Chapter 344: Gone Manticore Gone

Well, at least the creature was talking. The question was, could we get useful information from it? I only understood a fraction of what was being said, and Maveith paused to translate as the conversation progressed. “We are not the ones who put you in the dungeon. We are just exploring.”

The creature rasped angrily and confusedly, “Dungeon?” Its head whipped around, looking for something or some way to escape.

I leaned into Maveith and said, “Ask it what it remembers last.” Maveith nodded and relayed my question.

The hideous creature sat, but its barbed tail twitched behind it. It was considering its response. Intelligent eyes adorned its ogre-like features. “I had chosen a mate. We found a cave high on the mountain and entered.” It paused, its head tilting as if it were trying to remember. “The mountain moved…” From her twisted expression, it appeared the manticore realized she had died. I assumed, somehow, the dungeon had absorbed her and her mate. It was using them as a template to recreate them over and over. My assumption was that they had no memories after their death, until they appeared here.

“Did you enter through the dungeon gate?” Maveith asked softly. I nodded at the question. Maybe the cave they had chosen was the one we were trying to clear.

“Dungeon gate?” the creature said, confused.

“Ask it if it agreed to a contract with the dungeon,” I instructed, and Maveith relayed the question.

The manticore tilted its head, and then it panicked and began to howl. Its powerful claws scratched at its head, cutting flesh, and it seemed to be in extreme pain. I noticed the large glowstone in the ceiling dim ever so slightly, and I felt a brush of the dungeon’s presence against my mental defenses.

We had to cover our ears as the manticore’s distress increased. Raelia looked away as bloody shreds of flesh were torn from the mane and face of the manticore as it tried to claw into its own skull. It was a horrific scene, and I almost felt pity for the creature. I started to regret my insistence on talking to the manticore. It only seemed to anger the dungeon, and we didn’t get any real answers.

I stepped into the room and quickly slashed Heart Seeker down onto its neck. The manticore wasn’t even aware of me as the black leaf tip pierced deep enough to shatter the vertebrae and sever the spinal cord. The paralyzed creature continued to wail until Maveith’s hammer came down on its skull a moment later, silencing it. Looking back at my companions, I saw that we were all stunned. None of us knew a dungeon could torture its monstrosities.

The chest appeared beside a bush near the pool, but we all paused to compose ourselves. I then used the collector to gather an apex channeling essence. Konstantin brought the chest over and opened it, as no one else had claimed it. This time, an onyx stick lay on top of the coins, which puzzled me.

“A wand?” Raelia exclaimed. I picked up the glossy black stick, about twelve inches long and a finger’s width thick. I handed it to Raelia, who turned it over in her hand, trying to make sense of it. She eventually pointed it at the far wall.

“Is that a good idea…” Konstantin began, but she had already channeled aether into it.

A black, wispy smoke spewed from the end and quickly turned into a cone of fast-moving fog as it raced across the chamber. The wave of black, ominous fog quickly dissipated after twenty yards into nothingness. “Well, that was very anti-climactic,” I muttered.

“It is a wand of fear, perfect for paralyzing a large group of weak-minded individuals,” Raelia said with reverence. “It is an incredibly powerful spell and can turn the tide on a battlefield if used strategically.”

“I have seen such a spell in the field. She is right, normal men and even legionnaires, will shit themselves or flee when it washes over them,” Konstantin said in seriousness.

“Does it have a certain number of uses before it breaks?” I asked.

Raelia turned the black rod in her hands. “Wands deteriorate with each use. A revelation scroll could tell you how many times it can be used, but this one looks brand new and should have many more uses.”

“Castile found an endless wand in the Labyrinth,” Konstantin corrected Raelia.

Raelia shook her head. “It might have looked like a wand, but it was likely a very short runic staff—much more valuable than a wand. Runic staves require aether from the mage, while wands do not. A staff can still be broken.” Konstantin shrugged and didn’t argue.

“Any objection to Raelia holding onto the wand?” I asked the group. Raelia gleefully packed away her longer blade and slid the wand of fear in its place.

The dungeon was constantly probing my mental fortress and distracting me. It appeared extremely displeased with us at the moment. I didn’t believe we had done anything wrong, but it clearly held an opposing view. I sent the entire chest into my space, including the coins. Everyone else was already carrying a few pounds of silver coins anyway.

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“Grab a fish for dinner, and we are going back to the safe room,” I declared. I must have had 500 pounds of fillets already in my dimensional space, but Konstantin had been hooked on the minor endurance essences that formed from the fish most of the time.

