Eldanar’s Chosen Interlude - Bleeding for the Clock

Butler paced the width of the cavernous entry hall of the first floor, her booted feet clicking a frantic, irregular rhythm against the flagstones. Her hands were clasped so tightly together her knuckles were white, the healing mana practically humming under her skin, desperate for an outlet. She was trying to be the island in the ocean, the calm, unshakeable bedrock her team needed, but the ocean was currently a swirling vortex of anxiety and fear.

"Pacing vill not change the structural integrity of the spatial rift, my dear," muttered Choco. The gno artificer was seated cross-legged on a smoothed boulder, a pair of thick, brass-rimd magnifying goggles pulled down over his eyes. He was furiously tinkering with a palm-sized tallic spider, his hands moving in a blur of tiny wrenches and sprockets. "Is very simple physics. Portal goes out, portal goes in. Ve wait. If they are dead, they do not co through. If they are alive, ve fix."

"Your bedside manner is, as always, utterly atrocious, Choco," Soul drawled.

The towering human mage was leaning against the cavern wall, arms crossed, the picture of theatrical nonchalance. Soul was a mountain of a man, draped in impeccably tailored robes of deep violet and midnight blue. He flicked a speck of dust off his collar, a small, harmless tongue of blue fire dancing across his fingertips. "Don't listen to the little tin-can, Butler, darling. Our Bunny is much too stubborn to die to a few overgrown lizards. And Bean is too paranoid to let anything catch her." Despite his flirty, over-the-top tone, Butler could see the tight set of Soul’s jaw and the erratic flickering of the blue flas in his eyes. He was just as terrified as she was.

"They were right behind us," Butler whispered, staring at the shimring, inactive portal gateway set into the far wall. "Josh told us to get back in. They should be right behind us."

The gateway flared.

It wasn’t the usual cool blue of a stable dungeon entrance. It sparked with a violent, sickening crackle of black and jagged purple energy.

Before Butler could even shout, a small, stout figure was violently ejected from the rift. Bean hit the stone floor with a heavy, tallic thud, tumbling end over end before crashing into Choco’s boulder. The dwarven rogue groaned, her usually immaculate leather armour slashed in half a dozen places, her twin daggers clattering across the floor. She was bleeding from several shallow cuts, but she was moving.

"Bean!" Butler cried, rushing forward.

"Don't—" Bean coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the stone. Her eyes were wide, the pupils blown out in sheer terror. "Don't look at . Look to the gate!"

A second later, the portal spat out its final passenger.

It didn't look like Bun. It looked like a mangled pile of steel plate and golden fur. The bunny beastkin hit the ground and didn't roll. She simply slid to a sickening halt, leaving a thick, glistening sar of crimson across the grey stone.

"No," Butler gasped.

The island in the ocean shattered. Butler dove across the cavern floor, sliding on her knees until she collided with the beastkin. Bun’s long, tufted ears were plastered flat against her helt, soaked in sweat and gore. But it was her side that made Butler’s breath catch. A horrific, jagged puncture wound had torn through the vulnerable gap between her breastplate and her faulds. Blood was pumping out in a terrifying, rhythmic surge, pooling rapidly beneath her. The kobold's greatsword had gone entirely through her.

"Soul, hold her down! Choco, bandages, now!" Butler scread, her voice losing all its usual gentle composure.

Soul was there in an instant, his theatrical facade vanishing. The massive mage dropped to his knees, his large hands clamping down on Bun’s armoured shoulders to keep her from thrashing in shock. Choco abandoned his chanical spider, his little legs pumping as he scurried over, ripping open a dicinal satchel and tossing a roll of thick gauze to the healer.

Butler didn't bother with the gauze. Her hands slamd down directly over the gaping wound in Bun's side.

“Knit and bind, soothe and wind,” Butler chanted, her voice trembling.

A brilliant, blinding erald light erupted from her palms. The sheer force of her healing magic pushed back the pooling blood. It was a brutal, exhausting process. Healing a scrape was like sewing silk; healing a massive internal puncture wound was like trying to hold an exploding dam together with bare hands. Butler felt her own mana reserves draining rapidly, sweat beading on her forehead as she forced the torn muscle, ruptured vessels, and splintered bone inside the beastkin to violently weave back together.

