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Chapter 17

A hopefully indiscernible hiccup escaped from Lock’s mouth as he saw the large cyclops slowly, and dare he say it, stealthily make its way out of the tunnel in a manner that constricted his heart as if it was being gripped by that very beast. Lock didn't dare to breathe, he could only watch in deathly silence and fear as the cyclops, that was gripping a sheep tightly to its chest, one hand holding its mouth shut, turned in the other direction than Grandfather had gone, and started running.

That was how he was found but 20 seconds later by the older of the pair, who came downright flying down the main tunnel with a panicked look on his face. One gaze at the frozen stiff Lock and the red face he had from holding his breath, visibly calmed the old man. He gave the younger a pat on the back which caused Lock to release all the air he'd been holding and breathe in frantically and in short bursts.

“I'm sorry.” Grandfather said, while Lock was normalizing his breathing.

Lock couldn't see his face, but he could definitely hear the grief in his voice. The adrenaline rushing through his veins was slowly starting to calm down, along with his oxygen intake, so he was capable of speech a few dozen seconds after the apology.

“Nothing happened, also my fault, we both could have thought of the possibility.” He managed to say with a few intakes of breath in between. “Thankfully it seemed more intent on fleeing than killing me, we'll need to be careful on our way out of the dungeon though.” Lock finished.

“Yes, it might be trying to ambush us on our way out, still, this is very odd behaviour for a dungeon monster, or any monster at all.” Grandfather said with a frown.

The fact that Grandfather hadn't seen the cyclops carrying the sheep, only seeing its back, if at all, suddenly struck Lock, and he quickly informed the elder of the occurrence. Who upon receiving the information had a grimace befall his face.

“Fuck.” Was all he exclaimed, before quickly turning around and running to the boss room, Lock on his heels.

“What is it?” Lock screamed as they ran into the boss room, whereas upon entering it Grandfather immediately turned his attention to the half a dozen sheep tied down in one corner of the room, and started decapitating them to their fearful bleating.

“Usually monsters can't escape the dungeon, but if the cyclops is doing what I suspect it's doing, it's going to use the fact that a sheep isn't a monster to throw it out of the entrance, and then swap places with it.” Done with slaughtering the sheep Grandfather ran over to the cot of blankets and such, throwing them up into the air, searching for anything of value and babbling all the way.

Lock just stood there taking in the words as Grandfather continued.

“Which means we're screwed if anyone sees the thing. Someone will have noticed my son throwing out his anchor at this place, and it won't take long to make the connection between the rampaging cyclops and the fact that the ship had passengers. Dungeons collapse if there is no monster within it, so the plan is basically to loot anything of value, run out here as fast as possible, and kill the cyclops before anyone can notice it.” Grandfather finished his rapid fire talk, and his looting at the same time, holding up some sort of golden ram fleece he threw it at Lock, who deftly caught it, before turning around again and starting to run to the entrance.

Lock once again, after having secured the only item that Grandfather had deemed worthwhile around his neck, followed not too far behind.

The tunnel that had seemed quite long previously, now felt like nothing more than a corridor in a small house as they ran through it as fast as they could. Upon reaching the entrance, and noticing a dead sheep lying on the ground beneath it, Lock started to really feel his exhaustion. Grandfather turned to him once again after confirming that the sheep was dead, by making sure that is, and stomping its head into non-existence.

“Wait a minute or two before exiting, if the cyclops is waiting outside, that will be enough time for me to draw it away from the entrance so you can exit safely.” Grandfather said, before leaping up towards the entrance that was hanging two meters or so above the ground inside the cavern wall and exiting the dungeon. Leaving Lock alone to lean against a wall and try to recover some of his stamina before doing the same. He made some motions to inspect the fleece hanging off his neck, but couldn't find anything peculiar about it besides its golden colour.

