Spear of Clouds Unfurled 5.11

We were tired, dusty, and more than a little grouchy when we finally got to the last of the four day stint in the dungeon.

It had turned out that, yes, the tiny little 'key' we got from defeating the Star Serpent had vanished when we'd teleported out of the dungeon, which meant that we'd had to fight the Star Serpent again. And then a Star Deer. And then a Star Dolphin. On and on, trudging across the desert, battling spine-shooting cactus, massive scorpions, and, when I'd inevitably made mistakes in the retellings of the various stories, collections of armoured undead.

We had never been on such a long delve. Apparently, they did happen on 'higher' floors at other dungeons, although they were disliked by everyone involved. It did, since only the Star Serpent obelisk had been 'solved' (by me) before we had left, mean that we were a long way ahead of the curve, however.

Talking with Laera and the designated 'puzzle-solvers' of the four other groups who were regularly delving on the level had made me realise just how much better I was with languages than any non-Outlander. I was able to find words in the Caith text and hazard out the grammar better than any of the others, and by the end of the session where I'd tried to teach them how I'd solved the puzzle they'd all resolved to 'just wait for Charlie to do it.'

Since we could only navigate with the stars, we'd needed to sleep during the day, which was both uncomfortable and not particularly refreshing since usually twice a rest we'd be woken by an attack we then had to scramble to defend ourselves. I was sure that if my body hadn't slowly been getting stronger, needing less sleep, and generally becoming slightly ‘superbeastkin,’ I would have collapsed with exhaustion long before we reached the last of the puzzle-story obelisks.

This one was furthest from where our bracelets brought us on the floor, meaning that no one had mapped out its symbols before. I had already hazarded out a rough sequence of what it might be, using both the translation and my growing skill at reading ancient Caith: something that was a bit strange, since I had no idea what any of the sounds the symbols referred to were, making it a purely written language for me.

"Ok," I said, taking off my increasingly unneeded glasses and wiping my brow. "I think I have the sequence. Is everyone ready to fight some kind of Star Bear? Or some undead if I fuck up the sequence?"

"Star Bear?" said Velevir tiredly. "What sort of stupid nonsense is that?"

"Apparently," I said, beginning to put in the sequence. "That in the end of days, the world will be consumed by a terrible giant bear, made of fog and lightning and sea-foam, who will drown the world for its sins."

The runes glowed as I retold the story as best I could, and, sure enough, as I looked upwards, the stellar constellation began to shift.

We had become quite good at killing the stellar 'mini-bosses,' as Nathan insisted on calling them, even though they were all the size of a cottage and there was nothing particularly mini about them. Our basic strategy was to have the two fighters wear it down, while I stood back and played with its emotions, distracting and confusing it and Mousington took potshots with his sharp pieces of steel, which we'd found most effective against the crystalline creatures. We did end up damaging more of the crystals that made up the 'stellar skeleton,' but after four days none of us really cared that much about the hit to our income. We just wanted to get the stupid puzzle finished, have a rest, and then fight the floor's final boss.

With practice, I'd gotten better at timing my emotional distractions, as well as subtler. That was great against monsters, but unless I was it was supremely urgent, I knew I wouldn't be using my powers on other people again. I'd even become leery of using my terror power on people, something I had once thrown around pretty liberally before, viewing it as a better alternative to violence.

Which maybe it was, but I was concerned that as I got stronger it might stop being 'temporary fear that people realised was artificial,' and start becoming 'magical-PTSD that ruins lives and requires me to go in and do more emotional manipulation to undo.' Although I was overjoyed with my medical abilities, with the ability to just make people better through some kind of 'bio-empathomancy' that cost me nothing more than a bit of energy and discomfort as I shared their pain, I almost wished that I hadn't gotten the psychic-empath abilities with it at all.

Sure, they were beyond useful in terms of scouting, and while not as flashy as Velevir's blazing light or Mousington's lightning or even Nathan's superhuman strength and speed which were already beginning to surpass Velevir's they were more invasive than I would like, even limiting myself, as I now did, to purely 'passive' observation.

Although there was no evidence, as far as I'd been able to tell from the various 'knacks' and powers that other Outlanders had, that there was any correlation between 'moral fibre' and what someone could do, my abilities definitely felt like something that a cackling evil overlord might have.

Even then, I knew that it affected my relationships, both close and casual: Meria and I were doing OK because she was an open and honest person who was able to get me to come out of my shell, and Nathan and Velevir had more or less gotten used to the fact it wasn’t really possible to hide things around me. A lot of other people who knew something about my abilities, even just by rumour, were often a bit wary and apprehensive of me, even if I did still enjoy generalised popularity and respect due to my role as head doctor.

The Star Bear was not really different than any of the other stellar creatures we had fought, with strength and speed and some kind of starlight projectiles, and went down without too much issue. Nathan got a bit burned from where he had been too close to the beam of starlight, but that was easy enough for me to fix, and with a hiss and a crunch the construct was destroyed.

