DD1 ASC - Chapter 30 - Negotiations

Typhoeus watched from the lip of the pit, sitting down with his bare legs dangling over the sides kicking up at the air as he tried his best to look nonplussed. Watching with his two human eyes was entirely unnecessary; his skill [Sovereign's Perception] had more than enough range to see the entirety of their small camp regardless of where he positioned himself within it. Still, he had noticed that Arilla tended to fight better when he was physically present, and it did do something to calm the seething mass of nerves that formed in his stomach whenever she fought without him.

Although to call what was currently occurring in the pit a fight didn't really do it justice, as below him, his sworn sword danced around the three dire scorpions that he had caught for her, with something approaching ease. Since having their talk at the pool all those days ago, Arilla had finally flourished as Typhoeus had always hoped that she would. She fought now with a newfound grace that had been lacking in her movements before, no longer going straight for the quick messy kill and instead ensuring that she stayed out of reach of her enemies’ strikes as she used her huge zweihander to score devastating opportunistic blows.

For now, her promise seemed to be working, for in the days since she had sworn to prioritise her own wellbeing she had yet to take another wound that required his immediate intervention. Arilla's current dance was to be her final graduation fight from the dire scorpions. She was still swinging her massive sword around like a drunken child—for Typhoeus had no expertise on swordsmanship to impart there—but she picked her moments well and now when she fought, she did so like a drunken child with a dragon's predatory instincts and a taste for blood. A change that warmed his little human heart with pride. She was still in desperate need of a proper sword tutor before she ever went up against an intelligent opponent, but against mindless beasts like these, her instincts were more than enough.

Her zweihander carved through the front two legs on the left side of the leading dire scorpion. Its flat body teetered precariously as its freshly severed stumps smeared ichor along the glassy floor while desperately trying to turn to face Arilla. Its even slower, more heavily injured compatriots tried and failed to get past its large bulk as she sprinted around the tangled clump of giant insects. Arilla’s sword flashed through the air as she ran, causing a spray of viscous ichor and shorn chitin to follow in her wake.

Yes, Typhoeus concluded, she was definitely developing quite nicely.

He watched over her in silence, as the minutes ticked by. His sworn sword grunting and roaring, first with exertion and then finally in triumph, her insectoid foes falling still beneath her blade one after the other. When she was done, bent over at the waist and trying to catch her breath, he had to admit that she had performed excellently before pushing off from the side of the pit and casting a quick spell to slow his fall.

"You did well. You can consider that a pass from monstrous insects," he announced with a wide toothy smile.

"Really?" she asked, raising one eyebrow at him in question. "You're not going to say that I have to fight four of them next?"

"No, that surprise was only funny twice; I’m not a monster," he said.

"Sometimes I really doubt that…" Arilla said with a sarcastic smile, oblivious to the hidden truth behind her statement.

"You didn't take any hits, but are you sure you want to carry on for today?" he asked warily, carefully evaluating her reaction for signs of her battle lust, an unfortunate condition made worse by her upbringing and warrior-tagged class.

"Yes! It’s still early, and I'd do anything to finally be free from scorpion steak dinners. I need variety in my diet, and our non-existent spice collection isn't exactly helping," she said with an edge of desperation in her voice.

"Are you trying to subtly impugn my cooking skills?" he asked, surprised to find that he was actually offended by the perceived slight.

"Typh, you are by far the worst cook I have ever met, and I've eaten rats. Raw rats. Just think about that for a minute, would you?” she said emphatically as she tried to get her point across.

"That can't be true. I bought a sack of salt and everything," he said, wondering where he may have gone wrong in the past.

"Salting your meat before you burn it to a crisp or leave it so bloody that it's still trying to crawl off the plate are not the hallmarks of a great cook. That you haven't improved at all in the time that we've been here eating this one dish over and over again is honestly more terrifying than your magical skills."

"There was some variety; you’re forgetting that one time I made soup," Typhoeus said defensively.

