Chapter 427 – Preparation
Cerys Wright frowned as she stood on the wall that had been built around Celebration, Florida. The city had once been run by the company running the amusement park, but had been cut loose years ago. Now, it was ‘just’ a normal suburb of Orlando, within easy reach of the entrance to the Undead Kingdom field dungeon.
That wasn’t why she was frowning, however. She wasn’t even looking towards the dungeon. No, her eyes were looking to the northeast, towards the high-rises of Orlando, just barely visible over the horizon. They were twenty-five miles away, as the crow flies, maybe a bit more. But she knew they were there.
Before the System, she had lived there, along with her husband, James, and their two children, Brooke and Caleb. They’d been happy. Not rich, but not poor, either. A nurse and a schoolteacher, raising two kids together. It was a good, fulfilling life, until everything went wrong. Until the System ruined everything. She still had Brooke, but her husband and her son were gone.
Gone. It felt easier to say it like that, instead of what it was. They had been at the football field at Jones High School, where the kids attended. Brooke had been a senior, and a cheerleader, while Caleb was a freshman, but had been good enough to win a starting spot on the defensive line for the varsity team. She’d been in the stands with James. A normal Friday afternoon during football season.
And then, it had all gone wrong. The weird blue box appeared, and suddenly, she was a Healer / Nurse, which was fitting, since she’d been an RN at Orlando Health before the System. Brooke had become a Battledancer / Entertainer. James and Caleb hadn’t been so lucky. They’d both been part of the two-thirds of the crowd who had been turned into zombies.
She knew, academically, that she was lucky to be alive. Healers weren’t exactly known for their combat prowess, after all. Her [Healing Aura] skill, which gave a passive regeneration bonus to any friendly creatures within the radius, apparently was deeply uncomfortable to the undead, and acted as a weak ward, keeping the mindless undead from approaching her. At level 1, it had only been a two-meter radius, but that was enough.
She and Brooke had escaped, but most of the crowd, the ones who weren’t turned by the System, were killed, and became zombies. It was only later that she understood that there must have been a newborn Dungeon Core somewhere in the stands or on the field, and someone had broken it on accident. According to the Scholars, a newborn Core made Christmas ornaments look sturdy in comparison. It was only as they grew stronger, and gained power, that the cores became nearly impossible to break without specialized knowledge. That was why dungeons hid until they were ready for ‘visitors’, apparently.
The escape from Orlando had been… not as bad as it could have been. People with combat classes, especially the ones that could work at range, kept the zombies at bay, while people evacuated. But there was no winning the battle. The broken dungeon kept making more zombies. Using mana to fight the zombies only helped fuel the production of more zombies, and those who were wounded in melee combat with the zombies became zombies, since no one had the skills to cure the disease yet.
Orlando had been evacuated, and barriers erected, keeping the undead contained. The mindless creatures did not press against the barriers unless they sensed living people nearby, so observation posts were set up at regular intervals, half a mile behind the line. The border ran from Apopka in the northwest, down to Winter Garden, followed the Florida Turnpike to Taft, over to Randal Park, up the 417 to Whites Landing, and back across to Apopka. It was a lopsided thing, but that was because the barrier had started at Orlando International, and started up the Turnpike and 417. The zombies had more time to spread north.
The Turnpike Wall was mostly unmanned, these days, with the exception of the old Turkey Lake Service Plaza. There wasn’t much need for it, after all. Yes, the zombies were still a threat, but the other side of the Turnpike Wall was the Undead Kingdom dungeon, and the skeletons took care of any zombies that slipped through. The only reason it was manned at all was to monitor the undead, and the dungeon, and to maintain the wall, ensuring the undead remained contained, and that the traffic and communications route remained open.
“Mom!” Brooke’s cry broke Cerys out of her stupor. The blonde girl was smiling, happy, despite everything. That smile was what helped her keep going. That, and her own stubborn nature that had helped her spitefully look death in the eye as a nurse, and keep telling it to take a rain check on her patients at the hospital. People who folded under pressure, at seeing people on the worst day of their lives, over and over again, did not last in the ER. And she’d spent sixteen years there, before the System.
“What’s got you looking so happy, dear? That cute wizard boy finally ask you out?”
Brooke shook her head. “No, Anthony and I aren’t like that. We’re just friends. And this isn’t about him. We just got word from the Guild in Miami. The operation to take down the broken dungeon in Boca succeeded. They managed to get it done on the first try! The area is still a mess, and it will be years before it can be cleaned up properly, but the goblins are gone, making travel down to Miami easier, when you aren’t taking Lord Kuronoth’s portals.”
Cerys sighed. When did Brooke start referring to that Demon of the Dungeon as Lord Kuronoth? “I know that the System says the Lord is not the one and only God, and it may just be me being raised Southern Baptist, but I wish you didn’t talk about that Demon like that, Brooke. Bad enough everyone is signing contracts with him, to use his portals.”
Brooke smiled softly, and reached out to pat her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, it isn’t like I’m joining his church or anything. And I’m definitely not heading to his dungeon anytime soon. I’ll stick with the Undead Kingdom, thank you kindly. I like my monster fucking to remain fantasies in the books I read. There’s a difference between reading it and living it.”
Cerys chuckled, and nodded once. “You get that from your father. Always loved reading about different things, but he was always a patient and gentle man in the bedroom.”
