Chapter 29

The conversation with Freyja was still running through my mind as I woke. I was alone in the room and a quick check showed the others in the showers. Sounding like a good idea, I grabbed fresh clothes and went to shower, myself. Once that was out of the way, I relayed the conversation I had had with Freyja to the others. With that out of the way, we went down for a quick bite before we split up for the morning.

Darius and the others were in the dining hall having their morning meal when we arrived, so we just joined them. We talked a bit while eating and then began splitting up to our various destinations. Darius and the others would meet us at the Pact House on the fifth floor once we had stopped at the armory to get our things.

Once armed, we met with Darius and the others, finding out what our quest would be as well as our route for the day. Four hours of fighting and moving through the tunnels was daunting but rewarding in both experience and drops.

We left for the mid-day meal, meeting Amenthia and Entivala in the dining hall for lunch and to tell them how things went. Once our food was done, we left for our own time in the Dungeon. Amenthia had obtained a quest, though for the third floor, and so we spent another four hours moving through the third floor.

It was the same every day leading up towards the Champion’s Challenge. I found myself exhausted every day, but it was a rewarding experience and not just monetarily. We had gained a lot of prestige over the month and between the quests with Darius that netted at least one hundred prestige nearly every other day, followed with full group prestige collection in the afternoon that soon matched. Now, there were times that we had no quest, or it took a day or two to complete one, both when traveling with Darius as well as working in our normal party.

A week before the Challenge, we were able to get enough prestige to no longer have to dip into our funds to pay for our room. We had a celebratory dinner the night we finally got enough, and we enjoyed ourselves. With the help of Darius and the others, I managed to get to the sixth floor which was thankfully no longer underground.

The evening we made it there I took Amenthia, Katie and Enti to the six floor to make sure they could come with me there. Once that was unlocked, we began to do our evening runs there, where we had more room to move around and allowed us not to get boxed in.

Kat’ilth’ana worked hard during this time to become as efficient as she could with the crossbow. Amenthia was proud of the progress the dryad had made and felt she would do well during the Challenge. I also took it upon myself to take Dilbar to meet Gordwin. I explained my idea to the halfling for a new crossbow that was based on the ancient Chinese design of a rapid fire, auto loading heavy crossbow. I drew him the designs and once a week stopped off to check his progress and assist him in brainstorming during the construction of the crossbow and the bandolier for it. The crossbow would attach to the back for carrying or switching to melee, and the bolt boxes would be on the front.

Dilbar got his hands on the new crossbow roughly a week and a half before the start of the Challenge. It had the same bolt box design that Katie’s crossbow had, loading from the bottom. I showed him how to load the bolt box, how the crossbow fired and how to attach it to the bandolier when not using it. It took some time for Dilbar to get used to the way it fired, but once he did, we were hard pressed to stop him. He ended up buying a lot of bolt boxes, and as a thank you, bought a bunch for Katie as well. The dynamic we created was working well, with over half of the group able to switch from melee to ranged combat. That would allow us to confuse and maybe even get an upper hand on our various enemies during the event. We were also lucky to have leveled up as a group to level five two weeks before the Challenge, though the circumstances were not pleasant.

We were working on a quest for the sixth level, one that Esmerelda assured me a group of our level and equipment could handle. We were tasked with dealing with a manticore that was harassing the village we were tied to. The beast was seen coming from the north, but they weren’t completely certain that it was where the beast’s lair resided. We arrived and equipped ourselves and, unlike our usual routine of setting up a grinding path that had our quest within its path, we stayed up near the northern exit of the town. We did our best to hide from sight as we waited for the beast to attack and, after an hour and a half, our patience paid off. It was during the wait that I had the idea of coating Katie’s crossbow bolts with the tracking chemical I still had, and we paired it with my bracer, as my awareness had crept past Entivala’s over the past few weeks. The beast came roaring out of the clouds, swinging its tail at the village, and spraying it with thick, poisonous spikes.

The guards near the northern exit were unable to protect themselves from the onslaught and fell to the spikes. We rushed out and began our attack. I sent a blast at one of its wings, hoping to make it drop out of the air, while the others used their own ranged attacks. The Divine Blast hit the beast’s chest and stunned it, but it was able to dodge the ice lance and arrow that flew towards it. Katie made sure to wait and fire last so that she could catch the creature unaware. The bolt took purchase in its side and the beast roared again before swinging its tail for another volley of spikes. We quickly took cover and by the time we came back out for another attack, the beast was already flying away. We ran after it, trying desperately to keep the beast in range of my awareness for as long as possible. The tracking fluid did its job and gave us a path to follow once it was no longer in sight, and I wished that we had employed horses for this endeavor.

It took us an hour, well within the duration of the tracking fluid and we located the beast’s home. It was in a small mountain outcropping south west of the village. It looked like the beast had taken extra time to head north before turning towards the village for its approach. The intelligence of the creature was impressive and worrying at the same time. This could either be natural, as many fantasy games had portrayed manticores as highly intelligent creatures, or it could be another red stone at work. I told the others of my concern and we made sure to be more cautious than normal as we approached the entrance to its den.

