Author's Note: Okay so avoiding a repeat of what happened last week. So Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 56: Melromarc's Dungeon
Tanya had one more objective added to the pile of things that needed looking at. Upon returning to Melromarc she spotted this crater that was where she had been informed the prison where Melromarc kept it's prisoners was located, before the Spirit Tortoise turned it into a crater. What's worst was the secret passage leading down into the maximum security wing where Melromarc kept it's most 'important prisoners' was open. Such as Malty, and like the Three Heroes Church loyalists like the pope.
"I have a actual, literal, end of the world crisis to deal with and I have to at some point in time put it on hold to deal with a pack of religious fanatics!" In case it wasn't obvious, Tanya was something beyond furious right now.
Of course the Church by themselves were nothing so apocalyptic as to warrant taking a break from dealing with the civilisation destroying monsters or the potential sources of power that was the dungeons just to hunt them down. But they were the only ones who knew where Melromarc's dungeon was located, and that unfortunately meant that they would continue to be a massive pain in her butt.
"Please tell me that Katarina and Kuro are doing better than I am?" Tanya asked looking to her weapon as it produced the 'Crystal Ball Bow.' Katarina was chasing a lead on the other dungeons in Zeltoble, Kuro was tracking down one of the possible beasts located in some backwater country, along with one of the Seven Star weapons, Trash had a lead on another of the directional beasts in Faubrey along the rest of the Seven Star weapons they've yet to locate. "Right then. No time left to be subtle. I want a list of locations where the Three Heroes Church could be hiding out right now."
"Hiding isn't exactly the word I would use." Eli stated as he looked at a report from the castle town.
"Rejoice true Believers!" The Pope shouted looking down on his audience from above. "The Demon of the Shield has perished!" The Pope started his speech as such. "No longer need we fear the demon's power! And soon the False Heroes will perish as well! We, God's will on this world, Shall see justice done and the-" With a loud crash the crystal ball displaying that hologram inside of the room Tanya rented was shot with a arrow.
"Was that necessary?" Otto asked distinctly recalling that they had only borrowed that thing Tanya just destroyed.
"Where. Is. He?" Tanya asked her every word a slow and methodical drip with absolutely murderous intent.
"If you had let that finish..." Viktoriya was interrupted by another arrow clipping her extremely well done hair. "There is some supposedly sacred ground that the pope is gathering his loyal band of lunatics for the purpose of overthrowing the monarchy and wiping out demi-human kind. The usual take over the world schemes, currently the kingdom is making no move against them. Partially because they're too busy dealing with the damages from the Spirit Turtle, but mostly because she knows you want them yourself." Ah. How generous of her majesty. "The map was in the projection crystal." Another arrow clipped the other side of Viktoriya's braids. "Fortunately we made a copy."
Tanya's friend was dead, and these people were glorifying it. If it was about honouring her sacrifice to stop the Spirit Tortoise and somehow or another deal with that Kyo lunatic then it would be different but as it stands she was so pissed off that these people no longer have a name as far as she is concerned.
Blitz flew the group over to the mountains where the Church of the Three Heroes were attempting to rally their forces for whatever scheme that they had been plotting. Followers of unknown association were being gathered outside of the mountain fortress, if Tanya was in a better mood she might care about keeping the number of casualties down in this place. Instead she whipped out a familiar two headed bow, one dragon and one lion, the bow itself a weave of white, black, gold and blood red.
"Rapid fire!" Tanya stated shooting the cursed bow. "Prideful shot!" And thus an entire mass of people had been put under her control, Tanya landed with her party a short walk away from the mass of people that she had placed under her control. "My bow tells me that the mind control effect spreads by close contact. Being surrounded by people who are being mind controlled will quickly cause you to be affected yourselves." Tanya warned turning her attention to the rest of her party. "Station yourselves outside of the entrances leading into and out of the mines, I won't tolerate any rats escaping from the cage."
