Dungeon Sniper

"What did you do?!"

"Nothing!"

"Not once in my decades of testing explosives on the surface has this ever happened! It's obviously something that you did!"

"Why didn't you stop me then?"

"How could I possibly know you could f.u.c.k up so f.u.c.k.i.n.g much?"

"Guys, is this really the right time to bicker at each other?"

Elysia calmly separated Benedikt and me from going at each other again. She was right. This was hardly the time.

The initial shock of witnessing an army of Goblin Crawlers approaching—with a sandstorm the size of a mountain behind their trails—had worn off. I had run down the bunker and told Benedikt what was happening. It had taken a full five seconds for the drunk Dwarf to realize what I had meant. Elysia, too, had woken up from her sleep and stared at me crisply, if not a little accusingly.

Benedikt, seething and grumbling, sat in front of what seemed to be the eyepiece for a periscope mounted on the surface outside. He turned the device from left to right slowly, as if scanning the broad horizon... occupied by feral, trap-jawed Goblin freaks at the moment, presumably.

"F.u.c.k me good," g.r.o.a.n.e.d Benedikt.

And then he got busy. He ran to the wall and pulled a lever down. The power turned off immediately, and the lab fell dark and silent. The only sound I could hear was my own heartbeats, and also the distant rumbling of quadrupedal monsters marching on their way, getting increasingly louder and shakier with each second.

"You think—"

"Shh!" hissed Benedikt.

I kept my mouth shut. I did not even bother to turn on the Night Eye to see in the dark. I just waited, and hoped, for the Goblin army to pass through.

Elysia had come by my side, and we held hands without a word.

Within a minute, the underground bunker began to shake uncontrollably, and I knew they were right above our heads. Of several hundreds of brainless, emotionless insect soldiers on the surface, one s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e bastard was all it took to notice a hollow, artificial space beneath its feet.

I wanted to ask Benedikt whether he had pulled back the periscope back in, but I dared not open my mouth despite the deafening roar of footsteps that thundered on for the next few minutes that felt like hours.

Then there was no more. I could literally picture the rearguard of the Goblin army disappearing into the other side of the horizon. All three of us let out relieved sighs.

"It wasn't you, or the guns. I told you I experimented with some serious bombs. If anything, the noise might have scared them off... but to have them move like this, this is a first for me too," said Benedikt, relaxing uneasily with a fresh bottle of beer on his hand.

"What do you think it means?"

But Benedikt did not respond right away. I saw that he was holding Mataki's Blade in his other hand. He had probably been holding it through the dark, for what moral support he could get, just as Elysia and I had held hands.

Elysia had let go of the hand a long time ago and was sipping at her own freshly popped beer. I tried my best not to give her a judgmental look.

"I think so too," said Benedikt abruptly, most likely replying back to Mataki's words that only the wielder of the dagger-sword could hear.

"What did Mataki say?" I asked. Elysia tentatively offered me a bottle of beer, but I declined firmly.

"That what we just saw, or rather felt, was an army. Mataki's thinking they are being mobilized, from everywhere."

"For what?" I frowned.

"For us," grimaced Benedikt.

.

.

.

Holding the faintly glowing Orcish blade in his hand as he would a dear friend, Benedikt continued to relay Mataki's words.

Mataki had identified the Queen's position as a free-roaming soul a couple of days ago. He could not give coordinates, but he described the peculiar setting of the location that Benedikt could pinpoint to just the right place: a sunken, basin-like area surrounded by sandhills, not far from Mataki's now-gone hometown. Mataki had found the Queen accidentally in his search for the remaining trace of the hometown, a lair that had collapsed deep beneath the sand. Mataki explained that he found a hole and went down and through the tortuous tunnels, interconnected and branched in thousands, if not more. The Queen was there, in the heart of the hive, if not as the heart of the thousands of Goblin eggs around her, connected to her, and ready to be hatched.

And in the midst of horror and regret, Mataki, a bodiless soul, had locked eyes with Queen.

Benedikt stopped talking. The blade was no longer glowing either.

"... What did she look like?" I asked warily, although I had my own image inside my head.

After an extended pause, Benedikt shook his head. Mataki was not talking.

"Well, at least we know she's not going anywhere for a while, right? Not with a thousand umbilical cords attached to her, feeding her babies. Gross, but lucky for us," I tried to smile despite the lingering grotesque image I had just described.

Elysia stepped forward, no longer drinking, thankfully, and stared at Benedikt.

"I have two questions. One is, how come Mataki found the Queen so quickly when you've been unsuccessful all these years. Two is, what did you mean when you said the Queen is mobilizing an army for us? You think she's waging a war against us? Three persons and a talking dagger?"

"Yeah, answer her, Benedikt," I chimed in.

Benedikt inhaled slowly, looking fatigued. He stared sadly at the dull, non-effervescent Orcish blade and placed it on the table.

"I could only imagine Mataki's pain at having to face his former lover in a state that she's in. I can almost feel his silence through the silence, you know?" sighed the old Dwarf.