For three agonising minutes, the only sounds in the cavern were Butler’s ragged breathing, the crackle of magical energy, and Bean’s quiet, terrified cursing from the corner.

Finally, the erald light faded into a soft, pulsing glow, and then vanished entirely. Butler collapsed backward onto her hands, gasping for air, her arms stained crimson up to the elbows.

Beneath Soul’s heavy grip, the bunny beastkin took a sudden, jagged breath. Her nose twitched. Her long ears slowly swivelled upwards, shaking off drops of blood.

Bun opened one ruby-red eye, glared up at the cavern ceiling, and sighed.

"Ouch."

"Oh, thank the gods," Soul breathed, leaning forward to press a dramatic, lingering kiss against Bun’s blood-spattered forehead. "I thought I was going to have to find a new frontline at-shield, darling. You really must stop giving these palpitations. It’s terrible for my complexion."

Bun weakly raised a gauntlet and shoved Soul’s face away. "Get off , you oversized matchstick." She tried to sit up, winced violently, and opted to stay flat on her back. She crossed her arms over her chest, a profound scowl settling over her features. She was alive, her wound was a mass of fresh, tender pink scar tissue, and she was absolutely furious.

"What... what the hell just happened?" Butler asked, her voice shaking as she cast a cleaning cantrip over her hands, washing the worst of the blood away. She looked over at Bean, who had propped herself up against the boulder, looking distinctly greener than a dwarf ever should.

"A slaughter," Bean rasped, retrieving a flask from her belt and taking a long, desperate pull. "A bloody, unrelenting slaughter. When we stepped out... there were thousands of them. Thousands and thousands. The whole courtyard was just a sea of scales and spears. If that human hadn’t yelled at us to get back in the damn hole… I don’t think I would have woken from my stupor before I got stabbed." The dwarf shivered. "I've never seen anything like it. The sky was cracked. And the portal..."

"Ah, yis. The portal," Choco interjected, adjusting his goggles as he waddled over, peering at the now-dormant gateway. "I was observing from this side before you fell through like sacks of bruised potatoes. The colouration was entirely incorrect for a standard spatial tether. It was black. Like void-space."

"Black," Butler echoed, feeling a cold dread settle in her stomach. "But black portals an..."

"A break," Soul finished quietly. He stood up, smoothing his robes, though his hands were trembling slightly. "A complete dinsional collapse. The dungeon is essentially vomiting its entire ecosystem out into the overworld."

The party fell silent. They were Level 24—seasoned, hardened, and incredibly capable. But even they knew that a full dungeon break of this magnitude was a death sentence for anyone caught outside without an army at their back.

"So why are we here?" Bun grumbled from the floor, her ears flattening in annoyance. "If there's an army outside, shouldn't we be out there fighting? I owe a certain oversized, winged freak a new breathing hole."

"Because, my beautifully aggressive little lagomorph," Soul said, gesturing grandly to the vast cavern around them, "stepping back out there right now would be suicide. And furthermore, I altered our trajectory when we fell back through."

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"You did what?" Bean snapped, clutching her side.

"When we crossed the threshold, the portal’s spatial routing was chaotic," Soul explained, his tone unusually serious. "Given the colour of the portal, going back outside wasn't an option, so I forcefully routed us to the absolute beginning of the dungeon's first floor."

"Why?" Butler asked, frowning.

"Because of how dungeon breaks work, darling," Soul said, tapping his temple. "The portal outside is spewing monsters because the dungeon is overflowing with ambient mana. If we sit here, we do nothing. But if we move? If we clear the floors, kill the spawns, and break the cores?"

"Ve burn the mana," Choco concluded, clapping his small hands together. "Is brilliant! Ve act as, how you say, a pressure valve. The more ve destroy inside, the less fuel the dungeon has to push monsters outside to our friends."

"Exactly," Soul bead, striking a pose. "We help the Guild by breaking the dungeon from the inside out. And, more importantly, we buy ourselves ti. I am in absolutely no rush to return to the 'real' world until the rest of those high-level maniacs have thinned the herd."

Bun finally sat up, her heavy plate armour clanking loudly in the quiet cavern. She touched the side of her breastplate, tracing the jagged tear in the tal where the blade had pierced her. Her jaw set into a hard, determined line.

