I climbed inside the hatch. After the ward worm’s lair and other kooky dungeons, I had no preconceptions of whatever awaited. Unlike my previous dungeons, a player had designed this place. Everything that I’d seen so far convinced me to believe Flagboi’s claims on the chat channel. He certainly had a big surprise in store for us.

  Iron supports crisscrossed the shaft like tree limbs, connecting to the iron bands encasing the basalt exterior. Magnetize showed many, but not all, beams spanning the walls containing silver.

  Presence beamed down the shaft. Trusses blocked much of the light, creating shadows that made the structure difficult to read. From our vantage, the space bottomed out thirty feet below us, around street level, and widened to a ceiling fifty feet above us.

  The grisly odor came from body parts affixed to the metal framework. There must have been a hundred chunks of unidentifiable meat, each held by metal attachments to the mainframe.

  Fabulosa climbed onto the lattice. “The smell isn’t from a monster.”

  Detect Magic made all the metal bracing glow. “Unless all those parts combine into one, it’s looking pretty quiet in here.”

  “Up or down?”

  I shrugged. “Up seems about right. But I’m not wasting Hot Air. We might need it as a safety net.”

  It would be nice if I could lift myself in the air using Magnetize as I’d done in Iremont, but the space lacked magnetic fields as powerful as those in the mountain.

  Fabulosa pointed to rungs projecting along the wall by the door. “We won’t need to. That looks like our way up.”

  We climbed the ladder and stopped at a hatch in the ceiling. Using Mineral Communion, I saw deep elves and Flagboi going in and out of the hatch. Using Mineral Mutation, I burrowed into the metal, turning it into cotton to bypass the door.

  Fabulosa tapped my shoulder and pointed to one wall.

  Fabulosa grimaced at the little white sphere. “Should I zap it?”

  “It’s already too late. Popping it might alert him. Let’s just get through this hatch.”

  After focusing on my task, I broke through the hatch and into an oval chamber twice the width of the shaft. Overhead, metal disks the size of swimming pools connected to ironwork on the ceiling. With a solid floor beneath my feet, I felt safe enough to Read Magic and studied the metal pieces around body parts festooned around the chamber.

  “These are runes all over the place. It’s dark magic, so I don’t understand their control functions, but they connect to one another and also to the framework.”

  “It looks like a big trap.”

  The room had another floor hatch on the opposite side of the oval, and stairs spiraled into a room lit by natural light. While I traced the runes, Fabulosa explored the stairs.

  “Part of this looks like a pressurized chamber—although why a room of solid stone needs to be…” She didn’t finish her thought.

  “What’s up there?”

  “Nothing. I mean, there’s a window or a big hole in the wall.”

  “Can you see anything?”

  “No. It faces the outer shell of limestone, but it ruins my pressure-cooker theory.”

  I followed her up the stairs, having found no runes carrying deliverable magic, at least, nothing I recognized.

  The space inside was tight, but I unsheathed Gladius Cognitus when I spotted the bedroom filled with charts, diagrams, and blueprints.

  I picked up a blueprint, but turning it upside down made its purpose no more apparent. “We need someone with engineering skills to read these. It’s in common, but I don’t know what they do.”

  Fabulosa studied another schematic. “It looks like one of those medieval cages they put criminals inside to feed the birds.”

  “They’re called gibbets. He’s got body parts everywhere but no full bodies. I’m pretty sure they didn’t do that in medieval times.”

  “Well, it’s downright psychotic. Flagboi is nuts.” Fabulosa flung the parchment down on his desk. She flipped his blankets aside and looked under his bed, finding nothing.

  The gnome-sized ribcage hung inside a nook outside the bedroom. It gave me the creeps. Who could sleep beside such macabre workings?

  If Fabulosa thought I was crazy trying to protect a bunch of NPCs, what could be said about a player decorating their lair with dead body parts? I might have gotten too immersed in the game, but Flagboi plumbed the depths of madness. And he seemed normal in the player chat.

  The stairs continued upwards, spiraling from the bedroom to another hatch in the ceiling. “Who builds a place like this?”

  “Maybe he—” My words ended as a deep tremor echoed up the stairs. A sound of crumbling rocks preceded a hard shake. The rumbling grew more violent and louder. Dust fell, and the sounds of shattering stones and falling rubble deafened us.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  We waited, arms braced against the walls, not knowing whether to retreat to the outside hatch.

  Fabulosa shouted over the noise. “We gotta get out before this place collapses.” Without waiting for my vote, she hurried past me down the stairs. Dig wouldn’t save us from a cave-in.

  It didn’t matter to me if it was falling apart or blasting off—I wanted out. Fabulosa had the right idea, and I climbed down the rungs after her.

  When Fabulosa lost her grip on the rungs, she fell down the shaft, bouncing off supports until she Slipstreamed to the hatch.

  Falling rock and crumbling limestone filled the exterior shaft, and the wooden plank between the structure and the platform no longer spanned the gap.

  Fabulosa Air Jumped across.

  A sudden jar in the structure forced me to lose my grip on the rungs, but I’d gotten close enough to Slipstream out the hatch and onto the ledge.

  An avalanche of dust and limestone fell around us.

  The stairwell cracked and shook so violently that we almost crawled on our hands and knees to reach the street. Ceilings behind us caved in as we tumbled onto the sidewalk.

  We backed away as sections of a cataract of limestone plummeted into the streets.

  Overhead, a basalt arm the size of a grain silo pushed over a ten-story wall of rock. From a plume of billowing dust, the unmistakable form of a humanoid stood hundreds of feet tall. Its torso leaned against a limestone wall, causing it to collapse. A construct half the size of Heaven’s Falls skyscrapers emerged as if hatched from a tall limestone egg.

