Today's Earth date: March 5, 1992

Horcus discovered something strange but crazy awesome today. It's going to make this quest so much easier.

The Chosen Wizard staff buffs Horcus' stats, but it has a foci function where Horcus can assign a spell to the staff, and every time he casts the spell through the staff, it doesn't use mana and gets a little stronger.

There are a few catches, though. The first is that he can only use the staff once a day, so leveling the assigned spell is ultra slow. The second catch is that changing the assigned spells resets all progress to zero.

So traditionally, the Chosen Wizard sets one spell and then keeps it that way forever. One generation had a wizard who chose a protection spell for his staff that got so strong it made the target functionally invincible by the end of the Air Temple.

Horcus says choosing a support spell for the staff is "some pussy ass bullshit."

What Horcus figured out is that by rapidly switching the assigned spell while also trying to cast with the staff can break the casting restriction. In other words, he can use a Lightning spell via his stuff an unlimited number of times and rack up experience at the same time.

It resets at the end of the day, but we got Lightning leveled so far yesterday that Horcus accidentally blew the side off a mountain.

Should make the Earth Temple a breeze.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Oh, one more thing. The guys are trying to convince me that 92 is a leap year, so all my dates are off. I think they're messing with me, but I'm making this note just in case.

The rock face rolled up like a garage door when Margo touched the dwarvish symbols in the correct order. The tunnel beyond reminded Wayne of the basement in the Water Temple. It had the clean perfection of first-dwarf craftsmanship, but it was entirely utilitarian. There were no elaborate decorative touches here. Just a long, gray tunnel large enough to pull a wagon through.

Wayne was more certain of the similarity when he noticed his HUD map had stopped rendering. The same thing happened in the Water Temple, as if his party was outside the boundaries of the world map somehow.

The monsters left an obvious trail of mud and blood when they came and went, and there were no side passages in sight. Wayne's party advanced carefully, listening and watching for any potential threats. The smell of rotten meat was faint at first, but it grew as steadily as their advance down the tunnel.

They walked for thirty minutes before Probe picked up a batch of red dots and a cluster of blues. While the blues were all in one tight group, the reds moved about, roaming freely.

Wayne counted eleven reds and maybe six blues, and he could deduce that they were in the room ahead–an amazing feat of detective work for someone to accomplish in a tunnel–but not having a HUD preview of the room itself made Wayne feel woefully unprepared to breach. He had grown so accustomed to putting his system to use that not having it felt like going into battle without a sword.

Margo volunteered to stealth ahead and reported back with Voice.

"The smell is definitely coming from this room. There's pieces of dead monsters all over, and most of them look like they've been sitting a while. The room itself is a bit like a warehouse. It feels like the bottom floor of the Lighthouse but with more boxes and stuff filling it up."

"Got eyes on any of the reds or blues?" Wayne asked.

"I think the blues are in a cage, but it's covered. Can't tell anything else about who's in there. I see one of the things that attacked Mudsville. Bigger than a warg, has eagle talons instead of paws and has four tentacles on its back. I can't see anything else from here, but I hear a person talking and… Yeah, don't laugh at me, but I think he's talking to a ratman."

"Good job, Margo. Come on back."

"I'll go first," Luke whispered when Wayne relayed Margo's report.

"Absolutely not. There's too many of them, and you have the least combat experience."

"What level are you?"

Wayne scowled.

"I'm not being a wiseass," Luke insisted. "I can't get hurt. Well, I've gotten cut up a bit, but I heal really fast. It's safer for everyone if I take care of it."

"Armond?" Wayne asked.

"Level 64 is basically a god, right? I don't like the idea of sending Mr. Singalong into battle alone, but he's right that he's stronger than all of us."

"Recommendation?"

Armond leaned in and whispered, "How about Luke goes first, then we come in behind shortly after. If he needs help, we jump in. If not, we go get the blues."

Luke looked at Wayne and offered an agreeable nod.

"Kick ass diversion," Luke said. "I can do that."

Margo raised her hand. She had two other suggestions to add to the plan.

***

The space looked as Margo described it, but Wayne would have added that it reminded him of one of those lost stashes of Nazi treasures, rows and rows of shelves and boxes all packed full and spilling over onto the floor. No one in his party would have any idea what that meant, so he kept the thought to himself.

After seeing the number of obstacles with his own eyes, Wayne was even more impressed by Margo's scouting report. She had to cut some dangerous angles to get a view of the cage and to spot any of their enemies. Were it not for his HUD map still displaying enemy indicators, Wayne would be very hesitant to launch an aggressive attack with this little visibility, yet Margo had been remarkably thorough without a HUD map.

