Chapter 90: Chapter 89 - The Heart Below
The deeper they went, the more humid it became. At some point, geysers appeared, spewing scorching hot water into the air.
It was starting to feel like a sauna in there, and the ones with water attributes began cooling the entire party with sheets of ice.
Other than that, the expedition handled everything the dungeon threw at them.
Glowmoss Crawlers, no matter how many there were, broke against the shield wall. Stonejaw Salamanders that spat heated stones were blocked by the mages and split apart by Cassian’s light-coated slashes. Rootbound Stalkers that tried to drag people away had their cores splattered by the knights and mercenaries.
The formation worked almost flawlessly.
The vanguard held the line and hacked everything that got close to pieces.
Archers and mages punished anything that moved.
Healers kept burns, poison, and cuts from becoming serious.
And the man who made this cohesion possible was Cassian, calling out orders at the appropriate times and reacting to any bigger threat by stepping in himself.
Even Derrick seemed to enjoy himself, breaking the monsters apart. At first, he stayed in line like a good mercenary, shoulder to shoulder with the others. After a while of the same thing over and over, though, he got bored, clicking his tongue and stepping out of formation, going mad like a berserker and smiling like a lunatic.
Earth mana wrapped around his body like a second skin.
Stone climbed over his arms, shoulders, and chest, forming a golem shell around him. It was not like the massive one he had used at Morholt’s estate, but it was denser and faster.
He stomped the life out of the monsters like a brutal battering ram.
"Derrick!" Cassian snapped when he noticed him breaking the line.
Derrick drove through a big pile of stalkers, right into the middle of them, and started grinding them down into ribbon-sized confetti, crushing them into pulp.
The stalkers soon all died.
Derrick looked back at Cassian with a grin. "See? Easy."
"Stay in formation," Cassian said sharply.
"Sure, sure."
He did not.
After the third time, Cassian seemed to accept that talking sense into a madman was a waste of time. Instead, he adjusted the formation around him.
"When that lunatic breaks the line again, I want the vanguard to close the gap and cover him when he returns. Mages and archers, support him so he doesn’t get overwhelmed."
Derrick laughed. "I like this plan! Nice one, blondie."
Cassian ignored him.
Eventually, after fighting through heaps of low-ranking monsters, they reached the first boundary of the dungeon.
A massive stone gateway blocked the tunnel ahead, arched and wide enough for several wagons to pass through side by side. Its surface was covered in old roots and faint runes, half-buried beneath age and dust. Above it, carved into the worn stone in an ancient language, was a single phrase made of faded, weathered letters.
"What is that?" Garren asked, pointing toward the writing.
"Oooh! A verse from the Forgotten Age!" the tower mage suddenly exclaimed, his eyes lighting up.
"Can you decipher it?" Cassian asked.
"Of course. Just give me a few minutes..."
He did not even need to be told twice. A parchment and quill were already in his hands.
After a few minutes, just as he had promised, the mage exclaimed loudly in joy.
"I got it! It’s a riddle!"
"A riddle?" Derrick scoffed.
The mage ignored him and continued, "It is likely used as a password. This is amazing! A new discovery!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... just give it here."
Derrick pulled the parchment out of his hands, grabbed him by the head, and pushed him away like a rag doll.
Then he read it out loud.
"I drink without a mouth.
I grow without a seed.
I bind flesh, bone, and breath.
What am I?"
He stared at the parchment for a second.
"...This is nonsense."
Then he threw it to the ground.
The tower mage quickly stepped forward, grabbed the parchment like it was gold, and scowled at Derrick.
"Goddamn brainless brutes! This is old wardwork. If you answer wrong, then something unpleasant will happen."
Cassian studied the carving for a moment.
Then he looked at the roots crawling through the stone and saw a handprint carved next to the gateway.
He placed his hand on it and said,
"Life."
The arch trembled, and the symbols glowed to life.
Then the roots turned to ash. The runes on the stone and the riddle carved above it changed their shape and looked new again, and the passage opened.
Beyond it, the dungeon’s fauna and temperature changed.
The air grew hotter.
The moss along the walls turned into a darker, almost red shade, and the stone beneath their feet felt faintly heated.
The monsters changed too.
Large, three-meter Magma Salamanders crawled around and fought for territory. Their scales were black like onyx stone and split by glowing orange lines, and when they fought, molten slime flew from their mouths, melting even this heat-resistant rock.
When a few of the salamanders noticed them, they charged.
"Shields forward! Angle them down!" Cassian ordered.
The first wave splashed against their shields and spread across the formation.
The slime started to melt their shields, but the mages answered with water and frost, cooling it to harmless temperatures.
Spears and swords pierced the salamanders’ throats when they charged.
Derrick broke the line again.
His golem shell had turned a dark, almost black shade, mimicking the rock around them as steaming molten spit splashed across his body.
He slammed into one of the salamanders, grabbed it by the jaws, and tore its mouth open.
Cassian cut another one in half with a single flash, his light mana carving a clean, bright arc through the air.
They pushed through them, with the two cornerstones of the formation holding strong and everyone else supporting them.
The second boundary waited deeper in.
This time, the door was made of black stone, with dragon-like claws carved along its sides. The riddle glowed faintly as they approached.
I sleep beneath mountains.
