Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead

"So tell me more about Vanitas," Kael said.

The young man looked at him as if he had just asked how knives worked while standing inside a butcher’s shop. Then again, considering the state of the floor, the question was fair. He shifted his weight, winced as the wound near his thigh pulled, and kept one sword angled toward the darkness outside the checkpoint. The other remained lowered, though not sheathed. Trust, apparently, was not included with conversation.

"This is basically an open floor," he said. "Usually, when you get transported here, you move through the lanterns you already saved until you find a party of people to help you progress. Then you go with them."

Kael glanced toward the blue flame above the intersection. The checkpoint’s ward held steady, making a clean circle in a city that clearly wanted every living thing outside it eaten. "What’s the end goal? I mean, at least in the sewers I knew I had to beat the boss to progress. Here, I’m clueless."

"Sectors," the young man replied. "You need to unlock at least three lanterns every time you visit a sector to get kicked out. That’s the first phase of this floor. Clear three checkpoints, survive the route between them, and Vanitas lets you leave for that visit."

Kael looked back toward the street he had crossed. Sector 1-1. This place, Sector 1-3. That meant one more lantern should be enough, assuming the floor did not decide to change the rules after he moved. "How many lanterns do you have unlocked?"

"Two."

"Good," the young man said. "I also unlocked two. I need one more, but moving through the dark without a map is difficult."

Kael did not react to that.

The minimap remained open in his vision, its fog of war choking most of the city, but not enough to make him blind. The tool was less effective here, yes, but less effective was not the same as useless. It still gave him walls, nearby roads, red dots, green dots, and enough warning to turn a blind step into a calculated one. He had no intention of mentioning that.

"So how were you finding the lanterns?" Kael asked.

"You go through the most densely packed areas with monsters, and you should find one." The young man lifted his chin toward the darkness pressing against the checkpoint. "As you noticed, they usually gather near the safe zones of the lanterns. Not always right on top of them, but close. The monsters can’t enter, so they wait around the edges for climbers who need to pass through."

"I see," Kael said.

Then he turned toward the road.

"Then let’s move."

The young man stared at him. "Are you sure you’re fine? I can give you a sword. I’m too wounded to fight using both of them."

"Nah," Kael said. "I don’t use weapons."

He brought both gauntlets together.

Metal rang against metal, and the runes along the channels flashed faintly under the blue lantern light.

"I got these."

The young man looked at the gauntlets with obvious skepticism. His eyes moved to the dark streets, then back to Kael’s fists, then to the blood drying along his own armor. Whatever comment he wanted to make, experience or exhaustion killed it before it reached his mouth. He simply tightened one hand around his sword and followed.

Kael stepped out of the checkpoint first.

The blue safety of Sector 1-3 fell behind him, and the darkness immediately leaned closer around the torch. The creatures outside did not rush him all at once, which continued to bother him. They shifted, paced, and followed at the edge of visibility, but the mindless hunger from the sewers was absent. The mega rats, Ratmen, and whatever else lived aboveground seemed to understand that the torch was bait as much as prey. That made the city feel less like a lair and more like a trap with streets.

He moved toward a moderately packed cluster of red dots.

Not the largest one. That would be stupid without knowing what waited there. Not the smallest one either, since lanterns apparently attracted density. Instead, he picked a direction where the red presence was thick enough to suggest a checkpoint but not so concentrated that walking into it would be suicide. More importantly, two green dots were stationary beyond that same direction, not too far away. Other climbers, perhaps. Or bait. In Vanitas, the difference probably only mattered after something had teeth in your neck.

They took only a few steps before the darkness opened.

Kael had no time to inspect the creature.

A wide mouth snapped toward his face, filled with shark-like metal fangs arranged in ugly rows. It came low and fast from the left, a black shape lunging out of an alley with enough force to take his head if he had been relying on normal sight. His hands moved before thought finished forming. He grabbed the creature by both jaws, one gauntlet clamping over the upper snout, the other hooking under the lower jaw.

The teeth scraped against metal.

Kael pulled in opposite directions.

The creature resisted, muscles bunching beneath patchy fur and nailed-on metal plating. He did not tear the jaws apart cleanly. Instead, he twisted, wrenching the snout one way and the lower jaw the other. Bone and metal structure gave under the pressure with a wet crack. The creature’s body spasmed once, legs kicking against the stone, then collapsed in his grip.

Only after it died did the torchlight reveal the full shape.

It looked like a dog, if someone had taken the idea of a dog and rebuilt it in a nightmare workshop. Large, lean, and wrong, with several patches of fur missing where dull metal plates had been nailed directly into the flesh. Its paws ended in hooked claws reinforced by steel caps. A small crystal-like core protruded from the center of its chest, similar to the Vanity Essence fragments he had collected from the rats.

A notification appeared.

[You have slain: Corrupted Watchdog.]

[You have obtained: Lesser Vanity Essence x3.]

Kael let the corpse drop.