Phase one began as Margo suggested it. She cast Hidey Hole on herself and the party. The system excluded Luke, but the plan stayed the same, regardless.

While Margo went wide to secure a stronger flanking position, Wayne's party moved toward the blues. Luke walked ahead as if he were an expected guest while Wayne listened.

"...Chou chavi no mori wareitchis, cho chi chavi no mori buchinekk."

Much later, well after the encounter and when he was back in Iomallach, Wayne used Replay Camera to translate the ratman language.

Fully translated, what the fleshmancer actually said was, "...You have no more wares, so we have no more business."

"I got you the materials," Targitaus whined.

And Wayne translated the rest as well. "Human materials. You bring poor materials and no payment and demand business?"

"An advance."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"What does this word 'advance' mean?"

"Pay me now and I'll finish the work later."

The ratman laughed. "Very good joke. My brothers will like it too. Don't bother-"

"Hello!" Luke said triumphantly. Wayne couldn't see what was happening, but Luke spoke as if he were striking a superhero pose.

"Impossible! No! Never!" the ratman shrieked.

"I'll take care of the do-gooder,"Targitaus said.

"That is Laszlo the Paladin! You led Laszlo the Paladin to me? Human filth! How dare you?"

"What are you talking about? It's just a guy."

"We will never forget his face. This is him. He has come to end us."

"...Yes! It is I, Laszlo the Paladin!" Luke shouted.

Wayne winced and tried not to chuckle. The fighting began with an echoing crash, but Wayne's group continued moving toward the prisoners. Margo was in position to see the battle and reported what she saw to Wayne.

"Sooo… Luke is pretty strong now. You just heard Targitaus fly thirty feet. Luke punched him. That's it. I'd be surprised if that guy had a face left."

Jealousy bubbled within Wayne, but he quickly realised how silly that jealousy was. Luke got the ultimate nepotism handout and had the strength of a fully matured Chosen Hero. Wayne would be that strong eventually, if not stronger.

"Gods, where'd they- I don't know where they came from, but there are two den mothers and five wereratdolphins coming for Luke."

The room filled with sounds of violence and destruction, but Margo hadn't called them in to help yet, so Wayne continued to the prisoners. He pulled back the tarp to find five Mudsville natives slumped on the floor. He didn't doubt that at least one of the prisoners was seriously wounded, but what Wayne saw immediately was largely superficial damage. The wounds still hurt and could still be infected, but no one appeared to be on the verge of bleeding out.

Open.

The padlock on the cage door clicked. Hector yanked it off and began helping prisoners out of the cage. Fergus encouraged quiet and offered comfort while Armond patched up the worst of the injuries with healing magic.

"Luke's gone," Margo said.

"What?! I thought he was winning."

"Sorry. He's alive. I mean, he left through another tunnel. The fleshmancer and Targitaus ran, and he pursued. He left… Two den mothers and three wereratdolphins are still in play and coming your way."

"Armond," Wayne said. "Get them to the tunnel and then come back us up. Hector, on me. Fergus, think you can get the high ground somewhere in here?"

Fergus nodded. He cast Fly Me to take himself airborne and then used his Jet Pack skill and Zero G Maneuvering skill to hover and maneuver. He moved with the ease of Supeman, completely in control of his flight.

Wayne summoned the robots and called for the "Big Pass Right" play. Quarterback bot accepted a stick of lit Dynamite and ran straight ahead from Wayne while Running Back and Linebacker bot looped wide to the right.

Within three seconds, Quarterback bot had line of sight on a pod of wereratdolphins and threw his Dynamite with a powerful spiral. Running Back bot and Linebacker bot blinked out a few moments later, victims to the acid spray of a ratman denmother's lactation, but they had done their job in drawing aggro.

Wayne sent two Skycats on the same course as Running Back bot, the two fighter planes made possible by Enlist and Equip New Pilot from LHX Chopper. The space was tight, so Wayne didn't expect them to last long, but every Missile they could land until then would help.

Hector bashed a charging wereratdolphin with his shield. A second but very mangled wereratdolphin came in behind to provide support. The moment Hector smashed his shield into the first enemy, he dropped Iron Wall between it and the second charging rat. The front monster bounced off the solid surface, and before it could realize why it had suddenly stopped moving, Hector opened its stomach. Then he dropped the wall, timing his thrust to fly forward the instant the barrier was gone.

The second rat looked down at the weapon in its chest in shock.

A heavy, wet splatter fell somewhere nearby.

"One denmother down," Margo reported.