  Fabulosa’s jaw dropped. “Okay, this is something new. Flagboi has a battle mech.”

  How was a 300-foot tall kaiju only level 33 with 500 health? Was Flagboi not finished with it? Was that why he wanted more time?

  A great basalt leg hammered the street, cracking its poured concrete surface into shards. The goliath leaned over us and brought its other leg from its limestone chrysalis. The leg crashed into a fa?ade, stripping away planters filled with flowers, windows, and terraces.

  In the roar of breaking rock, high-pitched voices screamed and called to one another. Gnomes disappeared into storefronts.

  The wreckage and noise startled torodons pulling carts across neighboring streets. The panicked animals hurtled through intersections, sideswiping carriages and knocking over pedestrians.

  The kaiju gained its footing by leaning against a skyscraper. Wobbling like a newborn colt, it pushed itself upright.

  Its shoulders raked into apartments while it righted itself, opening ceiling-to-floor views whenever it knocked into a residence.

  A basalt dome shaped like a football helmet capped the figure. Inside the skull, Flagboi puppeteered the construct inside a great iron cage, but I didn’t see him long enough to read his nameplate.

  Fabulosa backed away. “He’s got an aura that’s stopping me from selecting him.”

  Though the giant seemed to move in slow motion, a single stride spanned fifty feet. It turned to us, and the shadow of its foot blocked out the sky.

  “Fab, we need to go.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  Before the heel came down onto us, Fabulosa flipped her hood and became transparent. A breeze whipped her away like a piece of paper caught in an updraft. She crested, floating waist-high to the colossus.

  I froze time with the interface. Nothing in my inventory looked helpful against such a large creature.

  I estimated my magic skills ranged as much as 10 ranks over my competitors, thanks to Applied Knowledge. But none of the spells catered to killing the behemoth before me. My abilities focused on combating normal-sized opponents. Even my menu of top-level magic looked inadequate.

  I considered taking Resize for a speed boost. Since the golem had me beat on size, would it matter if I were smaller? But its giant steps were so great I couldn’t be sure that a 27 boost in agility would let me outrun it.

  I survived the ward worm by fighting the creature from within, and the kaiju’s gruesome innards seemed the safest place to be.

  Unfortunately, we’d just escaped the giant’s leg only a minute ago. The nearest entrance rose several stories feet off the ground, and the robot wouldn’t oblige me by standing still long enough to let me Hot Air inside.

  Regardless of my infiltration methods, my immediate concern was not getting squished. I lunged and rolled away from its foot, and the close call brought me within reach of its ankle.

  The iron cage wrapped around the basalt like the leather straps of a sandal, and I launched myself at them and held on for dear life. The metalwork gave me a secure handhold, so I pulled out my sword to test its defenses.

  Another shadow darkened the sky as I landed my attack.

  The giant’s fist struck and swatted me off its foot like a mosquito.

  /You attack Tower Golem for 0 structural damage.

  /Tower Golem hits you for 124 damage (4 resisted).

  /You take 23 falling damage.

  As I expected, this creature with only 500 health took only structural damage. Once again, an opponent had bypassed the game’s combat systems. Earthquake’s range wasn’t great, but between it and my trident, 500 structural points fell within my power. I just had to survive long enough to inflict it.

  Its swipe sent me sailing down the street. I cast a Restore and Rejuvenate to recoup some of the lost damage, but the spells felt puny.

  At first, I couldn’t believe how quickly Flagboi reacted, but then I remembered my sword. My opponent had seen my location by following my weapon’s blue trail of light.

  I sheathed Gladius, wiping away the telltale squiggle. A celestial blade wasn’t the correct tool for the job anyway.

  Flagboi You Hawkhurst boo doos thought y’all could take me on? This here is my town.

  Audigger What’s going on?

  Flagboi I’m going to crush these two like ants.

  Toadkiller What’s a boo doo?

  Audigger It’s Cajun for bully.

  Toadkiller What’s going on, Flag?

  Fabulosa Flagboi went full-on Tokyo on us.

  Duchess Whatever that means.

  Fabulosa He’s smashing up the city with a battle mech.

  Audigger Hah! I love it. Someone’s making the reality show’s highlight reel. I wish I could watch.

  Fabulosa Patch, I can’t target him from out here. He’s too far away, and I can only select the golem when I get close.

  Flagboi That’s right, darling. You can’t kill what you can’t target.

  Flagboi emphasized his taunt by swinging the giant’s arm at Fabulosa, who floated fifteen stories over the street. The combat log registered her using Odum’s Spectrometer, making the limb pass through her and sheer off the side of another building.

  Whatever magic Flagboi used to fashion the giant, its fist withstood the impact. The same rigidity didn’t apply to the architecture, which crumbled and fractured by the blow. Floors collapsed, and walls toppled.

  Though it missed, the air current buffeted Fabulosa toward the damaged building. And when she materialized, she dropped onto its forearm.

  The giant spun, swinging its limb. Not my partner’s strength could withstand the centrifugal force. Though it flung her off, she flipped her hood fast enough to avoid falling.

  Catching a new breeze had been the only consequence of losing her grip.

  That ease at which she avoided damage gave me an idea. I almost used the contest chat to tell Fabulosa to keep the colossus occupied before remembering that its puppeteer, Flagboi, was part of the group. If he knew I intended to climb back inside his golem, he’d turn his attention toward me, which was not what we needed.

  I drank five stat potions, hoping the extra strength and agility would give me the maneuverability I needed.

  Kong

  The Book of Dungeons.