"You're forgetting why it was a one-time thing," she said, grimacing at the painful memory.

"Oh please, with your vitality, you were barely sick for an hour."

"Can you please just go hunt something that will taste nice and not at all like burnt insects?"

"Fine," he said, waving his hand casually as he spent a hundred mana to make the dire scorpion corpses melt into a puddle of liquefied flesh with a satisfying hissing sound. "I've condensed enough water for you to wash the worst of it off you, but there's no point getting too clean as you're just going to get dirty again, knowing you."

“Ever the charmer…” Arilla grumbled under her breath.

"It will take me a few hours to find something suitable so—"

"Yes, I know, don't leave the wardposts whilst you're gone, or something will try and likely succeed at eating me," she said, cutting him off.

“Okay, I won’t be long.”

“You better not, be safe out there.”

“I always am.”

Typhoeus smiled that she had taken his words to heart before frowning when he remembered how much of a pain it was going to be finding an animal in the very tight level range that was 16-19. The nearby dungeon filled with monstrous insects had been a very lucky find allowing him to easily extract consistently low levelled dire scorpions for Arilla to fight. Finding a similar dungeon filled with animalistic creatures would be much more challenging as unlike insects, which often formed hives, they were rarely the sole occupants of dungeons. Instead, they were far more likely to be part of a wider dungeon ecosystem where levels varied, and sapient species tended to make their home.

Every time he crossed the boundary marked by the small stone posts, Typhoeus found himself marvelling at the literal change in the air, the camp having somehow taken on some of his innate aspects as it was slowly tainted with his mana. The wardposts themselves were a remarkably effective creation given how simple their construction was, a pillar of solid stone with a large disregard rune carved on the top nestled amongst some minor supplementary sigils to ensure that the post’s enchantment melded with any others that were arranged nearby. Together they had the effect of hiding whatever was encompassed by the posts to any creature looking in from the outside. Although as usual, anything with a sufficiently high willpower or charisma score would be able to brute force their way through the runic enchantment. It was thanks to these wardposts that every time he had left Arilla behind in the past to retrieve a dire scorpion that he had felt confident that he could leave her alone and unguarded.

He left their camp as Arilla was channelling her mana into her sword, replenishing its well after it had been used so heavily during her final battle against the dire scorpions. He spared a moment to check that his wards running through the camp were still working as intended before departing alone into the infested wilds of the foothills.

The weather was overcast, threatening to rain in what would be a welcome break from the relentless sunshine that was characteristic of the long summer. A cool breeze wafted down from the mountains to the west carrying with it fresh moisture and a whiff of concentrated mana. Typhoeus inhaled deep, filling his human lungs with as much of the rich energy-infused air that he could handle as he made his way to the top of a particularly large hill.

He stopped at the summit and extended his senses outwards, momentarily dropping his mental defences as he allowed the dungeon cores in the nearby hills to find him as he was bombarded by a chorus of seductive whispers, each voice in his ear belonging to a dungeon that promised treasure and safety for the low, low price of his eternal servitude. He mentally checked off the voices belonging to the dungeons that he had already explored and ran towards the nearest as-yet unknown dungeon. His 41 dexterity allowed him to make good time and he quickly raced over the uneven terrain in a straight beeline towards the dungeon’s entrance. His booted feet rapidly consumed the distance as he leaned on his stats to carry him swiftly forwards. The wind blew across his face as he moved, bringing with it the combined scents of pollen and animal fear as the wild creatures of the foothills scattered well in advance of his arrival, his wide aura warning any and all of them that he was fast approaching.

