Hiroto added, “Obviously there will be limits to how much any enchantment can absorb, but hopefully if a mage is standing still long enough to blast it that hard, we will be able to take him out.”

  “This is amazing. I recommend that you stop by the mess hall this morning and tell Isha that I sent you there for a treat.”

  The old elf looked skeptical as if he were being treated like a child.

  “No, trust me, please. It is worth it, and you have certainly earned it with this.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Good news in the morning breeds success throughout the day.”—King Eikhorn, 1071 PE

  Bastion of Thralls Dungeon —David Nelson

  Dave was nearing the dungeon when his esoteric sense picked up a creature moving close to him. It was big, and from the way it was moving parallel to him, he had to assume it was stalking him. This was the one thing that he could have done without. As if having to prepare for a goblin army and psychopathic mages who wanted to recruit him for some nefarious plan wasn’t enough. Apparently as the dungeon powered up, it attracted other more powerful monsters who could sense the denser mana and recognized that as a hunting ground for higher-level prey.

  They had already had to kill a creature that looked like nothing so much as a giant anteater with a tongue that whipped around hard enough to crush metal shields, and a forty-foot shark that had somehow managed to swim this far up from the sea. Fortunately, there had been no deaths yet but plenty of injuries. Just nothing that the healers couldn’t handle.

  He sent out a quick pulse of this extra sense and determined that whatever it was, it was alone. Maybe it was his newfound confidence, or maybe it was him being arrogant like Emily had cautioned, but he felt that he could handle it on his own. Then he realized that his guards might actually be more vulnerable and not possessed of his extra sense; they wouldn’t know it was here.

  Dave held up his fist in the gesture for a stop. Then signaled that there was an enemy nearby and nonverbally ordered them to prepare and stay put. At the same time, he eased his sword up out of the scabbard and cast Ablative Armor. It was his go-to defensive spell and so far had been able to handle anything except Seimion.

  The creature paused as he paused. There was no doubt that it was tracking him. So now the question was how best to handle this. Did he simply engage it, or wait for it to attack? Ultimately assured of the power of his magic, Dave opted to go on the offensive.

  Turning in the direction of the beast, he realized it was on a small rise, maybe two feet above him, hidden in the tree line. That would make charging it harder if he were a normal human, but at his strength level, it would just be a single extra pushing step and he would clear the rise, ready to attack.

  Dave settled on Lesser Brilliant Radiance as the perfect attack spell. Its single-second cast time and blinding effect would more than make up for its minimal damage against most types of creatures. With a quick hand signal to the guards, Dave dashed up at the creature and shouted the words of his spell. Light flashed all around him as he became his own flash bang.

  He landed sword drawn and saw a snarling cat with singed whiskers from the radiant damage. The beast was pawing at its eyes, so apparently the blinding effect had worked. Dave took the creature in and realized that calling this thing a cat was like calling an African lion a kitten.

  Standing before him was what he could only think of as a saber-toothed tiger. It was at least fifteen feet long, not counting its tail, and four feet wide. It had the customary long curved fangs that protruded out of its mouth and a beautiful striped fur coat. Immediately, Dave knew what he needed to do with this.

  He yelled to the guard, “I’m going to try to draw it into the dungeon. Don’t attack unless it looks like it has me pinned.”

  As he finished speaking, Dave thrust his sword into the creature’s left front shoulder. He wanted to slow it down but not drive it off. It needed to be mad and willing to chase him past the guards ahead and into the mouth of the waiting dungeon. He imagined the things that Altracia could make with this monstrosity. Not to mention what the cooks might be able to make out of it.

  With that done, Dave started backing away, making sure to keep his attention on the creature and also stay alert to the landscape. It wouldn’t do to fall on his backside now. The creature clearly was still at least partially blinded, but it could apparently track him with its other senses because it was following along after him, slowly gaining on him, so that Dave had to cast Lesser Gazelle’s Grace to enable him to move faster.

  Even with that, though, his speed was no match for the tiger’s. He ran for a while but kept shooting a Lesser Repulsion back at the beast, trying to slow it. Once it got too close and lashed out at him with a paw that was a good eighteen inches wide. His Ablative Armor absorbed most of it, but he still took some of the force and nearly stumbled to the ground.

  After managing to keep his feet, if only just, Dave continued forward, pausing only long enough to knock it off to the side with another quickly cast repulsion spell. Finally after another minute he was within sight of the guard tower, such as it was. He knew that the guards would react poorly to seeing their lord chased by a monster, but he didn’t want it driven off after he had worked to get it to this spot.

  Waving his arms, Dave shouted, “Everyone out of the way. Clear a path to the dungeon.” In response he saw guards with bows aiming at the beast, but at least they didn’t fire. As he got closer, he saw Talvenicus hurrying everyone who had been lined up for a dungeon dive out of the way.

  Dave was worried that the creature might lunge for easier prey and stop following him, but apparently he had pissed it off enough that it was intent on having him for lunch. Once he was sure it was still intent on him, Dave continued forward and cleared the dungeon entrance. Inside, it had now been shaped into a series of tunnels that led to sleeping areas, workshops, and the actual dungeon floors.