The others nodded their heads to Tanya's statement and with that Tanya went inside to do the work, in this case coordinating the brainwashed horde. Tanya applied human wave tactics to the situation, dividing her brainwashed into groups to swarm around the base of the base spreading her influence into the enemy ranks. Her followers obtained valuable information such as a map of the base which Tanya had been quick to put to use helping her to monitor the take over process for the fortress from her new forward operating base. Then water started to poor down on Tanya's head like she was in the middle of a monsoon, sucking some of the water into her bow revealed... 'Holy Water.'
"Uh oh." The most idea material for dispelling the effects of the cursed series, aside from the water from Cal Mira's hot springs, is Holy water.
"Die Demon!" Tanya blocked the overhead strike from what was one of her loyal brainwashed followers and then delivered a arrow at near point blank range to his head. Tanya was under ground, her chief advantage of flight magic deprived from her, on top of that she was inside of narrow corridors where long range specialists like her suffers. In short she was not having a good day, and in hindsight that might've been the idea.
"I can't even deny the demon accusation at this point." Tanya stated as she heard the rapid approach of boots stomping down the hallway. Wind, Earth, Gravity, Creation, Time and more recently Metamorphism, considering her lack of training with that one she shouldn't count it as part of her war assets anyway, as well as several hundred skills. Tanya couldn't simply portal out of there from within a structure, as it stood, so instead she had to fight her way out. "I will not go down quietly." She didn't either. As someone who can use earth magic Tanya was at an natural advantage inside of a mountain, but the church's followers can use earth magic too, and they were more numerous as well. Something else that gave her an advantage was her wind magic, which allowed her to suck the air out of a area, difficult under normal circumstances, easier in a confined space, but the church's followers could also use wind magic to suck the air back in. So instead Tanya went with the big guns. Gravity magic wasn't a good pick underneath this much rock, time wasn't the first pick of magic given how serious it was being treated as back in Cal Mira. So that left creation, and a lot of inorganic matter around her to manipulate.
"Lets start with Crystal spike." Tanya altered the floor underneath the enemy forces first, and noted that the skill she implanted into the ground wasn't doing anything. "Right then: Soul Eat." So she tacked on a another skill to let the ground absorb the SP from the enemy and suddenly they were skewered with crystal spikes. "So then, traps need soul eat as a mandatory skill. Good to know." As Tanya specifically wanted to avoid the same fate that she inflicted upon the enemy forces she used magic to float over the trap in question and down the hallway, and had to immediately back track as more of the enemy forces started to pore into the hallway specifically in order to kill her. "You make it too easy." For the second time in a row Tanya opted for the crystal spike trap and as a direct consequence left another bloody mess in the hallway.
Sadly this time she had witnesses which also meant that she had people scattering around the base preparing traps of their own.
"Hello there, little fake Hero." Tanya looked around for the source of the pope's voice, which led to a pipe attached to funnel, still dripping with holy water.
"Hello little fake priest." Tanya replied in a mocking tone of voice. Tanya mentally deduced what happened, the pipes are designed to relay sound throughout the base, probably amplified by the sound amplifying properties of wind magic, doubtlessly designed to act as some intercom system, in the best case scenario.
"How dare you! Unlike you I am a man of god!" The pope replied in a acerbic tone of voice.
"Gods do not exist!" Tanya snapped in reply. "You are a man of nothing!" Tanya's latest attempt through the dungeon was interrupted by a set of arrows that nearly nailed her to a wall.
"You doubt divine power? When you yourself have one of god's weapons attached to your body?" The pope asked even as his minions got ready with another attack to try and kill Tanya.
"A weapon of god? Surely you're joking right?" Tanya found a rock, gave it the Meteor Shot and SP Regeneration skills before using earth magic to chuck it around the corner. Several loud explosions ensued until the stone had been completely destroyed. "When I first got this thing it could barely hit the broad side of a barn and couldn't kill anything tougher than a bird! If that is the power of a god then I'll take a gun any day of the week!" Tanya kept moving but was soon interrupted by the rumbling of a cave in. "I'm open to new ideas!" Tanya muttered as her bow quickly replied: it went through the H.U.D. and selected the bit on gravity magic and creation magic. Well that will do it. "Gravity Fountain!" At Tanya's command gravity magic was sunk into the falling stone which then went into reverse and flew into the ceiling.
