Ruthless: Path of Conquest

“So we need to make up our minds,” Mitzi summed up.

“I would say so,” Alan agreed.

“I still think we made the right decision back at the Fisher Kingdom,” she said gently. Lowering her voice, she added, “I also think I agree with James about the, uh, former criminals. I really thought that man was going to attack you before, and I wouldn’t be able to use my magic quickly enough to do anything about it.”

He squeezed her hand. “Neither James nor Dean would have let that happen,” he replied quietly, “but I would prefer that you not have to worry. I don’t know if Dean realizes the challenge he seems to have taken on here.”

“Just the opposite,” Mitzi said, her tone slightly bitter. “He’s buried his head in the sand.”

Alan looked at her for a moment, apparently taken a little off balance. She realized her sudden vehemence had surprised him.

“He’s bringing his family here,” she said in a lower voice. “I asked Dean whether he really believed in this place, when you followed James out. Whether he really thought they could rebuild civilization from here, without someone more powerful supporting it. And he said he’s bringing his wife and kids out to this place. They’re already on the way. Once they have the office building secured, he wants to move them in. He thinks it’s the safest place. After the Mole People are exterminated, and he has some Mages shore the building up.”

Alan turned his head to look around at the surrounding area. There was no one near them. A few minutes ago, the whole group had been staring down into the fissure to watch James. They had seen him kill a large number of Mole People, seemingly with just his bare hands. Then he’d vanished into the darkness, either dropping deeper into the crevasse or disappearing into some side tunnel that the group couldn’t see.

Either way, the result was that the crowd’s excitement gradually waned until they dispersed to carry out the tasks they had been working at before James’s activity drew their attention. Now they were doing various chores. Pitching tents. Cooking. Laundry. The mundane realities of daily life in a post-collapse world.

“I think that’s absolutely insane,” Alan said finally. Quietly, as if he still thought someone might be watching them or trying to listen in. “At the least, it’s criminally overconfident. They’re on the way? Already? He really said that?”

Mitzi nodded.

Alan shook his head in frustration. “He was just about to fill the fissure with some noxious gas. Even assuming he has gas masks for everyone, assuming they work, and assuming that the chemical is somehow lethal to the monsters but not to humans who happen to take their gas mask off for a minute, that’s unspeakably reckless.”

“I know it’s not something you would do,” Mitzi agreed, placing a hand on her husband’s arm.

“You know, It’s not something James would do either,” Alan said. “Call him an egomaniac for deciding to establish a monarchy, but his tendency is at least to keep other people away from danger. If even one of those creatures survives, they’re right here, and they’ll be mad as hell! You would send for your family after you secure the base, not before.”

I guess we’re decided, then, she thought. Mitzi agreed with Alan.

But she decided to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. They needed to be certain about this. “Maybe Dean was very confident it was going to be a complete slaughter. They might have other military weaponry here besides gas.”

Alan gazed down at the pit for a moment before he looked back at her. “Well, I think it’s going to be a bloodbath down there now.”

—

From just the right angle, James’s hands would have looked to a hypothetical spectator like they were encased in a pair of dark red gloves, stretching from finger tips almost to the elbows. The substance shimmered in the dim light like satin.

It was only when one saw the blood dripping from his black knuckle dusters that it became obvious that he wore no gloves over his armor. Just remnants of the enemies he and the Soul Eater had splattered. Mole Men and Mole Women. None were spared.

That’s what happens when you try to attack first and ask questions later, he thought. I didn’t especially want to kill any of those creatures, but I suppose they were incapable of understanding that I wanted to talk.

And somehow nothing was left of any of them, though James had not used Pillage. They had disappeared upon each vicious killing blow.

“Roscuro, what happened to the bodies?” James asked. He brushed his hands off on the walls as best he could and ordered the Ego Spidersword back into the magic satchel for the moment. The fights thus far had been so easy that the sword the Spider Queen had become was not a contributor. James suspected he was about to go into tighter quarters, where a levitating sword might actually get in the way.

