The Dungeon Without a System
Chapter 138

Chapter 138

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The Canyon, The Ninth Floor, The Dungeon

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Lillette didn't have a moment to think and acted on pure impulse. Mana rushed down her arm at the speed of thought, passing through and amplified by her potentium hand and wrist. The energy swelled and passed into the staff. There, her mana swelled again, and a shield expanded from the gem mounted at the staff's tip. Within a second of that drake-kin and its giant monster bounding off into the jungle, a shield covered the guilders.

Just in time.

Each of the tiger-like beasts released beams of light from their mouths, which splashed against her shield with incredible force. Glowing hairline cracks formed almost instantly, and only a constant infusion of new mana into the spell repaired them. The beams from the ones with a lot of hair around their heads, the larger ones, were bigger, more forceful, though much less numerous.

Three of the larger ones and seven smaller ones. Though smaller was perhaps a misnomer. They were all larger than a human at the very least and, at their maximum, reached twice to three times their size. That one the drake-kin had ridden was twice the size of the largest left behind and so different that it was likely a different species. 'Evolved,' most likely. The beams petered off, then stopped entirely.

"Hell of a 'welcoming party'," Lilliette heard Paetor grumble as the lions emerged from the treeline entirely, circling around to encircle them. Lilliette kept the shield up, another pulse of mana enclosing them entirely. Maintaining a full dome like this was much more draining, but until they had a plan, it was the best option.

"We need a plan," Isid said, perfectly calm. Lilliette envied her poise, even as the trees rustled and another flock of feather-throwing birds took wing. "Haythem. Watch your feet."

Lilliette was focused on maintaining the shield, so she didn't see it. Still, she certainly heard Haythem yelp in surprise, and the sound of his sword slicing through flesh rang in the air. "Gods damn these fucking snakes. It looked like the fucking sand."

"Keep an eye on the ground; Lilliette's shield doesn't go past the surface," Isid commented, her voice growing louder as her footsteps did. Lilliette felt a hand on his shoulder. "How much longer can you keep that up?" She heard the woman ask. Lilliette felt the well of pure energy that buzzed next to her heart and raced through her nerves.

"Only ten more minutes at this drain, with the mana I have left," she responded, maintaining her concentration on the shield as it was peppered with metallic feathers and beams of light. "I'd be useless afterwards without a mana potion." The rustling of cloth and a vial of energetically swirling blue liquid was presented to her. Lilliette used her off-hand to take the un-stoppered vial and downed it in one gulp. She felt the liquid rush down her throat like prickling static. The moment it hit her stomach, it burst into energy, which rushed into her core and swelled it to almost double its previously dwindling size. It's not anywhere near her maximum, but it's a good top-off.

"That bought you another ten minutes," Lilliette said, redoubling her focus on the shield.

"Alright then," Isid began, calling everyone's attention. "There are ten lions, six birds, and ten of us. Duncan and Lilliette, the moment the shield drops, I want you to take down as many birds as you can, as quickly as you can. Everyone else, engage with the lions as fast as you can. Focus on dodging their beam attacks over shielding. I don't know how your shields will hold up, but seeing the amount of mana in them and the damage they're doing to Lilliette's shield, I don't like their chances.

"Everyone got the plan? Yes? Good. Lilliette, drop the shield on one of them. In five... four.."

Lilliette took a deep breath and prepared her next spell, the calculations and voltages racing through her mind and mana.

"-ONE!"

Lilliette reversed the shield spell, pulling the dome back into her staff. Overloaded with mana, it crackled and buzzed, throwing sparks and arcing up and down the metal. She raised, then slammed her staff to the ground, setting off her next spell. Five bolts of that strange energy she'd discovered flew out, shooting unerringly at the birds flying overhead. Lilliette moved, shifting her staff into her off-hand and raising her Potentium hand.

She cast another spell, a human-sized shield that erupted from her Potentium fingers. Looking up, she frowned. Two of the birds had managed to dodge her shots, the ones furthest away. The other three were falling from the sky, limp and lifeless. A fourth fell to Duncan's arrow, though not immediately. It continued for a few heartbeats before it stopped flapping. One of his poison arrows.