Unlike most dungeons in these parts, the opening was not another sinkhole or fissure in the earth. Instead, this one featured a large set of double stone doors built directly into the side of a sandy hill that slowly ground to a close as he approached. Typhoeus couldn’t help but smile at that; while the dungeon may still have been keen to recruit him, it was abundantly clear to him that its current occupants were not. He inspected the large doors for any clues about the dungeon’s mysterious residents, and he was able to tell from the inscriptions carved into them, along with the pungent smell, that this was a ratling dungeon. While it wasn’t what he was looking for, it could still be of use to him. Ratlings were not known for breeding animals, but they were nothing if not industrious, and he knew that he could get them to the negotiating table with a sufficient show of force.

He traced his fingertips slowly over the carving of a giant tusked ratling that dominated the set of doors. It was a pretty picture, fearsome even. Clearly designed to scare away potential invaders, but last time he checked, ratlings lacked tusks and weren’t 15ft tall. So he took the carving for what it was, an example of the ratlings' expertise with stonecutting, and moved on. The only challenge that this dungeon posed to him was in getting what he wanted from within without letting his warcaster level creep past 15. He quickly checked his mana and waited patiently for his pool to rapidly refill before he once again began weaving protective spells around himself as he prepared to conquer the dungeon.

Name: Typh

Species: Human

Age: 18

HP: 410/410

SP: 410/410

MP: 5120/5120

Strength: 41

Dexterity: 41

Vitality: 41

Intelligence: 128

Willpower: 126

Charisma: 85

Class: Warcaster - Level 15

Warcaster’s Abjuration - Level 15

Warcaster’s Empowerment - Level 15

Warcaster’s Reservoir - Level 15

He hardened his aura, fuelling the change with the 150 mana and health he had stored in it earlier courtesy of his skills [Warcaster’s Reservoir] and [Warcaster’s Empowerment]. It wasn’t a lot of mana, but with his high stats empowering his rank 4 aura skill, it would be more than enough to stop dead any attack that he could realistically expect to receive inside a rank 2 dungeon. As his skills synergised together, his aura coalesced into a set of overlapping scales made of golden light given substance that superimposed themselves over his skin. His hardened aura appeared as a glowing suit of sleek form-fitting armour while he focused his attention elsewhere as he wove his mana into a spell to crack open the thick doors of the dungeon.

Fire and force. They were the two aspects that every sovereign dragon shared. When he worked them into his skills and spells, the effect was significantly stronger than it would be otherwise, with a reduced cost in mana, stamina, and general mental fatigue. The opposite was true with ice and soul magic, but he had hardly any uses for those types of spells, so it was no great loss. To open the dungeon’s doors, his spell made use of both of his aspects, and while the fire was entirely unnecessary for battering down the door, he wanted to be sure to leave an impression.

He carefully siphoned off some mana from his well, twisting and contorting it into the conical shape that his spell demanded, funneling his mana through the rune for impact, convincing Creation itself to lend his spell a weight and mass that would translate into increased devastation when it finally hit his target.

He raised his hand to finish casting his spell, and then after thinking better of it, he decided to fall back a few hundred feet away before finally releasing it. To call it a complex spell would be a lie, but there comes a point when a manabolt is so sufficiently large that it really deserves a new name of its own. Regardless, the overstuffed manabolt slowly roared through the air, bleeding off excess energy with a long trail of golden flames that glassed the sandy soil and scorched the air as it passed. It hit the stone doors slightly off-centre, the spell immediately discharging its payload of 500 mana with a colossal explosion and instantly vaporising the stone doors. When the dust subsided there was only a large flaming crater remaining in the side of the hill.

Typhoeus slowly climbed back to his feet, the shockwave from the blast having knocked him down and showered him in a fine spray of hot sizzling soil. He marched forwards, staggering slightly when whatever caused the ringing in his ears had also made his balance to fail. He very nearly face-planted several times over before he stopped to take several long seconds to breathe through his vertigo. His high vitality quickly remedied the disturbance in his inner ear, and once he was feeling better, he slowly approached the flaming crater.

