4. Chapter 4 The Descent #3
The lightning came out in a single blinding fork that hit the nearest heated goblin and jumped.
It jumped through every heated body in the chamber, from goblin to goblin to brood-tender, the electrical current following the paths she’d laid with the [Ember Bolts].
The air cracked. The chamber lit up white.
For one second, the entire chamber was fire and lightning, the two disciplines working together, fire creating the channels and lightning tearing through them with amplified force.
When my vision cleared, the chamber was quiet. Every creature that had been standing was on the floor. A few of them were smoking. The sacs along the walls had gone dark.
Nott lowered her hands. Her breathing was heavier than it had been all day, and a thin line of sweat ran from her temple down her jaw. But her eyes were steady and her posture was the same practiced vertical line she’d held since depth one.
“That was what you were talking about at Mildred’s,” I said. “The interaction coefficients. Fire to heat them, lightning through the heated bodies.”
She looked at me. Something in her expression shifted, and for a second I was back at Mildred’s workbench, watching her talk about disciplines and resonance with her hands shaping the air. She’d told us how this worked. Now she’d done it.
“You were paying attention,” she said.
“I was paying attention at the shop too. I just didn’t know what I was watching until now. It all makes sense now. You’re amazing.”
The corner of her mouth moved. The Nott version of a smile. “Thanks. I do the best I can with what I have.”
“You have a hell of a lot.”
“Psh, quit flirting with the raven-kin and come on,” Sif said, laughing.
Nott’s pale cheeks turned pink.
“That wasn’t flirting—that was just acknowledging.”
“Whatever, come on, loverboy.”
We pushed through two more chambers, both dense with goblins and brood-tenders, both cleared by the five of us as a unit.
Bjorna held the line and Sif flanked while Nott dropped bolts and Liv put arrows where they needed to go.
I healed what needed healing, which wasn’t much, because the four of them were excellent at their jobs.
The passage ahead widened.
The sounds changed. Something massive moved ahead, breathing loudly.
The air pulsed with it, a deep rhythmic compression in my chest. The walls here were slick and warm, and the sacs were the largest I’d seen, each one the size of a man’s head, glowing with a light that throbbed in time with whatever was making the air move.
Bjorna stopped. She held up a hand and the party halted.
“We rest here. The boss is nearby. We need to go into that fight at one hundred percent capacity.”
Nobody argued. We sat against the organic wall and drank water, ate dried meat from our packs, and spent a few minutes checking gear.
The five of us had been fighting for a while, descending through four depths of a dungeon that had started as stone and ended as a living hive.
Nobody had a serious injury. Fatigue sat in my shoulders and my legs, the slow tiredness that comes from steady effort over hours, not from crisis.
Bjorna ate her ration and checked her shield edge.
She ran her fingers along the rim where the metal had taken hits, feeling for cracks.
Sif sat with her daggers across her thighs, her blue eyes half-closed, her breathing even.
She pulled out a whetstone from her Ring of Holding and began sharpening the blades.
Nott was still, her dark hair sticking to her temples from the humidity, her hands resting on her knees.
Liv had her ears forward, still scanning, her bow across her lap.
Bjorna stood and looked at each of us.
“The registrar told us about one of the boss options that has been showing up in most instances lately. The environment down here tells me she is probably right. The Brood Mother. She spawns creatures. That’s her defense.
She fills the chamber with monsters while we try to get to her.
The fight is attrition. We have to manage the spawn and damage her at the same time.
” She looked at Sif. “You keep the spawn off the flanks. Don’t chase kills, just keep them off us.
” Then Nott. “Save your big casts for the creatures when they pile up. Single bolts on the Mother when you have a clear line.” Then Liv.
“You’re on the Mother. Sustained fire. Everything you have.
” She looked at me. “Daniel, you keep us alive. Whatever it takes.”
“I can do that. Everyone please be careful. This is my first boss fight, so I’m a little nervous.”
She nodded. She checked her shield one more time and slung it onto her arm.
I looked at them. Sif, already on her feet, rolling her wrists.
Nott, standing with that practiced stillness, her dark eyes on the passage ahead.
Liv, her ears locked forward, her jaw set.
Bjorna, eight feet tall with her longsword at her hip and her shield on her arm, looking like she’d been doing this her entire life.
Bjorna turned toward the passage. “Move.”
We moved.