"Have you not witnessed the power of the bow's abilities? It's destructive capacity!? What else but the power of a god would you call that?"
Tanya flew through the hole in the ceiling and added more skills to the chunks of rock. She got to bear witness to sections of the walls rearranging themselves as she went, she had suspected but now she knew. Instead she had to rely on her sense of direction and brute strength to get out of this maddening place.
"My power. Every material I fed to it was either found or killed by me, every weapon copied found through my own efforts or those of my allies, every unlock through my own efforts. There's a limit to sleep talking you senile old fool!" Tanya deployed earth magic to have the stones put to work. More of Meteor Shot, followed by the shot augmentation of her own world's magic, and as one final touch... "Replusion!" To Tanya's command Gravity magic executed another function, expelling the stones away from them and slamming it into a stone wall to break her way through the mountain and create a exit outside. But she did not leave yet. Instead Tanya went over to one of the pipes that the pope has been generously telling her the location of all this time.
"God is with us Demon!" Tanya wrenched the pipe free of the wall and bent it so that the cone would face upwards before creating a stone funnel around it to deliver another nasty surprise.
"Then I have nothing to worry about. Poison Rain!" Tanya fired off the skill directly into the plus sized funnel she had created and quickly filled it up with liquid poison. "First Flare!" At Tanya's command a mixture of fire and wind magic was blown into the poisonous liquid, vaporising the liquid and expelling it into the pipes to spread in gaseous form throughout the base. "Now than. Where was I?" Tanya got a considerable number of XP notifications from that last stunt, which together with the bodies that were strewn around the area told her that her plan was a considerable success. And also a abysmal failure.
"I was suppose to capture one of you so that I could find the dungeon right? Huu. Lovely." Having failed in her initial plan Tanya instead fired a signal flare telling her party to proceed with the invasion of the base. The masks everyone was wearing closely resembled those favoured by plague doctors, universal antidote had filled the noses of the masks rendering the air safe to breath as they used Earth magic to make their way through the base checking bodies as they went along, and yet through it all they had yet to find the body they were looking for. "A rat fleeing a sinking ship doesn't even begin to describe my feelings right now." Tanya stated accent thick but muffled through her mask. "Is that creature part cockroach or something?"
'That Creature.' The Queen might take offence at the implication of one of her daughters being part Cockroach. And there was a lot fewer bodies here then what there should've been too.
"I've never heard of a cockroach Demi-human before." Aranaya stated as she used her webs as a makeshift bulletin board for the documents she was examining. "In any case I'm acquiring some idea as to what they were planning on doing here."
"I'm listening." Tanya stated as she looked at the information in question.
"Apparently they've acquired material they think was chipped off of a legendary or vassal weapon of old. To be more specific they think the material in question came from a hero that became the basis in a child's fairy tale." Aranaya presented Tanya the book in question.
"'The Legendary Heroes Vs the Demon Lord of Pride.' Not a book I'd let my kids read." And not just because it was radiating with Three Heroes Church propaganda.
"Yes well you should already be aware of what pride means." Aranaya stated as he pinned a document depicting a broken dagger.
"I wouldn't use the term Hero to describe this person either." Reincarnated. She didn't know for sure, it could just be a summoned who lost himself in the curse series though that part was irrelevant. No the next document was much more concerning.
"It would appear that they decided to try and acquire a Hero to facilitate their research." Aranaya gestured to Four pictures, one crossed out, Maple, Tanya, Katarina and Kuro.
"Which also means that they could be preparing to take a swing at Katarina and Kuro." Tanya noted looking the images up and down. And suddenly the Church broadcasting it's location to the world made a lot more sense. "Or one of the Seven Stars." And a reincarnator with a slew of nasty abilities waiting to be reverse engineered. Lovely. "Where are their research materials?" Tanya asked aware of the fact that bits of cursed blades was the last thing she needed in the hands of people she was trying to kill.
