BD - Chapter 354 - Bee-ware the Abyss

A group of Starami’s Tower Guards gathered at the entrance to the Abyssal Trench. Belissar…did not want to watch what happened to the kobolds happen to a human, but since the hive of hives could not yet swim in the trench, he was the only one who could see what happened there and so the only one who could sound the alarm if the Tower Guards survived. So, he gulped to calm his stomach and then did his best to watch.

The Tower Guards stirred up their mana and began to cast spells. Spheres of water formed around each of them, then began to stretch and distort. Details like scales and ridges began to form, until each of the guards was surrounded by a serpentine dragon formed from water.

The Tower Guards glanced at each other, nodded once, and then stepped into the Abyssal Trench. Belissar held his breath.

The Tower Guards winced as the water of the room crashed against them. Their dragon coatings distorted and dents began to form in one guard’s dragon. That guard panicked and quickly rushed back to the prior room. He panted for breath for a good minute before he began to reform his spell, much more slowly and carefully this time.

Belissar was initially relieved that none of the Tower Guards were crushed before his eyes…before remembering that, unpleasant sights aside, they were the enemy and it was bad that they survived. He withdrew his focus back to his body at the alliance’s command tent and looked towards Wardmaster Varilold with a frown.

“It looks like some of the Tower Guard can survive in the trench, so they might make it through.”

Wardmaster Varilold motioned to one of her wardens, while the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter began to spread word through the hive of hives and any of their allies who had communers nearby.

“We’ll prepare for battle then. Can they get past the mana storm?”

Belissar furrowed his brow.

“I don’t know, they haven’t encountered the rough areas yet.”

Wardmaster Varilold nodded.

“Understood, let us know what happens when they do, and how many of them to expect.”

Belissar returned his focus back to the Tower Guards. Once their last companion rejoined them with his fully rebuilt spell, they took out light crystals to illuminate the pitch-black room. The light…didn’t go particularly far, only revealing a few feet of the rocky bottom at a time before it was swallowed by the gloom. The Tower Guards’ dragon coating then began to swim through the water at a snail’s pace, the Tower Guards’ own eyes darting every which way as they ventured into the abyss…

***

Starami watched as his Tower Guard began to explore the room, once they all had finally cast their spells competently, that was. Water battered their spells from all directions, but no monsters or fey assaulted them as they entered the room. That, at least, confirmed it was the room that had killed his kobolds earlier.

Judging from the rocky bottom and the complete lack of light, it seemed this was some sort of deep-sea room, the type nearly every Tower of Water insisted on building. Not only was the room completely submerged, but the water itself was deadly, creating such powerful pressure on anything that entered that normal creatures would be crushed instantly. On top of that, the room was pitch-black, a variant deep enough that no light reached it. Even bringing light with them didn’t complete solve the problem, the light stopped at surprisingly short distances. The room was filled with Water mana that bent the light and Dark mana that swallowed it. It was thus a room where a challenger could barely see anything, needed Water spells to even survive in at all, and could end up being crushed immediately if they ever dropped their spell.

An annoying sort of room…but one the Conclave had dealt with before. The water pressure could be dealt with via spells, as could the need to breathe. The potential for ambush was the worst part…but this was a dungeon dedicated to bees. As far as Starami knew, there were no bees that lived underwater, monster variations aside. In fact, his Tower Guard didn’t seem to encounter any signs of life at all. No bees, no plants that might support them, no fish or coral or other aquatic lifeforms, not even organic debris from the dead.

Still, they were dealing with the fey, so Starami held back from making any conclusions. If his guards could venture into the room with magic, so might the fey.

And yet, nothing accosted his guards as they carefully swam deeper into the room. Were the fey truly just relying on the room itself? It was strange that they hadn’t encountered even a single trap…

Then one of the Tower Guard was suddenly ripped out of the formation, screaming as a powerful current came from nowhere and blew him away. Within seconds he had been pulled beyond the range of the light crystals, completely separated from the others. Only Starami could keep track of him as he tumbled and spun.

“Get ahold of yourself! You have the Blessing of the Sea Dragon, use it!”