I wear the earth as armor.
I do not fly, yet kingdoms tremble when I wake.
What am I?
No one spoke for a moment.
The carvings were not subtle, but something about them made the group uneasy.
"An earth dragon," Vera said quietly.
This time, Derrick pushed Cassian aside and placed his palm on the handprint, wanting to try it.
Everyone just shook their heads at his antics, but with his overall value in combat, nobody voiced their complaints.
The door opened.
Derrick looked at her. "You were right, Vera! And it’s still strange to hear you speak."
"I wish I was deaf so I couldn’t hear you, though."
The passage beyond sloped downward, and stairs were carved out from the rock.
The heat became even worse. The walls pulsed faintly with bright red mana, like crystal veins running through the stone all around them.
The monsters were even more problematic than the salamanders.
They were huge Acid Vipers, probably around six meters long.
Thick, ash-colored serpents moved through the whole floor, their fangs dripping some kind of green liquid that hissed whenever it fell onto the ground.
Unlike the salamanders, they waited in ambush, struck from blind spots, and spat acid venom from afar.
The expedition finally slowed down.
"Raise earth walls in sections and move from cover to cover. Keep the shields high until we are face to face with them," Cassian ordered.
Although large, the vipers could launch themselves like arrows.
One viper launched itself and struck a guard’s calf with its venom. The venom burned through his armor like it was not even there and almost burned through his leg completely.
Another lunged from the ceiling toward Cassian.
He turned without panic, extended an arm, and blasted it with an eradicating light beam.
Then he raised his sword and flash-stepped to the next one, beheading it.
The tunnel became a killing ground.
By the time they reached the third boundary, the expedition was exhausted from the heat and the monsters. Everyone was running low on mana.
The final arch was huge, larger than the others. Its stone was darker, older, and covered in claw marks that erased some of the runes.
The riddle was written across the top.
I am hunger beneath the hill.
I am fire in stone.
I am root, scale, fang, and throne.
What waits below?
Even Cassian did not answer immediately.
They all thought about it for a while and talked among themselves, and the most likely answer was the heart.
Then Cassian placed his palm on the print and said, "The heart of the dungeon."
The arch opened, and everyone was relieved that it was the right answer.
But that relief quickly faded as a stream of hot, ancient air rolled over them.
It was suffocating.
—
The next section of the dungeon was almost barren.
No fauna.
No greenery.
Only black stone, cracked ground, and veins of dull red magma running through the floor like dying blood vessels. The air was dry and heavy, tasting of ash and heated metal.
After the richness of the previous chambers, the place felt strangely empty.
A few members of the expedition began to groan.
"Seriously? This is it?" one of the guards muttered.
"Maybe someone cleared it already," another said.
These thoughts spread quickly.
Derrick kicked a loose rock down the path. "We are screwed if someone took the loot already."
Cassian, on the other hand, remained serious.
"Stay alert," he said, taking the lead again. "We are still inside a dungeon. Don’t let your guard down, and move in formation like before."
His voice carried through them, and they tightened the formation again before moving forward.
Step by step, the passage widened. The walls rose higher, the ceiling disappeared into darkness, and the veins of magma grew thinner until even they vanished beneath dry, pale stone.
—
After a long stretch of walking, they finally saw something.
A cave in the distance.
It was very large and immersed in darkness.
No signs of life.
No monster stood at its entrance.
But after everyone moved closer, when they were somewhere around two hundred meters away from it, they suddenly felt pressure.
Heavy and ancient, pressing down on their shoulders and crawling beneath their skin. It was not like the mana of any normal being.
It was simply massive and intimidating.
As if the mountain itself had opened one of its eyes as it noticed them.
Cassian stopped walking, his face going white with shock.
Everyone else stopped as well.
Even Derrick’s grin slowly faded.
"What the hell is that...?"
They were afraid of the truth and the answer.
Then the ground trembled.
A low rumble rolled out from the cave, and the barren chamber suddenly exploded into motion.
Sand burst from the cave and engulfed everything.
It rose in a violent storm, swallowing the entire area in seconds. Visibility was reduced to almost zero in an instant.
"Raise your shields now! Earth mages, erect walls around us, and everyone gather closer together!"
A shrill edge escaped Cassian’s voice.
He knew what the beast was now.
The men shouted and lifted their shields.
Even the horses outside screamed and went berserk behind them.
The order barely left his mouth before the first attack came.
Two massive spikes tore out of the sandstorm.
They were called spikes only because of their pointed tips. In truth, they were closer to boulders launched like spears, each one thick enough to crush three men at once.
"Brace!"
The vanguard raised their shields.
Cassian stepped forward, light gathering along his sword.
Derrick cursed and slammed both hands into the ground, earth mana surging from him as a stone wall rose in front of the formation.
The first spike hit.
The wall shattered instantly.
The impact erased the men in its path, shields cracking and being flung away.
Cassian met the second spike with his blade.
With a flash of light, he split the stone in two.
But it was clearly not enough.
Both halves still tore past him and smashed into the side of the formation, sending more guards flying like broken rag dolls.
For the first time since they had entered the dungeon, the formation broke down like a sand castle.
And from inside the storm, something enormous shifted forward.
Watching those puny beings struggle before it even showed itself.
