Chapter 18: Crownbreaker


    They closed the distance.


    In a flash, a wave of Boglins surged around the bend—snarling, clawing, frenzied. I stood my ground, shield raised, and took the brunt of the charge. This time, at least, my boots found purchase on solid stone instead of slick mud. It didn’t make their impact any easier to bear.


    They were fast. Strong. Crazed.


    Even planted as I was, I staggered under the force.


    And just like before, they weren’t just attacking us—they were snapping at each other, gnashing and clawing in a frenzy, lost in a pheromone-fueled madness.


    This wasn’t a fight. It was a war of attrition.


    And they had the numbers.


    I counted at least four in front of me—maybe more, just beyond the edge of Elunara’s light. Bob and I held the firm, his tusks tearing into anything that got too close. We focused on the front, hacking and slamming in a brutal rhythm.


    There was no time to think. No time to breathe. Just hold. Just survive.


    Then—heat.


    Behind me, a sudden glow lit up the cavern in violent flashes of orange and red. A towering wall of flame surged from the stone, roaring like a beast unchained. The light spilled forward, catching the Boglins in front of me in stark relief—glinting off their slick skin, casting our shadows long and twisted across the walls.


    But the Boglins didn’t stop.


    They threw themselves at it anyway...Screaming, driven by some suicidal compulsion. One broke through the fire, its outline a shuddering smear of heat and agony. It staggered forward, clawing at the air before collapsing into a smoldering husk curling in on itself, the stench of roasted flesh slicing through the rot.


    And still, the ones in front didn’t relent.


    Claws tore at my shield. Teeth snapped inches from my face. A few swipes found purchase, forcing me to recoil—just a moment, just enough to leave a gap.


    One slipped through, lunging past me, barreling straight for Elunara.


    I shouted—something loud, and incoherent. A warning that did not make any true words, just noise.


    But Bromm was already there.


    His axe came down in a clean arc, carving through the Boglin’s midsection and dropping it in a heap before it could take another step.


    “Push forward!” he roared.


    With the party’s focus locked ahead, Bromm at my side and Bob barreling through anything in his path, we pressed forward, driving the Boglins back.


    Together, we pushed hard—Bromm’s axe, Bob’s tusks, and my sword and shield carving a brutal path through the chaos. We rounded the bend—and there she was.


    The Brood-Queen.


    She loomed in the tunnel like a swollen toad, grotesque and immovable. The crown on her head throbbed with a low, pulsing vibration. That was my focus. If we could take it out, maybe the Boglins’ suicidal rage would break with it.


    She held her ground.


    Behind her, more Boglins poured into the tunnel, a writhing, endless stream of bodies. I didn’t know how long Veldrin’s fire wall would hold. All I knew was, we didn’t have time to sit around and find out


    We closed the distance.


    Bromm and Bob broke off just far enough to intercept the Boglins trying to get around her, holding the flanks while I stepped up to face the Queen directly.


    She filled the passage like a living blockade, every movement slow but deliberate, like a predator sizing up prey. Her crown vibrated violently, the sound now a dull hum in my chest.


    I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never fought something this big before, not like this. But I planted my feet, raised my shield, and locked eyes with her.


    Then she moved.


    A massive claw came crashing down. I didn’t dare try to block it, if it landed, it would shatter my shield and likely my arm with it. I dodged instead, heart pounding, boots skidding across the stone.


    She was slow, but damn, she was strong. Each swing of her limbs came with the weight of a collapsing wall. I was faster, but every breath came harder, faster. My lungs burned. My arms ached.


    Behind me, the screams of Boglins still echoed, but Veldrin’s fire held. The tunnel behind was still lit with roaring flame.


    Then Elunara moved, her staff glowing bright, and vines erupted from the walls and floor, thick and fast, wrapping around the Queen’s limbs. Her fists were locked mid-slam, restrained in place. For a moment, I thought we had her.


    Veldrin struck next.


    That damned whip of his lashed out again, cracking across her side. It hit deep. The stench of burning rot filled the chamber, so sharp it made my stomach turn.


    The Queen shrieked—a gurgling, furious bellow, and snapped the vines like thread.


    Then things got worse.


    She vomited.


    Not just once. Not like a creature retching from pain. This was deliberate. A heaving, grotesque flood that spilled across the stone in a wave of bile and filth, coating the floor in thick, viscous slime.


    And the Boglins—they used it.


    They threw themselves into it like it was mud, skittering and sliding with sickening ease. It made them faster. More erratic.


    We were losing footing. I was losing footing.


    My boots skidded with every shift. No traction. No stability.


    I stabbed at the Queen, driving my sword up into her gut with everything I had, but she didn’t even flinch. Not a blink. Not a grunt.


    I yanked at the blade, struggling to free it from the thick mass of her flesh.


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    And then… she looked at me.


    Her eyes, those sickly yellow, snake-like slits, narrowed.


    She lowered herself, pressing her bloated form into the bile-slick floor.


    And that’s when I realized… it wasn’t just the Boglins who thrived in this muck.


    Without warning, she spun—an unnatural, violent rotation that whipped her entire body around. A full 360 degrees. I was flung backward like a ragdoll, Bob and Bromm tossed with me, crashing into the wet stone.


    She slithered forward.


    Fast.


