Chương 22: The Warden

Malachi considered what he knew. He was, essentially, on easy mode of the Dungeon's boss battle, but that also turned magic off. The spider-like Warden hadn't initiated combat like he'd expected when he'd stabbed Crevus. His plan had been to pick off the other two while they were busy with the Warden. The Warden had also lost four or five legs when he'd called for a Novice's Trial. That was important somehow. There were four weapons at his disposal: the hunting knife, the torch, the staff, and the longsword.

He'd trained with knives; the others, he hadn't trained with at all. Spears were his thing. But there weren't spears. The staff was for casting firebolts, but it hadn't worked, and it wasn't meant to be used as a quarterstaff. The knife wasn't going to work. The longsword seemed the best option. How close would he have to get for the Warden to attack him? SERA-Phasia wanted to tell him something about Arisone. She'd already attempted a different trial and lost to the Warden. Would freeing her reset the trial?

Switch it? If it became a 'stealth' trial again, he was sure to fail that. He looked up at her. She was struggling against the webbing, but she wasn't making any progress. Without magic, she might become a liability he had to try to protect. He looked around again, and furrowed his brow. Two of the torches on the other side of the room weren't burning anymore. Then, next to them, a third torch went out. Oh, shit. It's timed, he realized. Combat hadn't started, but the timer had.

Still, he needed to catch his breath from the last fight and gather every advantage first. Malachi used the interface to examine his boots. Their durability had gone down by a few points, but the enchantments still shone. Do enchantments work? Soooorry, can't tell you, SERA said in his head. He walked over to Crevus's body and took his waterskin off his belt. He poured it over his boots. The water beaded off it, slightly repelled by the magical hydrophobic surface. Enchantments still work.

But not activated abilities, like the staff? Now that the Maatugivi Empire delvers were dead, he could examine their items. He already knew the holy book and the staff would be useless to him. He also knew Tebor's plate armor was weighted for someone using enhanced strength. He wanted it, but he couldn't use it right now. Besides, if he was on a timer, it would take far too long to get all that stuff. He looked at Crevus's armor.

Priest's Quilted Armor (Enhanced) Resist Piercing I Resist Poison I Durability 93/100 Do enchantments of the same kind stack? he asked SERA. Nope. He looked at the Warden. It wasn't going to be using piercing attacks. Bludgeoning for sure. He turned to Talnax. He had the robe and breastplate. His trousers were apparently resistant to fire and poison. Useful for a fire mage. Not for him. The breastplate, though… Steel Breastplate (Imbued) Enhanced Vitality II Resist Curses II Durability 97/100 That seemed good.

He unbuckled the armor from the man, taking the quilted shirt underneath as well. It was damp with sweat and odor. It was gross, but it also might keep him alive. Another torch winked out as Malachi hurried to buckled on the breastplate. It warped slightly as it resized to fit him. He felt a surge of—something. Like his cuts didn't hurt so bad. Like his bruises could be more easily shrugged off. He walked towards the Warden.

As soon as he got within fifteen feet of it, it let out a horrifying call, something between a chorus of trumpets and a screech. Malachi nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd expected it to react, though, and dashed towards the sword. One of the legs lifted off the ground, looking like it was stuck in gum and trailing strings of it behind for a moment before the taffy-like tendrils retracted into the ground.

Malachi rolled and grabbed the longsword as he did, springing to his feet with it as the leg smashed into the stone floor where he'd just been. Masterwork Longsword (Imbued) Deflection I Embercut I Ability: Flamestrike III (0/1 charges) Durability 94/100 Malachi knew, in theory, how to use a longsword. He'd seen them in movies and games of course, but he'd also watched Tebor as he'd used it. When fighting with it one handed, he'd placed his dominant hand near the crossguard.

When he used his second hand, he would either grip the pommel or, in close quarters, grasp it by the base of the blade where it didn't seem to be that sharp. Malachi would be using it two-handed to get extra leverage in his parries and attacks since he couldn't use his aegis. Besides, it couldn't be that different from a spear, could it? He lifted the blade in an overhead parries that he'd seen Tebor use as another leg of the Warden came down at him.

There was a ringing of steel as the leg scraped past the blade, sending out sparks. Malachi felt the shock through his arms. With gritted teeth, he swung the sword like a baseball bat and there was a satisfying crunch of steel on the stone-like flesh of the thing. One of the glowing glyphs on the leg exploded in sparks. Yes, he thought. Then another leg smashed into his new breastplate, sending him sprawling. He wheezed as the air was knocked out of him.

Too many damn legs, he thought as he scrambled back to his feet. He used distance to avoid the next attack, leaping back as the Warden struck so that the leg landed just in front of him, then smashed it again with the sword. Another glyph burst apart. He repeated the maneuver twice more. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Just when he thought he'd found a strategy he could repeat, the giant spider-construct charged forward, slamming into him.

He was knocked back into the wall, slightly dazed. He recovered just in time to duck as one of the legs smashed into the wall where his head had been. He brought the longsword up in an arcing slash, then was sent sprawling again as a leg he hadn't seen move pounded into his back, knocking both him and the sword sideways. Malachi was next to Tebor's body. He picked up the magical torch he'd used to kill him since it was closer than the sword and plunged that into a leg of the creature.

The entire leg burst into flames, shattering all the glyphs at once. The Warden let out an echoing howl, sounding like an entire wolfpack all had laryngitis. The torch also went out. Malachi ran for the next torch on the wall. He didn't know what would happen when they all went out, but probably nothing good. Maybe some sort of enraged phase. Maybe the Warden would just kill him.