Lilliette raised her shield as the surviving bird's retaliatory feathers reached her. Three feathers missed, but one penetrated her shield. It slowed, then ground to a halt, the tip of its quill a mere inch from her nose. She breathed out, then cancelled her shield spell to drop the feather to the ground and raised her staff to hold it with both hands.

Two more bolts of energy later, and the single surviving bird was in full retreat. Lilliette looked down as she judged how much mana she had left. The bolts were expensive but well worth the mana. She had enough in her for another two or three bolts, or...

She turned, face-to-face with -what had Isid called them? Lions? She locked eyes with one of the less hairy ones as it moved into a gap in the circle of guilders around her, and it roared in challenge. It started bounding towards her, each step closing the distance with alarming speed. She raised her staff, bracing the butt against the sand, and cast a spell she hadn't had a chance to use in real combat yet, though it held up in practice.

As the lion pounced, a glowing blade of mana with energy arcing along its two-foot length projected from the staff's orb. Unable to alter its trajectory, the lion was impaled on the blade, writhing both in pain from the stab and from the arcs of energy that surrounded it.

Lilliette cancelled the spell, and the blade discharged into the monster. Its flesh cooked and blackened, the dead lion fell to the ground with a limp thump. She had another one of those in her... And it didn't look like she needed to use it since the rest of the lions had already been dealt with.

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Paetor was standing like he'd been moving towards her, arm outstretched and sword raised. His shield was in the dirt a few feet behind him.

"You alright there, Paetor?" Lilliette asked a little cheekily. She grabbed the lion's paw and started dragging. It was heavier than expected, but she managed to make it look effortless enough. Paetor looked totally poleaxed as she passed him. "You look a little pale."

Lilliette threw the blacked, smoking corpse next to the pile of relatively pristine monsters. Duncan was already collecting metallic feathers from the birds. The last ones they'd collected had turned out to be naturally enchanted to fly straight and steady, so collecting more only made sense. She looked at Harald's raised eyebrow, the man's eyes flicking between the scorched monster and her.

"What?" She challenged. She felt a string of mana arc through her hair, as it often did when she was irritated.

"Nothing at all," he answered quickly. "Smells quite good, actually. Gamey."

That's what she thought. Lilliette downed another mana potion, sighing in relief as her core slowly filled with mana. She glared out at the jungle, daring any more monsters to make themselves known as the others harvested the slaughtered monsters' pelts.

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The Creator, Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea

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Huh. Lilliette was turning into a badass. She killed three Stymphalian Vultures and a female sunlion in the same time it took the others to kill one or two monsters on their own. That isn't to downplay the other's accomplishments. Isid killed the two males that tag-teamed her, her manablades finding some resistance, but not enough to bog her down. Good to know that her blades have a weakness; they've been a constant advantage she's held since forever.

To make them more resistant to damage, their skins had an enchantment that followed the tear-drop patterning of their hides. It granted a general resistance to damage, but I could easily make it focused on mana-based damage. Or add another separate enchantment that disrupts structured mana as it approaches them... I decided to see if the drake-kin could figure out a spell for that before I turned it into an enchantment. I wouldn't know where to start.

Either way, the guilders harvested their kills and moved further into the jungle. Pushing forward instead of an immediate retreat? They must have used fewer resources than normal if they felt confident enough to continue on.

I made their journey along the canyon an interesting one.

While the Sunlions and Stymphalian Vultures were the major monsters on the floor, that doesn't mean others didn't exist. I'd seeded plenty of animals through the canyon, and a few had monsterized on their own like Gull had. Like Gull, they'd bred with the non-monster animals of their same species and spread themselves. High breeding rates for the win!

An interesting one was this anaconda that watched the guilders as they passed through its territory. This section of the path was more swamp-like than anything, with a thin, rickety-looking boardwalk crossing the tepid waters. It wasn't actually rickety; it was sturdy, but the enchantments to produce creaking wouldn't convince them of that. While the Jungle Maw's young rushed around chasing fish under the water, the monster itself lined itself up, watching the shadows as they slowly moved across the boardwalk.

Then, when almost all the guilders had passed, it struck! It launched itself from the water, flinging itself through the air to collide with the final person in the line.

