A Dungeon’s Survival

Cameron

What are they doing?

I watched as my awakened monsters actively got in each other's way. Adraugon swooped in from behind only for the snakes to draw the enemy away from his attack. Vie and Pee circled their foe, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Then, Adraugon fell back, causing her to focus exclusively on them. There was no semblance of coordination between them. I would have wondered if that was my fault for not having them fight alongside each other more, but I'd seen them cooperate just fine in the past. It made no sense to me.

Uh, okay, I thought, turning my attention to the only other defender I could rely on, Archie, how confident would you be if you had to join the fight?

“Far from it, I fear, mistress. I have neither the stats nor the spells to handle such a foe.”

You do have potions, though. Could they work?

My elite Trenti gave me a thoughtful expression before shaking his head in the negative.

“I lack anything impactful enough to make a significant difference where my peers fail.”

What about the new potions you've been working on? Could one of those give them an edge?

“Hmm, there might be one. I haven't produced enough of it to trouble you with absorbing it yet; however, I have succeeded in recreating a recipe from that alchemist's book. It temporarily increases the growth rate of plants and foliage. Perhaps, it could be used to keep your–what was it you referred to it as again? Ah right, your boss. Perhaps it could be used to keep it in the fight for a bit longer; however, I am unsure as to whether or not its effect would be any greater than that of a Minor Health Potion.”

Ugh, no. Never mind, it's going down anyway. Delaying it's not going to help.

I had expected as much, but that didn't change the fact that I'd found myself hard-pressed for alternatives. In the room below, my awakened monsters were holding our enemy off, but with how things were going, I doubted that would last for much longer. I could intervene with the Bloodthorn Vines since they were still hanging on, but with the fire coating them and their other injuries, they were even sooner slated for death than the three they would be trying to assist. Soon, they would succumb, and that would be it for them. To make things worse, the only other monsters I had were weak and not well suited for battle.

As Archie had already stated, he wasn't powerful enough to make much of a difference in this fight. His only spell, Spore Wave, would do little to nothing where Vie and Pee's magic had already failed. He might have been able to take a hit, but that was the extent of his capabilities, and my other monsters were less equipped to handle this than even he was.

My Lizard Men were level one and specialized in skills. They lacked combat capability, and except for maybe the blacksmith, losing any of them would have meant a massive hit to the efforts I'd been making to develop my Dungeon. I couldn't send them in, and even if I did, it wouldn't have made a difference.

I could have taken command of the Horned Dracos, but even if he was fumbling about and not utilizing them right now, I had faith that Adraugon could get far more use out of them than I could. For that reason, I left them alone and hoped that he would pull himself together soon. I wasn't holding my breath, though, so I still needed to come up with something else.

That left me with only Prism as an option, and as good as some of their abilities were, the little blob was a mere level three. Because of that, I couldn't imagine them doing much good in this fight. It was a shame.

If only I'd been able to level them up more before this, I lamented before freezing, Wait, leveling?

I stared at the burning vines. They would die soon anyway, and a chunk of that damage had unintentionally been done by my own monsters. Did I really need to let all of that experience go to waste?

Prism, eat this and get ready. I'm going to rely on you for this, I said as I summoned forth a fire crystal.

“Blurb!?”

And, Archie?

“Yes, mistress?”

Could you go get that potion for me?

“Certainly. I'll get right on it.”

Slowly, the start of a plan was beginning to click into place.

* * *

Adraugon

Tch!

The tools at my disposal were practically useless. Gale Impact wasn't going do anything to an enemy as strong as this prey, and Velocity Transference, even after its cooldown had ended was too much of a risk to activate. It chewed through my mana fast, so unless I had a good opening to use it, it would only shorten my time in this fight. All I could do was swoop in and try to target weak points, but with those snakes keeping her on the move, that wasn't even an option worth considering anymore. It was infuriating!

It was as though all of the cards I had were trash, and I was up against a clearly winning hand. The only option in front of me was to fold, but I needed the prize. I'd found myself in similar situations many times before, but they always ended up with the prize along with my own wealth slipping through my claws. I could already see this playing out the exact same way. Then, a face came mind, a face I detested.

Grah! I roared in frustration.

Why was I stuck thinking about that failure now? Why was she able to prevail in the same situations that I couldn't? She could have no better of a hand than me, yet the confidence she projected made it impossible to see through that facade of hers. I'd ended up throwing away far too many winning hands to her. Why? When she could never do anything else right, why did she keep showing me up?

I knew the answer. I just didn't want to admit it, not even to myself. She was no failure. She always committed in full. That meant she failed more than me, but it also meant she got results where I didn't.

Unlike me, she had no qualms about throwing her life away for the sake of the lifespring stone. She just grew slower because of that, taking on too many risks, but she didn't care. She didn't mind dying so long as it produced results. She moved ahead no matter the opposition, even when she shouldn't have. That was how she succeeded where I failed.

I glared down at the prey below. I just needed to move with confidence, right? That should have been easy. I was a dragon. Acting with anything less than that would have been an insult to my lineage, so I moved.

* * *

Vie

That fire …

Even as I moved, keeping our distance from the woman who I knew could easily tear us to shreds with nothing more than her bare hands like she had already done once before, I stared at it with wonder and certainty.

If only we can get to it before it's too late, I'm sure we could turn things around.

The problem was that it was impossible. The piece we were up against was far too powerful. Getting within range of it meant death. We'd experienced that so many times already, but if we were to allow ourselves to succumb to that fate once again here–no–no matter what, we couldn't allow that to happen. We couldn't let this enemy make it any farther than she already had. We were our queen's protectors.

