Broker-Chapter 224

Ishtar rounded the corner, dipping low in the process, her hair fluttering up behind her. The axe swung across the spot where her throat had been just a moment before. She turned her head sharply, looking up into the blood-red eyes of the emerald skinned humanoid, its muscles bulging with the powerful swing. The eyes on her helmet flashed and she pushed off the ground, driving her knee into the monsters chest. A sickening crack of ribs proceeded the towering creature’s sudden departure from his position. He hurtled back into the crowd of his fellows behind him, bowling them over as a black gloved hand landed on her shoulder.

Blackrazor launched off of Ishtar and swirled in the air, momentarily turning into an incorporeal mass while arrows passed through him. He landed in a crouch, violet blades in his hands, and turned into a blur of motion, small nicks and cuts spread across the now retreating warband. A plague of wounds that turned sickly and festering in an instant. The beasts fell over as they tried to pull away and get some distance from their ruthless attackers only for their hair to stand on end. As Ishtar stepped out fully from the corner in the smooth stone labyrinth, a crack of thunder rang out.

Their bodies flashed and twitched, electricity chaining between them in visible bolts. They screamed, convulsed, and collapsed. Ishtar flicked her wrist and a knife of hard light appeared, she threw it with a casual gesture. It soared past Kera’s head as the gray-purple haired woman stood up from her latest set of kills and sunk into the forehead of a elderly one of the creatures decked in robes. The old monster gurgled before falling face first onto the ground. Ishtar strutted forward and looked down at the carbonized corpses.

“Better,” she hissed through her respirator.

“A rare dungeon is too easy,” Blackrazor murmured, wiping off his blades before retracting them into his sleeves. He reached up and brushed back his jet black hair, “Perhaps an epic tomorrow?”

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“Naaah,” Kera said, waving a lazy hand while she crouched next to one of the massive corpses, poking it curiously, “Epic dungeons are huge, BeyBey, we wouldn’t have the time even if we went to one today. This isn’t so bad, get to stretch our legs before the big fight!”

“Could always use more of a challenge,” Blackrazor growled.

Ishtar rested her hands on her hips, “Kera’s right, we don’t have the time for something that involved. Getting our teamwork down is more than enough,” she said and held out a hand, a sphere appearing over it made of that same hard-light stuff. She coated it with an illusion to make it appear white before applying one of her astral eyes to it. With a gentle push she sent it forward and down the hallway, zipping away to scout ahead. She turned back to the two of them, “There’s a place far more challenging than an epic dungeon that I know of. If time permits, we can go there once all this business with Liberty is done. Really test ourselves.”

“Sounds good to me!” Kera cheered and hopped to her feet, “Hey, what do you think the boss here is like? Huh?”

“Just a bigger orc,” Blackrazor guessed, “That’s all we’ve seen so far.”

“Don’t get complacent because of consistency,” Ishtar warned, “Dungeons like these have a way of deceiving you.”

Kera put her hands on her hips, pushed out her chest and raised her chin with pride, “And thats why I’m never consistent. Keeps ‘em guessing.”

Blackrazor gave her a deadpan look while Ishtar shook her head, “That- Oh Kera,” she sighed before shifting her attention to the eye she’d made. She looked through it, feeding its senses into her own. The halls continued on beyond where they stood, the stonework maze winding on and on. There were no clear hints on the walls as to where they needed to go or how to navigate. She raised a hand and pulled her sight back to her body, more spheres appeared, more lenses to search through. Dozens.

“Go.”

They careened off into the halls beyond, spreading out like a swarm.

“The only hints at the correct path have been the packs of monsters,” Blackrazor murmured, “The other paths are empty.”

“Indeed,” Ishtar agreed, “Find more monsters, find our route to the end.”

“And find more fun,” Kera snickered before hopping lightly over the pile of burnt corpses to saunter towards the robed one. She squatted next to it and tugged at its hood, pulling it up to look into its face, “This one was new, some sorta caster?”

“That was my guess,” Ishtar said, “Figured it best just to put him down rather than see what he was capable of. If he was too weak to defend himself there was no reason to test him and come up with countermeasures.”

“Yeah, makes sense, still woulda liked to see some magic though,” Kera said and dropped the body, brushing herself off.

