Chapter Fourteen

Rogue Dungeon

What is a library doing down here? Wraith asked.

“Well that’s a ruined demonic summoning circle so it’s probably an old lair of some dark wizard or cult. But we’ve got bigger problems than worrying about what this place is. That circle looks like something broke out which means we could have an unbound demon loose down here and if I miss my guess this is a rogue dungeon. Before you ask that means, a rogue dungeon is a series of rooms made up of a collection of rogue monsters and in this case probably a powerful demon which is especially bad for us. You’re a black dungeon which means your mana is useless against demons…wait do you still have the mace we took from that cleric?” Ember asked.

You know I never get rid of anything, there is a white aura of mana around it will it be able to kill a demon? Wraith inquired.

“You can’t kill a demon, you can only beat their form here in the mortal plane into a pulp and banish them back to hell. We’d better kill the demon they are one of the few creatures in existence that know about dungeon cores, they are bound by ancient laws to not reveal us, but they can still kill you,” Ember warned. “We found a secret passage behind a bookcase we don’t know where it leads but be warned demons are intelligent, they plan, they have centuries of experience and are by most definitions of the word are immortal. Whatever happened here happened a long time ago the demon will have had time to plan and prepare for invaders and populate the dungeon with monsters it will have trapped or coerced into its service. When it learns of our presence it will try to destroy us, it’s in its nature.”

Then we shall have to destroy it first, Wraith growled.

The Rogue Dungeon

Ember held a heavy steel spiked mace in his hand, Hob followed behind with a crossbow ready with a green scaled drake guarding him and Mob brought up the rear with a spear and shield. They entered the tunnel and Ember scanned the floor, walls and ceiling for traps. He had personally led many a mission when they were exploring the maze of tunnels the kobolds had mined and had died dozens of times from different traps and he had learned to spot dozens of traps.

Ember held up his hand and sprinkled some white chalk dust on a tile in the floor that was slightly higher than all the others. They continued this way Ember marking possible traps until the tunnel branched off in two. Without a word Ember took the right path and after twenty feet came to a wooden door with an iron latch. Ember bent down and examined the latch, he could detect no traps, but he was cautions after his many battles with the kobolds.

He tied a rope to the latch and backed up ten feet crouched down and yanked on the rope, spikes shot overhead launched from two dozen crossbows positioned on a rack facing the door. The height of their small bodies and the fact they were crouching down was all that had kept them from being impaled although the guard drake had taken a bolt to the shoulder. Hob yanked out the bolt and pulled the cork out of a health potion and poured it down the guard drakes throat.

They advanced into the room and looked around, stone tables stood around the room with stone benches many of which were broken, corpses littered the ground with black stains and holes where their hearts used to be. The undead groaned and advanced, for most people this would be unsettling, but these were soul sparks of a dark dungeon; they were immortal and undead was one of their favored races to be.

Ember started giving orders, “Hob you aim for the head and try to take them out, Mob you guard him I’ll go for their knees and try to cripple them.”

Hob stayed in the doorway his crossbow fired and a zombie twitched a bolt jutting out from its forehead and it toppled to the ground. A zombie shambled over stumbling its jaws opened wide as it fell on Mob, but he jumped to the side and stabbed his short sword through the undead’s skull. The guard drake used its size to knock over zombies that flanked Mob giving the him time to run them through with his spear. Hob ran forward using his mace to bash in the zombie’s knee caps bringing them toppling to the ground as we wove in and out between their legs taking advantage of his smaller size.

“Leave one alive, our master does not have the pattern for how to create zombies yet,” Ember shouted. “They may be one of the weakest forms of undead, but he may find them useful.”

They quickly dispatched the weak undead and left one still moving as it twitched the arms and legs that Ember had smashed with his mace. They tied a rope around the zombie and dragged it down the hallway. It became necessary to spring the traps that they had marked on the way in, Mob rolled an old cracked barrel out of the dining hall and into the T-section. The four of them counted to three and shoved the chest, it rolled five feet and stopped.

“Well that was anticlimactic…” Hob said.

BOOM! The barrel was blasted into the air by fireball, the wood shattered the two iron loops went flying. A large chunk of wood hit a tripwire and a guillotine blade fell from the ceiling, one of the iron loops hit a pressure plate and rocks poured down from the ceiling. Another chunk of wood struck a beam of light and a gale force of wind pushed everything down the hallway at breakneck speed to dash them against the wall. Ember, Hob, Mob and the guard drake barely managed to dive out of the way and drag the zombie with them before the shards of wood were shoved down the hallway simultaneously activating every trap they came across.

Ember looked around the corner at the devastated tunnel. “Well I think we have lost the advantage of surprise we had better get backup,” he said.

Core Room

Wraith sat in his core chamber looking into the two cages where he kept his pets, the book mimic sat on a pile of discarded books that had been ruined by worms. Its tongue had grown back, and it swallowed a rat that Wraith tossed to it. The rage drake padded up to him and rubbed itself along him growling deeply, after weeks of being his prisoner the rage drake had grown used to the undead kobold and now acted as an extra guard in his core room.

“Hey boss,” Wraith heard as he felt Ember step back into his territory. “Um, there’s not a good way to put this but, uh, the stealth mission failed it’s time for plan B.”

Overwhelming force? Wraith asked.

