Chapter 477 - The Temple (Patreon)

What felt like an eternity of runes stretched before Zeke’s mind.  Millions of symbols and glyphs, each one representing a concept that, even after countless hours’ worth of examination, he only barely understood.  However, even if he didn’t know them as well as he likely should have, he knew where each one was supposed to go.  More than once, he’d found himself thankful for his path that had, at least in part, originated with runecrafting.  Without it, he would have been forced to spend years studying just to create the most basic of enchantments. 

And skills were infinitely more complex than any enchantment he’d ever seen. 

“To be fair, you haven’t seen the work of a true master enchanter,” Eveline cut in, as she was wont to do.  He was used to it, though, so he didn’t lose his focus as she continued, “There are a few masters in Hell.  And a few more that have since descended.  Their work still stands, though.  The grand city of Palos is the best example.  No one knows who created it, but the entire city is laid out as one huge enchantment meant to rob demons of their power.”

“Really?  Why?  A defensive measure?”

“No.  It was meant to ensure that everyone who entered would be equal,” she said.  “Over time, it became the only peaceful place in all of Hell.  It is our largest city, and the only place the seven tribes are willing to meet on equal footing.  Of course, there are still conflicts.  Fights aplenty.  But without skills and with everyone reduced to similar attributes, they’re rarely fatal.  You would still be a monster, there, though.  It can reduce the numbers, but it can do nothing about your stat tiers.”

“Interesting,” Zeke said.  He’d heard something similar about a city called Westport, though it was far enough away that he didn’t think he’d ever visit it.  Not with everything else on his plate.  Not only did he need to help Talia deal with the expansionists in El’Kireth, but he also suspected that his actions against the Kingdom of Adontis would not go unnoticed or unanswered.  They’d had allies, and though those allies hadn’t participated in the war, Zeke felt certain that they would show up at some point.

And finally, there was the simple needs of progression.  As far as he could tell, there was only one way for him to climb to the top of the ladder.  If he wanted to reach the peak, it was going to be on the shoulders of torrential slaughter.  Much of that would happen in dungeons, he hoped, but he couldn’t deny the efficacy of war when it came to progression, both for himself and for the people who followed him.

After all, the kobolds and beastkin had seen wonderous results from the war against Adontis and the giants.  Already, they had become a formidable and unignorable force.  If they kept going, they would continue to develop into an army that could conquer the world. 

Not that Zeke had any plans for world domination.  He didn’t.  But the ability to follow that path was one he hoped would prepare his chosen people to combat the innumerable issues they would surely face. 

Because the prejudice against beastkin and former monsters wasn’t going away, he felt sure.  The only answer to that was to be so strong that everyone had to accept them as equals.  That was a worry for another day, though.  For now, Zeke needed to focus on the task at hand. 

Four hours had passed since they’d found the cave, and most of that time had been spent resting.  For his part, Zeke didn’t really need to sleep much anymore.  He could put it off for weeks if necessary.  So, he had remained on guard while the much less durable Talia slept on the ground. 

But it was time to move on with the dungeon.  Zeke had no interest in spending months inside, and he suspected that it wouldn’t be necessary, because, even though the size of the dungeon – at least in terms of landmass – was enormous, the goals seemed fairly clear.  They needed to reach the mountain – avoiding the giant turtle along the way – and likely fight to the summit.  There, Zeke expected to encounter a much more powerful foe that would act as the “boss” of the dungeon.

Of course, even if Zeke felt certain that that was how the dungeon would play out, he also knew that it would almost assuredly throw some curve balls their way.  It already had, in a sense, and he expected that trend to continue.  So, he and Talia needed to be ready for anything going forward. 

To that end, he abandoned his latest bout of skillcrafting and rose to his feet.  Once he was upright, he spent a few minutes pulsing [Cambion’s Awakening] while stretching in an effort to loosen his stiff muscles.  The latter probably wasn’t strictly necessary, but he’d always enjoyed the feeling of stretching.  In another life, he might’ve pursued a path as a yogi. 

“I think you’re giving your former self far too much credit,” Eveline remarked.

