Chapter 6: Fallen Knight
As he was running alongside the smooth wall, he shot off another round to see that the wall had become a perfectly square tunnel. At this point, Raiden’s legs began to give out. He had to force himself to slow down. The echoing of his footsteps was loud in the tunnel. He fired off another round and saw that the tunnel had collapsed just ahead of him, but right before the tunnel collapse was another passageway. He slowed down just before the collapse and felt along the edges of the wall until there was empty space. Raiden fired off another round in that direction, only to be surprised when the mana ball immediately hit stone a few yards away. In that brief split second, he saw that this wasn’t a passageway but a staircase that led downwards.
He stepped forward tentatively and began to descend the stairs. He moved slowly and surely. One by one, the steps passed under his feet. The noises from the lake cavern had died down, and he didn’t believe that he was being followed; maybe whatever that creature was had been too big to fit down the tunnel. So now, he opted for a more calculated strategy as he made his way down the dark staircase, as he didn’t know if the stairs abruptly cut off and would lead him into a fall down some massive chasm. After a few dozen steps, he reached the next landing. Raiden pulled out his mana gun to fire again, only to see the same pattern repeating itself as the stairs descended deeper.
The staircase was enclosed, just like the tunnel had been, and so he wasn’t worried about falling off an edge. He just needed to make sure that his footing was secure as he made his way downwards. After a painstaking thirty minutes, he made it to the bottom landing and felt along the wall, establishing that he was now in another tunnel. Another mana shot fired off into the distance let him know that he had quite a way to go before he ran into anything. And so, he began walking forward once more. The darkness was suffocating. Paranoia prodded at the back of his mind.
What horrible things lurked down here in the deep?
The tunnel continued on for a long, long way, quite a bit further than he had anticipated. Eventually, the tunnel came to a tee, and he had to make a decision. Choosing right, he pressed on in the darkness, ever listening for signs of danger that could be approaching. It was as silent as a grave. The silence only heightened his trepidation as he focused his senses to their absolute maximum.
After walking for quite a while, he felt the stone necklace glow slightly warm again around his neck. He paused to consider this when the soft glow of mana lights lit up his surroundings. Along the ceiling and floor of the tunnel were thin lines etched into the stone, giving off a soft amber light. The light flickered on and off. It was barely perceptible, but in the utter blackness, he couldn’t miss it. Relief washed over him like a flood. The light was a ray of hope in this dark place. He followed the flickering glow until he came to a junction that had multiple paths leading away from it. One of the paths contained this glow. Without hesitation, he followed it.
The flickering light permeated this section of the dungeon, and he came to a series of doors that lined both sides of the hallway. He stopped at the first door, staring at its blank surface. A cursory glance showed that there was a small blank stone tablet next to the door. He pressed on the tablet to see if it would open, but nothing happened. He tried a few more doors with the same result. Figuring there must be some way to open the doors that he didn’t know, he shrugged and kept walking. As he continued down the hallway, he came to another juncture. He decided to head straight again and continued passing some of the doors, noting that at least one of the small stone tablets by a door was glowing slightly. When he went up to the tablet and touched it, the door juddered as if it were trying to move, but ultimately stayed in place. He tried a few more times, but the door stayed exactly where it was. Feeling like he was on to something, he had just passed the next juncture when he heard a series of clicking sounds from one of the tunnels. He jerked back in surprise to see a pair of insectile creatures quickly closing in on him. His adrenaline spiked. He rapidly drew his sword and took a fighting stance as he charged his mana pistol.
The creatures that were approaching looked like millipedes but were much shorter and, like a millipede, had many legs that they used to slither along the ground. They gave him a feeling of wrongness. Raiden didn’t know the rank of the monsters in this area, but would have to hope that he could deal with them. The millipede creatures didn’t have eyes, but they did have huge sets of pincers that would do massive damage if they struck him. He backpedaled to gain some distance and lined up his shot, waiting for the millipede to pass in front of his crosshairs. He pulled the trigger. The blue ball of mana struck true, and the creature’s head exploded in a viscous black ooze. Angrily, the other millipede let out a hiss and lunged at him, and he struck downwards with a slash that took off one of the pincers at the base. The creature thrashed wildly and tried to strike at him again, but he skewered the millipede through what he thought was its neck. It continued to thrash wildly for a few more seconds until it finally went still. He pulled his blade free and flicked the ooze on the ground.