Not for the first time he wished again that his [Alternate Form] had the same resistance to fire that his true body did. The air was scaldingly hot. His feet crunching softly over the blackened dehydrated earth making a noise much akin to powdered snow as it compressed under his weight. He peered through the now much-expanded dungeon entrance, tasting the mana emanating from within as he looked inside. The hill appeared to be mostly hollow, with thick stone walls separating the chambers inside that were organised to look like something resembling a fortified gatehouse.

He walked through the burning wreckage, trusting in his reflexes and his magic to keep him safe from harm, dodging fires and falling chunks of charred stone before eventually finding his way to a spiral staircase leading down deep into the earth. He stepped forwards and over the edge, cooler air rushing up past him and through his hair as gravity seized him, causing him to rapidly descend towards a small circular chamber lined with shadowed alcoves. Each one was carved deep into the rock, decorated with finely worked stone engravings meant to draw the eye away from the looming shadows that he had no trouble seeing through. This dungeon core was smart and almost certainly older than most in the area, that or the ratlings who occupied it were doing an outstanding job at not only pulling their weight when it came to decorative stone cutting but also defensive tactics.

Before Typhoeus’s dainty feet could even touch the floor, a squadron of ratlings attacked. A pair of heavily armoured rat headed humanoids rushed forth from each alcove, a long polearm held tightly between their gauntleted hands. They swiftly encircled him, cutting off his escape, and with a series of well-coordinated stabs, two dozen wickedly curving halberds slammed futilely into a hastily erected barrier of golden light surrounding him. He studied the ratlings carefully from behind his arcane shelter as they repeatedly tried stabbing again and again, the pointed blades of their polearms scoring bright golden sparks and costing him a small trickle of mana with thwarted each impact.

Fully enclosed in heavy-looking platemail, the ratlings could have passed for humans if not for the system telling him otherwise and their terrible posture indicative of their forward curving spines. Typhoeus’s attackers were large for ratlings, hulking brutes one and all that towered over his five-foot-nothing as they moved and attacked with a regimented precision that he had not expected to see from members of their species. Even more surprising was the armour that they were all wearing, over twenty full suits of high-grade mana-saturated steel plate, stamped here and there with a smattering of runic reinforcements. The craftsmanship and metal quality was significantly better than what he’d seen most bronze rank adventurers typically wear. If it wasn’t all clearly designed to accommodate the inhuman postures and cranial structures of ratlings, then he would already be plotting how to resell it back in Rhelea.

The ambush was surprisingly smart, and if it wasn’t for him being over a hundred and fifty levels their senior, it would likely have worked. With his two-rank advantage on the creatures, their best attempts to kill him were little more than an annoying drain on his mana. So long as he resisted the urge for a mid-battle nap, he was perfectly safe. He took the time to look deep into their eyes, past their sculpted steel faceplates of snarling rat faces and he wondered if they were slaves to the dungeon or just extremely well trained. They hadn’t hesitated to attack him after his sudden arrival or been phased by how ineffectual their attacks were against his defences, so he was tempted to think the former, but with ratlings, it was always hard to tell. While unpalatable to his dragon sensibilities, their rigid caste society really was quite effective in breeding highly regimented dungeon fodder.

He quickly assessed them all, looking for nonlethal weak points in their well-forged armour as he wove his mana into a spell. Another rune sprang to the forefront of his mind and empowered his working further as he unleashed a barrage of thin golden lances, each one passing seamlessly through his barrier and striking a ratling in each knee. Bone, fur, muscle and steel were ripped apart in an instant as one and all they fell to the ground splayed out awkwardly. Blessedly there were no kill notifications from the System, and with all the ratlings now incapacitated, he dropped his barrier. Trying his best not to let his mind linger on how they  were screaming and writhing in pain, he carefully stepped over the suffering creatures and made his way out of the chamber.

There was exactly one way forwards from the welcoming committee at the foot of the stairs, and as soon as Typhoeus opened the door leading out from the room, he was rewarded with a ballistae bolt slamming into the hardened scales of his aura. The impact of the fast-moving spear depleted the mana in his aura’s reservoir by nearly half, glancing off his golden scales and ricocheting into the room behind him before piercing a fallen ratling with a wet squelch and a fresh scream of pain.

