Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty — The Buck Stops Here
Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty — The Buck Stops Here It was hard.That’s pretty much the only way I could describe having to do what I had to.The others were looking to me to lead them. We’d never had a vote on it, we never sat down and delegated positions and such. Somehow I had just... ended up as the leader. Maybe it was because I clung onto others, or because I’d sorta-jokingly taken the title of captain.It didn’t matter. I was the leader, and that meant that some things fell to me. This was one of them.I took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the ground. I’d never really looked at Emmanuel’s feet. Hooves, really, though he had these sorts of boots on atop them, a leather sheath covering his legs up to the knee, with bits of metal worked into it.“Emmanuel,” I said. “I think it might be best if you go back.”It wasn’t what I wanted to say. I wanted to offer to help, to teach him, by example and word, how to be a better friend. He had potential, under all the silly ideas and the sometimes-rude behaviour. I could imagine him being a good friend. Everyone had that potential, and while it wasn’t right out on the surface with Emmanuel, it wasn’t buried that deep.But I couldn’t think just about myself.I was leading others, my friends. If what I wanted put others in danger, then maybe I had to put that aside to make sure everyone would be safe first.It was like... brushing your teeth. Not fun to do, but you did it because it was less annoying than a toothache.Maybe that wasn’t a very good example.“We can still be friends,” I said quickly. “Just, I don’t know if things are working out very well right now. So... yeah. It might be best for everyone if you return to the surface for now? We have a quest to complete, and it’ll be dangerous, and... yeah.”I glanced up, then away from Emmanuel’s face. His expression was conflicted.My friends... Bastion nodded to me, once. A show that he approved. Amaryllis still looked a bit peeved, and Awen looked like she was more concerned about me than Emmanuel, which was nice, I suppose.“Because you don’t trust me?” Emmanuel asked.I held back a wince. “It’s... not just that. Well, actually, yes?”The cervid stomped one hoof down. “No, no, I see how it is. You, you...” he paused, his head falling. “You see me as some sort of failure.”“Not a failure,” I said. “Just not someone who’s ready to work as a team, and in this place, that’s what we need most.”“Not a failure, a liability, then,” he muttered. “Thank you, I suppose that clarifies things. So much for being a great hero.” The cervid stood up, his pride straightening his back. “In that case, I think I’ll go and find people who need my saving more.”“Alright,” I said. “That might actually be for the best. You can learn and make friends, and practice being a hero?”Emmanuel’s jaw worked, and he looked to all of us in turn before stepping around and walking towards the exit. “Goodbye,” he said. I expected it to sound prideful, but he sounded sad instead.I sighed when he turned the corner and left out of sight.Awen came up behind me and gave me a hug, but it was Amaryllis who spoke up first. “That wasn’t easy for you, was it?”I shook my head.“Hmpf. Next time, let me do the dismissing. I’ve fired a person or two before. It’s nothing too complicated.”“Thanks,” I said. She might have said that, but I could read what she meant under all of that. “It had to be me, I think.”Amaryllis took a deep breath. “No, but it might be better this way. I had lessons about leadership, you know? I was never very interested in them, but I’m sure some of it stuck. And one lesson is that you need to learn how to delegate some things. You also need to be able to make sacrifices. I think one leadership lesson a day is enough, though.”I smiled, and if it was a bit wry, she didn’t comment. “Thanks.”“Are you okay?” Awen asked.“I’m fine,” I said as I leaned back into the hug. Awen was getting good at hugging. Bet she’d get the skill soon, then she could use it to show off to Rose later. “We should probably move on.”“We can take a moment,” Bastion said.“And we can grab the loot Jim dropped,” Howard said.I turned towards the old fishman. “Loot?” I asked.That had us all perking up.“Nothing too special,” Howard said as he moved around the big stone table. “Ah, here it is!” He bent over double, then came back up with a hat in hand. A black bowler hat.“Oh, that’s neat,” I said. “What does it do?”“Provide shade to your head?” Howard said with a chuckle. “We’ve collected a few of these over the years. They help with negotiations.”He flicked the hat our way, and I caught it out of the air, then used Insightt on it.A Shrewdman’s Bowler. Helps ferret out secrets and find the right angle to approach a negotiation.“Cool,” I said.“Not something I need help with,” Amaryllis said.“Broccoli should keep it,” Awen said. “She’s our negotiator.”I looked to Bastion, but he shrugged. “I’m not removing my helmet for a felt hat.”Shrugging, I wiggled my ears and pulled my turtle shell hat off and handed it to Awen in exchange for the bowler hat. As soon as I placed it between my ears, I felt the material shifting. “Oh! It’s changing shapes!” I said.“That’s normal,” Amaryllis said. “It’s still new.”Right, that had happened before.I raised the hat, then stared at the two, neatly cut holes set in on the edges of the ‘bowl.’ “Huh,” I said. This time, I slipped it on, and my ears slid snuggly up and through it. “How do I look?”Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.New Skill Acquired: NegotiatingRank: D“Cute,” Awen said.“Like a clown,” Amaryllis said.“Like you’re asking to have your head bashed in,” Bastion added. “The three of you aren’t what I would consider front-line fighters, but none of you are unable to hold her own. Awen and Amaryllis both fight from a little further behind though. They can afford to perhaps not have as much armour. You, on the other hand, are always in the thick of it. The helmet’s a better choice.”“Yeah,” I said as I took off the bowler hat. It was nice, but maybe I could use it when we weren’t about to go and face off against a dungeon boss. I took off my pack and tucked the hat away. “Right, we should keep moving. Only one floor left, right?”“The boss,” Howard confirmed. “It’s a tricky one, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”“You usually do it with just two people, right?” I asked.“Yup. There’s a trick to it. The boss is this great big monster. Weird eyes. Look into them and you’ll find yourself all confused. Anyway, the place has a bunch of altars. Every time you break one, the boss weakens. Then when they’re all broken the ceiling caves in. Often-times that’ll pin the boss in place.”“You’re making it sound easy.”“Oh, it isn’t,” Howard said. “If the ceiling doesn’t pin the big sucker, we often just leave and try again another time. And we haven’t had as much luck since those roots started showing up a bit ago.”Bastion eyed Howard. “Can you tell us more than that?”“Aye. The boss is about three buildings tall, with a squat sort of body. Thick skin too, like a whale. Plenty of tentacles, and the eyes I mentioned. They’re quite large, and they’re easy to take out. Oh, right, the water.”“The water?” I asked.“You all know how to swim?”“I don’t,” Awen said.“I dislike it,” Amaryllis added.I hummed. “Normally, yeah, but not with a pack and armour on.”“Going to need to be fast then,” Howard said. “Each altar that breaks makes the room start filling with water. It only stops when the boss is dead. Then the water goes back down. Plenty of levels around the outside of the room though,arranged like mezzanines with stairs between them. The miss should be fine if she keeps at range.”“Ah, alright,” Awen said.“Right,” I said. “Is that everything?”“Just about,” Howard said. “Focus on the altars first. The boss is fast initially, but he’ll get easier to fight as we break altars.”“I think we’ll split duties then,” Bastion said.I nodded. “I can move pretty fast. I’ll do the altars. Awen can help. Amaryllis, lightning at first, then stop when water comes in.”“Because the electricity will travel, right,” Amaryllis said. “I can switch out with Awen then, let her use her bow.”“That sounds fair. Bastion, do you think you can distract it?”“I can try,” the sylph said.“Awesome, in that case, Howard, can you help Bastion, and if one of us falls in the water, your first priority is to help.”“Can do,” Howard said.I clapped my hands. “Okay then! Let’s all gear up. The boss isn’t our objective, but it’s in our way. Um... you can't negotiate with this one, right?”“Not that I’m aware of,” Howard said. “Just a big monster that’ll attack as soon as it sees you.”“Alright then,” I said.Howard revealed a door that I’d missed earlier on my first inspection of the room. A small passageway, right next to the bigger doors Jim had used to enter. It led a ways through the castle, until the corridor came to an end and a familiar sort of cave began.As we started navigating through the cave with Amaryllis’ magic light guiding us, I couldn’t help but imagine Emmanuel returning back outside, all on his own. It must have been hard for him.Talons squeezed my shoulder, and I smiled even if my friends couldn’t see it.I was lucky, really really lucky.The narrow cavern opened up onto a wider path, one that split, with a passage at a sharp angle behind the exit, and a more open, more inviting passage leading ahead.Howard didn’t even hesitate to continue along the main path.The cave widened, then narrowed once more before coming to a dead stop at a wall made of huge slabs of stone, each wider than my arm span. A door rested in the centre, with that strange symbol Howard had shown me carved all the way around it so that the signs overlapped.“All ready?” Howard asked.“How much time do we have once we’re inside to get in position?” I asked.“The floor under the boss will rise up until he’s standing above us all,” Howard said. “You can attack him early, I suppose. Wouldn’t suggest it. Might fall into the pit the boss rises from.”“Okay,” I said.“Might want to start hitting the altars early, but that just makes the room fill faster in my experience, and the boss will fight harder from the start.”“So no starting early, then,” I said.“We’re not here to run this quickly,” Bastion said.Amaryllis nodded. “Leave the speedrunning to others.”“There’s speedrunning?” I asked.“It’s a sport in some places,” Amaryllis said. “Who can clear a city’s dungeon the fastest. They keep score and all, with prizes for the fastest delvers. It means gathering things more efficiently, which is only good for a dungeon-based economy, and now you have me going on a tangent.”“Sorry!”Howard chuckled and pressed a flipper-like palm against the door. Then he pushed his way in.It was time to face the last boss.