“You can turn into lightning,” Blackrazor pointed out.

“Yeah but that’s my magic, always neat seeing the other stuff, y’know?” Kera argued. She turned and waved her hands down the empty hallway, “Boom! Bzzap! Wop wop wop!” she giggled before brightening and turning back to Ishtar, “You think those new eyes can do eye beams or something?”

Ishtar laughed, “I could already do that before,” she said and levitated off the ground, floating over to land next to the wild supervillain, “These eyes certainly have their perks though. I can function more accurately at higher speeds. That was always a bit of a problem.”

“Hmph,” Blackrazor grunted and shadow stepped next to her, rising out of the ground, “Sounds useful.”

Ishtar regarded him, “Don’t go getting your eyes injured intentionally just to beg Technocrat for a new pair, I will warn him.”

Blackrazor crossed his arms and looked away in his own deadpan version of a pout, “Understood.”

She turned back to Kera as a surge went through her connection to the various spheres spread out through the labyrinth. She sent her senses out and peered through, seeing a dark room with what appeared to be some kind of dias in the middle. It was long and rectangular with dozens of pillars spread throughout. She willed the eye to retreat and get some distance as a flash of metal nearly cut it in two. There, beneath her distant gaze, she spotted a male orc like the others, it was thinner though with a lighter build and a sharper look in its eyes. It held what looked like a meat cleaver in its hand except the blade was as long as the man was tall. He was also alone.

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“Found something,” she murmured and pulled her senses back, holding out her hand and creating a portal between the spot where her eye was and their location. The doorway formed and Kera let out a whoop, leaping through without warning. Ishtar shook her head and followed, Blackrazor at her side.

When they stepped through they found the orc standing atop the dias, already in a fighting stance. His eyes looked them over for a moment before he frowned and stood up straight, he brought his weapon up and let it rest on his shoulder. “Kraam,” he grunted with a heavy sigh.

Kera, who had come through first, was bouncing on the balls of her feet, eager to get the violence going. Ishtar stepped past her, “I don’t know your words,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis.

“Harumph!” the orc grunted and pointed to the archway behind him. He then pointed to their group, “Olu kraam,” he clenched his fist and pointed to himself, swiping his hand in a cutting motion, “Ib id-kraam olu, nyel Mavos zo-kraam,” he pointed back at the archway and sat down on the dias, crossing his legs, setting his sword on his lap and closing his eyes.

Ishtar tilted her head, “Fascinating.”

“I don’t get it,” Kera mumbled, “Are we fighting or not?”

“I think he’s leaving it up to us,” Ishtar said, “He may very well be aware of our strength and has decided that he wants no part of it, that it wouldn’t be a good match. I knew the higher-tier dungeons contained monsters capable of higher order thinking but this is more than I expected.”

“Even with your special knowledge?” Blackrazor asked.

“Sonya didn’t spend a lot of time inside dungeons beyond mapping them and getting a baseline assessment of the creatures inside,” Ishtar pointed out, “Scouts weren’t supposed to interact with monsters.”

“Fair point,” Blackrazor conceded, “So he’s suggesting we’d find a better match through that archway?”

“Boooring,” Kera whined, “If he doesn’t wanna fight then its no fun.”

“Agreed,” Ishtar said, “Let's move on, we get no benefit from killing him. My senses aren’t picking up mana from his weapon either, meaning it isn’t anything special enough to take. Blackrazor? If you would.”

Blackrazor stepped forward and fell into the ground in the dimly lit room, reappearing beyond the archway and looking up at it. He stepped through it twice before turning and nodding to Ishtar and Kera, “No traps, mistress.”

Ishtar nodded and walked past the dias, the orc neither moving nor reacting to her proximity. It was a curious thing. She wondered if the heroes of the past timeline had given much thought to how many of the creatures occupying dungeons were sentient and seemed to have cultures and philosophies of their own. It seemed less and less likely that these entities were simply created by the dungeons, which had its own implications. Where did they come from? What were these places that the dungeons connected to? What did that mean for the Backrooms and Asgard?