Looking up from his knees, he could see at the end of the long narrow hallway a crew of four ratlings frantically reloading the large siege weapon. He climbed back to his feet and watched how the panic grew in their eyes as he began to slowly approach them, his booted feet softly stepping along the marble tiles lining the corridor. When he was almost halfway there, the lead ratling, who was a darker shade of brown than the others, squeaked in triumph as they carefully aimed the now reloaded weapon right at him.

Typhoeus watched as the darker furred ratling pulled the short lever that would launch the eight-foot-long spear directly at him, and he couldn’t help but laugh as the bolt failed to leave the ballistae at all. The ratlings frantically began swarming around the engine as they looked for the elusive fault in the massive weapon, eventually finding the small band of golden light holding the oversized bowstrings under tension. They looked over at him, resplendent in his shimmering scales of mana-infused aura and then past him into the room where anguished screams of pain could still be heard and promptly fled, clearly deciding that discretion is the better part of valour.

He let them go and their scaly tails quickly disappeared around a corner as he took his time to inspect the craftsmanship of the abandoned weapon. It wasn’t much to look at really, an oversized crank crossbow about the size of a small wagon, with sturdy iron-rimmed wheels to allow for it to be more easily transported over rugged terrain. The weapon was well made without any apparent faults or artistic flair, and it even had a few discreetly stamped runes along the frame, ensuring that the whole thing would hold together despite the strings being held under ridiculously high tensions. Altogether, it was a pretty nasty looking weapon that bore all the signs of being mass-produced. When taken into account along with how abnormally well-armed and armoured the ratlings in the previous room were, he would bet his hoard that the furry little creatures were up to something.

The ballistae was at the centre of a ‘T’ intersection, and Typhoeus picked his next direction more or less at random, taking the left turn and carefully following in the exact footsteps of the ratlings who had fled before him as he was wary of setting off any hidden traps. The hall had no adjoining doors, but it soon made a right turn, leading to a narrow bridge that spanned a deep chasm separating the portion of the dungeon he had already explored from what looked to be a wide fortress wall complete with a large, sturdy-looking gate. There was another bridge and gate several hundred feet down the wall, likely where he would have ended up had he made the other turn, but both paths had to cross the same chasm in full view of the defenders behind the fortified wall.

He stepped onto the narrow bridge and was unsurprised when a barrage of arrows and spellfire streamed through the narrow arrow-slit windows studding the length of the fortifications. Individually the attacks were not particularly impressive. His level gap simply made him exponentially more powerful than them, so it was quite alarming to see how quickly they were whittling down his armoured aura. Deciding he was unwilling to spend any more mana than he had to, he raced across the bridge while pumping his strength and dexterity stats as high as his human body could handle, his muscles thrumming painfully with barely contained power as he shoulder checked the barred gate at speed. The iron hinges squealed as they were ripped off their hinges. The doors flew back into the courtyard behind them and pulped the front ranks of ratling defenders who were standing by at the ready.

*Congratulations, you have defeated a level 47 Warrior Caste Ratling // level 31 Dungeon Defender, experience is awarded.*

*Congratulations, you have defeated a level 45 Warrior Caste Ratling // level 30 Dungeon Defender, experience is awarded.*

*Congratulations, you have defeated a level 44 Warrior Caste Ratling // level 28 Dungeon Defender, experience is awarded.*

…

*Congratulations, you have reached Warcaster level 16.*

*Congratulations, you have reached Warcaster level 17.*

*Congratulations, you have reached Warcaster level 18.*

*Congratulations, you have reached Warcaster level 19.*

*Congratulations, you have received enough experience to reach Warcaster level 20. You must now rank up your Warcaster class before you can absorb any more experience.*

“Fuck," he said to no one in particular. Chastising himself at the simple mistake that had raised his level to the next rank. On the upside, he could now kill as many of them as he wanted to without the fear of getting any further ahead of Arilla. However, that good news was tempered by how he was now going to have to divulge the entirety of this trip to her. She was unlikely to accept that his level just happened to increase by 5 during an ‘uneventful’ hunting trip.