Zeke smiled at the idea, then agreed, “Can’t really argue with that.  I probably would have ended up like my dad.”

After everything he’d been through, the notion that he’d have followed in his father’s footsteps as a mechanic seemed almost as alien as if, back then, he’d known what was in store for his future.  But if he hadn’t died on that operating table, there was a good chance that that was where he would have ended up.  Certainly, without baseball, he wouldn’t have gone to college.  Or even if he had, the chances that he’d have graduated were pretty slim. 

“Well, it’s water under the bridge,” he said inwardly.  “That life never happened.”

With that in mind, Zeke finished his stretching regimen, then approached Talia.  When he shook her awake, she didn’t start, as he might have expected.  Instead, she simply opened her eyes and asked, “Is it time?”

“I think so.  We should probably swing wide around the turtle,” he said.  “I have a skill that could probably at least hurt it, but there are usually consequences for that kind of thinking.  We should avoid it if we can.”

“I agree.”

After that, they embarked upon the task of clearing the entrance.  With Zeke’s strength, it was a trivial process, and Talia displayed more physical might than he would have expected.  In the end, it took less than an hour to dig themselves out, and that only because the ceiling kept collapsing every time they removed one of the larger boulders.  Regardless, it wasn’t long before they found themselves facing the jungle once more. 

And it was more of the same, with every step they took through the jungle being opposed by the local wildlife.  At first, they fought a few of the tortoloids, but as they swung wide around the still-distant walking mountain of a turtle, those attacks grew less frequent.  Yet, there were plenty of other threats that stepped up to replace them.  From more treants to vicious hunting cats to a couple of huge reptiles that could only be described as dinosaurs, Zeke and Talia were forced to wade through a veritable sea of blood – or sap, in the case of the treants – before they caught sight of the mountain that was their goal.

Days passed as they slowly worked their way closer, and more than once, they were forced to take shelter in various caves.  Never had Zeke appreciated his tower more than when he finally let himself sleep in the bare earth.  It wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to rough it.  During his time in the troll caves, he’d spent years sleeping on the ground, and that pattern had once again emerged in the dwarven mines beneath Min Ferilik.

But at least those caves and caverns hadn’t played host to millions of creeping and crawling things, most of which were eager to climb out of the soil and bite him.  A few even crawled into his nose and ears, resulting in a blinding headache which took a pulse of his Path of Arcane Destruction to counteract. 

Talia had no issues like that, though.  Her undead body clearly wasn’t appetizing to the insects, millipedes, and other crawling creatures. 

Still, their progress was steady, and eventually, they emerged from the trees to look across a wide clearing, where they saw a large temple nestled at the base of the mountain.  To Zeke, it looked like someone had fused ancient Indian and Chinese architecture, which oddly worked well together, though he couldn’t say why he’d dubbed the structure a temple. 

When he mentioned as much to Talia, she narrowed her eyes and said, “I think it is the mana.”

Notably, her manner of speech had once again drifted back to what he’d come to expect back in the Mortal Realm.  During one of their stops, she’d revealed that she had a collection of potions called Heartsblood Elixirs that served the same purpose as her old habit of eating hearts, though the effect was spread out over time.  However, since neither of them knew how long they would be forced to remain within the dungeon, she’d begun to ration her supply, resulting in the same muted emotions she’d experienced before her ascension.

“I think there are runes there, too,” Zeke said.  “Maybe.  It all feels odd.”

“Dungeon shenanigans,” Eveline said sagely.  “They don’t always follow the same rules, and not everything inside is a perfect representation of reality.”

That felt like it was at least partially correct.  The runes he saw were more like reflections of the things he’d seen in real life.  Though, there seemed to be more to it than that, even if he couldn’t quite figure out what those factors might be.  In any case, he and Talia remained at the tree line, crouched and trying to avoid notice, because the temple was clearly occupied.

Like the ratongi and tortoloids seemed like combinations of humans and other creatures – rats and turtles, respectively – the new monsters clearly traced their origin back to birds.  Specifically, vultures. 