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Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-One — The Dread Cute-ulu
Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-One — The Dread Cute-ulu The room was similar to Jim’s castle. Walls of bricks and stones all around, a fairly low ceiling, and light coming from sconces on the walls where glass bulbs were filled with mushrooms and padded glow-moss.It filled the grey halls in pale yellow and green light, steadier than a flame’s.The room opened up ahead of us, the corridor not so much ending as widening out. The "ceiling" was also the floor of a mezzanine over our heads, and above that was another mezzanine, and so on up to a height of four stories.It was about hip-high, and made entirely of stone. One big slab, as thick as my hand-span, made up the top, with a smoothed surface on which a box sat.Past the altar was a hole cored in the center of the floor. Just a big hole, maybe five metres in diameter. It took a ripple across the surface for me to realize that the hole was filled almost to the brim with water.Pillars circled the room. Stone, with roughly carved tentacles or maybe just really thick vines running around them. They were pretty impressive.“The usual pattern is one more altar for every floor,” Howard said, his voice kept low, and yet still bouncing across the room.“So, one here, two on the next floor up?” Amaryllis asked. She was looking to the side, and following her gaze revealed a staircase in the corner. There was another in the opposite corner. The entire room was square on the edges, with nothing offering any cover except for the pillars here and there.“That’s it,” Howard said. “Should only be four floors up.”I stepped forwards, walking way around the altar and to the edge of the big hole. The water was brackish and dark; I couldn’t see more than a few centimetres into it, but it looked deep. Gazing up, I could make out the floors above, each one with a similar hole in the centre, though the hole was about a metre wider for every level.Something jangled, and I stepped back, then I noticed the chains. Big things, with loops big enough that I could fit my fist through them. They were near the pillars lining the edge of the hole, probably why I’d missed them.“How do we break the altars?” Awen asked, her voice rising in the end when the chains started making more noise.Howard shifted his shoulders. “Even if they look like stone, they're not so tough. A good smack right in the middle ought to break the stone. You’ve got a hammer, right?”“Oh, right,” Awen said. “I can do that.”The chains started to rattle louder, then then went taut.The altar gurgled, and when I turned to look, there was a small rivulet of water running out from the base of the altar, down a little channel dug into the floor, and into the hole. A moment later, more water started to drip down from above. The altars on the other floors?“It’s coming,” Howard said.I stepped back to be closer to my friends. “Right, get ready, I guess. Remember not to look into its eyes.”“I’ll go up now,” Awen said. “I can start with the altars on the top floor; there should be more of them, right?”“Right,” I said. I glanced at Howard to see if he had any objections, but he didn’t protest the idea.Awen paused. “Oh, give me your packs, quick, I’ll hide them on the top floor.”That was a great idea, so we all quickly took off our packs and soon we could hardly see Awen’s head under all the backpacks and such. I think she started regretting her generosity as soon as she reached the first staircase, but it had been a nice gesture, and a nicer idea. I felt a bit lighter without a few kilos of stuff on my back.“Ready?” I asked.“Aye.”“As ever, I suppose.”“Yes.”The chains lifted, super slowly at first, then a bit faster, and with that rising, the water on the edge of the hole rose too. It hit the brim, then poured over and started to form a big puddle in the middle of the room.Experimentally, I pushed my Cleaning aura on and let it mingle with the water moving towards my sneakers. It washed away the brownness of it. Just dirty water, then?Something moved out of the surface of the hole, at first just a fin, but then the rest of a round, blubbery head emerged, oily skin pulled taut around a minivan-sized skull.I gasped as the face came out of the water. Half of it was twisted and misshapen, with large green roots digging into the face where one of the boss’s eyes should have been.The boss continued to rise along with its platform, long tentacled face moving past until, finally, it stopped with its huge, very goat-like feet level with the ground.“Break the altar!” Howard said.The boss screamed.You have heard the plea of a primordial creature of chaos! Your mind is shaken.“What?” I asked.I saw Howard stumble ahead, then fall onto all fours with a splash.That was... bad. I had to help him. But I... I shook my head, the fog lifting and my mind clearing.My Cleaning aura! I blasted it out, spending a good dozen points of magic so that the Cleaning magic would slam into my friends. Amaryllis gasped, then bent down to pick up her dagger-wand-when had she dropped that?-Bastion just grunted. “Could have told us about that one,” he said.“Didn’t expect it,” Howard said. “The altar!” He stumbled ahead, climbing to his feet and rushing to the big stone. He lifted the little box on the surface, then brought it crashing back down with a heavy grunt.The stone top of the altar shook, and when he slammed the box back down, the entire thing cracked.With a third and final blow, the altar-stone broke in half, and I felt a wave of some sort of greasy magic wash past.