But there was a benefit to the cost: if he could use the torches to permanently destroy legs, he could then engage in close-quarters with the construct, saving him time overall. He picked another torch off the wall, then leapt to the side as another leg came down. He smashed the torch into it. The Warden howled again. Two down. There were six torches left. Five, he noted as another winked out. Seven legs left. He sprinted towards the wall.

Whatever 'enhanced vitality' was doing, it was giving him a bit more wind than he usually had, and he had damn good lungs. He grabbed two more torches off the wall, then ducked another leg, only to get smashed in the back as a second leg came down on top of him, sending one of the torches spinning out of his hand. Malachi felt sharp pain in his spine. That wasn't good. But if he could win this fight, maybe his regeneration would come back on.

He waved the torch he'd held onto at the construct, then wound up and threw it, aiming for the center mass. The Warden's thorax burst into flame, but only a few glyphs burst apart. Malachi scrambled forward to grab the fallen torch and threw that as well, then ran back towards the longsword as the Warden screeched. He was right next to the longsword when the construct slammed into him again. Steel scraped against stone as he skidded across the floor. Enhanced vitality or not, he was getting his ass kicked.

He ached all over, now there was a sharp pain in his shoulder as well. Three torches left. One about to wink out soon. The Warden was standing over the sword now, and was in between him and the remaining torches, but Malachi still had some options. He ran over to the dead mage and picked up the staff. Battlemage's Staff (Enhanced) Enhance Fire Spells I Ability: Recharge Mana I (0/2) Durability 81/100 There was also another one of those fire vials at the mage's belt.

He picked it up and hurled it at the Warden as it came forward, sending flames bursting around it. Unlike the magical torches, though, this didn't seem to hurt it nearly as much. Malachi came in, using the staff to thwack at the legs. It took three swings to pop a single glyph, and the durability of the staff was going down by around four points every time he got in a hit. It wasn't meant to be a melee weapon. What he needed was a damn spear.

He cursed the gorgons for being stingy with their weapons, and fuck whatever stupid tradition they'd referenced as an excuse. Malachi smashed the staff into another leg, then held it in both hands above his head to deflect a downward blow. Ten more durability lost off this stick. Fuck this. I need the sword. He came at the Warden in a flurry, swinging fast and hard. The durability ticked down to fifteen. Eleven. Seven. Three. With one more swing, he smashed the staff into the nearest leg and—it exploded.

The flash temporarily blinded Malachi, and his face was burned. The Warden had lost another leg, though, and it was howling again. Malachi ran forward and picked up the undefended longsword. He swung it like a bat again, just smashing the Warden over and over while it was off-balance. The construct backed up, then made a deep noise he hadn't heard before. Malachi looked around. There were only two more torches left, but five legs.

That was when the construct started spinning around, shooting out webbing from one orifice and some sort of green cloud from another. The poison was spreading out in a cloud around the Warden. Malachi didn't want to get close to that, especially because he'd have to wade through the sticky webbing to get at it. A glyph that had been dark on it burst with light again. Was it healing? Damnit! He wasn't going to make it. This stupid bullshit trial. Wasn't this supposed to be the easy version? He needed Arisone.

SERA had subtly warned him that would cause some sort of problem, but whatever the problem was, having someone who knew what the fuck was going on and could actually tell him about it had to be better. While the Warden was spinning in circles, Malachi ran to the wall where Arisone was cocooned.

"Hold still," he called, and slashed a cut through the webbing, then another. As soon as she had an arm free, the gorgon ripped the webbing free from her mouth.

"You fool!" she hissed.

"Why did you not rescue me immediately? And why did you choose such a foolish trial? If I had my magic—""Because my System Unit seemed to think it would be a bad idea. But I think something's about to go down anyways." He cut another hunk of silk. As soon as Arisone was free enough to drop down to the floor, the lights in the room flickered again. New glyphs lit up along the floor. The Warden stopped spinning and farting out poison gas, but something else was happening as well.

Tendrils of goo were coming up from the floor and down from the ceiling, building something. Veils of what looked like more spider silk were dropping from the ceiling all over, creating barricades that shrouded most of the room. Smaller spider-like constructs popped up as well. Then, the last torch winked out, plunging the room into darkness. There was a roar, something between a jet engine and a pissed elephant. Whatever the room was doing to the Warden— Except, that's not the Warden, Malachi realized.

The Warden, the real thing, was in the floor and the ceiling. These were just things it was puppeting. Still puppets we have to kill though. Arisone was watching as the spider-construct that Malachi had been fighting doubled in size, growing a thick lion-like body and multiple heads. One was a rat head, another a serpent, and the final one a mushroom cap with a stalk that was mimicking a face, but clearly wasn't one. The legs stayed thin and spider-like, but now there were seven of them.

Arisone's hair-snakes looked around, clearly confused.

"I can use magic," Arisone muttered.

"Can you?" The icons in his interface were still disabled.

"No."

"Strange. It seems to be combining our trials together. This is… unprecedented."

"What does that mean?"

"If you can distract the foes long enough, I can defeat the Warden."

"Yeah? Is that why you were hanging from a web waiting for me?" Arisone's hair hissed annoyance, but her face kept a steady gaze.

"I know what venom it spits now. However, you will be on your own as I employ my spells." Her scales faded into the same color as the wall, and she ducked low, slithering beneath one of the silk shrouds. Malachi barely make out her wand moving away in the dim light. He grunted. After this, they were going to have a talk.

"Alright," he said, hefting the longsword. The Warden roared again from behind the silk curtains that now were everywhere. The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of the eldritch-green glyphs. There were dozens of the smaller spider-constructs. Several had spotted him. Round two, he thought. Or is this three? He wiped the sweat off his brow and got ready to fight again.