Looks like I lucked out. They’re F ranked.
He looked around for more enemies, not wanting to be caught unprepared, when a few of the creatures rounded the corner of the next junction. They continued to slither on in greater and greater numbers to his rising apprehension until he was staring at dozens of creatures. They noticed him. The swarm began hissing and clicking their jaws in excitement as they rushed toward him. The writhing mass of jaws and clicking legs set his teeth on edge, and he took off in the direction away from the millipede creatures, but not back the way that he had come.
No way am I going to die to some freaky swarm of millipedes.
He charged up his mana gun as he ran. As he thundered forward, some of the doors in the hall had dimly glowing stone tablets next to them, like the jammed door that he had tried earlier. Dismissing the idle thought, he kept running for his life. As he hit the next junction, he turned to see that the creatures were still following him; as a matter of fact, they were even maintaining distance. Raiden cursed his luck and turned at the next junction, hoping to lose them.
This section of the dungeon was laid out like a series of city blocks, with the strange doors leading into what he could only imagine were rooms or some type of building. As he approached yet another junction, he looked back to see that the millipedes had actually gained slightly on him. His mind whirled to come up with a plan. He turned again to keep the millipedes out of his line of sight.
As he was running, he spotted a door about halfway up this tunnel hallway with a tablet that was glowing much brighter than the others. Taking a chance, he skidded to a stop right in front of the door and held out his hand to touch the glowing tablet. To his surprise, the door opened by sliding into a recess in the wall. Without hesitating or second-guessing the potential consequences of his actions, he stepped through the door.
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The millipedes were just about to round the corner, and to his good fortune, there was a tablet on this side of the door. He activated it. The door slid out of the recess in the wall and shut behind him. The room that he was in lit up with amber lights, and he quickly looked around to check that there was no danger. He took a few steps away from the door and into the room. He didn’t have much time to take in the surroundings, though, before he stilled himself completely and looked back at the door, willing it to stay shut.
The scuttling sound of many insectile appendages grew louder in the hallway. The “click, click, click” of legs and teeth again grated on his nerves. He sweated in trepidation. He could only imagine the dozens of creatures that were swarming just on the other side of the door. The sound grew louder as he stood stock still, not even daring to breathe. To his relief, the sound began to die away, and he finally let the tension drain just a little bit from his shoulders as he scanned around the room, wary of more danger.
This room was actually quite large, much larger than he had anticipated it would be. He stood in a multilevel entryway of sorts. The amber light suffused the space, and he could see a staircase about a dozen paces away that led upwards to the second and third floors. He looked around the main floor. There was debris and dirt everywhere. A number of odd objects he didn’t recognize lay scattered about. He saw the remains of a few broken tables, and to his surprise, a single wooden chair rested against the wall that could fall apart at any moment.
There were also a few rooms on the main floor. He quietly stepped around the debris as he made his way around the area. None of the rooms had doors, and he was able to look inside to quickly note that only junk and scattered debris seemed to be strewn about. He headed toward the stairs. On the staircase were what looked to be dried red patches splattered on the ground and on the wall. That instantly set him on edge, and he held his weapons in a white knuckled grip and made his way slowly up. The staircase made its way up to the third floor, and the trail of what Raiden supposed was dried blood led in that direction. Raiden chose to check the second floor before heading up just to make sure he didn’t get ambushed. The second floor had a single hallway with a couple of rooms that were mostly full of junk. He made his way back, and when he finally got to the third level, there were only two rooms. He approached the first one, peering in cautiously as he scanned the room. Silence. This room wasn’t the one that he was concerned with, though. The trail of red splotches led into the second room.
With determination, he inched his way forward. As he entered the room, a figure sat slumped against the far wall. He nearly fired out of being startled, but held his resolve. The figure was long dead. The trail of red splotches led toward the figure. It was resting against the wall. What Raiden saw set him at unease. The figure was heavily armored. Their head was bowed down toward the floor. A mana rifle rested against their shoulder. It almost looked as if they had leaned against the wall to take a nap, but Raiden knew better. A huge circle of red lay on the ground, wrapping around the figure. A good deal of dust had settled over the area. They must have died here a long, long time ago. The figure had on full plate armor, and a helm donned its head to hide the skull that surely lurked beneath.
