Dungeon deposed book 2, p.21
Dungeon Deposed: Book 2, page 21
part #2 of Dungeon Deposed Series
Chapter 20 - Footstools and Love -
Rolling along the road towards them was the current shipment of resources for the church of light.
Food, water, alcohol, weapons, armor, shields—anything and everything they might need to continue their siege of Dungeon.
It’d been two weeks since Ryker had taken Shirley under his wing as an apprentice. She’d come further in that period than most pupils did in years. She was already at a level where anything he could teach her was already beneath her ability.
The basics and methods were entirely within her grasp. She’d technically graduated her apprenticeship, though she refused to call herself anything but his apprentice.
Now it was mostly distilling everything he knew into reasonable lessons and giving them to her.
She soaked them up readily, made them her own, and then utilized them in her nightly attacks on the church.
“Much larger than the last one, isn’t it?” Shirley said.
“It is. Though I do have to wonder why they haven’t expected us to raid the supplies before. I mean… we’ve done it before,” Ryker said. “Why wouldn’t they expect us to do it again? It’s not as if we wouldn’t expect them to resupply.”
“Arrogance, if I had to guess,” Shirley said. “The vicar and Claire are both arrogant in their ways and seem to assume everyone is far beneath them in intelligence.”
“Mm, fair enough. I certainly can’t argue that after having met both,” Ryker said. “How do you want to play this one out?”
“Uhm, who’s doing what again?” Shirley asked.
She didn’t have a head for tactics. Strategy and planning, certainly, but not the day-to-day stuff.
“Charlotte’s going to hit the west, Tris the east, and Robyn is behind them,” Ryker said. “They’re mostly going to be keeping people moving toward us, rather than attacking. The goal is to kill or capture the guards and take their supplies. Not blow everything up.”
“I don’t know,” Shirley said after a beat. “I was just going to use lightning and kill as many as I could.”
Ryker chuckled at that and reached over to put an arm around Shirley’s shoulders. He’d gotten brave with her, and he’d started making deliberate efforts to touch her.
Shirley didn’t lash out at him, though, just stood there with his arm over her shoulders.
“I ever tell you that I think you’re pretty interesting, Shirley? I like you, in fact. I should marry you,” Ryker said. “Wait… I’m already married to you.”
“You’re an idiot,” Shirley said. “Don’t make me tell Charlotte that you’ve been sleeping with Tris lately. She’s left you alone for a while because she thinks Tris isn’t moving on you either.”
“You wouldn’t,” Ryker said, pulling Shirley closer to his side.
“You’re welcome to test me, husband,” Shirley said, giving him a look and a quirked brow, a smirk on her lips.
That seemed to be her catch phrase lately. That he was welcome to test her. It was always said with an ominous tone as well.
“One of these days, I might just come tapping on your door, you know. It’s not like I have any shame,” Ryker said.
“You’re welcome to test me, husband. Come and find out,” Shirley said.
“Ugh, fine,” Ryker said, but he didn’t move his arm. Bending his elbow, he lightly patted her head. “You’re a fun lady, Shirley. That brain of yours is incredible. Kinda wish Lauren had sent you instead of Claire—then you’d actually be my wife already.”
Shirley made a soft humming noise but didn’t respond to his statement.
“So, lightning?” she asked.
“Yeah. Lightning. Mind if I we try something new? I want to build a pattern with you. I’ve never done it, and it requires a good deal of understanding of the other person,” Ryker said.
“I’d rather not. That’s something married mages do, isn’t it?” Shirley said. “I’ve always heard it ends up becoming a permanent thing.”
“It does often, and yes, but that’s just because of how easy it is with two. We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Ryker said.
“Oh, fine. You’ll just be hurt about it for days if I say no,” Shirley grumbled. “You’re such a sensitive man inside that gruff exterior. I have no idea how any of your other women haven’t figured this out.”
“Really? Great. I’ll build the core, the chain, and the build-up of energy. You work the exterior? The lightning, trigger, and loop?” Ryker asked.
“That’ll be fine,” Shirley said.
Lifting his left arm, Ryker held it out and began building the spell. It took a fraction of a second for him to do it.
Before he could admire his own work, Shirley had looked over his pattern and added hers to it.
Evaluating the result, Ryker found that they fit perfectly. They didn’t look like it, one being a very formal and rigid—a literal square—while the other was all loops and swoops. But one perfectly encompassed the other, giving it a strong core and a fluid exterior.
Shirley activated the spell and sent it out toward the lead guard elements.
A massive bolt of lightning crashed out from her hand and obliterated the two guards in front, then careened into the horses and went up into the sky when it had no one left to jump to.
A bit… more power than intended, but… ok.
Building another spell pattern, this one a dense fog meant to sit atop the wagons, Ryker called it up in front of Shirley.
Who instantly finished it and dropped it on the wagons. It was a perfect cube that blotted everything out. No light shone from within, and nothing could be seen either.
“That was… almost too easy,” Shirley muttered.
“Yeah, it was. Sure you don’t want to be my wife? We could be a pretty nasty mage duo,” Ryker said.