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.A fountain of water erupted from the base of the altar, pushing up and splattering against the broken stone top. It reminded me of seeing a fire-hydrant that had been hit, only not nearly as strong. Still, if it kept going, and with the room already filling with water...“Broccoli, go check on Awen, everyone, second floor. Amaryllis, let loose with everything you have as soon as we’re clear,” Bastion said.“Right!” I called back.I bounced off, first jumping to the top of the stairs, then once there I used the back wall to bounce back up onto the second floor. I could see the boss’s waist here, his big potbelly blubbering in place. Two altars, just like Howard has said, one on either side of the boss.Ignoring all that for the moment, I bounced up another floor even as my friends ran up the stairs.The third floor was equally empty, with an altar behind the boss, and one on either side. The floor was also, I noted, a fair bit smaller than the one below. More of a balcony, maybe.The fourth floor, when I arrived, was little more than a passage all the way around the hole and the third floor, with an altar at every corner.I saw our bags tucked away next to a closed door by the back, probably the exit. And right next to the edge, shuffling forwards with wide eyes, was a terrified Awen.“Awen!” I shouted before darting forwards. She was trembling even as she walked towards the boss, her eyes fixed on its one good eye below. This floor was only just even with the top of the boss’s head.I tackled her, pulling her back from the edge even as I pushed as much Cleaning magic out as I could in a short, hard burst.Awen gasped. “B-Broc!”“Awen! Are you okay?”She shook her head. “I... yes? I was... confused, but I was fighting it. It was... urgh.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “I didn’t like it.”“Hey, it’s okay now,” I said.Awen nodded and pulled back. “I’ll do the altars here.”“Are you-”She nodded harder, flashing me a smile. “I’m not going to be useless.”“Alright,” I said. “In that case, I’ll get back to the fight.” And just as I finished saying that, the room lit up in brilliant blues and whites as Amaryllis let loose with her lightning magic. The boss groaned and shifted back, then it ducked down, one of its arms punching out ahead.“The altars!” Awen said. “It’ll weaken it!”I nodded, then let her go. She’d do her part; I couldn't let my trust in her falter now.Spade in hand, I eyed the boss, then backed up a little bit. I doubted fire magic would do much against someone all wet like that, and its skin looked thick enough to make the magic kinda weak anyway. Fire magic, while cool and flashy, wasn’t all that good at killing, just hurting.So manual labour it was!I roared as hard and loud as I could while I jumped down, my spade held up way above my head with both hands wrapped hard around the handle.The boss started to glance up just as I brought the warspade down, a bit of stamina spent on my arms making the blow that much faster.It banged into the boss’s head with a resounding bong that made my arms shiver, then I crashed into the monster feet-first and launched myself backward in a quick somersault that had me landing on the third floor.A crack from above, followed by one of the little rivulets of water turning into more of a deluge announced the breaking of one of the topmost altars. Awen hard at work, then.The boss spun to face me, so I darted away, using one of the pillars as cover for a moment. Cover, and a place to insight the boss from.Cute-ulu, the Psyche Flayer, level 10.Cute? The boss didn’t look cute at all. Sure, it had big eyes, and little tentacles, and it was kinda stout looking, but just because it looked like a forty-foot-tall baby didn’t mean that it was cute!The level was also strange. Lower than Jim had been. Then again, Jim was a mini-boss that could be avoided by talking, maybe the dungeon got to get stronger monsters if they were easier to bypass or something? It made sense, in a weird sort of game-y logic. And even with the level difference, Cute-ulu looked a whole lot tougher and stronger already.A second altar broke above, redoubling the amount of water raining down.“Quick!” I heard Bastion call from below.“Don’t get your pretty sylph panties knotted up!” Amaryllis shouted back.Before I could even begin to wonder what all that was about, the room filled with noise as Amaryllis let loose another barrage of electrical magic that rammed into the boss mid-chest.I nodded. Amaryllis was doing great!A crack sounded from below, and the splashing noises increased. So they’d broken another altar.So far, things were going pretty well.I created a set of nine fireballs, even if I knew they’d be less effective, then ran out of my cover on a direct path to the nearest altar.The boss turned my way, and I let loose, flinging all nine balls right towards its face.It blinked, flinching back from the magic that flew towards its remaining eye.On reaching the altar, I hopped up, landed on it, then pounded both feet down as hard as I could.The rock below me cracked. Another hit, then.I looked up on seeing a shadow, then eeped and ducked a wild swing from one of the boss’s face-tentacles.The huge prehensile limb crashed into the altar, bursting through as it tried to grab at me.Fortunately, I was a quick little bun, and I was out of there before it could do anything more than sabotage its own altar.“Right, don’t underestimate the giant monster boss,” I muttered.I had to take this seriously too!
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