We entered the dark cavern and saw that it went deep into the mountain, so we tried to keep to the walls and within eyesight of one another. I took a quick glance of my map once we were inside to get an idea of where it was before deactivating it. The last thing we needed would be to announce our approach to the creature because of the light that the map emitted. We crept through the tunnel until we started to see the faintest of lights coming from up ahead. We slowed our approach but readied ourselves for a fight that was sure to come. As we drew near, we could hear sounds ahead that became clearer as we neared.

“Did you get vengeance for us yet?” one voice said. “Did you avenge what those monsters did?”

There was a deep sigh, and a deeper voice said, “Not yet, my mate, but soon they will regret what they did to us. I killed two of their useless guards, but I didn’t get to do much. A few adventurers appeared and attacked me before I could do anything else. I was forced to leave, but I was smart, and they shall not find us.”

“Soon that may not work, and they might find us here,” The first voice said. “He is still too weak to move, so you need to be more careful.”

“You ask me to seek vengeance,” the deeper voice said with some heat, “but you don’t want me to take too much risk. Which will it be, my mate? Revenge for killing our pups, or care to ensure we stay hidden?”

The first voice sighed, “I am sorry, Throka. You are indeed correct, as my rage outweighs my reason, and I am being unfair.”

“I know your pain, my heart,” he replied. “I understand both your rage and your fear, but soon we will be able to leave.”

I glanced at the others and I could see their indecision of what to do. I ignored the impulse to stay hidden and walked calmly into the den. I made sure that they heard me coming, and, as I neared the light, I could see a small fire at the far side. A smaller and leaner Manticore laid beside it and in its paws was a baby. The larger male, that had attacked the village, roared, and made ready to attack.

“I don’t want to have to kill you,” I said loudly and calmly, “but I will if I have to. Your mate was correct, since I had with me the means to find you and, in time, others will as well. I overheard your conversation and I want to know more about what happened. I take it you were attacked by a party of adventurers or hunters and some of your young were killed.”

The male growled, but nodded its head, “They came in the night, while we slept. The cowards snuck up and slit the throats of our young, but one of them had a misstep and we awoke before they could finish us. My mate and I tore them asunder, though one of them got away. While my mate tended to our young, I tracked the killer back to that village, though their scent disappeared from there. They have yet to return, but we didn’t care. Your kind needed to pay for what they did, and we needed time for our young to be able to leave. Now that you have found us, you must be killed before others attack and finish the job.”

I called my Divine Blast to my hand and held it ready, “I am ready to claim that you are killed and help you leave, but if you attack me, I will be forced to end you. Do you want to rob your child of a parent?”

“You are going to help us?” the female replied with a snort. “You are an adventurer! The remnants of monsters permeate your bodies with the stench of death. It is your purpose to kill us, and it is our purpose to stop you.”

“That may be true; I will not deny that,” I answered honestly. “However, I also realize lately that there are ways to coexist. I don’t want to kill you if I don’t need to, but the choice is yours. I sympathize with your plight and am giving you the chance to live.”

The male manticore walked back into the lair, grabbed something from a darker region of the cavern and tossed it at me. I stepped out of the way and was shocked to see a dagger with a familiar red ruby in the pommel.

“That reeks of the blood of my children,” The manticore yelled, “They didn’t even turn to dust as we are meant to. They weren’t granted their freedom from this place and the chance to live elsewhere.”

I cocked my head to the side, “What do you mean, live elsewhere? I thought when we killed you, you died for good.”

“No, you fool,” the female spat, “we do not die as you think. For the rare beasts like us, we know the truth, as it is built into our instincts. When you adventurers kill us, we disappear in a burst of smoke. That burst collects our essence and we are released into the wilds of this world to live naturally. This knife did not do that, it killed our young for good.”

“We will not stop until we find vengeance,” The male roared, readying itself to strike. “So save your pleasantries and either kill us or grant us our freedom.”

The beast launched at me and I reacted, sending the Divine Blast careening towards the creature’s face, striking it in the forehead and sending it flying back. The blast did more damage than I expected, and the beast slowly got up, stumbling as it did so. The female got up and placed herself in front of their child. I was torn about what to do, until bolts, arrows and lances of ice were sent flying by towards their targets. The ice lance pierced the back of the male and it roared in pain before bursting into smoke. The female took the brunt of the bolts and arrows, but one got by and we heard a small cry and then silence. The female manticore turned back and cried in fury and pain as it turned and launched itself at me. I fired a blast at it, and it was hit by the ranged attack of the others as it closed in. It fell at my feet in a grunt of pain and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. I looked over and the infant was gone, causing me both sadness and relief, if what they said was true. I felt a little disgusted and decided to ignore the drops that were left behind. I took up the dagger and soon we handed in the quest to Esmerelda. We felt a rush of energy and saw that all four of us had leveled up, but it felt empty to me. The others felt a little the same, but they had been raised in this life, so they were less sensitive to the encounter than I was, I guess.

Once we returned to the Pact House I bee-lined for Tyr’s quarters, and, once inside, I told him of what I was told by the manticores. I made sure to mention both the assassination of the babies by the shadow group, handing him the knife we found, and the idea that the creatures were released to the wild when we killed them.

“That is correct, in a way,” he said with a nod. “Their spirits are placed in new forms in the wild and when they die there, they are given new bodies in the Dungeon. It is an endless cycle of rebirth that makes sure the wild is never too overpopulated and the Dungeon never runs dry. It is unique and perhaps a bit barbaric, but it is what works for this world.”