“Shut up, never marry you,” Shirley said. “Give me some more patterns to work with. Just pull them up and I’ll pick the spell. With your control you can hold like six or seven up, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ryker said, then began building out multiple patterns. Lightning, fire, acid, confusion, poison, and a fairly debilitating stun.
Shirley took a step closer to him, her shoulder wedged up into his armpit now. Her eyes rapidly jumped through all his constructs.
She added bits and pieces to each and every one, forming the spell into something much larger, but she didn’t launch any of them.
“Two more, please,” she said. “A wind spell and some raw force.”
Holding up all the spells she’d already asked for, Ryker was actually feeling taxed. He did as she asked, though, and managed to draw up two more patterns, holding the eight of them aloft.
“You are far too strong, husband. I don’t think I could do half of these,” Shirley said, quickly building onto the two new ones. “Your control is amazing.”
“Didn’t you just tell me you weren’t going to marry me?” Ryker said.
“Changed my mind. Let’s go conquer the continent. You can be my servant and spell holder. I’ll let you love me tenderly when I desire and be my footstool when I don’t,” Shirley said. Then she started modifying the spells again, and rearranging their placement. “Put them together in this order from now on. Ok?”
“A footstool? Fine, one second,” Ryker said, struggling to memorize the placements while holding up the spells at the same time.
People starting coming forward out of the fog, all the while shouts were going up from all throughout it. They were all armed and looking at Ryker and Shirley.
“You’d be my footstool? I’m flattered,” Shirley said, then tripped off the fire spell. Except it clearly wasn’t fire anymore. She’d added earth to the thing, and a stream of molten lava came out like a bolt from a crossbow. It smashed into the two guards in the front and literally covered them completely. “I promise to treat you well.”
“No, I said fine to memorizing the pattern. As to being your footstool, never. I’m already a footstool to Lauren and Diane. I don’t need to be a third one for someone else,” Ryker said, then pulled up the same spell Shirley had detonated with a duplicate.
She instantly reformed it while firing off the wind spell. Which she’d also added earth to. A hail of small slivers of stone tore through the three soldiers in front.
“What if I loved you better than them? Would you run away with me? Leave it all behind?” Shirley asked.
“Maybe. Once I secure the queen on her throne again… well, maybe. I kinda do love the others, you know, even if you’re amazing,” Ryker said, rebuilding the wind spell again.
Shirley’s left arm came up around his middle and hung around his waist, her right arm held out in front of her. “Woo me later. Let’s focus for now.”
The soldiers were charging forward at them now.
Ryker added more power to the force construct, then started to launch it. But he was late. The second he powered it, Shirley had already activated it and spun it in a half-sphere around them faster than he could have.
Grabbing the lightning spell, she started to feed it into the shield.
When he realized what she was doing, Ryker chained the end of it to a looping pattern and finished it right as Shirley completed her task.
Lightning began arcing out around their shield in every direction. Hitting and lighting up soldiers like candles, turning them into screaming torches.
Without being asked, Ryker called up replacement spells, and Shirley continued to activate and add to them.
Five minutes later, no soldiers stood around them. They’d been killed to a man. Just in time too, as the lightning shield faltered and then faded.
A single man was running toward them now from the fog. He’d apparently been waiting for the shield to drop. His right hand was pulsing with a faint white light. In his left hand was a spear.
Shirley touched off all the combat spells Ryker had already rebuilt for her. They smashed into the man, alternating between fire, wind, lightning, acid, and pure force.
Then they deflected off him and went spinning off into the sky, only to detonate elsewhere.
“Mage-killer—use indirect stuff,” Ryker said, pulling up the spells again.
“A what?” Shirley asked. Pulling on the earth spell, she caused a massive boulder to rip from the ground and go hurling at the man, rather than a spelled boulder conjured from mana.
Dodging to one side, the mage-killer hit the ground and tumbled away.
“He can deflect or block magic. They’re called mage-killers for that reason,” Ryker said.
Damnit. I don’t want to build another avatar.
A giant glowing ball of fire smashed down into the man from the sky, followed by an angry-looking Robyn, her golden wings extended.
She shone brightly and looked like a deathly angel of retribution.
Her weapon swung down and slashed at the man before he could take two steps away from her.
Robyn pulled her sword back, and the man collapsed to his knees. Holding her left hand up beside his head, Robyn waited a moment. As if to receive his last words.
The man said nothing, glared at Robyn instead.
Without a hint of emotion, she took his head from his shoulders with a lazy slash of her weapon.
“Wynne, how much mana does it cost for us to use those abilities?” Ryker asked.
“None,” Marybelle sent back instead. “Wynne’s busy. The church is trying something different. Can explain it later. Robyn isn’t pulling in mana. She’s using faith. It’s… being directed to her from a deity.”
Oh. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.
“Ok. You can woo me now,” Shirley said, patting Ryker’s stomach with her right hand. “You were just telling me you’d let me steal you away to be my personal footstool, despite loving your other women.”
Rolling his eyes, Ryker let the spells fade away.
“Kinda missing that mousy little woman I found with a bolt in her chest,” Ryker groused.
“No you’re not,” Shirley said, her fingers caressing his stomach. She hadn’t moved away from him.
