Dungeon Sniper

Gear:

Stealth Suit - of unknown, light material; black

Helmet - with Dwarven tech communication system; black

Dwarven Sniper Rifle

Dwarven Pistol

Dwarven Military Utility Knife

Ammo Pouch - 20 uniform bull-rats

Mataki's Blade

Benedikt drove the four-wheeler through the quiet, empty desert off-road for almost half an hour. Elysia was still mesmerized by the moon glowing over hour heads. While she had fun looking up at the pretty silver disc, I also had fun staring at her beautifully ecstatic face. I could never get bored doing that.

Meanwhile, I was busy naming my new weapons as per usual. The hunky, weighty sniper rifle was named 'Niper.' Not really clever, but it just felt right. The handy pistol with an ornate design and patterns stuck me as a silent, butler-like assistant when it came to getting things done. So I decided to call it 'Tolliver.' It just sounded like the perfect name for an exceptionally efficient butler. And finally, for the multi-purpose military/utility knife, I played with the initial 'MUK,' and just stuck with it.

Elysia caught me muttering the names in my mouth and stared at me knowingly.

"Naming your 'friends' again, I presume?"

"It's become like a routine at this point, so," I sheathed Muk and smiled sheepishly at Elysia.

"You're a peculiar man, Beta," said Elysia, her hair blowing against the chilly desert wind majestically. Even the occasional sandy wind aroused by turning sharp corners seemed like sparkling stardust when it sprinkled on her.

I stared at her numbly, hesitating for a while before opening my mouth again.

"There was once a man who was 'cast away' by himself at an uninhabited island. He got into an accident and had to survive on his own, waiting for the rescue to come."

"Why didn't he just swim away from the island? He didn't know how to swim?" asked Elysia naively.

"Yeah, well, it's suicidal to swim through the waves of the sea, not to mention that you don't know exactly where you are stranded at or how long you'll have to swim to reach another land."

"What's a 'sea?'" Elysia c.o.c.ked her head curiously.

"... You don't what a sea is?"

"That's why I'm asking."

"Where does the Divis River flow from?"

"From Mount Equidis in the north, down to the End Lake. Why?"

"Nothing. A sea is a lot bigger than a lake. And deeper. And it's salty."

Elysia blinked, trying her best to 'imagine' a sea, but, well, I thought I had explained enough about the Elves and their limited imagination.

"It's just a bigger lake then," said Elysia thoughtfully.

"Sure. You can call it that. Anyway, this lonely man, he had no one around him, right? One day, he cut his palm and threw a ball angrily with his bloody hand. The blood mark formed a face-like shape on the surface, and from that day on, he called him by a name and as a friend. 'Wilson,' he called it."

Elysia listened patiently and then threw me a look of pity and understanding.

"So you were lonely."

"I guess I was trying to say that, exactly," I smiled awkwardly.

Elysia reached for my hand and clasped around it firmly.

"Are you lonely now?" asked Elysia coyly, and I could only smile in response.

I wanted to kiss her soft, warm hand just then when I looked up and saw the two Dwarf eyes, disgusted and mortified, staring back at me through the rear-view mirror.

"Hey, eyes on the road," I clicked my tongue at the driver.

Benedikt shook his head disapprovingly as he reached for the box next to the dashboard.

"It's a good thing I keep a cooler here too," said the Dwarf as he took out a fresh bottle of beer from the hidden mini-fridge.

"No, Benedikt, you're not going to drink while you're driving."

"Why? I do it all the time."

Benedikt took a swig, and right away we hit a particularly steep sand bump. Elysia reacted immediately and reflexively held onto the vehicle, because, Elves, while I almost flew out of the seat.

"You built a fridge inside this thing but you didn't bother to put seat belts?" I screamed through the whirring engine and the rushing wind.

"Oh, I've got a seat belt right here," said Benedikt, tapping the strap across his round belly.

"But not here!" I barked.

"Look, if you're scared, don't let go of your girlfriend's hand. Or is she the man in this relationship? Because you're the one screaming and she's the calm one right now."

"I wasn't screaming."

"Dwarven women say that all the time, after rupturing the men's cochleas after nightlong fights," chuckled Benedikt as he sipped the beer. Not derisively, but rather fondly.

"Yeah? Sounds like you had a screamer lover once. And I'm not going to ask whether she was lovely because I've seen how your women look like."

"Oh, she was lovely."

Benedikt paused for a while.

"She was lovely," he repeated before falling silent.

I turned to Elysia, wondering whether she knew anything about Benedikt the Dwarf hero and his love life. Elysia understood the questioning look on my face and shook her head, shrugging to plead ignorance.

Alstair, were he still here, would have popped up and started blurting inappropriate, personal questions through my mouth. I missed the loquacious Elf, but I could not deny that he had left me the best gift, sitting right next to me, glowing under the moonlight.