It was one of the guilders I'd forgotten the name of, a member of the Cliche's party. He barely had time to cry in surprise before its mouth had enveloped his entire head, and the rest of its body crashed into his chest. Within a second, he was underwater, and the snake devoured him entirely in another.

The water of the swamp was still. The guilders' eyes were wide, and their faces were white with shock. Probably from seeing a 50-foot-long snake, three feet wide at its widest point, fling itself too fast for them to even react.

Beneath the water, the Jungle Maw writhed. A sword, gleaming with mana, cut out of its side, then up along its length. Blood dyed the water red as the guilder, bones broken, battered and bruised but somehow still alive, pulled himself from the cut. The Jungle Maw, gravely injured, swam away at great speed. The man broke the water with a gasp, and his party were quick to rush into the water, pulling him from the bloody liquid in seconds.

Even after all that... They still didn't leave. My eyes narrowed at the seemingly endless number of health and mana potions they'd pulled from their bag. It had been a while now since they'd delved. Had they been stocking up? Perhaps purchased larger expanded bags? Damn those infinitely large belt pouches and backpacks! I'm sorry, I thought I lived in a world without systems!

The injured guilder- I still don't remember his name- used his teleport crystal to go back to the surface. His injuries were extensive, even from that single encounter, and the health potions weren't enough to heal him up to some minimum combat-worthiness level. Still, it was pretty badass, cutting his way out of that snake. Might even learn his name.

And oh, the snake! The anaconda-like snake monster I'd named the Jungle Maw was significantly injured, yes, but not critically. I pumped some mana into it to heal it up entirely, then really appraised it.

At full length, it was about 50 feet long and three feet wide at its middle. Very much a constrictor instead of a viper, its head and neck area were fully capable of distending enough to fit its preferred prey; Sunlions. Of course, this was the oldest and largest such specimen. Its offspring were smaller and hunted the sand cats and other small prey. Its ability to fling itself was through water mana, taking control of the water behind it and flinging itself through the air like a catapult.

Once the pain had faded from its mind, I impressed on it its mistake; It'd not crushed its prey enough to kill it. Living prey, especially monsters and guilders, were fully capable of breaking their way out of its belly. Ensure the prey is dead and motionless before it can be eaten. I felt the monster's mind accept the knowledge and project gratefulness as it swam back to its mates. Apparently, the only reason it hadn't checked was that its fling attack killed or injured most prey enough to disable them.

I returned my focus to the guilders and followed them through the jungle in the eyes of a sand cat moving on the opposite shore. About an hour later, they'd reached the Scorpan Village, and it was time to see how seriously they'd taken my warning.

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The Scorpan Village, The Ninth Floor, The Dungeon

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Sunset-Carapace, the only child of Skitters-Across-The-Sand and Plays-With-Fire remaining in the Scorpan Village, smiled tiredly at her mate. They were walking through the market with their latest brood of scorplings on her back. The three were little bundles of chitin and energy, a blessing from The Creator, for which she thanked Him a dozen times every night.

The market was in full swing, the village once again full to bursting, though no longer just with Scorpans. Apart from a small population of drake-kin, their most recent additions, the Beastborn, had settled into their new lives with little fuss. The nine cat-like beings padded around the village with an energy Sunset wished she still possessed. This was her fourth brood and likely the last she'd lay.

Sunset missed her mother, who'd become an avatar of The Creator's Will long ago. She got messages every now and again, asking after her family, but Sunset knew her mother was still hurt. Her siblings had never sent so much as a single letter, and Sunset was quite put out with them. She knew she was the least boisterous, the least outgoing. She had been quite content to remain in the village and multiply, as the Creator had bade them.

Handing over the twenty Talons for their groceries, her mate Digs-With-Passion placed the bundles of fruit, meat and water in the bags slung across his lower back. "You still set on retiring to the Eleventh, Sunset?" He asked offhandedly.

"I am," Sunset replied, determination evident in the clicking of her mandibles. "I want to find out where the hell my Father is and what my siblings are doing. After the Scorplings are big enough, though." She added, with a fond look at their children.

Before she could say anything more, there was a commotion. Whispers rippled through the crowd at the speed of gossip.

Guilders had been allowed entrance to the village.

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