He looked over at the disordered ranks of ratling soldiers who were still reeling in shock from the wooden gates suddenly being sent like twin missiles into their formation, and noticed how a taller ratling with a decorative helm featuring a large pair of tusks was yelling at them from the rear in their squeaking language to get back into position.

“Leadership caste,” Typhoeus said to himself.

There was only a moment's hesitation before they all as one locked eyes on him. His low level likely gave them back some of their confidence despite his obvious power and they began marching forwards in unison to the beat of a loud drum, stepping over their own dead and dying.

He was standing at the entrance to a large open courtyard that looked up at three levels of the fort. The roof of the dungeon up high above mimicking that of a bright night’s sky, as shining gemstones embedded in the ceiling served as faux stars. On the second and third floors, crossbowmen and mages both rushed to fill wide balconies. As soon as they were in position and poised to rain death and destruction down upon Typhoeus, a mass of steel-clad soldiers revealed themselves on the first floor and rushed forwards behind a literal wall of rune-etched tower shields and bristling halberds.

As fun as tearing his way through their numbers would be, it wasn’t what he had come here for, and killing them all would only hurt him in the long run. He dropped his aura and took a step forwards, his form momentarily blurring as he was blissfully released from the constraining flesh of Typh, as Typhoeus the 20ft tall 110ft long sovereign dragon, charged into the mass of swarming ratlings.

Name: Typhoeus

Species: Sovereign Dragon (True)

Age: 54

HP: 4910/4910

SP: 4873/4910

MP: 4832/5130

Strength: 120

Dexterity: 80

Vitality: 93

Intelligence: 130

Willpower: 127

Charisma: 86

Free Stats: 3

Class: Young Adult Sovereign Dragon - Level 199*

Sovereign's Arcana - Level 193

Sovereign's Aura - Level 194

Sovereign's Body - Level 199

Sovereign's Breath - Level 186

Sovereign's Perception - Level 178

Alternate Form - Level 41

Class: Warcaster - Level 19*

Warcaster’s Reservoir - Level 15

Warcaster’s Empowerment - Level 15

Warcaster’s Abjuration - Level 15

Traits: Runt

The ratling retreat was as instantaneous as it was complete. Squeaking screams of panic drowned out all other calls for order. Steel blades and pointed arrows continued to skitter off his thick scales harmlessly as Typhoeus forced his way through their ranks. The humanoid creatures were unable to get out of his way fast enough as he moved forwards, their orderly formation working against them as only the soldiers along the edges could effectively flee, the others too tightly packed against their neighbours to escape the dragon now barreling towards them.

The courtyard, whilst large, suddenly seemed a lot smaller now that there was a huge dragon forcing its way through the mass of ratling soldiers. Each one of Typhoeus’s bounding steps knocking ratlings prone or sending them flying into ranks of their comrades.

It was times like this that Typhoeus realised how large he truly was; while he was tiny by dragon standards, in comparison to a ratling or a human, he was utterly immense. A literal behemoth wading through a sea of ants. And while he was trying not to inflict too many casualties, he wasn’t trying that hard, and more than a few of the creatures wouldn’t be picking themselves up again.

The tall, helmeted ratling who had been frantically barking orders was trying desperately to stall the rout, which delayed its horrified realization that Typhoeus had singled it out from among the many panicked ratlings. It screamed in terror as he knocked it onto its back, Typhoeus’s powerful forelimb pressing down on the creature’s puny chest while his claws tore large rents into the thick steel of its runic breastplate.

“I would like to negotiate a truce,” Typhoeus said, smiling in the predatory way that only dragons can.