I held Elysia's hand firmly, and Benedikt did not object through the rear-view mirror this time, lost in his own thoughts, memories.

.

.

.

Benedikt had stopped the four-wheeler in the middle of nowhere. We had entered the Goblin territory, one of the many scattered around the vast desert. We had walked on foot for several minutes, and soon enough, we had come across our targets scurrying and scuttling in the dark, some five hundred feet away. I activated the Falcon Eye and the Night Eye simultaneously while Benedikt drew up a binocular. Elysia frowned, her Elven sight just barely making out the outlines of the Goblins.

"You see them?" asked Benedikt, barely audible.

"I can't see clearly... but I can tell they're not the Goblins I know," murmured Elysia. And I agreed wholeheartedly.

Crouched and on all fours, the Goblins still had the familiar dirty, red skin. And the resemblance ended there. The bones were bent in unnatural angles, more befitting quadrupedal than bipedal creatures. I even caught a glimpse of one of the faces... with saw-like mandibles that opened horizontally in place of whole jaws.

Benedikt passed Elysia his binocular. Elysia examined the device but soon figured out how it worked. She suppressed a gasp once she got a clear look.

"I see two. Are there more?"

We spent the next minute scanning the horizon. Not much activity elsewhere.

"What are they doing?" gulped Elysia ominously, her hands holding the binocular trembling slightly.

"Eating," said Benedikt definitively, taking his backpack off the four-wheeler and setting up a mechanical object on the ground.

"Eating what?" I asked reflexively, regretting having done that almost immediately.

"Take a guess."

"Never mind. I don't want to know."

"... Well, if we had arrived five minutes earlier, there would have been three Goblins instead of two," said Elysia coolly. The face muscle shown beneath the binocular looked tense, however.

I turned off the Falcon Eye for now, but not before catching the silhouette of a chopped-off arm flailing in the air.

"What are you doing?" I asked to Benedikt, who had finished setting up a device that seemed like a camera perched upon a stand. The Dwarf also had a large drill-like equipment strapped to his side. He was adjusting the angle of the camera-lookalike and staring at the small screen intently as if in search of something.

"Is this going on Youtube?" I joked, and no one responded, as expected.

"I think the dinner is over. Should we do something?" said Elysia. She had kept her hands steady on the binocular and her eyes on the two Goblins. I reluctantly switched on the Falcon Eye and saw that the Goblins had indeed finished eating and were scurrying idly near the surface leading to a hole.

"They're guarding the entrance to the nest. It's a small one, but expect at least dozens of them underneath," said Benedikt, his eyes appraising the monitor on the back of the device.

I walked behind him and peered into the screen. It was an X-ray image of the next below.

"Cool. How does it work?" I asked, genuinely impressed by the technology at sight.

"And you would understand if I explained it to you?" scoffed Benedikt.

Just for a second, my admiration for the Dwarf genius was blooming, until it popped back to distaste.

"I'm guessing we're not going to find the Queen here, are we?" I asked, expecting another condescending, snarky remark from Benedikt.

The mastersmith, however, smiled sardonically and turned to me.

"What if I told you I had never come across the Queen myself. That is, since she turned into what she is right now. Fifty years, and still searching," smirked Benedikt, more at himself than at anyone else.

"What are you saying?" I asked incredulously.

"I'm saying that despite my scientific genius, magic has prevailed again. Or, in this case, the curse."

"Your little X-ray can't locate her? Just how many 'nests' are here?"

"Approximately, and optimistically, ten thousand. Worst case scenario, north of a million even. And the worst-worst part? They're increasing as we speak, digging down and popping up everywhere each second."

"... Holy f.u.c.k."

"The others just couldn't compete against these monsters. When they had left, things had just begun. Good call on their part."

"How exactly did they migrate to Level Three again?" I asked as I tried to get a grip on the bleak situation.

Benedikt frowned. And I sensed the 'shadow,' again.

"It was Alpha, wasn't it?"

The hero that bailed on his own people at Level One seemed to have left his fingerprints on all over Level Two. What an asshole, right?

"I promised I will answer your question in due time, kid," sighed Benedikt.

"Fine. Let's skip Alpha for now. What about you? Why did you stay when everyone left?"

At that moment, the underground scanner beeped out of nowhere.

"The scan is done," said Benedikt, checking the screen thoroughly.

"Sure, Benedikt, keep me in the dark as long as you want."

"I have two reasons for staying. One, I will answer later. The other, I can show you right now."

Benedikt beckoned me to come closer. Elysia had stopped looking through the binocular and came over as well. The Dwarf pointed his stubby finger on the blinking dots on the monitor. The dots were located deep down the projected map of the underground nest.

