagged crystal running down its gullet and deep into its chest.

It brought its hands down on the stone, shaking the ground so violently that Arwin was bucked a foot into the air. He landed on the stone with a grunt, the Mesh swirling before him as it identified the enormous creature even as chills ran down his spine. And, as the huge creature let out a roar and its eyes ignited with brilliant green light, the Mesh told Arwin what they were up against.

[Crystalline Bonehemoth, Hand of the Prism – Journeyman 7]