They had the same featherless heads, tufts at the bases of their long necks, and black-feathered bodies.  However, their wings seemed almost vestigial, with spans that should not have been capable of holding them aloft.  Their behavior supported that, because Zeke didn’t see any of them take flight. 

Instead, they milled around the temple, clearly on one task or another.  Some carried water buckets from a nearby well, others pruned the grounds, and still others worked on the temple’s upkeep.  They looked entirely mundane – at least until, as one, they each bobbed their heads in the same direction.  Zeke followed the gesture, gazing across to the other side of the wide clearing, where he saw a limping beast.

The beast was enormous.  Maybe twice the size of a fully grown African elephant, though with thick, pebbled scales and a maw that made it look like a quadruped tyrannosaurus.  It was also clearly injured, with deep gashes along its thick torso.  Its legs, too, bore many seeping wounds. 

It stumbled free of the tree line, and the vulture-people reacted with vicious ferocity, leaping across the clearing in only a couple of bounds.  As Zeke had suspected, they weren’t fully capable of flight.  Instead, they used their wings in much the same way as fleas, helping them soar through the air in long, bounding jumps.

The monstrous reptile put up a decent fight as the flock of bird-men fell upon it, and more than one of its foes disappeared between its teeth.  However, wounded as it was, it could only fight for so long.  After only a few moments, during which hundreds of bird-men descended upon it with ripping talons and sharp beaks, it fell.  After that, they ripped it apart in a gleeful frenzy of raw meat, blood, and other assorted viscera.

In seconds, the creature was completely invisible beneath a blanket of black feathers. 

“That’s disturbing,” Zeke remarked, keeping his voice low as he tried to sink a bit lower into the underbrush.

“Indeed,” Talia agreed.

“Reminds me of a flock of blood imps,” Eveline said.  “Cute little things until they smell blood.  Then things get extremely horrifying very quickly.”

Zeke whispered to Talia, “Retreat for a few minutes.  We need to figure out how to attack the problem at hand.”

Talia nodded, and the two did just that.  However, they didn’t go far, largely because they didn’t want to abandon the brief respite afforded by their proximity to the murderous bird-men.  Nothing seemed to want to get too close to the temple, and now that Zeke had seen the reason, he couldn’t blame the local wildlife for their choice.  In any case, a few minutes later, they settled in next to an enormous tree.  Zeke didn’t recognize the species, but that wasn’t terribly abnormal.  The jungle was full of things that didn’t fit into his current understanding of such categories. 

“I think we need to get past that temple,” Zeke said.

“I agree.  There is a path on the other side of the temple that leads up the mountain,” Talia stated.

Zeke hadn’t noticed that, but Talia seemed to have sharper eyes than him, so he trusted her information. 

“Full assault?” he asked.  “We could go at it like we used to.  I’ll draw their attention while you sweep in from the sides and rear.”

“Can you handle them?” Talia asked.

Zeke shrugged at that.  He hadn’t gotten close enough to determine their levels, but based on the brief battle with the giant reptile, the bird-men didn’t seem overly strong.  Not individually, at least.  Instead, their power was derived from their collective ferocity.  That was a perfect match-up for Zeke, who excelled in taking a multitude of hits from comparatively weaker opponents. 

“If there’s a powerhouse in there, you might get in trouble,” Eveline reminded him.  She did so aloud, having manifested on the other side of Talia.

“Together, we should be able to handle it,” Zeke said.

“I hope you’re right,” Eveline remarked, disappearing back into Zeke’s mind. 

So, after a few more minutes, during which they both recovered as well as they could, the pair separated.  Talia raced off, following the tree line while Zeke stepped forward, adopting his earthen colossus form as he strode into the clearing.  The effect was immediate and expected, with the bird-men jerking their heads in his direction after he’d taken only a few steps. 

Then, they were racing toward him.

Zeke braced himself for battle, yanking Voromir from his storage space as he summoned his two domains.  Fiery runes erupted across his body as corruption suffused the air, but the mass of screeching and frenzied bird-men never even hesitated before plunging into Zeke’s domain.

He rolled his shoulders and stepped forward to meet them.