"On another note I'm not sure if it's a dungeon but there seems to have been a place that the church was tasked with guarding by heroes of the past." Aranaya produced a map of the base, better late than never. "Approximately 2000 feet below us."
"Well at least it's not far away." Tanya used earth magic to open a way down to a rather sizeable and intimidating door located at the bottom most floor of the dungeon.
A light was fired out from the symbol around two thirds of the way up the door hitting Tanya's bow and causing jewels that were on either side of the door to light up one after another before suddenly stopping four out of six jewels up and deactivating, no change in Tanya's H.U.D. or knowledge and no new magic added to her repertoire. Tanya thought the situation over for a few moments, Every other time they got one of these magics they had to fend off a boss type monster to get it. If she counts the number of things she's done that number four in total but is supposed to have done six.
"The dungeons." Tanya concluded as the others looked at her to elaborate. "Not counting this one, there's a total of six dungeons in the world." Tanya stated causing the others to look at her pondering.
"So you need to open up all the other dungeons in the world before you can access this one?" Eli noted as he looked at the door in question. "That's not ominous at all."
Just because she was obstinate like that Tanya attempted to excise the door with her earth magic. Nada. She then attempted to blow it off of it's hinges and for her efforts got slammed into the wall directly behind her. It also meant that between not finding a dungeon that's of any use to them and letting the bitch get away with most of the pope's followers that Tanya effectively wasted her entire day by coming here and nearly getting herself killed by these bloody lunatics. Needless to say she felt absolutely livid.
"Is there anything anyone here can do or say to make me feel like I haven't wasted one of the precious few days left until a monster of the apocalypse comes wakes and attempts to destroy two thirds of life on this planet on a wild goose chase?" Silence made itself painfully loud in the ensuing moments. "Anyone!?"
"Well if they're focusing on one of the legends about the past heroes, maybe we can pick up their trail at where-ever this story takes place?" Rishia stated as she held up the story book. Tanya took a serious look at Rishia and glared as she made a singular ruthless decision.
"For now we're reporting back to the castle town. I need to know how Katarina and Kuro are progressing, and you all need to figure out where the pope and his cronies have been poking around." There was a short portal trip back to the throne room of Melromarc's castle town, followed shortly thereafter with a visit to it's royal library where Tanya was now working to get a hold of her fellow Heroes while everyone else was accompanied by stacks of books.
"Kuro here." The brown skinned girl stated as she was projected in illusionary form from the end of Tanya's bow. They waited a moment for Katarina to pick up as well.
"Tch. Forget about it. I've wasted enough time today as it is." Tanya stated as she looked up Kuro. Course as she had yet to reach her destination all that she could report on was a lead she was following concerning the Shukaku while she was going to give picking up one of the unclaimed weapons a go, in the mean time she was steadily building experience points and with luck would hopefully be able to make use of a noble phantasm to suppress the big birdie, or at least lead it somewhere it can soak up enough XP to delay the next one waking up. She was next treated to a equally unproductive conversation with Trash.
"I'm afraid my attempts to track down the stray Seven Star weapons has been met with a stonewall." Trash stated before he turned the crystal ball cane to face a blank wall. "Literally. Young Takt made off with the artefact I intended to purloin in a attempt to track the four of you down, which was then destroyed when young Kyurie brought down Takt's airship. They have a spare but for reasons we just discussed are reluctant to hand it over." Yet another reason to get into contact with Katarina as soon as possible.
"Any leads on the other beast?" Tanya asked brow in the air suspiciously.
"The Hakuko and I are not exactly on what you call good terms." Trash stated as once again that dark hour in his life came back to haunt him with one of his eyes letting out a deeply annoyed twitch. "Takt's old notes are proving more fruitful."
"Takt already found the last of the beasts?" Tanya asked looking genuinely surprised by the new revelation.
"Does it not make sense that the man who was meant to bring ruin to the world's protector's would be given advance warning of where to find them?" Trash asked brow cocked in the air. Thank you Takt, may you forever rot in hell, for finally proving yourself useful.