"Actually, I think his soul-battery just ran out—"

"You wanted answers, lass? I'll answer them. As to why I haven't been able to locate the Queen, I wasn't completely off. I have also kept my eyes on the site Mataki just described. The location, the environment, the protection, it was the perfect place for a hive," Benedikt threw his hand defensively.

"Then why didn't you check it out yourself, maybe eradicate before the Goblins overpopulated to where they are right now?" asked Elysia sharply. I stood next to her and nodded, looking defiantly supportive.

"I dismissed the site because I had a compelling reason."

"And that is?"

"There was no Sand Crystallite underground. Nothing. Zero."

Both Elysia and I blinked.

"So the Goblins were short of blankets. They could have always hugged themselves to sleep through the cold," I suggested.

"No. Not short. Absolute zero. Even if the Goblin Crawlers hugged or ate each other for heat and energy, there has to be a minimum amount of the crystals for a nest to bloom, from scratch, from nothingness. I have done my studies. All of the two thousand four-hundred sixty-three nests I have surveyed, it is the universal condition, if not prerequisite."

"But this is no nest. This the 'hive' we're talking about," said Elysia.

Benedikt swallowed, his pride more than anything.

"You're right. I made a mistake, treating the Queen's palace same as the makeshift barracks of his soldiers."

Benedikt turned and took out a device that looked like the Crystalite Scanner we had seen a few hours prior, only bigger and sturdier.

"This is the stationary scanner that picks up the crystal energy moving in the air. I made it because sometimes a sandstorm can dig up neglected crystals and the wave energy travels through the wind."

Benedikt then turned on the large enough monitor for the three of us to stare into without butting our heads together.

"Obviously, the power was down, so it didn't pick up any signal while the Goblins were passing over our heads... but see those blinking dots?"

"Those are dots?" I frowned suspiciously. The 'dots' were moving away, and they looked more like a 'lump' than dots.

"A cl.u.s.ter of dots. I estimate at least a thousand pounds of Sand Crystalites," said Benedikt grimly.

"And the army was carrying them. Why?"

Elysia had the mind for analysis, but her racial trait limited her cognitive ability to stay practical and calm rather than emotional and imaginative.

I, on the other hand, was coming to a reckless conclusion despite the lack of understanding and proof.

I also remembered, vaguely, as if in a hazy nightmare, seeing the crystals on some of the Goblins' backs, sparkling under the bluish moon.

"The Queen... eats the crystals, doesn't she?"

Elysia turned to me incredulously. Benedikt, however, nodded sadly.

"That's why there was no crystal left at the hive. The Queen has the crystals delivered and eats them to reproduce... I should have questioned it myself. The total lack of crystals in the area, it's so obvious now!"

Benedikt seemed angry. Elysia looked shocked for a second, but she was back to being the meticulous, planning Elf again.

"Why would she need an 'army' to deliver her food? It draws attention, it's too conspicuous, not to mention inefficient."

"She doesn't care anymore. She and I had been playing hide-and-seek for decades now. And it looks like she's finally putting it to an end now."

Benedikt turned to the stationary Crystalite Scanner and pressed the touch-pad to make the screen split into eight sections.

"Just as I suspected. These are the seven other stationary scanners I had planted all over the desert."

The eight screens showed the almost uniform movement of large amounts of crystals, moving toward the same direction, coincidentally the center of the screen.

"How many are we looking at, in total?" I asked.

"I really don't want to guess," g.r.o.a.n.e.d Benedikt.

"Yeah, me neither."

At that moment, Mataki's Blade started glowing again. Benedikt picked it up, blinked, and then handed it to me.

"He wants to talk to you."

I held the blade.

[I must apologize, young hero. I feel as if my presence somehow alerted... the Queen to take up such a rash action.]

I said nothing. It could have been my imagination, but it sounded as if Mataki was sorry for the Queen as well as he was for us.

"It was only a matter of time until Benedikt found about her devouring the crystals like Snickers and snapped," I shrugged.

"What's that with snickering at the crystals?" frowned Benedikt.

[And I also want to apologize, for my next request. You have brought me from Level One back to my home, even though my home has been lost, and my family long dead. It is with shame that I ask you for one more, and last, favor, young hero.]

I sighed. I knew it was coming.

"You want me to kill the Queen."

[... When I was there, she saw right through me. I know it sounds impossible, but I, an incorporeal soul, locked eyes with... what she has become.]

To my surprise, and for the first time, an image of Mataki's thought seeped into my head. It was not clear, veiled on purpose, as if wanting to deny and forget what he had seen...

But I caught a glimpse of the monster Olothi, the once-hero of the Goblins, had become. Had fallen into.

I tried my best not to throw up at the shocking, grotesque image.

[And through her eyes, I saw, no, I heard her voice. Asking. Begging to be killed. To end the abomination of a life she is leading. To break the curse that has destroyed not only the world around her, but herself the most.]

If a soul trapped in a sword could cry, it was crying then.

[Please kill my beloved Olothi.]

To save her. Kill her to save her.

But Mataki did not finish the sentence, and the blade turned dull and lifeless once again.