“MOM! I do not need to hear about this!”
They looked at each other, and then laughed. When they settled down, Cerys smiled, and the widow who had lost her husband and youngest child retreated behind the Level 3 Deathspite Healer / Mystic Caregiver who had risen through the ranks to become the Guild Officer serving as the leader of the Celebration branch of the Miami Adventurers Guild. “Thank you, Brooke. I needed that. So, what did Miami have to say about the operation?”
“Guildmaster Bethany Johnston, the one who took over for Miguel Sanchez after he became Grandmaster of the American Guild? She sent a messenger up from Miami as soon as they got word. The news is mostly good. The bad is that the goblins had a summoning circle they were using to summon and bind women to the broken dungeon, using them for… obvious reasons. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be freed, just rebound or killed. Lord Kuronoth bound the women, and is apparently going to see about spreading them out to different dungeons he has contact with. For the good, the broken dungeon is completely gone, and the casualties were far less than they ought to be. Anyone who wasn’t killed outright is expected to make a full recovery, thanks to magic.”
Another set of footsteps sounded on the metal stairs leading up to the walkway, interrupting the conversation. It was a Latina woman with a gorgeous figure that her druid robes and leather armor could not disguise. Her main weapon was a long wooden staff that looked wrapped in leafy vines.
“Hello, there. I’m the messenger from Guildmaster Johnston. Raquel Espina, Level 23 Darkstalker Druid / Master Hunter. Known on the Guild forums as SunnyBunz. I was sent because I was free, and I’m one of the people who has a fairly good degree of experience with the Demon of the Dungeon.”
Cerys nodded. “Officer Cerys Wright, local Guildmaster in all but name. You’ve met my daughter, Brooke, I take it. So, what can you tell us about Boca? And why can’t the Demon simply free the women who got summoned into the zones? Sounds like an inexpensive way of dealing with things.”
Raquel chuckles. “I can actually answer this one from my own experience. I was one of the adventurers who went in to help design and test the Water Temple floor in the Forbidden Chambers dungeon, the one Lord Kuronoth runs. At the time, we needed to be temporarily enslaved and bound to the dungeon, because the only way to properly test the floor to make sure that is challenging, but not an outright slaughterhouse, is to actually run the floor. Binding us to the dungeon allowed him to revive us if anything nasty happened.
“However, those bindings were temporary only because the item that applied the binding and the magical contract we signed both had explicitly timed durations, with language ensuring that we would be freed afterwards. And that language was necessary, so that our ‘files’ could move between the different databases, so to speak. The System apparently has different processing systems for people, dungeons, and divinities. Part of Lord Kuronoth’s power is tied to how he is straddling the Dungeon and Divine sections of the System, so he has a better idea than most about where the gaps are.”
Brooke frowned. “But I know people who have captured creatures from dungeons, either for taming, or to use as slave fighters. They were brought out of the dungeon just fine.”
Raquel shook her head. “Those were probably natural dungeon creatures. A Dungeon Bound creature, however, is harder to manage. Until they are fully integrated into the ‘dungeon architecture’, they are immune to [Slave Collars] or [Capture Balls]. And, before you ask, full integration is supposed to take a few dozen deaths and resurrections. Soul-stealing weapons can claim the soul of the creature, allowing them to be raised again outside the dungeon, but they’ll have some soul damage, in the best case.”
Cerys raised an eyebrow. “And the Demon of the Dungeon just told you all of this?”
“Not him, but a succubus who was working on the floor we were testing. We were there for a month, after all. Plenty of time to talk. But he let her tell us anything she wanted.”
“I see. So, what Boca Raton is ‘liberated’. What about Orlando? What is the plan for dealing with the zombies?”
Raquel chuckled, and reached into her satchel, to produce a crystal, roughly a foot long. “This is a [Core Spike], connected to Lord Kuronoth’s dungeon. The idea is to find a good place to set the spike, on the edge of the Orlando Wall. Preferably by a gate, if there is one. If not then the Lord will make a gate, though he would rather work with what is already there. When that is prepared, we activate a System Interdiction Field, like they used in Boca, and cut off the supply of new zombies. Then, Lord Kuronoth sends in an army of basic slimes. He will lose control of the slimes when they are in the SIF, but they should follow the last instruction given: kill all zombies, until it is done.”
Brooke grinned. “Slimes are basically immune to bludgeoning attacks, and most zombies don’t have more than that. So, pour the slimes in, and they’ll kill and eat all the zombies, eventually. What is the plan for clean-up?”
“When we get confirmation that the broken dungeon is dead, the SIF goes down, and the Lord sends in the young dragon he took command of some time back. The Lord apparently wants her to get some basic combat experience in the wild, rather than in the controlled spaces of the dungeon, and slimes are incredibly low-threat to her.”
Cerys sighed. “There isn’t going to be anything left of Orlando when this is done, is there?”
Raquel shrugged. “Probably not. But it will still be better than having the city filled with Undead who may, eventually, grow strong enough to overwhelm the wall, and start hunting up and down the countryside. Or dealing with an army of uncontrolled slimes.”
“Fair enough,” Cerys shook her head. “At least the massively-powerful-yet-also-baby Dragon will be on our side. And I hate the fact that a sentence like that makes total sense in this world.”