The young man exhaled behind him. "Not bad. Killing a Watchdog that fast, I mean."

Kael glanced at him.

"But they never hunt solo," the young man added.

"I can see that," Kael said.

Growls echoed from the dark.

Not one.

Several.

The Watchdogs came in a rush after that, but still not like the sewer monsters. These were coordinated. They did not all throw themselves toward the torch. One circled low for Kael’s leg. Another tried to leap past him toward the wounded climber. A third waited until he turned his shoulder before springing from a broken storefront. Their bodies were fast, quiet, and ugly, metal plates clicking under the skin as they moved.

Kael handled them.

One lunged, and he stepped in rather than back, catching it by the side of the head and driving it skull-first into the stone wall. Another snapped at his thigh, and he brought his heel down on its spine hard enough to flatten it against the road. A third tried to twist away after missing his arm, but Kael caught its hind leg, swung it into the ground, then crushed its chest core under one gauntlet.

Notifications flickered and faded.

[You have slain: Corrupted Watchdog.]

[You have obtained: Lesser Vanity Essence x3.]

[You have slain: Corrupted Watchdog.]

[You have obtained: Lesser Vanity Essence x3.]

[You have slain: Corrupted Watchdog.]

[You have obtained: Lesser Vanity Essence x3.]

He did not slow for them.

The young man followed close enough to stay inside the torch’s protective range but far enough not to get caught in Kael’s movements. That was good. At least he understood spacing. Whenever a Watchdog broke past Kael’s first line, the young man used his sword to intercept, not to kill, but to keep its teeth away from his own throat until Kael could finish it. Wounded or not, he was not useless.

They advanced through the street by force.

Kael twisted necks, broke spines, crushed chest cores, and collected crystals as the city fed more Watchdogs into their path. It lasted long enough that the pattern became more concerning than the enemies themselves. The creatures were fast, but not enough. Their jaws were dangerous, but not against his gauntlets unless he got careless. What bothered him was repetition. Watchdog after Watchdog, all from different directions, yet all the same type.

The young man noticed too.

Kael saw the frown on his face long before he asked about it.

They had moved a decent distance from Sector 1-3 by then. The two green dots ahead were not far anymore, though the minimap still showed buildings and streets in incomplete fragments due to the fog of war. Between them and those climbers, a thick cluster of red dots had gathered in a line.

Kael crushed another Watchdog’s head against a stone pillar, then looked back. "What’s wrong?"

"We’ve been attacked by the same creature too many times," the young man said.

"There are other things than this dog?"

"Yeah." He swallowed and adjusted the lantern strapped to his back. "Stronger, faster, and far more lethal things. That’s why you need a party. Watchdogs are common, sure, but not this many in one route. Not like this."

Kael’s eyes moved toward the minimap.

The red dots ahead remained packed tightly.

The young man’s voice lowered. "It’s like someone is testing us."

"I see," Kael said.

That did not make him stop.

If anything, it made the path clearer. Something wanted to know how they dealt with Watchdogs. Something was sending the same type repeatedly, measuring response, speed, fatigue, formation, maybe even torch handling. The fact that the creatures were not mindlessly swarming the blue flame now made more sense. This was not the sewers. This part of Vanitas was smarter.

Or had something smarter in it.

They pushed closer.

The red line ahead thickened on the minimap until it became almost ugly to look at. Two dozen at least. Maybe more, depending on how many were hidden under the fog’s edge. The two green dots were beyond them, stationary and close together, but not inside a checkpoint from what he could tell. That meant they were either trapped, hiding, or already in a very bad situation.

Then Kael saw the thing waiting in the street.

It stood beneath a hanging sign between two broken buildings, large enough to fill most of the road by itself. Humanoid, technically, though only because it had two legs, two arms, and a head. Its body was fat beyond belief, thick folds of pale flesh hanging over a pair of worn, oversized pants. No shirt covered it. Sewed scars ran all over its torso and arms, some old and dark, others fresh enough to glisten. Around its neck was a huge dog collar lined with metal spikes, the leather stretched tight into swollen flesh.

A steel bucket covered its face.

Not a helmet. A bucket, dented and rusted, forced down over the head with narrow holes cut into it for vision. From beneath the rim came wet breathing. In one hand it held a cleaver nearly the same size as the weapon the Ratman boss had used in the sewers, a brutal slab of metal with jagged saw teeth along its edge.

Around it, beside it, and behind it, Watchdogs gathered in rows.

Dozens of them.

Some crouched low. Others paced back and forth, metal jaws clicking. A few had fresh blood across their snouts, though Kael could not tell if it belonged to climbers or something else. The blue light from his torch reflected off their nailed plates and chest crystals, making them look like a pack of ruined machines wearing meat.

The young man stopped breathing for a second.

Kael looked at the massive butcher-like creature, then at the Watchdogs, then toward the two green dots somewhere beyond the blocked street.

"Guess that’s our next target."