  The creature followed, and Dave was glad to see that the message must have been passed down because the hallway was empty. He quick-cast a Minor Shock Shield. There was no way it would stop the tiger, but it would slow and annoy it even further.

  With that, he rushed up and activated survival mode while yelling, “Altracia, I hope you can hear me. You’d better appreciate this. I brought it to you live.” Then he stepped into the active dungeon floor and was followed by the beast, which had crackles of electricity running along its fur from the shield it had broken through.

  Once inside the dungeon, Dave looked around but didn’t see any of the usual creatures, so maybe the core really was watching him now. The tiger pounced as soon as it cleared the doorway and knocked into Dave with all the force its colossal muscles could generate. Even with his armor spell active, he still took fifty damage. That alone told him that he was going to have to be careful.

  Sword raised and the words of a lightning bolt spell on his lips, Dave began to circle around with the giant cat. It was clearly furious but also cautious of this new environment and wary of a prey that had so far withstood two killing blows from it. Each of them took stock of the other while Dave finished his spell.

  Unfortunately for the cat, it didn’t know what magic was, or it wouldn’t have given him the time to finish the spell. Instead, now it was struck full in the chest with a searing bolt of electrical energy. Dave let out a huzzah at what he hoped was a fatal strike. The spell hit the beast and coursed through it, blasting flesh from bone and then traveling out of it down into the ground, turning the rear foot it traveled out of into a bloody, blackened mess.

  The damage notification said the spell hit for over 700 damage, which meant it must have been treated as a critical blow, and while the creature was clearly injured and spasming from the current, it was still standing. Nothing for it but to attack again.

  Dave quick-cast Minor Enlarge and grew to his nine-foot size to help even the odds some. Then slashed. Paw met enchanted blade, and no matter how strong the creature was, it was destined to come out on the losing side. Half of its right front paw was sheared off. Unfortunately, Dave was strong but not strong enough to hold on to the sword as it took all the force of that swiping paw. His astral black blade went flying across the room to land twenty feet away.

  Dave barely managed to hold on to the spell he had been casting as he swung the sword, but now it paid off. Four bolts of fire erupted from his left hand directly into the tiger’s face at point-blank range. The 1224 points of damage cooked its brain and ended its life in an instant.

  Still, he was panting from the running and fighting. The creature had been tougher than he had expected, and Dave was truly glad that the fight had not had to go on any longer, especially with his sword so far away. It made him curious just what level the creature had been, so he went to check the XP notification, only to find that there was no notification.

  That was odd. Sure, the dungeon could suppress XP gains in the raid and survival wings, but that only occurred when the floor was active. If Altracia had been listening to him, then she should have known that he’d brought the tiger in here so that she could not only absorb a corpse but also observe the actual living being. She further benefited from absorbing the excess life force as the creature was killed.

  That was what all dungeons wanted, to kill and absorb things, but he had a deal with Altracia. One that she had upheld to the letter so far. Then the ring of stones on the center of the floor started to flash. That ten-foot-diameter circle was the rally point for teams in survival mode. The room itself was a hundred by a hundred feet with a thirty-foot ceiling.

  Teams could stage in the middle between waves and get healing, etc. The pace and color of the flashing showed what stage it was. Now it marked that he was moving on to stage two. Once a new wave began, it couldn’t be ended until all the dungeon monsters were slain or, Dave thought morbidly, all the dungeon delvers. At the end of each wave there was a narrow window to hit a button next to the entrance. It would stop the dungeon from starting another wave and had been a key point of negotiation with the core.

  It was too late to stop this now. No choice but to run and grab his sword even as he yelled, “This isn’t funny, Altracia.”

  The lights indicated the second wave was about to begin, so he scooped the sword up and ran for the middle of the ring. He should be able to handle wave two, even if he was alone. He hoped. Then doors on the sides opened up, and he was faced with four drake hounds. At least only one of them was an alpha, but it was the caster type. So he would need to take it out.

  The four-legged lesser drake hounds came charging at him from three sides. He thanked God or Shanelle or whatever being he hoped was looking after him that Ablative Armor had a very long duration. That allowed him to focus on taking out one of the drake hounds, even if he suffered attacks from the other two.

  A slash of his sword caught the one to his right side mid leap and cut it open from its neck to its hind legs. It yelped as his enchanted blade, driven by his muscles, effortlessly sliced through the soft underbelly. Then he put it out of his mind and left it to bleed out on the ground. He kept an eye on the caster, but he or she, gender was hard to tell on these things, was apparently casting a long spell.

  Dave weighed his options and opted to try to finish the two lesser opponents quickly. The caster would be simple without guards to run interference. His armor had already been protecting him from clawed paws and chomping fangs. Now though, he used his free hand to grab one of the hounds that was trying to latch onto his leg.

  He picked it up by the scruff and slammed it into its comrade that was trying to come at him from the left again. The two met with a bone-jarring crunch, and Dave decided this might actually be what he needed to blow off a little steam.