Benedikt did not say anything, as if showing us the blinking dots answered my question.

"What am I looking at?" I asked impatiently.

"Sand Crystalites."

Both Elysia and I stared at the haughty mastersmith.

"Sand Crystalites, the only valuable power resources left in this Level. My bunker runs through those. They generate heat, electricity, gas, you name it."

"Neat."

"Why are such valuable minerals stocked at the depth of a Goblin nest?" asked Elysia poignantly.

"Good question, lass. The Crystalites used to be more abundant, and most of the ones near the surface have been consumed by, well, me. Research purposes and all that."

"And for keeping your beer cool."

"Most importantly. The thing is, the Crystalites are truly the wonder power bars. Efficient, versatile, permanent... and the Goblins also know about their usefulness in their own, dumb, limited ways. I mean, they use them as blankets! They sleep next to them, as heat provision. Name a more wasteful, disrespectful means to squander resources!"

"You're mad because some monsters hug hot stones while they sleep?"

"Aren't you?" seethed Benedikt. He seemed sincere enough.

Elysia and I exchanged glances uncomfortably. Benedikt caught our doubtful looks.

"They're not just some stones. Here, let me show you."

Benedikt walked back to the four-wheeler, opened the hood and came back holding a purple, luminous crystal.

"Beautiful, no?"

Elysia nodded reluctantly. It was pretty indeed, but its beauty was marred by the greedy, oily Dwarven face hovering over it.

"You should put it away. The Goblins might see the light," I pointed the thumb to my back.

"Right. Damn it."

Benedikt hurriedly stashed the crystal. The dark spot after having stared into the light lingered in my eyes for a few more seconds until I blinked them away patiently.

"That's your answer? You want to hoard the Sand Crystalites? You stayed behind and chose to live alone for decades just because of some hot, glowing sticks?"

"You don't understand. The crystals, all of my researches depend on them. And I don't need anything else as long as I got my research."

"And don't forget the beer."

"As a scientist, I live to research. But as a Dwarf, I live to drink. That's just nature's law."

"Right. We know there's no Queen down there. But you will go down there for your precious crystals."

"I'm working on a tracker that will get us to the Queen. I could never have enough Sand Crystalites on my hands."

"And I need to recharge Mataki's Blade."

"Yes, I would like to talk to Mataki once again," nodded Benedikt, smiling softly.

"We couldn't go over this while we were down at the bunker?"

I took Niper off my back. The scope was not calibrated, but I was not going to use the scope this time.

"I wasn't sure how big of a nest we were going to run into. I told you this was supposed to be only reconnaissance—what are you doing?"

Benedikt frowned as I lay with my stomach on the sandy ground and held Niper into a shooting position.

"You want those crystals or not?"

I had taken apart the scope for now.

[Skill activated: Nigh Eye]

[Skill activated: Falcon Eye]

"Are you crazy? The night is like their daytime. The plan was to come back in the morning and hit them while asleep!"

"Makes sense."

I muttered as I zoomed in to one of the Goblins. Upon closer look, they were so grotesquely-shaped that the Level One humanoid Goblins would come across as adorable and magnificent.

As if sensing the danger, one of the Goblin turned its head toward me, its mandibles unhinged with saliva dripping and its insect-like, insentient black beads of eyes staring, expecting, a bull-rat about to pierce its ugly face.

"Makes sense... but I really feel like shooting right now."

I heard Benedikt's exasperated grunt as I pulled the trigger.

The vast desert howled with a bang that shook my entire body, and thus the world, from the recoil.

It felt amazing.

[Skill upgraded: Burrower-Level A]

The dead Goblin rolled and flew for about at least ten feet when the bull-rat crushed and penetrated its forehead. The other Goblin jumped and craned its neck high facing the sky as it let out a panicked shriek.

My hands were moving automatically from a forgotten experience at the shooting range in the countryside. I had always liked the bolt-action rifles. I could feel the bull-rat shell pop out of the chamber as the fresh bull-rat locked into the place for the second shot.

"Stop!" Benedikt barked.

I aimed for the head again, but as soon as I pulled the trigger I knew I had missed by a few inches downward.

Another bang, and the Goblin with a busted jaw fell on its lifeless back hard.

With no structure around for the echo effect, the silence took over as fast as it had been broken.

"That was... loud," gasped Elysia, cautiously lifting her hands from her ears.

"Are you out of your f.u.c.k.i.n.g mind, kid? What were you thinking?" bellowed Benedikt. All of us knew that there was no point in lowering the voice anymore.

I blinked and got up, popping off another empty shell nonchalantly.

"I was thinking I could use a suppressor next time?"

Benedikt was about to let off another steam.

Then we heard a rumble under our feet. It sounded ominous, foreboding... and hungry.