Raiden considered his options. There was a good chance that this was a fallen knight, perhaps even a knight of his order, who had succumbed to his wounds here a long time ago. The figure was much smaller than Raiden, and he knew right away that none of the armor would fit him. He didn’t like the idea of looting a fallen comrade, but given his circumstances, he didn’t have a choice.
He approached the figure and tentatively prodded it with his sword. The armor creaked, but otherwise, nothing happened. He sighed with relief. He had come across too many surprises so far on this venture and wasn’t taking any chances.
Raiden stowed his weapons and began to look the figure over to see if he could find any sort of identifying marks. He pulled up the visor just enough to make sure that the fallen knight hadn’t been wearing a necklace or anything else of note. Only a brief glimpse of bone met his eye. He set it down.
Next, he examined the torso, which had been punctured by two massive holes that were covered in red rust. That had to have been what killed the poor guy. Then, he examined the mana rifle. The stock of the weapon was resting in the knight’s hands, and the barrel end was against his shoulder. He gingerly removed it from the knight’s grip and held it aloft. The weapon was fairly short; it was a few inches longer than the length from his elbow to the tip of his fingers. The gun was made entirely of dull gray metal. The rifle was perfectly rectangular, except for the grip and trigger that sat about halfway up lengthwise on the bottom side of the weapon. In that area, there was a cutout in the rectangular block where the grip and the trigger sat. The rectangular frame of the weapon was about two inches thick. On top, it had a simple pair of iron sights, just like the sights on his pistol.
It was bolted together in a few places to form the full assembly. All of the internals of the weapon were inside the rectangular frame. There was a hole at the far end of the weapon where he could see the barrel, but the barrel itself didn’t poke out of the frame. The mana charger, which was responsible for forming the mana bullets, was also inside the casing. The rifle also had two rectangular holes on the edges of the frame where a worn leather sling had been looped through.
He slung the rifle over his neck, then raised the stock of the weapon to his right shoulder. The weight was completely balanced. Raiden had never used a mana rifle before, but pulling this weapon into place felt very natural to him. His right hand held the grip, and he brought his left hand in front of him in a cupping motion to hold the bottom of the frame steady. His left hand sat a few inches in front of his right hand. It felt very comfortable to hold. He spun in a circle and aimed the weapon up and down.
The question now was, would it fire? Raiden didn’t know if the weapon would just explode, fail to go off, or actually work and alert the millipede creatures that might still be lurking nearby. So he decided to wait a while before he attempted to use it and let the rifle rest across his body in front of him, held in place by the sling.
He looked back down at the fallen knight. As he was about to leave, he noted that there was an object on the side of the knight’s helm about the size of his thumb. The object was mostly cylindrical except that one side had a vice clamp and a small lever. The front of the cylinder had a clear crystal contained inside. It had to be a mana light. He kicked himself mentally for not noticing it earlier. There was a thin metal rail that jutted out from that side of the fallen knight’s helm, and the mana light was clamped onto the rail. He turned the lever, and the clamp loosened to set the mana light free. He examined it as he pushed some mana out of his hands and into the object and felt it storing up energy. When the device was charged, he looked for switches or a way to turn it on. There weren’t any, so he tried touching different parts of the light while pushing mana out from his fingers. When he hit the back of the light, a bright beam of light reflected outwards. The light stayed on when he removed his finger.
Raiden then touched it again and started and stopped the flow of mana as the light flickered on and then off again. He smiled widely at his good stroke of fortune. Now that he had access to a mana light, he wouldn’t have to go fumbling around in the dark as he had been. If the ruins in this area hadn’t lit up when he approached, the swarm of millipedes would have easily picked him off. Now he had a way to light the path if he entered other areas without lights. He stuffed the mana light in his pack and examined the rest of the room. There was nothing of note, so he made his way back down to the first floor to wait. He had to prepare for when he went back out to face the millipedes.