Wayne rounded the corner on the last denmother and found it bound to the floor by vines, black spots of Rot rapidly expanding to consume its body. Fergus had already won this fight, but Wayne gave the denmother a quick end instead of waiting for Rot to run its course.

"No more reds on my HUD but be wary of stealth," Wayne cautioned.

"If we want to go after Luke and Targitaus we should go now," Margo said.

"Let's go."

Following Margo's lead, the party dashed down the tunnel opposite the one they entered. It soon began a gradual ascent, exiting through a large overhead hatch.

Wayne's party emerged into a small valley far east of Iomallach. Luke looked down on a body Wayne guessed to be Targitaus.

"Are you hurt?"

Luke turned and shook his head. "The rat got away."

"That's okay. Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?" Targitaus' dot was still red on Wayne's HUD.

When Luke turned to inspect his enemy again, the corpse split open like a cocoon. The ground shook as a naked man with a shark head, a pincer for a left hand, and an arm like a jousting rod for the right emerged from Taugitaus' body.

He continued to grow, quickly surpassing any size that could have reasonably fit inside the monster dealer's body, and didn't stop until Targitaus was twice Wayne's height. His body was roped with bulging, veiny muscles that rippled as if his skin would tear open from the pressure at any moment. He looked down on the Zeroes with two all-black eyes, and his mouth filled with giant teeth seemed to smile.

And he was nude. Completely and utterly.

The giant swung a claw to crush the stunned Luke.

Before Wayne could act, Luke severed Targitaus new arm and then sank his sword in the monster's chest, driving all the way to the hilt.

"Suppose that's level 64 for you," Fergus mused. "I'd be surprised if we even got experience for this part."

"I'm sorry I lost the other one," Luke said, looking around sadly.

"You did a lot of good here today," Wayne assured him. "Five people are alive who wouldn't have been, and that sounds like a win."

"Speaking of those people," Armond interjected, "they are waiting for our escort back. I'd guess they'd prefer to leave as soon as possible."

As if sensing his hesitation, Margo offered to stay stealthed in the main room to report on any ratmen that might think to return. She might not be able to deal with them alone, but she could warn the party that the ratmen had arrived to destroy more evidence. Before Wayne left, she added that the escaped fleshmancer wore a bandolier of Forgemaster Hamsters and Chisels. She counted six sets.

If Vanilli's current tools could only make undead, Wayne was willing to bet that each of those hammers had a different speciality. At least one had to be weresharks and weredolphins given the abominations they had been fighting.

With Margo on watch, Wayne retraced his trail with History to get the people of Mudsville home. The only person any of them spoke to was Luke. They kept calling him Laszlo and heaped their adoration on him. Again, Wayne felt a stir of jealousy, but he ignored it. He didn't ignore, however, that Luke never corrected the townsfolk. They thought he was Laszlo, and he let that continue.

No one else in the party mentioned it, but Fergus cast Wayne enough looks to know that he wasn't the only one who noticed. None of them said anything, though. They got the villagers to town and left Luke with them.

The party returned to the lair well after dark. Margo reported seeing no movement while they were gone.

"My first observation is that this doesn't feel like it was ever meant to be a dungeon," Fergus said, looking around the large space. "Only two ways in or out? Feels like this was for storage or staging."

"Want to bet all the rot in here is expired demon?" Wayne asked.

"Reasonable assumption given the rat's complaints about only having human to work with."

"Pretty creepy to hear them talk," Hector said.

Fergus agreed.

Wayne started to pry boxes apart. He found either blank cube faces, unattached pedestals, or statues like those they found in the Lighthouse basement. All of it was from before the Earth Temple patch, an assortment of mermaids and ocean creatures. Fergus was right, it seemed; this space was meant for storage.

"Guys," Hector called. "You should see this."

The party found Hector holding his nose in front of a pile of ratman corpses.

"Look at all the feathers," he said, gesturing about at the long brown and black feathers scattered around this corner of the room, many of them coating the corpses. "The harpies we saw at the ranch were these colors."

Seeming unbothered, Armond strolled forward and grabbed a ratman corpse by the arm, pulling the body free from the rest. The ratman's back was mutilated but had one broken wing attached near its right shoulder blade.

"Think that's where all the harpies went?" the cleric asked, inspecting the strange creation.

"Looks like there are far fewer wings here than what Hector and Margo saw on the ranch," Fergus observed.

Hector nodded. "Yep. Lots unaccounted for."

"Fantastic," Fergus sighed. "Ratmen with wings. What a wonderful development."

"Let's finish searching and get back to town," Wayne said. "I can taste how this place smells."

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