"Fine," Bun growled, reaching out to grasp the haft of her massive glaive, Mooncleaver, which had fallen beside her. She used it to lever herself up to her feet. "But we take it slow. We kill every single scaly bastard we find. We leave absolutely no mana behind."

"A 'slow ball'," Bean muttered, finally standing up and twirling her daggers. "Taking our sweet ti. I like the sound of that. Gives my heart a chance to stop hamring against ma ribs."

They spent another half an hour in the entry cavern. Butler insisted on brewing a pot of chamomile tea over a small conjured fire, forcing everyone to drink a cup to calm their nerves and let her residual healing magic settle into Bun’s system. They checked their gear, polished their weapons, and Choco recalibrated three different explosive devices. It was a surreal mont of dosticity wrapped in the looming shadow of a subterranean nightmare.

When they finally set off, the first floor felt like a joke.

At Level 24, a floor designed for novices was less of a challenge and more of a leisurely stroll. The party moved in a relaxed formation. Bun took the vanguard, her heavy plate armour making her a walking fortress, despite the alarming speed with which she could move. Bean lted into the shadows along the cavern walls, practically invisible. Butler walked in the centre, a soft aura of protective magic shimring around her, while Soul and Choco brought up the rear.

The first group of kobolds they encountered were barely waist-high, wielding rusted daggers and wearing loincloths.

"Allow , darlings," Soul purred.

He didn't even chant. He simply raised a hand and snapped his fingers. A wave of suffocating pressure washed over the cavern. Three kobolds froze, their eyes widening in sudden, absolute terror. A split second later, brilliant blue fire erupted from their eyes and mouths. There was no heat, no smoke, just the terrifying sound of their souls being flash-fried from the inside out. They dropped to the floor as empty, lifeless husks.

"Show-off," Bun snorted, twirling her glaive.

They took their ti. If there was a side tunnel, they explored it. If there was a suspected trap, Choco took it apart. They cleared the entire first floor without breaking a sweat, burning away the dungeon’s ambient mana with every kill.

They took another break before the stairs to the second floor, sitting on the stone steps to eat dried rations and complain about the humidity. Bun was still sulking about her armour being damaged, complaining loudly to Choco about how much a blacksmith in Verentide would charge to fix a magical breastplate.

The second floor was marginally harder. The cavern walls transitioned from rough stone to carved corridors, and the kobolds were ard with crude iron spears and wooden shields.

It still wasn't enough.

"My turn," Choco announced cheerfully as a phalanx of ten kobolds rounded a corner, hissing and clicking their jaws.

The gno reached into his satchel and produced a brass sphere the size of an apple. He twisted the top, pressed a button, and lobbed it down the corridor. It bounced twice before popping open. A dozen tallic, spider-like legs shot out, anchoring into the walls and floor, instantly weaving a chaotic web of electrified copper wire across the hallway. The charging kobolds hit the wire and convulsed, shrieking as high-voltage lightning arched through their ranks.

While they were stunned, Bean appeared from the shadows behind them. The dwarf moved like a ghost, her daggers flashing in a flurry of lethal precision. Slice. Stab. Pivot. Slice. By the ti the electricity faded, the kobolds were already dead, bleeding out on the carved stone floor.

"Efficient," Butler noted approvingly, leaning on her staff. "Though a bit ssy."

"Is the best way," Choco shrugged, waddling forward to retrieve his gadget. "ssy, but it vorks."

They spent hours on the second floor. They dragged out every fight, using the lowest-tier spells and physical attacks they could manage just to waste ti. Soul spent one entire encounter doing nothing but using minor telekinesis to repeatedly trip a kobold shaman every ti it tried to cast a fireball, laughing uproariously while Bun slowly walked up to it and punted it across the room.

But as they finally descended the winding, torch-lit staircase to the third floor, the atmosphere shifted. The air grew significantly hotter, slling strongly of sulfur and hot iron. The carved corridors gave way to massive open fields and hidden warrens.

"Alright, playti is over," Bun said, her voice dropping an octave as her long ears stood straight up, swivelling to catch the sounds echoing ahead. "Slls like elites."

She wasn't wrong. The third floor wasn't populated by scavengers. It was garrisoned by soldiers.

The kobolds here were towering, heavily muscled brutes clad in thick, interlocking scale mail. They carried heavy halberds and tower shields, moving in coordinated, disciplined formations.

The fights finally beca a workout.

