Duelling Dungeons

As Voss strode forward, raising his club menacingly, Archibald pulled a slivered flask from his side and downed it in a couple of quick gulps. When he was done, he threw the vessel to the ground and gave Voss a wild, unhinged grin.

Even from several feet away, Voss could see Archibald’s muscles writhing underneath the man’s skin. His veins bulged, turning from blue to black, and sickly green black bile slowly began leaking from his eyes and nose.

When Voss brought the pillar down, Archibald twisted, contorting his body in an unnatural way as he danced away.

“So, you decided to use your lauded secret serum early?” Voss grunted. “I heard you only like to use it once the other team has you on the ropes.”

“Can you blame me? Without it, all it would take is a single, glancing blow to put me out of commission. No, you deserve my best, right from the beginning,” Archibald replied, before breaking out into a fit of giggles.

Voss didn’t hesitate; as soon as Archibald was done talking and broke into his bout of insane laughter, he stepped forward and brought the pillar down in a wide sweep. The alchemist didn’t even try to dodge as the two-foot-wide chunk of masonry smashed into his side.

There was an audible crunch as the pillar connected, throwing Archibald several feet away. Despite tumbling head over heels several times, the instant he regained his balance, the alchemist jumped back to his feet.

“Is that the best…” Archibald started, then looked down at his right arm, which hung limply at his side, bent and twisted in several places. He frowned, reached over with his left arm and yanked the injured forward. There was the sound of grinding bones, and popping joints, and a wave of ichor poured out of the cuts and punctures. A couple of seconds later, he raised the shattered right arm again and flexed it.

“That’s better,” he muttered before turning back towards Voss. “As I was saying, is that the best you can do?”

“Of course not,” the Treent grumbled. “I’m just getting started.”

As he stepped forward, Voss brought the great marble club down in a heavy diagonal strike. Archibald just watched the oncoming blow, not doing anything to counter it until the last second, when he ducked down and slipped to the right side, just barely avoiding a blow to the head.

When the heavy weapon slammed into the ground, spraying gravel and gravedust into the air, Archibald lashed out with his left arm, slamming it into the side of the heavy pillar.

Once again, there was the sound of cracking bones, but with it came the sound of cracking stone. When Voss attempted to withdraw his club, ready to take another strike, the end of it crumbled.

“Impressive,” he huffed. “Although I’d like to see how far you can take that inhuman strength of yours, I don’t have the time to play with you right now.”

“Then finish it, if you can,” Archibald replied casually as he flicked his twisted, broken left hand a couple of times.

Discarding his ruined weapon with one hand, Voss resorted to pounding the much smaller man with his bare hands. Archibald immediately backpedalled, jumping out of the Trent’s range.

Unwilling to let the Alchemist escape, Voss followed, slamming his fists into the ground with enough force to shatter stone. Crypts, coffins and gravestones all exploded under his assault, but Archibald remained elusive, always skipping away just before receiving a lethal blow.

During this entire exchange, Archibald didn’t attempt to counterattack; he seemed content to keep just ahead of Voss.

“What is with you?” Voss grumbled, backing off and eyeing up Archibald. “Aren’t you going to fight?”

“Why should I? All I have to do to cripple your team is delay you, not defeat you,” Archibald declared. As he explained, he raised his right arm, and the limb sagged, bending in several places where it shouldn’t.

“Your serum doesn’t actually provide regeneration, does it?” Voss asked.

“Of course not. Increased muscle mass, resulting in vastly increased speed and strength, and immunity to pain, but no regeneration. I’m sure even elite adventurers would find it unfair to have to fight a practically unkillable boss while on a time crunch and fighting in a pestilent swamp,” Archibald replied. “I’m mad, not evil.”

“So you fight alone and just delay the enemy as long as possible?” Voss asked.

“Usually, even though most of my staff are already plagued, or highly resistant to disease, I don’t want to expose them to the plagues I’m carrying around,” Archibald replied. “Again, just because I’m mad doesn’t mean I can’t care for my employees.”

“So how do you deal with snares?” Voss asked.

“Oh, it’s quite easy when I’ve taken the serum; I can use brute force to rip my way out of them,” Archibald replied. As he did, dozens of vines burst from the ground, wrapping around his legs and snaking their way up his body.

“Even when your arms are broken?” Voss asked, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

“W-What?” Archibald sputtered as he wrestled with the vines. He pulled at them with his broken hand and shattered arm, causing his wounds to rip open and the damage to his arms to worsen, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Your serum has some amazing benefits, but it also has its downsides, doesn’t it? Voss said as he strode forward, standing over the entangled Alchemist. “It dulls your senses, your situational awareness, doesn’t it?”

Archibald furrowed his brow. “How did you know that?” he asked.

“Because while you were busy dancing around, you somehow failed to notice that the rest of your team had already fallen,” Voss explained. “The rest of the fight had already ended.”

“Which gave me enough of an opening to use my magic,” Alia declared proudly before she broke out into a long coughing fit that ended with her coughing up blood.

The Dryads looked horrid; one of them had fallen to the harpies, and the rest seemed to have their veins turned black, making them extremely visible under their pale skin covered in large, sickly boils. There was one Mycellium person left; they’d gorged themselves on all the pestilence, but since the rest of their squad had fallen, it was unlikely to be useful in future assaults. Having one mushroom face off against a full squad probably wasn’t a good idea, no matter how empowered it was.

“Ahhh… I guess I did,” Archibald replied, completely unconcerned with his situation. “Oh well, I managed to complete my objective to delay you and cripple your squad.”

“There’s still time for me to save them,” Voss declared. “Give me the antidote.”

Archibald smiled. “Sorry, but there isn’t one. At least, not in the simulation. That would be counterproductive,” he said. “You should have realized by now that the point of me and my floor isn’t to stop intruders, but to delay them as long as possible while my pestilences wear the enemy down. Based upon their condition, I’d say the Dryads are already in stage two, which is still treatable, but extremely difficult to deal with.” Archibald sighed. “I would have preferred to delay you long enough to get to stage three, which is practically untreatable, but it seems I’ve let myself be outmaneuvered.”

The Alchemist shrugged before looking up at Voss, a smug smile on his face. “Well? Aren’t you going to finish me off? The clock’s t…”

He didn’t get to finish as Voss’s fist drove Archibald several inches into the ground, causing him to disconnect from the simulation instantly. “I know,” Voss rumbled as he trudged back to the dryads. There were only three left, and since he’d been occupied with Archibald, he didn’t know if the other two died in the skirmish or from the disease.

“Don’t worry, girls, I’ll get help for you,” Voss whispered as he gently scooped up the dryads.

“You can’t,” Miya muttered. “Calliope died around the same time you did; we don’t have a healer anymore.”

“I’ll find a way, no matter what,” Voss declared as he marched through the simmering portal to the rest area, which had appeared at Archibald’s death, the mushroom at his heels. “I promise.”