Tales of the Pearly Kingdom (Pearly Tales Vol. 2)

194. Caught in their trap

Charli had many things to consider after her encounter with the floor boss Tresora. According to her she was under a strange set of orders. That if a sufficiently overwhelming force arrived to face her, to not waste their lives blocking them and just let them pass.

She did not foresee the fight being very hard but for Tresora to just let them through was strange. When they got up to the next floor, they saw the traces of the children she was following. Her forces were quite eager to give chase, so she did. Although this time she ordered that they be taken alive.

She had originally suspected that they may have the key to the floor or some secret. But after that jolt that she got from the Raiju she had to remember that this wasn't a game. They were children. Maybe they truly were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But her own curiosity nagged at her.

Who were they?

More than wanting to defeat them, she wanted to know who they were.

Unfortunately, as soon as they had finished scaling the staircase to the next floor made from Tresora's tree she got an eerie feeling in her gut. Then the labyrinth began to shift around again. Her forces huddled up as much as possible, but at this point they were too numerous to avoid being separated.

To counteract total chaos, she had placed temporary officers to lead based on how they were separated. Each was given the order to survive and find their way back to her. Only capture those children as secondary to staying alive.

That bad feeling in her gut ended up being right.

As they made their way through the labyrinth all she found were the bodies of her army. The smell of blood and death disturbed her more than usual. This entire floor's theme was closer to a carved-out cave rather than the intricate mansion where she found the children and Tresora. At first, she noticed the distinct signs of combat. Arrows, magic, and slash marks were a familiar sight. They were something she noticed whenever a full party of adventures went through an area and cleared out the monsters.

Only this time, this mysterious adventure party may have been the ones that had rescued that little girl. But they presence was strange. Why did they feel so out of place and why had the monsters defended them? But her bewildered curiosity turned to fear the deeper she investigated the matter in order to find a clue to escape to the higher floors.

Originally, the corpses of her fellows seemed to have fallen while they were chasing the adventurer party. But howls of agony echoing through the cavern ways and dirt shaking free from the earth above her told her something else was down there with them.

The first true scene of carnage she had found was unnaturally gruesome. There were signs of her army clamoring over themselves to escape someone. Someone powerful by the shockwaves she was feeling both with her feet and her whole body. Some of the bodies were cleaved in half while others were left as bloody pulps beaten into the walls and floor.

"What the hell is going on?" Charli said as she investigated the third scene of carnage.

"This scene is fresh, and some of these came from the bottom floor with us." Batsy said picking up a sword that had been cut in half. "Do you think it's the floor boss?"

"I thought Floor bosses were stationary." Sir Renfall said kicking the arm of one of the elven fiends out of his way.

"Normally, they are. You have to find them or unlock some door just to get to them." Charli sighed as she held up a torch to illuminate the slaughter in front of her. "But one of the floor bosses just let us through without a fight. That never happens, so it's safe to say anything is possible. Hell, it may even be Shayley the Raid Boss-"

Charli was interrupted by the sound of the dungeon shifting around her.

She stepped back as the hallway in front of her slowly turned as if on a swivel and showed a new hallway.

Another scene of carnage passed by in front of her torch as a new hallway came and went.

In that hallway a slim red-haired elf held the headless body of a fiend in front of her. It was apparent from her posture that she had just used the shifting corridors to successfully separate its head from its body like a dungeon sized pair of shears.

She made eye contact with Charli while a bloody slaughter lay around her like a macabre museum display. Although the elf woman was covered in the black ichor of the fiends and undead, there was still a fierce beauty about her that gave Charli a momentary lapse in judgement as she admired her. That was a clear mistake.

Her fanged grin and glowing green dragon eyes suddenly ignited every sense of danger her body possessed. But when she spoke, Charli was filled with a new sensation she had never experienced before...

"Found you." Shayley hummed.

...the feeling of being prey.

The hallway stopped after passing by, leaving only the wall of a dead end in front of her.

"RUN!" Charli shouted.

"Was that-?" Batsy asked as Charli nearly tripped over herself as she began running away.

"There's no way..." Sir Renfall cursed.

"That's the last boss. And she just made mincemeat out of our entire army on this floor!" Charli cursed. "Oh, me and my big mouth."

Then everything began shifting again and Charli's worst fears began to take shape when she looked behind her.

The hallway behind them had shifted back and now the Raid boss was right behind them.

She was hunting them. And the way these hallways kept changing didn't seem to be random, they were the Boss's hunting grounds.

*

Shayley didn't run, that would be too easy. She slowed her steps to a comfortable prowling walk and let the tip of her sword graze the ground. The sharp clatter of her heels and the heavy scrapping of her unnaturally heavy sword created a chorus of doom that echoed through the depths of the dungeon.

She had successfully cleared out every piece of filth on this floor specifically with the aid of Silvia who had finally gotten used to the controls set up by Cal to shift the undercity. Together they would end this part of the war in a single day. They couldn't let Cal's sacrifices go to waste.

But she also couldn't deny that she was enjoying herself.

She had received a notification that Vera had accepted a certain quest, Cal's "too stupid and risky it just might work" plan. One that he had written off almost since the beginning. But for some reason his blessing on Vera, the luck god's blessing, had pulled it through.

If Shayley hadn't been 100% filled in with every part of this plan (and all the others) she would have run straight to Cal to make sure he was safe. But now that she knew they were going with this crazy plan she knew what her role was and how to fulfill it.

Her role was to force the enemy General to submit and order a surrender or to kill everyone. She wouldn't mind killing every enemy, but Selene had helped concoct a simply devious plan. A way to corner the enemy general to the point where she'd have to surrender.

The first step was to isolate the general and her people on the sixth floor. With a hefty supply of pitfalls that could be tripped or activated manually from where Silvia was. The seventh floor was designed as a gathering point for her forces to simulate a proper dungeon while Tresora wielded the mother tree of the Baneroot.

Underneath the seventh floor wasn't a proper floor it was more like a basin. Many of the enemies from the invading army and their corpses would've washed down there from the first water assault. The Baneroot Mother tree's violent roots would prey on them to provide the extra magical source needed to fuel the dungeons continuously shifting labyrinth parts.

All of which Silvia controlled from the Crystal shrine.

Speaking of which...