"Shield wall!" Bun roared as a group of eight elite kobolds locked their shields together, forming an impenetrable barricade across a warren, their halberds thrusting forward in lethal unison.

Bun didn't stop. She triggered her movent skill, Zephyr Step, her heavy plate armour blurring as she crossed the distance in a fraction of a second. She planted her sabatons onto the front of the shields, using her montum to vault directly over the barricade, landing squarely in the centre of their formation.

Before they could turn, her glaive, Mooncleaver, beca a whirlwind of silver steel.

"Soul, crack them open!" Bean yelled from above, having scaled a steep rock wall to hang over the fray.

Soul’s eyes flared a vibrant, terrifying violet. He thrust both hands forward, his mind magic gripping the minds of three kobolds simultaneously. "Shatter!" he bellowed. The three elites scread, dropping their shields to clutch their heads as their minds were violently torn apart by the psychic assault, blue fire venting from their nostrils.

With the shield wall broken, Bean dropped from her perch like a stone, driving her daggers through the gaps in the nearest kobold's armour. Choco provided covering fire, launching miniature, explosive rockets from a gauntlet-mounted launcher that deafened the cavern with their concussive blasts.

Even with their high levels, the sheer endurance of the elite kobolds forced them to sweat. Butler had to actively weave protective wards, her green magic flaring to deflect a stray halberd thrust that nearly caught Soul in the chest.

By the ti they cleared the final warren, they were all breathing heavily. Bun’s fur was matted with sweat and gri, Bean was complaining about a cramp in her dagger arm, and Soul’s impeccably tailored robes were singed at the hems.

They stood before a set of massive, towering doors forged from black iron, intricately carved with depictions of dragons and winged serpents. The boss room.

"We've been down here for... what? Eleven hours?" Bean asked, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

"And a half, according to my chronoter," Choco corrected, tapping a complicated dial on his wrist. "Ve have burned through approximately ninety-six percent of the floor's ambient mana. A highly successful delay tactic."

"Do we think the outside is clear?" Butler asked softly, looking back the way they ca.

"Highly doubtful, darling," Soul sighed, dramatically sweeping a hand through his hair to ensure not a single strand was out of place. "But a man can only endure so much darkness and brimstone before it starts to absolutely ruin his mood. Shall we conclude this little subterranean soiree? Though, if we pop our heads out of the portal and find the others haven't finished cleaning up that scaly infestation, I propose we simply blow them a kiss and step right back inside. I am not getting lizard blood on these robes twice in one day."

Bun didn't answer. She stepped forward and placed both gauntlets flat against the heavy iron doors. With a grunt of exertion, she pushed. The doors groaned, grinding against the stone floor as they slowly swung open, revealing the cavernous expanse beyond.

The antechamber was massive, lit by braziers of roaring green fire. The floor was littered with gold coins, shattered weapons, and the bones of previous challengers.

At the far end of the room, sitting atop a throne of skulls and lted iron, was the Sentinel.

It was a nightmare of draconian evolution. The Sentinel Kobold Boss was twice the height of a human, its body encased in thick, jagged black plate armour that seed to absorb the light. Massive, leathery bat-like wings folded behind its back, twitching with restrained power. But it was the weapon resting across its lap that made the party freeze.

It was a giant, jagged greatsword, nearly the size of a tree trunk, dripping with a foul, dark venom. It was identical to the blade that had impaled Bun hours ago on the surface.

The boss slowly raised its head, its reptilian eyes locking onto the intruders with cold, calculated malice. It stood up, its wings flaring out to their full, terrifying wingspan, and hoisted the massive greatsword onto its shoulder with a deafening tallic scrape.

Bean swallowed hard. Soul’s hands ignited with a brilliant, roaring blaze of violet fire. Choco clicked a dial on his gauntlet, and Butler raised her staff, her healing aura already beginning to hum.

Bun didn't flinch.

The bunny beastkin stepped into the room, her heavy boots ringing out against the stone floor. She rolled her shoulders, the fresh scar tissue on her side pulling tight, a dull ache reminding her of her own mortality. She gripped the haft of Mooncleaver with both hands, lowering the gleaming blade to point directly at the giant, winged monstrosity.

Her long ears pinned flat against her helt, and a feral, bloodthirsty grin split her face.

"Payback ti, bitch."