Whatever they are, wherever they came from, whether they be a construct of the Many, the ((SYSTEM)), the Second or the One Himself, they must die. If they are alive, truly alive and thinking, they we should hasten their steps toward the inferno where their wretched souls belong.

  -Rebel Black, The Shattering Tome

  The huge stone door shook, a loud thunk reverberated through the first floor. Loose chunks of rock and stalactites cracked and fell to the floor. The voluptuous cavern that was the first floor echoed with the repeated sound of something large slamming against the entrance. The goblins that made the floor home gritted their teeth as they crept out from their subterranean homes. Most goblins were somewhere between level forty and eighty, that didn’t stop them from being mercilessly slaughtered every ((RAID))

  The room echoed with another bang. The ((GOBLIN_KING)) adjusted his enchanted bear pelt armor, then he drew a spear tipped with a dragon’s tooth. He shouted to the three hundred and forty-seven goblins under his control. His ((AURA)) spread throughout the room, every single goblin took a breath in sync. They began to line up behind the king. Neat and orderly rows of green skinned beasts wearing animal skulls and skins infused with more Mana than was practical for any non-dungeon creature.

  The door creaked. The ((GOBLIN_KING)) shouted once more. It burst open. Light streamed into the cavern. A giant grey creature with tusks sharp enough to cut through steel came crashing into the dungeon. Its long snakelike nose trashed wildly as the Dwarf riding it let out a war cry, sending it hurtling toward the Goblin ranks. Hundreds of Dwarves followed him, although he was the only one mounted. They swarmed the entrance.

  The Catacomb did not need Goblins to get rid of Dwarves. It seemed strange that they sent their weakest soldiers first. Catacomb activated ((EARTH_RENDER)). The slope that led into floor one proper burst open, causing the dwarves still on the slope to fall directly into the second floor. The ones that survived the fall were dazed and didn’t flee the ((CREEPING_LILIES)). Catacomb turned his attention back to the first floor. The remaining dwarves had gotten to the Goblin camp.

  The ((GOBLIN_KING)) launched himself at the elephant. Jumping ten feet directly into the air, he tackled the rider off its mount. They tussled on the ground. A knife found its way into ((BEAST_TAMER))’s heart. The elephant stumbled back, crushing the ((GOBLIN_KING)) under foot as it went. A small projectile smacked the elephant in between the eyes, then the frail ceramic shattered. Acid bubbled up, quickly eating through the elephant’s skull and brain. The beast collapsed, and the ((GOBLIN_ALCHEMIST)) cheered before an arrow thunked into his chest.

  The sea of dwarves pushed the goblins back to the second-floor entrance. Catacomb harrumphed and pinged the remains of the camp to retreat to floor-10. The dwarves cheered and instantly began to loot the camp. Everything seemed to be worth taking. The pelts that made tents, the clothes off the goblin’s backs, broken spear tips, claws, ceramics. Even the ashes were collected into a large caldron.

  Catacomb felt the second-floor begin to prepare for the next wave of attacks. He knew that the Beastkin would enter as soon as the dwarves finished their looting, then the Onyx King’s personal escort. They were the only ones Catacomb really needed to worry about. The rest of the army was barely a formality. A way to have more hands to steal his treasures with while keeping their ((MANA POOL)) a little fuller until Catacomb killed them all by floor five.

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  “Don’t they look ill to you father?” Sanctuary asked, her bell-like voice echoing off the walls of the cavern as she summoned her ((GAZE)) next to his.

  “Who do you mean?” Catacomb asked,

  “The smallish metal ones.” Sanctuary said,

  Catacomb looked closer at the dwarves for a moment, they were thin, he supposed, and their faces were maybe a little gaunt, at least compared to the goblins. “They always look like that.”

  “Oh.” She said, “Can’t be a very nice way to look.”

  “…No I suppose it wouldn’t.”

  Sanctuary’s ((GAZE)) blinked back to her ((SANCTUM)) as the Beastkin entered the first floor. Catacomb turned his attention toward them. There were around a thousand in total, mostly consisting of reptiles and the occasional marsupial, and they ignored the dwarves, marching directly into the second floor. Catacomb chuckled as they lit their torches. A wave of fear went through their ranks a few of them shrieked.

  The first floor hadn’t been created by Catacomb, designed and tweaked, yes, but the cave itself had been provided to him by the ((SYSTEM)). The deeper one went into the sandy soil of Ridoum, the less stable the ground became. By his third floor, he was suffering collapse after collapse. Catacomb now boasted three hundred and twelve floors. With his lack of readily available hard stone or lumber, he had taken his name to heart and began to line his tunnels with bone.

  The beastkin slowly descended the staircase to the second floor. The steps were purposefully made uneven, and perpetually lit candles were placed inside skulls are regular intervals. The effect was rather extraordinary. The march slowed to a crawl, in the very back of the line, a marsupial woman broke rank and ran up the stairwell, stumbling several times before making it back to the first floor.

  Just as she burst into the relative light of the cavern, the Onyx king and his escort entered. The possum froze, her crime clearly witnessed. The nobles didn’t seem to care, however, as they all seemed to be intently following a floating green orb. Almost like a ((GAZE)), but much smaller, and more pathetic. Eventually, the orb stopped over a seemingly random place and spread out into a circular disk.

  A ((GOBLIN_RUNT)) that had been hiding behind a boulder decided that the possum was weak enough to take on. He lunged at her.

  The nobles climbed onto the disk, the circle barely large enough for all eight of them.

  The possum screeched and began to run as the Runt chased after her, brandishing his dragon-claw dagger.

  The disk began to spin, a green film enveloping the nobility.

  Catacomb pushed some ((MANA)) in the direction of the marsupial, causing her to suddenly go flying toward the nobility. She slammed into them, leaving the outsider’s most powerful weapons entirely incapacitated as they were flung outside of the green light by the momentum. The Runt jumped into the circle of green, raising his dagger high above the possum, about to take his kill.

  The green light hardened. The possum screamed as her arm, which had been dangling outside the circle, was instantly sliced off. The Runt stumbled back, hitting the hard surface with a surprised squeak.

  Then the disk began to burrow through the rock.

  Catacomb’s ((GAZE)) froze. Then the green disk began to shoot downward at incredible speed, taking the Runt and Possum with it. It burst through layers upon layers of bone, completely oblivious to its screaming occupants. It moved so quickly Catacomb couldn’t block it, or send any of his monsters to do so. After a moment he realized what the disk was heading toward, and roared in rage. A second later the green disk came to a crashing stop directly in front of Sanctuary's door.