Battle In A Pill Treasury

I stood in front of the golden door ready to enter. Once again, I retooled. The aura of the enemy ahead didn't frighten me. The most impressive feat of Mun so far was his door.

Golden illustrations of feats of courage covered the door. The tales of hundreds of battles were scrawled across the surface of the golden doors leading to the next boss room. Each was a different ancestor of the goblin through the doors. They spoke of techniques mastered and battles won. Everyone had fought impossible odds and won through grit. The symbols remained the same each time. Courage and pride covered the door. They were the symbols of the gobling Mun a gobling of a great family.

I followed the stories back peeling away history until a similar story as my own appeared. One of Mun's ancestors fell from the heavens. A fancy way of saying the lab above flushed him. Despite our power or what we gained down here; we were rejected above. Something about us wasn't what the humans above wanted.

A sigh escaped my lips. I tore myself away from the doors and took a step back.

The doors were beautifully crafted from steel and platted with gold. In this junkyard there wasn't anything quite like them. A small aura shield protected the doors from my touch. The writing on the doors were protected even as I felt the hinges give from a light touch.

"Are these writings common down here?" I asked. Gwen touched one of the carvings. It depicted the actions of Mun's family during the fall of the Darkling empire.

I read the lines over and over.

We routed their retreat. Before their forces could slink back behind the wall of their great city. Ling killed ling and we sieged their capitol. Our payment was the destruction of our oppressors. We pulled down their statues and burned their libraries to the ground. Their ashes blew in the wind and no one doubted that history has been rewritten. All debts have been balanced.

Below several writings were removed.

"What does this mean?" I asked. Gwen gave me a thousand-yard stare.

She fiddled with her thumbs before answering. "For an empire to rise, the one before must be burned. If even a spark of the old empire remains, they may one day rise again. So, we stamped out the embers as best we could. I wasn't there Jacob." Gwen said.

I rubbed her tentacles to calm her down. "I know. This guy's ancestor was. They removed parts of their own history to forget the old days. You know this is what the goblings want to do to the thoughtful empire." I said.

Doppel snorted behind me. "We are hardly in the same position. Our legions are vast, and our administration is faster still. The darkling empire before choked itself to death with bureaucracy. Theirs was a system too slow to act." I nodded absently.

When a system becomes overburdened with bureaucracy sometimes the rot needed to be burned away. I wasn't there and they weren't my people. They were Elena's people, and I wasn't interested in freedom fighting.

I pushed against the doors and they flew off the hinges. Golden light exploded revealing a vast treasury of the medicinal kind. A golden fire lit the center of the room and above it was a vast furnace. Stacks upon stacks of pills covered the ground. A dizzying number of scents filled my nose. Fragrant plants covered the area in vast columns of green houses. Not a crack covered those glass gardens yet, I couldn't feel a flicker of aura from the glass itself.

A particular pile caught my attention. I reached in and scooped up a handful of pills. "Starry Ski Delight," I muttered. Some things seemed to cross over. One of my hosts wanted to be an Alchemist. The Starry Ski Delight was a staple for most early cultivators. My ring flashed and the whole pile vanished.

"Please help yourselves, its only my inventory." A voice muttered from the end of the hall. I stole three more piles of pills on reflex. I heard a set of very human like teeth grind.

Far to the end of the hall on a throne of gold sat a very human like individual. His skin was golden and his hair silver. Grasped in his right hand was a blue staff and at the staff's head was a hovering blue jewel. Mun waved his staff and out from the pill furnace various pills flew free and moved to their respective piles.

"Welcome to my home, my floor in this great tower, and my workshop. Gwen you are looking healthy are your injuries healing well. I was just about to start work on your prescription." I reached my hand back and gripped Diabla's handle. The golden man did nothing.

Various plants moved from their stores and piled into the furnace. The golden flames erupted licking at the furnace while a complicated spell chain erupted from Mun's staff.

"My friends why choose violence. Sure, we have made plans to usurp the thoughtful empire but who hasn't. That is the nature of the world. When you're on top everyone not on top plans to usurp your position. I prefer to make pills all day and hang out with my friends. It isn't their fault that they want a better life." Mun said.

I stepped to the side and sliced a giant mosquito in half. The creature screeched before dissolving into green and white aura. Suddenly, the sounds of buzzing became all we could hear. Something was keeping this floor from collapsing. It hadn't shaken since we arrived.

"Field on," I said just as two golden arrows crashed into my shield.

Mun stepped out from behind a pile with a grin on his face. "Don't get distracted," he yelled as more mosquitos dive bombed us. I moved with aura rush faster than the bugs could react. They were dead before any of their attacks landed. "Field on," another two arrows slammed into my barrier. Mun stepped out from behind another pile.

Suddenly, the mosquitos went silent. They were still above us in their swarm, but I couldn't here them. It was then that I realized he was manipulating sound.

"The senses are a funny thing especially for darklings. No matter your rank or branch you rely heavily on your hearing. Can you smell me out surrounded by all of these plants? Can you track my movement without sound? What will you do when I take your sight?" The world went black. I could hear again but my sight was gone.

The sounds of buzzing were everywhere. Could he pick and choose what sounds I heard? I couldn't hear where Gwen and Doppel were. How much could he manipulate?

"Field on," I called, and six arrows hit my barrier before rotting into paste. I spread my wings and flew up in the air. Mosquitos splattered against my shield as I rose. I raised Diabla and spun slashing out with all the heat and power I could muster.

I flew and couldn't see a thing. I used my barrier to detect my location. Every Mosquito died when they touched me. They might have been tier 2 or greater, but my barrier was basically a giant bug zapper that decayed everything it touched.

Suddenly, a powerful spear of golden aura pierced through my barrier. I twisted and deflected it with my sword knocking it off course. It cut through my shoulder but missed my wing. Chains followed behind the spell. More touched my barrier and I tucked my wings and used Aura Rush to shoot myself down.

I stopped my descent an spread my wings just as my barrier scraped against the pill furnace. My sight and hearing returned in time for me to see a wall of spear tipped chains. I was suddenly bombarded by the information. Nothing was going through my mind except escape. There was no time to put up a barrier strong enough to withstand the attacks and I was surrounded. The only way out of this was to drop into the open pill furnace.

On instinct I dropped. The furnace was already hot. The second I was fell in all my senses vanished except my sense of hearing. I couldn't feel, see, touch, or taste.

"I bet you're wondering why I left your sense of hearing intact. The eyes burn out too quickly for my taste. You see this recipe needs you to die in terror. I thought cutting off all your senses might work but you don't seem to be that afraid of sensation deprivation. I'm going to turn you into a sentient pill and then I'm going to swallow you." I blinked slowly after hearing that. "Trust me if you could feel anything, you'd be terrified." Mun said.

He wasn't wrong. The lack of sensation didn't terrify me. It reminded me of death a little but lacked the frigid waters or the wear and tear on my mind. I'd grown pretty tough since coming here. I wondered how tough. Was I tougher than the pill furnace?

Ping!

Equipped

Job: Warlock

Mun was an idiot if he thought all I had were five senses. I could feel aura and that meant I could feel Diabla still in my grasp. What was his pill furnace made of? Was it stronger than Diabla? I doubted his flames were hotter than mine.

I stabbed her into the side of the furnace and felt the metal give some resistance. Then I sucked in a breath and Diabla did as well. All the power of heaven and earth gathered within her blade. This was the heat that made me afraid not some golden flames. There was a sudden give and I twisted her.

A sensation like a ping transferred between us. I relied upon my tenuous connection to Diabla to sense the world around us. The power of Underworld Dragon's Wrath flowed through Diabla.