She set the questions aside for now as she passed under the archway and into the next hallway. There were no turns or twists for them to follow, rather a single path that led to a pair of high double doors. She glanced back one last time at the shrinking figure of what she assumed was the mini-boss of the dungeon before approaching the hardwood barrier. She rest her hand on it, running her fingers over the knotted wood and pushed. The doors swung open and if it hadn’t been for her helmet she would have been blasted in the face with a sudden wave of heat and moisture. Her senses picked up on it though, warning lights indicating the sudden change flashing in her HUD.

“Gross,” Kera grunted, “Ugh its like a sauna.”

“The feeling is worse since the rest of the labyrinth was desert dry,” Blackrazor mumbled, taking a few steps forward and peering into the space. Her mind told her it was dark, but her eyes pierced through it nevertheless. It wasn’t at all like the rest of the dungeon, where there had been pillars and smooth walls, this place was a irregularly shaped cavern with pools of water scattered about. At the far end was a waterfall that poured into the largest of the pools from an unknown source. Otherwise, it was empty.

She stepped into the chamber, raising her hand and making a few gestures. Kera fell into step to her right while Blackrazor vanished into the ground. She felt the cold spots where he reappeared at different spots in the room, checking every inch before returning to her side.

“Empty, the water is too opaque to see clearly inside,” he reported.

“Then our enemy is aquatic somehow,” Ishtar murmured.

“Found something!” Kera said brightly and skipped a few paces away much to Ishtar’s annoyance, returning with an object clutched in her hands. She held it out for the two of them to look at and Ishtar felt her body temperature drop a few degrees. It was a skull with tusks and a familiar brow shape. An orc skull, stripped clean of all flesh and left to gather dust in this place. Ishtar frowned inside her helmet.

“This place has a story,” Blackrazor said to her side.

Ishtar nodded only for the sound of burbling water to reach her ears. She glanced up from where they were examining the skull and watched as the water in the largest pool shifted and sloshed. It rose, bubbled, and finally burst, water spreading everywhere. Ishtar took a step forward and held out a hand as the feeling of mana moving in the air caught her attention. Hexagons of light took shape and spread out like a wall around the three of them as the water that had flown into the air condensed into spears and launched themselves at the trio.

They splashed harmlessly against her barrier.

When the barrage ended she lowered the defense and took in the creature that loomed over them. The lower half of its body was entirely serpentine, the upper half was vaguely humanoid with a long snouted face and wide set beady eyes. It bore its fangs in their direction and hissed a deadly warning. She trailed her eyes down from its face to the necklace of orcish skulls hanging around its throat. She sniffed derisively, “It enslaved them.”

“It seems so,” Blackrazor agreed.

“Who wants some fried snake-guy?” Kera chimed in, “He’s covered in water, I can take care of this in a flash.”

Blackrazor frowned at her, “We aren’t here for you to showboat, Kera. We’re here for the mistress to make sure her abilities are all functional.”

“Fine,” Kera grumbled, “I guess that’s true.”

Ishtar chuckled, “Sorry Kera, you can have as much fun as you want during the battle with Liberty. Feel free to run wild then.”

“Really?!” Kera asked delightedly as the titanic man-serpent pulled itself out of its pool and slid onto the ground. It looked down at them in anger, it’s eyes flashing with a fresh surge of power.

Ishtar stepped forward and raised both hands. She allowed her inner power to race through her body, the channels made stronger and more precise by Chunhua carrying the load of energy with almost horrifying efficiency. She exhaled, her breath coming out as a rattling gasp through the voice modulator. Light bloomed in the room. Sparkles that scattered like stars throughout the entire space before growing into long, wicked spears. The boss held out its own hands and she felt its power reaching out towards the water.

Ishtar smirked and pulled Earthwarden from the warehouse. She planted her feet on the ground and pulled her hands together, the floor beneath them shook as walls of stone slammed shut over the pools. Ishtar tilted her head and gave the creature a predatory look as it realized that she’d cut off the source of its attack power. It lunged as she clenched her fists.

A bloody, pincushion-like mass of trembling flesh was all that remained when the spears stopped falling. She strode forward and looked down at it as the last of its life force faded away.

“Simple enough,” she murmured and looked down at her hand, flexing her fingers, “That will suffice for now,” she turned away as the space began to tremble, “Let’s collect our rewards and leave,” she said, “We have a war to win.”