Professor Kal - Chapter 73

Professor Kal raised his skeletal hand, the four men in front of him flinching in response. Arcs of blue electricity leapt between his bony fingertips. The hairs on the men’s arms stuck out in every direction, the thick scent of ozone permeated the air, and the men’s mouths were filled with a nauseating metallic taste.

The threat of death was a powerful stimulus, capable of breaking the men out of the mesmerized stupor they had been in. For as dimwitted as the men seemed to be, they were actually very capable adventurers, at least skilled enough to delve deep into the Undead Dungeon with only a four-man company. The one that had dropped his sword, quickly retrieved it from the ground before activating an enchanted amulet that was hanging around his neck.

“I thought the Lich was on the twenty-fifth floor! What the hell is he doing up here?!” The man that had activated the amulet shouted out as an azure light clung tightly to his body.

The man they called ‘Boss’ gripped his two-handed sword tightly, gritting his teeth as he did so. “No idea, but we can handle it.”

Professor Kal let the spell fade away, the ball of lightning he held in his hand fizzled out with a ‘pop’. What the large man had said obviously caught his attention. He supposed had he actually researched the dungeon before delving straight into it, he would have known about another of his kind being trapped in this prison. With this new information, his goal inside the dungeon instantly changed.

One of the adventurers took advantage of the fact that Professor Kal had stopped his spell, lunging forward, stabbing his sword toward Professor Kal’s head. The adventurer’s speed was commendable, much faster than the knights that had tried to break into his room had been. It was evident that some of the higher ranked adventurers were capable of using mana to reinforce their bodies. Perhaps he should collect some in order to test the limits of their endurance, maybe dissect a few to see how the mana affected their organs?

As Professor Kal was lost in thought over a new field of study, the adventurer had closed in and was nearly on top of him. The adventurer stabbed his sword forward, aiming for Professor Kal’s brightly burning eye sockets. At the same moment, a vial filled with a perfectly clear liquid sailed through the air, tumbling end over end. With a flick of his staff, Professor Kal intercepted the incoming attack, sending the now deformed sword careening off to the side.

Reaching up with a withered hand, Professor Kal plucked the crystal vial out of the air. The force from the sudden stop was sufficient enough to shatter the thin glass, the contents of the bottle spilling out and covering his hand. A hissing noise similar to water being thrown on a hot fire issued out from his now smoking hand. Like acid, the water like liquid ate away at the ashen flesh and bone, foamy bubbles released noxious gasses as they popped. He held his hand out in front of him, observing the reaction between his body and the unknown substance.

Another bottle tumbled through the air, then another, Professor Kal put his questions on hold as he warped to the other side of the room. Using mana on his injury, he had already halted the liquids effects and almost completely regrown the lost bone and flesh. He was reminded once again how things had changed over the two-thousand years he had been underground. There was no substance that he could think of that had the effects of what he had just seen, it was clearly something tailored to combating the undead.

With yet another question he desired answered, he changed his mind on killing the four nuisances. “Answer my questions and I’ll spare your lives.”

“Eat shit!” Came their reply as two more vials of liquid shot towards him from the center of the room.

A strong gust of wind was all it took to cause the vials to veer off course, making them miss him completely. He raised his hand, gesturing for Trist to back down and get away. He figured that one vial of the corrosive liquid was more than enough to kill her should it contact her. Trist hurriedly obeyed, running behind him as the four adventurers regrouped and prepared themselves.

Tired of this game, Professor Kal brandished his gnarled staff, slamming the end of it into the ground. The ground trembled and shook, the four adventurers nearly lost their footing as the ground beneath them rolled as if ocean waves were just beneath their feet. A jagged fissure split the room in half, an endless chasm opening up and dividing the four men into groups of two.

This was too much for the men to handle, the Lich inside this dungeon was only supposed to be capable of basic elemental spells such as fireball or lightening strike, at least that’s what they had heard. They had never personally made it to the twenty-fifth level but had heard the many telling’s of the Lich that resided there and the treasures he guarded. It was the goal of every adventurer within the city to defeat the Lich and raid his treasury, so of course they had done their research.

This, this was nothing like what they had been told. They looked on in horror as the ground beneath their feet opened wide like the hungry jaws of an enormous predator. They were cut off from the exit, the lich between them and the door they had entered through. All they could do was do their best to survive, but those hopes were crushed in an instant as dozens of insect like creatures clambered out of the grim abyss in the center of the room.

At a glance they resembled the little pill bugs anyone could find if they would roll over a fallen log, or pick up a large stone and look underneath. The size of the creatures is what set them apart from their smaller cousins. Each one of them were the size of watermelons and a piercing ‘tic tic tic’ sound drilled into their ears as hundreds of legs propelled the insects towards them.

They attempted to kill the bugs with their swords, but the steel bounced off of their hard carapaces, leaving a trail of sparks in their wakes. The steady advance of the insects continued even as the adventurers ran in all directions, they ignored every attack that was thrown at them, their heavy armor deflecting even a fireball launched at them from a weathered scroll one of the men had unrolled.

One man had finally run out of space to maneuver in; one bug latched onto his leg and proceeded to climb his body, its needle like legs digging into his body. He screamed his throat raw as he frantically stabbed at the insect with his dagger. Seeing that his attempts were useless, he took his dagger and started to cut away his own flesh before he was entirely engulfed in the melon sized invertebrates.

Several minutes of scuttling sounds and screaming later, Professor Kal had four writhing hills of insects to either side of him. The men’s faces were poking out from under the mass of heavy bugs, each one was pale, and painted with expressions of pain and horror. They watched with wide, bloodshot eyes as the lich that had terrorized them walked up, and past them.

It stopped only inches away from a sheer drop that extended past where the light could reach, getting on its hands and knees, the lich peered over the edge. “Great! Just fucking fantastic!” They could hear it curse even over the din of the massive insects crawling over every inch of their bodies. “All that time, all that effort I put into finding that damn thing, only for all of it to fall down this godsdamn hole! I just HAD to show off, didn’t I? I could have just tied them up with vines, or frozen their legs into fucking popsicles, but noooo, I just had to open up a fucking hole right under that fucking chandelier!”

The Lich continued to grumble and curse for several long minutes, its anger clear in its voice. Many of the words it used escaped their understanding, but the meaning behind them were clear. After it seemed to vent a sufficient amount of its frustrations, it stood back up before straightening out its now magically clean black robe.

“I suppose I only have myself to blame for this.” It said as it approached them. “That’s what I get for showboating around, it wasn’t like you’d be able to tell the tale of my greatness anyways; I should have just ended it in a much more… uninspiring manner.”

The four, previously silent men, began to scream and shout, struggling to break free from their living prisons. They had lost the ability to think rational thoughts long ago and were only acting on their survival instincts. Right now, their instincts were telling them that if they did not break free, they would surely die.

With a silent command, the insects moved their bodies, blocking their mouths and muffling their screams. “None of that please, its torture on the ears. Now, although I said I only can blame myself, that’s just a figure of speech. I wholly blame you four for this misfortune and will expect proper compensation.”

With the ending of those words, the four adventurers learned the true meaning of ‘misfortune’.