It took an extra minute, but I always come back with more! Until I don't, but those are rare days indeed. Let's enjoy the days we share.

Chapter 30: Dark World Dealings Part 2

OR

Walls? Where We're Going, We Don't NEED Walls

There are two tricks to getting through a madman's, or mad vegetation in this case, torture dungeon. The first it to entirely abandon your morals and play their game, doing whatever it takes to personally survive even if it means dooming some other poor saps to die in horrifically creative ways. This one wasn't really an option because I was the weakest link in my current group and I actually liked the bunch of monsters I traveled with. There was also the fact that this was more of an 'all or none' survival situation instead of 'do this stupidly dangerous shit for the chance to escape' brand of death-trap, but it was still an option to be listed and described.

The second option, as it is with everything else, was to cheat. Cheat hard, cheat fast, smash the board to the floor and make the game master choke on the pieces of his shattered work. In this case possibly literally, because my solution to avoiding corridors of death and pain was to simply break through them and any sorry excuse for blades or buzz-saws that got in my mountainous Bigfoot's way.

Thus we proceeded cheating our way through wall after wall, ignoring the wails of Haxx and pain from the royalty behind us as roots were carelessly torn through just as easily as the stonework.

We originally kept it to left turns, but there can only be so many times before you reach an edge of a guardrail barely able to withstand the massive weight of giant feet, so we turned right, cascading back towards the center. At this point, I was more impressed that the supernatural castle was still standing with the sheer number of holes we were putting in it, but maybe we just hadn't run through any support pillars or beams or whatever the hell a stone castle uses to maintain structure.

Sadly, even my well thought out strategy to retreat didn't last forever, what with this being an enclosed space and leaving it completely would fail to do anything but waste all of our times, so after enough chase scene footage to make Scooby Doo say enough was enough, we stopped somewhere around what I assume was the middle of the castle, given the equal number of broken walls on either side of us.

Within moments there was a vine sliding down from the wall, presenting Pumpking before us again with a rather underwhelming *POP*, as he left his mouth slightly open, several souls panting in various states of exhaustion while a branch wiped away a slight bit of moisture from his rind. It wasn't sweat, it might have been blood, but the motion was completed to paint the picture, and thus the royal figure straightened up to exactly as he had been when I first met him.

Duel Spirits were all kinds of bullshit, especially when they used their natures against me instead of for me. But I'd live, maybe.

Another spirit escaped his maw, a royal dressed figure that I'm fairly sure would have been an elf if he still had the top portion of his skull above his mouth.

"Congratulations, you have now become the third worst visitor we've ever had, and the 12th most destructive. For achieving such a feat, we will be sure to mount your head atop the Achievement Pikes, add your flask to the hall of trophies, and only hunt and eat three of the crapscallions you brought in this suicidal attempt. Barring the Bigfoot, he would be a bit to punchy for most to chew." The deep voiced not-elf spoke deeply and serenely, as if it was common fact. And I could understand most of it, except one thing.

"How do you know I have a flask on me?" I asked back hesitantly, piggybacking on Dogman for the added speed instead of Bigfoot for once.

"Because you must have been drunk to think this plan would work."

I blinked, then nodded.

"Well reasoned. However, you seem to mistaken on one major factor."

A vine was placed above Pumpking's eye in lieu of an eyebrow, and the not-elf was rubbing the nonexistent bridge of his nose.

"Oh my Gourd and the Lord who smashed it, what asinine stunt will this be before I turn you to a fine mulch?"

I could have laughed, could have given some kind of boast or jeer, but I just smiled. As we jumped straight through the ceiling.

Oh, vertical movement, everyone always forgets about you. Giving the run around might have broken past the established traps and saved me from playing further into his own contingencies, but it also let me get a good feel for the castle itself to go along with the mindset most Fiends worked off.

And the King of those folks, situated in a spooky castle that semi-routinely was dunked in Every-Matter? They'd be located dead center in this flying fortress, both because it would be an effective seat of power, and because it would be the most easily sealed location.

So we skipped the hassle of trying to find stairs or scaffoldings to work our way up floor by floor while under constant threat, by prepositioning ourselves and then just moving straight upward. Once, twice, three time, it wasn't until we reached the fourth floor containing nothing a single massive throne with its occupant.

Not a Mad King trying to change the world, for tyrants only last while they have momentum. Not a Lord who could lay dominion to Magic or legions of soldiers. This was a leader, the undisputed origin who ruled all that the Light dared to touch. This was Reign-Beaux, the Overlord of Dark World.

It was only upon seeing his massive wings, the pitch-dark armor adorned with the gems formed from the souls of enemies past, all while he rested the majority of his massive weight on the 20 foot pike made of shadows and gold, that I allowed a smile to break through my face again.

On my own two feet, my monsters fanned out behind me, and I locked eyes with a Ruler.

"I, have come to bargain."

END OF CHAPTER

The secret to ruining a madman's torture game? Make your OWN, DEADLIER game! They never see it coming. Anyway, real shit happening next time, and then I get to do more funny random shit again. I look forward to those days. Hope you all had fun with this.

In unrelated news, I'm really craving starting a Quest again, mostly cause I'm helping a few people fine-tune their own, and I don't know if I'm just putting more work on myself or something. Depends on how you all feel about it as well, cause I don't want to make something only to have it die from lack of interest in a few weeks. If I did make one though, I'm debating between Battle Network or Shaman King, cause I already have some stuff ready for either of those.