"Alright…" said Velevir, rubbing her face. "Let's get all the crystal cleaned up, have dinner, a sleep, and then try and figure out where this last boss is."

"Sounds…" began Nathan, before trailing off and frowning. "Is the ground shaking?"

"We think it is," said Lord Mousington.

Velevir groaned. "Stupid fucking dungeon!" she swore. "Can it give us a break!? Charlie, anything?"

"Um…" I said, looking straight down at where, at the very edge of my perception I could feel something moving towards us through the ground. Something big. Something fast. "Fuck! Yes, beneath us! Run!"

I broke into a sprint, the others behind me as the shaking not only got worse, but sand began to be slide away past out boots, trickling back towards the centre of where the mind was racing towards us.

"It's a fucking Shai-Hulud!" I said as we suddenly found ourselves running uphill as a great sandy depression opened up beneath us.

"A what!?" said Nathan.

"How have you not read Dune? A fucking sandworm!" I yelled at him as I began to slip backwards. "Fuck! Fucking fucking fuck!"

"A what!?" shouted Velevir, grabbing me and throwing me over bodily over her shoulder with her superhuman strength as Nathan did the same for Lord Mousington, who immediately began to complain, the pair sprinting as fast as they could away from the growing sinkhole.

"This is not dignified!" yowled Lord Mousington. "We are a lord!"

The slope continued to steepen, and I lashed out with my emotive power, trying to frighten the behemoth I could feel coming up beneath us. Its aura did shift, and the slope stopped steepening quite so quickly, but the giant worm was hard to find purchase on, and soon enough it threw off my emotional manipulation.

But, with Velevir's strength and speed we managed to reach the edge of the slope a few moments before the sand finished falling away, revealing a hideously large maw as wide as a house filled with spiny, hair-like teeth that glittered in the artifical starlight like a thousand crystal spears.

The maw continued upwards, sending waves of sand flying as it reared into the air, revealing its scaly grey body, and the three large beak-like protrusions extended around its maw.

"How the fuck do we fight that?" said Velevir, panic rising in her aura.

"I don't know!" I shouted back, tar black terror swirling in my own emotions.

I might have very much enjoyed Dune as a teenager, and had liked the new movie—although, perhaps an unpopular opinion, not as much as the older, much more fabulously messy one shot in the 80s. I had thought that the Shai-Hulud, the massive sandworms that ate the magic-spice harvesters whole had been both incredibly cool and terrifying. This one, however, although not nearly that big, was solely in the latter category.

"Chezza, how do people fight them in that book?" shouted Nathan, skidding to a stop and turning to stare up at the massive worm as it reached the top of its arc.

"What- what the fuck does that have to do with it?" I said.

Nathan opened his mouth to say something doubtlessly very stupid, but knowing this dumb dungeon, would turn out to be incredibly brilliant and insightful and which would reveal some utterly illogical but somehow genius strategy that no one with a fully developed grasp upon reality could have figured out.

"They- they drown the baby ones," I said. "But they don't kill the big ones! At least, I don't think so! I didn't read the later books!"

There was a crackle of lightning as Mousington opted to try his usually heavenly blast. Which, to be fair, wasn't a bad place to start—lightning worked on lots of things.

The bolt struck home with a clap of thunder, charring and scorching one of the massive grey-black scales, but failing to penetrate or damage the worm more than superficially. However, as the blast hit, I felt attentive green surge in the monster's aura, and it twisted, orienting itself towards us before beginning to fall ponderously downwards like a massive mallet.

"Sound!" I shouted as Velevir began to sprint sideways, Nathan dragging the yowling cat with him towards the other side. "It sees with sound! Vibrations!"

Wind whistled as the monstrous creature plummeted towards us, and Velevir's legs became a blur for a moment before she hurled us forward and the worm impacted the sand behind her. The force of the blow kicked up a wave of dust, picking Velevir and I up and sending us flying, spinning apart, hitting the sand, and rolling.

"Nathan!" gasped Velevir as she rolled over.

"He's OK," I said, coughing and staring in the direction of the massive worm. "They both are."

"We need to retreat," said Velevir, raising her gem inset bracelet, which had brought us to this level of the dungeon, and which could take us back to the entrance with a tap on the largest of the gems—with a little bit of a delay to 'charge up.'

"No arguments from me," I said, raising my bracelet.

Then I swore.

The gemstone wasn't lit up.

We were being blocked from teleporting.

Because of course we were; this was a 'boss,' as Nathan termed it, and even if it didn't seem to have an 'arena,' the dungeon wasn't going to let us back out so easily.

"Fuck," said Velevir, realising a moment after I did, panic blooming in her aura, followed a moment later by Nathan, who had probably found out the same thing, and even the usually unflappable Mousington.

We couldn't teleport, we couldn't run, that meant we had to fight.

We had to fight a Shai-Hulud.

Brilliant.

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