Buttopia
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Chapter 59: A Return to the Desert
🕑 Added 2024-12-24 18:19:59 +0000 UTC“So, uh, two days, then I’m out of here. So try not to die, I don’t need Mel up in my ass about that for the next century,” Timon said as we exited the bus. He had stopped near the Cactomen settlement and planned to spend the next two days drinking. I wasn’t exactly confident he was only going to give us two days, not that I planned to test him.
As much as I was looking forward to testing out some of the changes in my abilities, I was getting tired of the nonstop dungeons. I had much preferred this new life when I was spending my days in the archives. Even as the allure of home grew stronger, it didn’t do much to temper exhaustion. Was this how normal dungeon raiders spent their lives? Just going from dungeon to dungeon until they were too beaten down to continue? I at least had the benefit of the simulator to strengthen me between the raids, but that just added to the fatigue of it.
The upside to this situation was that this, in theory, would be the last dungeon for a while, and we were doing real, tangible good for the planet. Although, I wasn’t sure if we’d be leaving the archives better than when we arrived or not. Likely, they were worse off without Elody, but there was nothing I could do to help that situation. All I could do was plow ahead on my mission.
“You leave us, and I’m telling Mel why we had to walk all the way back to Smithtown,” Cecile said, gently punching the mantis on the shoulder. I wasn’t remotely surprised they had become fast friends. Their attitudes meshed well. Whether Timon was the best influence for Cecile, I wasn’t so sure about.
“I’m still a little worried about those birds, are we sure we’re going to be able to handle this time?” I asked, not eager to repeat a mad dash from the desert. At least if it did happen, my legs were a lot better than they had been the first time around.
“The shadow vultures? I think we can handle them now. Well, maybe not all of them at once, but we should be able to handle a few. We’ve got the tent now anyway. That should keep us camouflaged,” Elicec explained. I had forgotten about the tent. I didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about the creepy diredeer dungeon core statue. What caused a dungeon core to start thinking it was a god anyway?
“If you say so. Come on Corey, we’ve got an oasis at the center of the desert to find,” I said as I started the long trek into the sands. My new enchanted mallet floated next to me while the brothers followed close behind as we all felt the familiar feeling of a dungeon slide over us.
“So Dave, with it getting so close anyway, after we beat the orcs, what’s the first thing you’re going to do back home?” Cecile asked. That was certainly a top question to start our long walk with.
“Assuming we can beat them, I’d like to think I can sit down with my kids for a nice breakfast, but the more I’ve thought about it, that probably isn’t going to be the end is it?” I answered with my own question. The silence hung loudly in the air. We all knew something was coming afterward. An Earth in some serious state of major worldwide disaster recovery suddenly thrust into the eyes of the powerful as they come in search of Sanquar. Realistically, there was nothing we could do to stop it either. Could we even stop the next faction that came to take the planet? I had no idea, and that line of thoughts only brought anxiety back in force.
“Yeah, probably a bad topic. Dave, have we ever told you about our brothers?” Elicec asked a few minutes later, breaking the silence.
“Not that I can remember no,” I answered, and that was how we spent the rest of the day, much happier conversations about their family. Stories of twinog near-year celebrations and their annual mushroom stew cook-offs kept my mind distracted.
A chat window highlighted itself in my mind. Luckily for us Corey, hadn’t been lost in the reminiscences.
I switched over to my aether elemental orb as Corey asked and felt the mana link tugging on me from the mallet, directing my eyes and hand to a spot ahead of us. As soon as the forced movement stopped, I immediately let recall fire off the gravity reversal at the spot. I felt the mana drain from my core and pass out through my arm, followed by what looked nearly identical to a bull shark launching from the sand into the sky.
“What the hell was that?” Cecile yelled.
“Four more sharks are stalking us,” I yelled back as my spell released the shark, and instead of it splatting into the sand, it turned its body into a dive and disappeared again below the sand. Damn, how the hell were we going to fight these? All five shark fins broke through the sand’s surface as they sped towards us.
“Elicec, blast the sand around the sharks with the strongest lightning you can muster!” I yelled as I readied my fire attack. Corey had already flown on ahead, ready to test out its ability to fight independently.
Elicec’s hand lifted skyward, and as he brought it down, a dozen bolts of lightning fell into the ground around the sharks, both electrocuting them and turning the sand into piles of glass that splinted into razor-sharp pieces as the sharks' momentum crashed them into the new obstacle. I followed up with two fireballs while Corey malleted the rest.
That had turned out much easier than I expected. Cecile hadn’t even had a chance to join the fight, but I was back to wondering how dungeon raiders ever went very far with their leveling. Did monsters give much more experience in harder dungeons?
“Can I have any shards we find?” I asked. I didn’t want to monopolize all the potential loot, but I wanted to test some of the aspects of shards for the mana conductivity, and for that I would need a large range of samples.
“Yeah, not like we have any use for them at the moment,” Cecile answered. I realized Corey was still hanging in the air, mallet pointing directly ahead. Then I remembered what they had said about there being something further ahead.
“Any idea what it is?” I asked the core.
“No, but it’s large. Something feels off about it,” they answered. What did that mean?
“Off how?” I asked.
“Oh no, I understand now why it feels off. I also understand why this is a persistent dungeon. Dave, that monster has become a dungeon core spawner. The original dungeon core grew powerful enough to reinforce itself,” Corey explained. I thought I understood part of that, but not the full ramifications of it.
“Okay, so it’s able to create more dungeon cores. What does it mean that it reinforced itself? Is that similar to when I fortified my core?” I asked.
“I am unsure, but what it means for the core is that it has absorbed enough soul energy to begin its own soul-core reaction. Likely it is seeding this dessert with new creatures to bring it fresh souls to make sure the reaction continues,” Corey explained more. Damn, that explained the shadow vultures everywhere too. Everything out here was probably an agent of this thing.
“Can we fight it?” Cecile asked, having joined our little conversation.
“We do not have a choice. It has detected us and is coming. Brace yourselves!” Corey’s voice had changed tone for the first time I had heard since the first encounter. they sounded afraid, and despite that, I felt them trigger the imbuing orb to power the mallet up. They were going to fight alongside us.
It erupted out of the sand, still a few hundred feet away, but quickly working to close the gap. It looked like someone had taken a centipede, crossed it with a shark, and then enlarged it to the size of a blue whale. The ground was shaking with the force of its legs as it charged forward. Its tail whipped back and forth, shattering a boulder.
The fact that Mel had warned us so strongly against coming here until we had no other choice made a lot of sense in hindsight. I had absolutely no idea how to fight this thing. We were likely all about to die.
Once a dungeon core has grown large enough to spawn new dungeon cores, the dungeon has reached a peak growth stage. Many of those spawned cores will go out and establish their own domains connected to the primary dungeon. It is critical that a dungeon raider understand the danger they are in if they encounter a reinforced dungeon core host about to give birth. Should you have to fight one unprepared, there is little advice I can give. I will tell your families you fought valiantly.
Lord Commander Terry’s Speech to the New Dungeon Raider Cadets.