Maybe he would have assumed that it was at least somewhat related to the golden fleece out of greek mythology, the connection to the cyclops was there, but the fleece in the stories had been of a winged golden ram. The one he was holding onto at the moment was only one of a ram. In the stories it had also been a sign of kingship. Collapsed against a wall inside a dungeon that he'd done very little to tame, the fear sweat rolling of his entire body firing up his amygdala, suffice to say he wasn't feeling particularly kingly.

He calmed his breathing again and counted to thirty. Minute or two over, alright. Turning to the entrance turned exit he hurled himself up and grasped at the edges of it, laboriously pulling himself up, remembering to breathe in a lungful of air since the entrance was underwater. A few seconds later he was emerging from the cool lake, feeling slightly refreshed. He looked around to see if he was in any immediate danger, finding the cyclops, slumped against a tree without a head, only to be distracted by a loud whooshing noise, like a blade cutting through air, but magnified by ten.

He didn't even think about it, he ducked and thereby pushed his head underwater again, this time forgetting to breathe in. He kept his eyes open and therefore saw a slash of blurry purple fly over where his head had just been. Unwilling to surface in the same spot again he stemmed his legs against the edge of the dungeon entrance and pushed himself off, catapulting himself a few paltry meters or so away, before he was forced to resurface due to lack of oxygen.

Thankfully he wasn't molested by an immediate attempt at his life as he came up for breath this time, and he hadn't inhaled any water which would have led to some coughing and choking. Something potentially fatal in this situation. Whatever this situation was.

His eyes followed the now obvious sounds of battle towards the shore, where he found Grandfather and another unknown man trading blows at a rapid pace, the enemy shooting out blades of purple energy out of his sword every now and then.

Well, the mystery of who'd just tried to kill him was cleared up fairly quickly. Just as he thought this the two fighters disengaged after another exchange of furious slashes, to apparently, exchange some banter?

It gave him the opportunity to take in the enemy at least. Twenty something blonde guy dressed in a ceremonial mage's robe for some reason, although one could see the glint of chainmail and other goodies beneath. A bastard sword held in one hand, a small pulsating orb of some sort of magic in the other. The Vídd family crest displayed boldly on his left shoulder. Looked quite arrogant all in all.

“I sent that attack over to the resurfacing person to preempt someone competent joining the fight, I see now that the mana was wasted.” The man said, while sneering in Lock's direction.

Asshole.

“Well it has certainly done you no favour in my eyes, and I fear that this conflict shall have to end with death now.” Grandfather said, more calmly, simply gaining an incredulous look from the Vídd.

“What, the attempt on your life didn't clue you in? The older generation gets stupider by the day, I swear. Just to make it clear to you, in case you still don’t understand, I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to kill that brat.” The Vídd said in a slightly more affable tone than before, although the message could not be misconstrued as anything but malicious.

“Your words pierce me right in the stomach, I can assure you though, you certainly will not be the one to kill me today.” Grandfather replied, while holding the fingers not visible to the enemy, but to Lock, in a crossed position and wiggling them about somewhat. “One could say that you are running on borrowed time. No more hesitation, action should be swift,” he finished, before suddenly dashing back into the fray against the Dimensional Mage.

A Class Lock had just remembered the Vídd family was particularly proud to be the only ones in possession of. Rightfully so, it was a very rare and exemplary class, even when judged in comparison to the exclusive classes the other noble families had a monopoly on.

Although now was not the time to garnish the enemy in compliments. Lock slowly made his way to the shore, under the assumption that dodging a stray attack flying in his direction would be easier on land than in the water. Running away didn't even play into his calculations, for one, Grandfather had spoken quite oddly in the interaction with the Vídd, one could almost say, cryptically and the second reason was, that Grandfather was moving more slowly than when he'd been fighting the cyclops.

Although it may not seem so to the outside observer. The old man was fighting on even ground with the Vídd after all, pushing him backwards into the trees and forcing some sort of shield spell out of the bastard. But for someone who'd seen the previous fight, there was definitely a difference in speed.

As Grandfather had said, someone in this fight was running on borrowed time, and it definitely wasn't the Vídd. Which was good, because running on borrowed time meant one had more time available than the enemy. Well that was his interpretation at least.

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