  He stepped forward with his enlarged reach, and two quick slashes ended both of the foes that were jumbled up together on the floor. Just then the duration on his Enlarge ran out, but he figured he could handle the caster on his own. He would just use magic to drop the monster.

  As he turned though, he saw the alpha release a pair of spells not at him, but at the first beast he had cut open. A soft white glow landed on the creature first and maintained a white thread back to the caster. Then before Dave’s eyes, he saw the clearly mortal wound start to knit back up, the flesh coming together to be made whole. Not even Emily’s most powerful regeneration could normally work this fast.

  Then Dave noticed a pulse in the thread of white energy that crossed the air between the alpha and its fallen brother. He lunged forward and severed the cord in the air. The caster snarled at him as it whipped back into its face, but that didn’t stop it from hurling the green energy on its other hand. Again the spell didn’t target Dave, but hit the now mostly healed drake hound.

  Dave looked at it again and saw it grow as the small spikes along its back enlarged and a greenish aura settled over its entire body. Then it attacked. Trusting in his armor again, Dave focused on a counterattack more than defending himself. Sure enough, he was able to punch the tip of his sword through the beast’s chest and puncture its heart. He thought, Let’s see you heal that.

  What shocked him though was the way that the green aura around the beast didn’t fade. Everywhere that the creature’s body had come in contact with his shielding spell, there was a green haze in the air, and he felt the power of his shielding spell being rapidly drained. As he looked closer, he could see it was like an acid eating away at his protection.

  Not wasting any time, Dave ran for the caster. The alpha must have been expecting this because an Inferior Cone of Cold came his way. He had seen Mira cast the spell many times, but had never been on the receiving end. The initial damage wasn’t too bad, only sixty-two points, but what bothered him was the way that suddenly he was so bitterly cold. All of his muscles felt stiff, and his teeth chattered so badly he didn’t know if he could cast a spell.

  The caster was moving back even as it was casting its next spell. Dave quick-cast Endure Elements, and almost immediately the cold got better but not before he took another thirty-four damage to his lungs from inhaling the super-chilled air. His muscles still were responding slowly, and the spinning, translucent blades of ice that slammed into him from the alpha’s next spell didn’t help.

  He was quickly getting tired of having his daughter’s spells used against him. Still, as quickly as he moved forward, the alpha was moving away from him. He just wanted to end it, but then he laughed at himself as he realized he was being kited by the monster. If only his old gaming buddies could see him now.

  So if it was to be a casting battle, so be it. Thanks to his class, he had plenty of mana left. He fired magic missiles first and watched in satisfaction while they sank into the enemy’s furry hide, causing it to misfire the next spell. Then Dave laughed because the cooldown on his go-to attack spell had just ended, and he began to cast lightning bolt.

  The alpha recovered from its misfired spell just in time to be struck in the chest by the lightning bolt. Dave followed it quickly, not wanting to give it the chance to do anything further. As he closed the distance, he saw it trying to pull the cork off a healing potion with badly charred fingers. It was clearly in agony, but Dave felt no remorse as he kicked the potion away and drove his blade into its throat. With a twist, he made an utter ruin of the creature, and blood spurted out in a fountain.

  From there he forced his still-stiff muscles to move quickly to the exit and hit the stop button. This would give him a minute to exit the room before the countdown to the next wave would begin. It was plenty of time because it wasn’t necessary for him to loot the fallen.

  The way the survival dungeon worked was that there would be a chest outside with loot based upon how well Altracia thought you did. It was a bit arbitrary for his tastes, but she had insisted on it. So he simply had to stumble out the door and begin the process of warming up.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Desire is present in most men, but training and resources are often all that separate those who succeed from those who fail.”—Private journal of Emily Nelson.

  Bastion of Thralls Dungeon—Dave Nelson

  As soon as he was out into the small lobby beyond the dungeon floor’s entrance, he was greeted by a small crowd. He was hit by a healing spell and sighed in relief. The buffs from his magical snacks had definitely helped keep him in fighting shape, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need healing. Dave nodded at the druid he thought had cast the healing, but the man waved him off and pointed to a mousy little woman in a typical farmwife dress.

  “Thank you for the healing, and I’m glad to know that another one of our people has manifested the potential for Essence Magic. Have you reported it to my wife yet?” Dave asked.

  The woman blushed furiously. “It is nothing, my lord. Simply our duty to look after you.”

  “No, it is my duty to look after you. That is the way this is supposed to work, instead of what everyone in Albia seems to think. You give me your loyalty and service, and in turn I make sure you are taken care of.”

  “Yes, of course, my lord. And no, I didn’t want to bother the baroness until I had reached Tier 2.”

  “Nonsense, it won’t be a bother. You can still do your run today. If Talvenicus says it’s okay,” Dave said as he made eye contact with the former mayor turned seneschal. “But make sure that you report to her after you return. It is very important that we keep track of all those who show potential.”

  Dave looked around at everyone then. “That goes for all of you. If you show potential for Essence Magic, then you report it to my wife. If you have potential for casting but not Essence Magic, then you report to my daughter. They will assign you to work with the appropriate people, and if you work hard, you will be able to build your place in our community as a mage rather than whatever you were before.”