Well, master, if I absorb their souls, they disintegrate, the Soul Eater replied. The same thing would have happened to you if I had hit you with Soul Magic during our fight. The soul and the body are a union. One cannot continue to exist in this plane without the other. That is what makes Soul Magic particularly deadly.

“Well, these creatures disintegrated before I could use Pillage on them,” James replied.

Oh. Yes. Honestly, I had not considered that issue. Roscuro sounded slightly uncomfortable.

So this place is mainly going to benefit him, unless I just stop using Roscuro as a weapon, James thought. At least I’m gaining experience, but these things are so weak I haven’t gotten a single level yet. If I don’t get to gather meat or Stats from anything I use Roscuro to kill, this expedition really just benefits the Soul Eater and Dean.

“How much is this actually helping you?” James asked.

Roscuro transformed by way of answer. The form he took now was that of a short sword. Before, the largest weapon he could make was a dagger. The difference was just a couple of inches, but it was something, at least.

“Fine, we keep going this way, for now. But if we kill the boss down here, you don’t get to absorb him, got it?”

Of course! Roscuro sent.

“How exactly are you going to find the boss, sir?” Hester chimed in.

James took a couple of deep breaths. Ambient aura in, ambient aura out.

“I can feel the Ruler’s aura. Just like I was able to avoid them by sensing auras outside, I can move closer to where the Ruler is by feeling where the power is thickest.” He looked down. “This thing is somewhere down there. These little pockmarks on the walls are just distractions, or maybe they’re where the minions live. But if I want to be able to have a one on one with the leader, I need to go down.”

I don’t really want to, he thought. He could see the bottom of the hole from here, so it wasn’t insanely deep. But he felt a little uncomfortable continuing further underground, into an environment controlled by his enemy.

And Florida soil is notoriously prone to sinkholes. I wonder what the odds are of this place collapsing at any given time. Then again—James tapped the earthen wall he was clinging to with the hand he wasn’t using to hold himself up. The touch confirmed the surface was solid stone.

Okay. So I’m already in bedrock. The walls probably won’t just accidentally fall in on themselves. I don’t know if this Ruler can collapse its own lair. If its power is as strong as I think mine is, I imagine it could. But it probably wouldn’t do that and crush all its own minions just to get at me. So I should at least make it to where the monster is. Then I either have to negotiate or get close enough that it can’t collapse the structure without being crushed along with me. Well, here goes nothing.

James released his grip on the wall and plunged further into the depths of the pit.

He hit bottom, and his knees bent slightly to better take the landing. As he got his bearings, he felt the temperature had risen slightly, and the aura of the Ruler had intensified. He found himself in a relatively small underground space, perhaps ten feet across and thirty feet long. Before him, the sparks of light that had fallen with James revealed a honeycomb of further holes. Some of them led further down, some led up, and some led sideways.

“Roscuro, turn back into the knuckles,” James said. “With short blades on the ends, this time, please.” He was about to enter one of these confined spaces. Best to have a closer range weapon than a short sword. Roscuro began changing his shape, and James considered his next move. Should I enter a tunnel going up, down, or sideways?

He knew he was closer to the Ruler now, but he didn’t know if that meant it was above or on the same level as him. It couldn’t be above—no matter how much James would like to move up closer to the surface. So I’ll have to descend further just to be sure whether his thing is above me or on the same level right now. At least I think that’s the best way to get a better idea of the location. Great. Hopefully the place doesn’t go too deep.

He looked up and saw the sky had diminished to a slender sliver of blue. He tried not to think about how far down he was. He had never thought much about how small and suffocating underground spaces could be. Back when he was just a normal human, he had never spent time in caves or thought about exploring sinkholes. Leave that for crazy people. So he had thought.