I had consumed my fair share of essences during our time in the dungeon—I was up to six major coordination and five power essences. I didn’t need the assessment table to recognize my physical growth. Power essences affected your fast-twitch muscles and complemented your strength, allowing you to strike much harder. Konstantin had been practicing in the dreamscape, but I was sure that if we sparred in the future, he would be shocked by my growth.

Konstantin caught two fish and collected the essences before we retreated to the safe room. We were all still reeling from what the dungeon had done to the manticore. I speculated that perhaps the dungeon and the manticore never entered into a contract like the one the greater doppelg?ngers had with the Shimmering Labyrinth. If that were the case, it made sense that the manticore did not realize it was in a dungeon. In a leap of logic, I guessed that the male manticore might have formed the contract and cooperated with the dungeon.

Everything suddenly pieced together for me in a weird theory. Maybe the male manticore’s contract was that it would be freed after a certain amount of time with its mate. That was why we saw the bull flying back into the pit and then out with the female before we descended. I could be completely wrong, but I felt I was on the right track.

Raelia handed me a plate of flaky, buttery-tasting fish. Consuming so many essences had overwhelmed the ring of sustenance, so I had been enjoying larger meals recently. After we consumed the fish, I passed out a golden fig to everyone.

“We are going to collect some more figs when everyone is ready. It should give the dungeon more time to restore the manticore room,” I announced after devouring the succulent fruit.

Everyone nodded, not eager to return to the manticore chamber. Maveith had made fifteen arrows each for himself and Konstantin from the hollow steel manticore spikes. We had not been able to harvest a single poison gland sack from the manticores successfully. Our best guess was that we were not giving the creatures time to fill them after the dungeon manifested them.

We stood looking down over the maze a few hours later. The fig tree looked full of fruit, and the baying echoes of the mountain goats were still present. I half-expected something to have changed, but none of us noticed anything. “We will attempt to clear the maze for the reward chest,” I decided. It would take some extra time, but no one objected to more time away from the manticore room.

We didn’t bring Baldo out due to too much uncertainty about how the dungeon might react to our group’s increase in numbers. With our maps of the maze, we spent half a day tracking down every goat before heading to the center of the maze to claim our prize. The larger chest was there, and I was half-hoping for another goliath helm. Maveith opened the chest to reveal an oversized belt, clearly made for a goliath. It matched the flat black finish of his sentinel goat helm.

Raelia, Konstantin, and I looked at each in understanding. “It is yours, Maveith,” I said.

My friend slowly worked the belt made of flexible plates on. The clasp appeared to be magnetic, with the end grabbing tightly. It was easy to adjust, but it remained fastened tightly when I tried to move it with all my strength.

“Should I try sending aether into it?” he asked when we were done testing its fit. I nodded since there were no visible runes to decipher on them. Maveith stood with slight uncertainty. His eyes widened, and he inhaled sharply.

Raelia moved to help him, panicked that he was hurt. “I am fine,” he intoned, slightly short of breath. He flexed and inhaled again. “My muscles burn, but not in pain. I think they made me stronger, but they didn’t feed on my aether. They were feeding on my body.”

“That sounds dangerous, Maveith,” I warned him.

He wore a big grin. “It was really small, and it just means I’ll have to eat more.” I could tell he was already enamored with the gauntlets, so I let him be.

“I wonder if this reward chest would give a complete set of goliath armor,” Konstantin questioned. “Like the manticore room was rewards for mages, this one was for equipping a goliath to serve on the front lines.”

“Front lines of what? My people have never been at war with anyone,” Maveith rumbled defensively.

“The dungeons helped people prepare to fight the Titans thousands of years ago. Maybe this dungeon helped your people to do that,” Raelia offered.

Maveith slowly shook his head, stating strongly, “My people were not part of that struggle. We faithfully served the stone giants, helping them build the great cities. We never took the field in any battle against them.” I doubted Maveith could know what happened thousands of years ago. I knew one person who might know the truth—the seer.

I reassured him, “We can clear the maze again if you want to see if the reward offers more pieces of the set, Maveith.” He considered and nodded in agreement.

We worked together to harvest the precious golden figs before returning to the safe room. I was trying to decide how many more times we should slay the manticore before leaving. My dimensional space was roughly three-quarters full. That final free space was about what I liked to leave open to slay a creature with the space if needed.

We rested briefly before entering the jungle room and were shocked to find the shadow hunter again. Did that mean the manticore room would once again have the female manticore? The last two times we killed the shadow hunter panther, the manticore was female. We harvested the nature essence and skinned it before walking the corridor to the final room.

When we reached the room's entrance, the terrain looked the same, with one very large, noticeable change.

“Harpies’ tits,” Konstantin growled. “That’s not a manticore.” All I could think was that we had definitely pissed off the dungeon.

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