However, that left me with a question: how? How were we supposed to do anything about this? It seemed impossible.

Our enemy was a queen while we only had the strength of a bishop. At best we could be considered a knight since we had magic, a single capability that she lacked, but no matter how we positioned ourselves, it wasn't enough to compensate for her overall superior capabilities. She kept moving in spite of the blasts we had already hit her with, and we needed to save the spell to maneuver with in case of the worst. No matter what we did, she could counter it and more. We were at a disadvantage that we couldn't make up for, not without something new being added to the situation.

How does he do it? I begrudgingly found myself wondering.

That self-absorbed lizard put in the minimal amount of effort, yet he always succeeded. Meanwhile, no matter how hard we worked, no matter how hard we tried, we always seemed to fail when it mattered the most. Never were we the ones to take down an imminent threat. Instead, we always ended up greeted by the darkness of death, unsure of if we would come back from it. After failing, there was nothing we could do to secure our queen's life after all.

That ate away at me. It was why I always pushed us so hard. I tried not to show those doubts and insecurities to our queen; she didn't need to be weighed down by them, but they were there, always present.

So, how was it that while we were always met with failure, that lizard succeeded? He was an opportunist through and through. He never took the initiative. He just capitalized on others taking it. We needed an opening now, so why shouldn't we do the same?

It tore at me to mimic the strategies of someone I held such disdain for, but what other choice did I have? Strategies needed to be adjusted. If a better one presented itself, we would only be doing our queen a disservice by rejecting it out of hand.

Pee, we're falling back, I informed my sister, I have a plan.

* * *

Cameron

I stared at the potion in Archie's hands. It was the new one that he had mentioned.

Do it, I ordered, and he did.

He dumped the contents of it out on top of Prism. The red-gray blob was waiting at the entrance to one of the small tunnels that snaked their way throughout my cave. Inside of them rested a half digested fire crystal and a couple of potion vials. On top of them, half submerged in their goop and half exposed to the air were as many of the same crystal type as I had been able to pluck free from the roof of the arena in the little time that we had.

Are you ready? I asked.

Prism gurgled their assent.

Then, go. I'm counting on you.

With that, the slime squeezed their way into the tunnels, and I returned my attention to the fight below. Things were changing down there, but it was too soon to tell if it was for the better or worse. For some reason, Vie and Pee were retreating, and Adraugon, with a squeak of a roar, was charging in. I readied the Bloodthorn Vines, prepared to squeeze the last bit of usefulness out of them. Then, a notification filled my vision, blocking my view of the fight below.

[Dungeon Alert: The cataclysm's approach draws near! Due to the loss of Dungeons, the necessary power holding it at bay has fallen below 140%. Grow and gain in power before it is too late!]

I stared blankly at the message that had seemingly come out of nowhere with a shocking warning. Fabian had told me that Dungeons were preventing the end of the world and that they were getting dangerously scarce and weak, but I had just assumed that knowledge had come from the Fairy Council and their efforts to oversee all Dungeons. I had no idea the System itself was keeping track of it.

Then, there was the number: one hundred forty percent. I had no idea if that was a lot or only a little, but it did seem dangerously low. I shuddered internally at it. My existence was supposedly keeping the end of the world at bay, and I needed to get stronger to keep it that way. Suddenly, a weight I hadn't fully internalized seemed to settle itself over me, and all of my other problems seemed trivial in comparison.

Fabian's words came back to me in that moment. I needed to kill people and grow fast or else far more would die as a result. I'd accepted that, but I never fully internalized it. All this time, I'd been playing nice with the Adventurers Guild and trying not to kill anyone who didn't deserve it. The words floating in the center of my vision made it clear that that could no longer remain the case. Then, everything snapped back into place as I heard Adraugon let out a shriek.

The scene before me had deteriorated fast in the moments I'd been distracted for. Adraugon was zipping through the air, but unlike usual, it wasn't out of his own volition. The woman had caught and thrown him. A moment later, he splatted into a wall. I winced at the damage. The only reason he had survived was thanks to his Unnatural Survival ability, and even then, it was questionable whether or not he'd been put out of the fight thanks to his injuries.

An instant later, Vie and Pee struck from behind. Both of them landed a bite on the enemy's face, but they, too, just like the miniature dragon before them, soon found themselves caught in her grasp. Horror filled me as I was forced to watch the same scene play out for a second time. It was the exact same way she had dispatched the pair of them the last time they fought. She gripped both of their heads and ripped them apart.

[Pee (Level 10) was slain! 480 experience gained.]

Except, this time, they weren't ripped in half. Instead, only Pee's head was torn from their body. A moment later, Vie Shadow Surged through the dark liquid coating her captor and shot forth from it. The woman made to catch her before she could get away, but that was when my Bloodthorn Vines managed to intervene. A stony tendril slammed against the Berserker's body, sending her tumbling away from my remaining snake. Then, with a burst of fire in the center of the room that momentarily lit the entire area up as though it were midday, the notification I'd been waiting for arrived.

[Your Bloodthorn Vines (Level 13) were slain! 1,660 experience gained.]

At the heart of the explosion was a slime, only one of the two bottles of Flame Solvent remaining in its stomach, and on their head were a dozen newly born fire-aspected Crystal Puffers, all of whom had hopefully just benefited from my boss's experience.

As the world erupted into flame around them, the mighty slime let out a menacing war cry, “Blur!”