Now that he had signed up to be a spelunker, he wasn’t altogether convinced he was comfortable with this. He was already further underground than he had been his entire life. The space he was in did not exactly feel confined, but the tunnels probably would be. Or they could be a never ending labyrinth of tunnels and that looped back in on themselves until he could never find his way out again. And the Ruler might very well be able to close the entrances after he entered. A discomfiting thought.

Worst of all, James could imagine a scenario where an intense enough fight with the Ruler would collapse the area they were in. Crushing James in an instant, or worse, leaving him alive but trapped. Buried alive. Doomed to slow death by suffocation.

In the latter scenario, perhaps he could survive using earth elemental magic, but would it be enough? Trapped under tons of stone and earth?

I don’t think I’m tough enough to survive a cave-in here anyway.

But he had given his word that he would get to the root of this problem. As far as James was concerned, a leader was only as good as the value of his word. So he said ‘Goodbye’ to the natural sunlight in his mind. He set aside his trepidation and took a deep breath.

Into the labyrinth I go…

And he stepped into the nearest downward-facing hole. Like the other openings he’d seen above, it was obviously carved by bestial claws rather than human machines, for the use of those same monsters. Were the claw marks even bigger on these holes? No, probably just his imagination…

Since this wasn’t carved for human use, there were no steps, only a moderately steep incline. Like a playground slide.

As James began slowly, carefully, moving down the tunnel, he felt the pressure from the Ruler’s aura steadily increasing. Great. So this thing is probably below me somewhere. He would have to continue his descent into the bowels of the Earth at least a bit further.

The floating sparks from Hand of Glory provided plenty of light by spreading to all corners of the tunnel within reach of James’s body. And the space had been dug to be large enough for the monstrous Mole People to move freely in. Large enough for several walking side by side, actually. Perhaps it was so that some larger version of their kind would be able to move freely, too. After all, moles tended to crawl on all fours. This hole was large enough to accommodate James walking upright. Ever since Race Evolution, he was a bit over six feet. And the holes were wider than they were tall. So the tunnel was easily large enough for some kind of mega mole. He tried not to think about what was waiting for him ahead, in the deep unfathomable darkness. In the places where his light could not yet reach.

Master, do you sense an enemy somewhere ahead? Roscuro asked. I cannot detect anything, but your pulse is elevated.

“No,” James whispered fiercely. “Everything is just fine. There’s nothing ahead that I can see. Just endless tunnel!”

“Sir, do you think you could use earth elemental magic and make this trip easier?” Hester asked.

James resisted the urge to snap at Hester. Really, if I could do that, do you think I wouldn’t have tried it already? It wasn’t her fault that he was uncomfortably far underground.

Why do I even feel this tension? he thought. I’m not even a normal human anymore. I’m as close to a superhero as has ever existed in the real world. Maybe on the way to immortality. Am I really nervous about just being in some dark underground place?

Then again, this might be the most helpless he had ever been since the System appeared. He could be killed at any moment if this Ruler decided to cause a cave-in. He had thought about putting on the Shapechanger’s Cloak to become invisible, but considering that it didn’t keep him from making sounds as he moved, he had no reason to believe it would hide his presence from the Ruler.

“The enemy’s aura permeates this place,” James explained, trying to disguise his agitated mood. “It’s just like when I fought Roscuro, and my water elemental magic didn’t really work in his swamp. Because his aura was everywhere. Unfortunately, I would just be wasting energy trying to manipulate the stone that’s here.”

“Darn,” Hester murmured.

“I appreciate the thought, though,” James said. “Always open to your suggestions. Maybe—”

Just then, there was the sound of movement somewhere in the tunnel ahead of him. Several pairs of moving feet, James thought.

“What were you about to say, sir?” Hester asked.

“Can’t talk, Hester,” he whispered. “There’s something moving down there now.”

Shapes began to materialize in the darkness.

James opened his magic satchel and ordered the Ego Spidersword out. Then he assumed a fighting stance as he waited for the creatures to move close enough for him to strike.