The Rogue Dungeon

The hundred kobolds all stood in sets of full mithril plate armor, one third of them carried crossbows, the others carried a spear and shield in hand and a sword strapped to their waist. Ember stood at the front of them as they began funneling into the tunnel four abreast marching down. They split apart at the T-section and began kicking down doors. They rolled barrels in front of them setting off traps, this was not the challenges that Wraith had started off with or even the skirmishes against the dragon. This was war, full on invasion of a deadly opponent.

Ember kicked down a door in his much larger form that he had worn when at the Dungeon conclave. He stepped into a room with a circle of salt on the floor a shriveled corpse lay huddled in the circle and flying around inside the circle was a spectral figure made of strands of pale mana.

“A ghost, that’s interesting the boss will want to look at you, one of the few undead creatures that can’t be made artificially. The memories and soul trapped on the mortal plane because of violent or tortuous death,” Ember whispered to himself. The ghost turned to them and gave a moan.

Who are you? the spirit asked.

Ember straightened getting into character. “I am Maco’vell the Terror,” he said in a exotic accent he had heard from an adventurer once. “Tell me spirit, why do you remain here?”

I was once part of the Order of Saint Mardevall.” The ghost replied, “One day our leader saw a vison of us leading an army of demons across the lands east to the Trevalla, the great Gnome Empire, and then bringing it to its knees. Than we would tear down the temples to the lesser manifestations and build a mighty temple to Saint Mardevall the Blood Bull manifestation of fire and water. But one day our high priest summoned a mighty Necovali, a demon of the eighth circle of hell. He thought he had it bound but when he finished his binding ritual and stepped from his own circle the demon slashed the summoning circle and devoured him. Than it rampaged through our order killing everyone but a few novices. If forced them to summon many unbound demons into the city and ravaged it but the novices seeing what transpired banished the demons, they had summoned. The Necovali killed them but without anyone else to summon demons it has remained here tormenting we spirits who remain as it waits for those who can bring more of its brethren into the world.”

“What can we do to banish this demon?” Ember asked.

“Are you powerful wizards or sorcerers?” the spirit asked.

“No, we are not,” Ember admitted.

“Then there is nothing you can do, it would take a legendary hero to banish the Necovali through force of arms unless…if you break this circle of salt my spirit will be free to possess one of you. Through you I could perform a ritual to banish the demon, but you would need to keep it well distracted.” The ghost suggested.

“I will have to confer with my men,” Ember said and left the room to go speak with Wraith. He told him everything the ghost had said.

Is it possible for him to possess one of your bodies? Wraith asked.

“In theory yes, it’s very similar to how we operate my only concern is that it would be two creatures possessing a body at the same time,” Ember worried.

What if you exited at the exact moment the ghost took control? Wraith inquired.

“Should work we shall see, in the meantime we should have a backup plan,” Ember said.

I already do, Wraith replied.

Ember reentered the room. “We have decided to accept your offer, my lieutenant Mob will serve as your host for the duration,” Ember said gesturing to the body Mob was currently inhabiting.

Ember broke the circle, and the ghost floated out and into Mob’s body there was a brief shudder and Ember caught Mob’s flesh shell as he collapsed as he exited the body. The body’s eyes opened, and he stood up and stretched.

“It feels good to be back in a flesh and blood body again even if it does belong to a kobold,” the ghost said.

“I never did ask you what your name was,” Ember said.

“Call me Morgan,” the ghost said extending a hand. “I’ll need some things for the ritual, black chalk, paint preferably red, black candles made of bee’s wax with sulfur added into it, as well as salt a ritual blade of obsidian and fresh blood. You should be able to find most of those ingredients here unless the demon destroyed them.”

“I will send out a group to search for them, tell me how you plan to banish the demon?” Ember asked.

“I will set up a pentacle in a room, then your soldiers will find the demon fight it and retreat leading it back here. You will have to keep it distracted but hopefully the black chalk will blend with the dark stone and he won’t notice it,” Morgan said.

It took five hours of searching and fighting through the rooms to find the ingredients. There were a few ghouls, some minor imps, and the most dangerous and interesting a wendigo. The kobolds were frozen by supernatural fear the stench from the tall creature overwhelming, it stood nearly ten feet tall but was as thin as a rail only a few hands wide its limbs looking like those a scarecrow ending in wicked claws. Its eyes glowed a sickly yellow and its teeth were razor sharp. Despite its emaciated looking body and thin limbs its speed and strength were incredible. It ripped a kobold in two the body coming apart in seems of its armor. Arrows stuck into it with no apparent effect, Ember ordered them to back up and they entered Wraith’s territory. They surrounded the wendigo and eventually dragged it down and chopped it to pieces.

Wraith was surprised when a soul rose up from the body, but he quickly captured it and was surprised at the strength of the spark easily twice as strong as Mob’s had been. He added it to the swirl of sparks around his core where Ember was working on imprinting them.

They eventually found all the ingredients and gathered around the final door in the rogue dungeon. Morgan began to draw out the pentacle as the kobolds set up their formation training their crossbows on the open door. Wraith eagerly awaited the battle when suddenly he felt a scratching on the surface of his territory. He turned his attention there and found a man in a white silk undershirt a flamboyant hat, he carried a rapier on his hip along with a strange device with a curved wooden hilt and a steel barrel with a rotating cog with miniature barrels along it, its use was unknown. There was a leather pack on his back and strapped to it was a pickaxe and shovel along with a coil of rope.

Ember we have a problem, Wraith said, there appears to be an adventurer trying to make his way down. He couldn’t have picked a worse time.