"Let us know what you find out. If it turns out the beast is there and is about to wake up come back to the castle town and pick us up, Kuro will do the same if she finds the one about to wake up." That just left Katarina, and whatever the hell she is doing in Zeltoble right now. Tanya felt like beating her head against the table. "I want to shoot something." Tanya stated turning her attention to the rest of their party.
Rishia poked her head out of a pile of books and brandishing one page open.
"The outline of this mountain matches the background on the cover of the book." Tanya blankly stared at Rishia. "That isn't all." Rishia pulled over several history books. "Though a children's fairy tale it does have it's roots in real actual events. One of the Heroes really did unlock the curse of pride and go crazy, though the story didn't mention which one for somewhat obvious reasons." Politically isolating any Hero was a huge matter that would not be taken lightly, Maple was proof enough of that. So instead the situation was buried, but then again so was Rishia at the moment. "The Church's document confirmed the cursed material was a dagger, which leaves us with two possibilities for weapons it came from, the Legendary Sword and the Seven Star Projectile. In the first case, the Hero of the Sword of the time would go on to live a long healthy life, but the projectile on the other hand was reportedly killed and his weapon taken to Zeltoble."
"So do we need to go to Zeltoble?" Eli asked brow cocked in the air suspiciously. "No what we need is to go to the place where the projectile hero had their final clash before ownership of their weapon was transferred over to Zeltoble." Which as it turns out was a area that they were all already somewhat familiar with.
"You have got to be kidding me." Rishia's village was doing better since the heroes did something about their unruly neighbours, a sturdy wall had been erected, Maple's Bio-plants were flourishing, the slaves were bringing in monster meat almost every day. That's what the last report she got said anyway. "This feels oddly familiar." Tanya stated looking at the ruins of Rishia's home town, even the bio-plants had been burnt down. They were safe to eat, Tanya's initial misgivings about them be damned, which was important in a environment this inhospitable, thus there was only one logical explanation as to why they would have been destroyed. "Blitz." Tanya stated prompting the well trained griffin to stand at attention. "Find. Them." And towards that end Blitz took off into the air while Tanya made her preparations.
In the absence of brainwashing magic, which had it's own separate antidote prepared, what was the most effective means for the church to take control of a large number of people to have them excavate a area? Slave seals. Toward's that end Tanya dropped by the slave merchant to pick up some slave seal breaking potion. Blitz returned a short period of time later having learned where the Church's archaeological site was and so Tanya was loaded onto her back with two barrels, the first was the slave breaking potion, and the second was the remaining supply of holy water from the church's base. Flying over the collection of slaves Tanya dumped both potions onto the crowd thereby breaking them free of the control they had been under and fled from the sight like a mass of spiders. After that Tanya and her griffin started to shoot at the church as they prepared their retaliatory fire forcing them to scatter.
"Ah good you're here." Tanya stated looking directly at the pope.
"You were forced to flee from us-"
"You were the only one who ran away." Tanya stated as she prepared the dragon hourglass bow. "And you are only still alive because I thought I needed you alive. That is no longer the case." Hence in that moment Tanya disappeared along with her griffin, with all of the people of the Ivy Red territory already long gone. And a moment later so was the last of the Three Heroes church along with their entire site after the entire place was obliterated in a massive explosion from a projectile that had been crashed into the area via catapult. Using gravity magic as the basis Tanya imbued that skill into a boulder, which then had several mana potions attached to it, and chucked it through the crashing into the ground and creating a mini black hole and crushed the entire area into a mass the size and shape of a basket ball. "Huu. That felt good." Tanya stated turning her catapult back into her legendary bow. "And on a side note if we do have to kill anymore apocalypse monsters this should make it a lot easier."
Review Section: Again my sincere apologies for what happened last week everyone.
drmcgraw186: Pretty much.
Nightshadegirl: Geez, now who do we know that fights with giant stuffed animals...?
Guest1: Good idea, also irrelevant since I already picked out all the other world's heroes.
Guest2: I think the Jewel weapon copies accessories not weapons with jewels on them. I see it as a strictly magic based weapon.
Guest3: No it's the effect of Air Strike Javelin.