The Tower Guard stiffened at his rebuke and then flared his mana. His dragon coat began to whip its tail back and forth, trying to push him out of the current.

The current pulled him deeper down. The Tower Guard panicked once he realized he wasn’t managing to escape. The spell dragon swung its tail faster…but the current had now pulled him into some sort of vortex. The spell dragon would propel him out of one flow only to be pulled in a different direction by another. Soon the Tower Guard was tumbling about all over, his spell dragon flailing rather than swimming.

And in his panic, he poured all of his mana into the dragon coat’s tail to try and escape…weakening the coat’s protection just a bit. But with all the powerful currents intensifying the water pressure on him…that was unfortunately a bit too much. Water broke through the coat and that was it.

Starami scowled and turned his attention back to the formation proper. They scrambled at first, but they maintained discipline and so stuck together, leaving the fallen guard to his fate. They formed a circle and extended their senses in every direction, looking for the source of the sudden current. But their senses only penetrated a few feet ahead of them…even when they channeled the superior senses of a dragon through their blessings.

Starami frowned. Their blessings should be able to power through simple darkness, or even ambient Dark mana. And yet, not only were they failing to see into the dark…it seemed as if their senses were shrinking.

Then Starami’s senses cut off. He blinked for a moment, then narrowed his eyes and refocused. He could still sense the Tower Guards themselves…but nothing beyond them. Or rather…the Dark mana had grown so thick around them that the guards themselves could not sense anything around them anymore.

The guards started to panic.

“Get ahold of yourselves!”

Starami rebuked them once more…but they had lost contact with each other even in a tight formation. They couldn’t even see the light crystals in their hands and their blessings failed to cut through the dark. One of the guards thought he was being pulled away like the first, and so sent his dragon coat swimming as fast as it could to try and find the others.

And then, suddenly, he could see again…and through him, Starami caught a glimpse of what was happening. Behind the guard was a sphere of pure Dark mana, blocking out any senses that tried to pierce into it. The guard, in his panic, had at least identified what was happening. Starami was about to order the other guards to head out of the Dark…

And then the guard who escaped was crushed, dragon coat and all. The spell only delayed his death for the briefest of moments, giving Starami a hint of a concentration of Water mana and water pressure so powerful it overwhelmed even the guard’s blessing.

Starami growled. Just what was going on here?!

One by one, the other guards also began to lose their nerve and flee from the Dark sphere. Starami gave up on trying to control them, instead gathering every bit of information he could as they flailed about. One, like the first, was instantly crushed by powerful, mana-empowered water pressure. One couldn’t seem to escape the dark no matter how far they swam. Still another were pulled away by powerful currents, helpless as they spun through the water until they ended up either crushed or flung into another Dark area. Two guards managed to escape and were not immediately accosted. They swam through the room at speed, desperately searching for the entrance again…until they encountered a sphere of Dark mana that spontaneously grew tendrils. The tendrils reached out and covered the guards, blocking their senses once more until something ended their lives.

Starami took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it through his nostrils as he organized the information he had gained. What, exactly, was he dealing with? He began going through the various traps and hazards both he and the wider Conclave had both set up in their own Towers and encountered in those they subjugated.

Individual traps? Water currents and pressure zones and obscuring Dark mana were all known features…but ones powerful enough to overwhelm a fully blessed Tower Guard in an instant? And the room hadn’t just had one of each, so for a Tower this size to have that many traps that powerful, none of which were aligned with its primary patron? Did the rogue Tower Lord pour all of their mana into this single room?

No, it was more likely that it was not individual traps. Either this was the work of the fey, or else the Tower Lord had lucked out and acquired a single, powerful room or feature that was responsible.

And Starami couldn’t even begin assaulting this Tower until he figured it out…

Author’s Note:

Ahahahahaha, oh silly non-bee, you haven’t even begun to experience best dungeon! You’ve only experienced two silly non-bee rooms best dungeon master hadn’t even bothered to use until now. Now hurry up and surrender so we can give you the sting and get back to what’s important!

Anyways!

Can the silly non-bees even get past a silly non-bee room? Will they even get to experience the best parts of best dungeon? Will they do the right thing and stop stealing screentime for silly things? Tune in next time, to find out!