***
Sitting down in his throne, Ryker leaned his head back with a sigh. Shirley was next to him, holding his left hand in her right. He hadn’t gone into his avatar like that, which meant she had taken his hand after he’d departed.
Things are getting weird between us. I think I need a break from her.
Not really wanting to be here when she came back to herself, Ryker closed his eyes and tossed himself into his dungeon sense.
Settling into it, he started to make a plan to go see Marybelle and ask about what was going on.
Robyn overwhelmed him before he could do anything, however. Overwhelmed him, and drowned him with her golden dungeon sense. The essence of what she was.
To the point that Ryker couldn’t even think or react.
He was submerged into Robyn’s own essence and inundated with a pure and savage amount of attention and affection. Robyn mauled him, stuffing his essence back into hers and then blending the two.
When he finally got a handle back on himself, the world wasn’t the same. There was no clear point where Robyn started or he ended.
“Oh, that was heavenly,” Robyn said triumphantly in his mind. It wasn’t in the dungeon sense or the spot Marybelle inhabited. It was somewhere else entirely.
“Robyn, what’d you do?” Ryker asked, feeling panicked.
“We blended ourselves. You were very needy and took quite a bit from me. It was surprising. We’re linked now, for a time.
“When you took me from my body, I had no idea what to do. You gave me a path back, and a way to right my wrongs. And I want to share myself with you forever going forward,” Robyn said, her tone taking on a strange reverence. “Don’t fear, beloved Ryker. I’m… going to go lie down for a spell and just enjoy this. Sorry, I’ll ask next time, but I really wanted to be in you and have you in me.”
He felt it when Robyn left him, the space strange and empty once she was gone.
Feeling extremely panicked and altogether unsure of what to do, Ryker grabbed Wynne and Marybelle both and threw them into his mind, joining them.
Wynne and Marybelle both looked shocked at the treatment, turning to each other and then him.
“Ryker… what are you doing?” Wynne asked. “This isn’t… this is inside of you. You shouldn’t bring anyone here. Ever.”
“Robyn just did something and I need you two to look at it,” Ryker said with a real sense of urgency.
“Huh?” Marybelle asked. “Oh. Yes. That. Looks like she’s merged your soul with hers. It won’t last, of course. Maybe a day or so.”
“Don’t be concerned about it. Her soul is rather buoyant and very… good. Yours isn’t. It’ll bring her down and lift you up. You might even feel pretty good when you go back to your body,” Wynne added.
“You’re acting like this is nothing,” Ryker said, unsure now but no longer panicking.
“Because it is. It’s… well, she basically just made your souls have sex. From the looks of it, yours is benefiting greatly,” Wynne said, her gaze somewhere in the middle distance. “Hers is looking a little pale and worn out, though. Try not to let her do it too often. It’s not going to help her much.”
“But… it helps me?” Ryker asked, confused.
“Yes. She’s feeding you parts of her soul, in a way. She took some of yours, you took some of hers,” Marybelle said. “You’re much more evil than she is. She’ll be fine in a few days, but for a time she might feel a little sick.”
Frowning, Ryker really had no idea what to make of this whole thing.
“I really don’t understand,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it; nothing is wrong. Just don’t let her do it too often, even if it does feel good,” Wynne said. “Now, we should probably talk about the dungeon. There’s been some changes.”
Marybelle had already made herself at home in his mind. Immediately calling up furniture, a display table, and changing the temperature and time of day.
As if she knew everything inside out.
In fact, Wynne was now watching Marybelle as she began calling up snacks and drinks like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Even though they would do nothing here.
Ryker turned and started to watch as well.
Since their last talk, Marybelle hadn’t intruded on his thoughts in any way, shape or form. But that apparently didn’t mean she wasn’t there. At least he assumed she was, based on how easily she was using his own memories and thoughts to craft what was essentially the interior of his own mind.
She had never left; she was just a silent witness to everything he did.
As if realizing she was being watched, Marybelle paused, looking at the two of them.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
“No,” Wynne said after a second, a small furrow in her brows. Then she looked back to Ryker. “The church is attempting to destroy the dungeon core. They keep going through the old dungeon wings now. Those who can’t get into the Death Dungeon, that is. They’re running the old dungeon.”
“They can try all they like, since that’s not a real core,” Ryker said with a shrug. “Sounds like a good way for them to waste time.”
“I’d normally agree with you, but they already figured out it’s a fake. They clearly have some artifact or spell that’s guiding them. Because they stop right under the spot where the core actually is, beneath your home. It’s in the outskirts of the old city wing. Off to one side. They always go there and look around,” Wynne said. “The most recent group started to look up, and they even tried digging for a time with an earth spell.”
Great.
“To me that definitely sounds like they know where the core is and really want to get to it,” Ryker said. “Do we need to do anything or alter our plans?”
“Not yet, but it’s worth knowing and keeping an eye on. All it’d take is someone realizing the core is beneath your basement,” Wynne said. “Then going and breaking into your farm. To everyone else it looks like a ruin, much like the rest of dungeon, teeming with fatal magic. But if a champion really wanted to see inside, they could probably manage it.”