    Her body undulated in jerking, rhythmic waves, like a slug on speed, like a monstrous eel weaving through filth. She wasn’t trying to smash us anymore.


    She was hunting.


    Her massive jaws snapped at the air as she advanced, each bite a thunderous crack of bone on bone, like a gator mid-kill.


    She was faster now.


    My shield wouldn’t help, there was no time to raise it, and even if I did, she’d swallow it whole… along with my entire torso.


    I was already on my ass, pinned against the wall, too slow to react.


    This was it. This was how it ended.


    I had just started to figure things out, started making plans, trying to accept this world as my new life. I was finally ready to live.


    But now?


    Now I was about to be bitten in half by a filth-covered monstrosity.


    Then—


    A feeling.


    Faint. Familiar. Flickering at the edge of my fingertips. I didn’t know what to do with it. Just another cruel joke, I thought—one last tease of something powerful, right before I died.


    Damn it.


    I clenched my fist.


    And something was there. Not air.


    Cold. Solid. Metallic.


    I opened my eyes, and saw my hand buried in a swirling black void.


    Magic…?


    I didn’t think—I just pushed. Reached deeper.


    And it answered.


    A weapon slammed into my grasp, long and heavy.. A spear, ornate and obsidian-black, rimmed in veins of molten ruby.


    The Queen was still coming.


    She looked just as stunned as I felt, but she didn’t stop.


    No, she barreled forward—and went face-first into the spear.


    The impact was instant and brutal. The weapon didn’t budge. It punched through her skull with a sickening crunch, her momentum pinning it to the stone behind me like a grotesque flagpole.


    She kept sliding, until the shaft buried itself more than halfway,


    And then, with a sharp crack like splintering bone, the crown shattered.


    Into pieces.


    I stared, stunned.


    Had I just… summoned that? Was that my magic?


    The spear was still lodged in the Queen’s skull, buried halfway down the shaft. It hadn’t vanished. Not yet. I approached it slowly, eyes locked on the weapon. The black shaft shimmered with a faint white glow, the blade itself rippling as if the air around it had turned to water, calm, but ever moving.


    Veldrin gasped, loud, unfiltered awe.


    He rushed over without hesitation, crouching by the weapon and inspecting it with wide eyes. He didn’t say anything at first, just stared. And then—


    “This weapon is imbued with pure mana,” he said at last, voice barely above a whisper. “It… I’ve never seen anything like it.”


    And as if on cue, the spear began to unravel, its glow fading, the shaft fracturing like brittle glass. Within seconds, it crumbled away, disappearing into the air like it had never been there at all.


    Only the wound it left remained.


    I got to my feet slowly, staring down at my hands, half-expecting the spear to still be there. It wasn’t. But the tingling sensation lingered, like static crackling under my skin.


    Bromm, Elunara, and Bob crowded in around me. Veldrin was the first to speak.


    "Do you know… what this means?"


    I didn’t even pause. "Yeah. I won’t have to bug Haldrek for new weapons anytime soon."


    Veldrin turned toward me like he was about to slap me again.


    Then he laughed. Loud, and longer than I expected.


    "That is also true," he said between breaths, "but it means there’s still magic in this world that I don’t understand…"


    He trailed off, his gaze locking onto me with a gleam that made my skin crawl.


    He looked at me like I was a puzzle. A rare experiment. A living artifact he wanted to take apart and study from the inside out.


    I didn’t like that look. Not one damn bit.


    The fight was over.


    With the Queen dead, the remaining Boglins scattered into the darkness. The faint wet slaps of their feet echoed off the stone as they fled, fading deeper into the tunnels.


    Elunara went around patching us up. None of us were too badly hurt, but we couldn’t afford to linger.


    Veldrin knelt beside the shattered crown, prodding at the broken, coral-like chunks with a look of disappointment.


    “Well,” he muttered, “that was the only thing of value on this... creature.”


    He said it like the word tasted rotten, as he gathered the pieces up, stuffing them into a sack.


    My heart was still hammering. I’d just done magic. Real magic. And it had saved my life.


    I didn’t understand it, didn’t know what triggered it, how it worked, or if I’d ever be able to do it again. But I was grateful it happened.


    We moved deeper into the cave, the tunnels narrowing and winding as we walked. Veldrin, of course, wouldn’t shut up.


    “Try again,” he said behind me.


    “I have been!” I snapped.


    “Just focus! You must’ve felt something—try to replicate it.”


    “I am trying!”


    He wouldn’t let it go. Every few steps, another demand. Another theory. Another half-baked suggestion.


    But no matter how hard I concentrated, nothing happened. I couldn’t feel the pull. Couldn’t find the void. My hands were just hands again. Useless and empty.


    I wasn’t any closer to figuring it out, but that didn’t stop Veldrin from scolding me like I was hiding some grand secret on purpose.


    Eventually, the tunnel widened again, this time not into another passage. This had to be the Queen’s lair.


    At the center sat a massive, repulsive hill of mud and bile, piled high into a throne-shaped mound. Just large enough for her to squat on. All around it lay scattered junk, splintered wood, broken crates, more of those weird wooden cups, the busted wheel of a cart… and a wooden leg?


    I guess this was the “treasure hoard” Elunara mentioned.


    A moment later, she rushed forward, eyes gleaming. She started digging through the junk like she’d just stumbled onto a gold vein, brushing aside filth, inspecting scraps, humming to herself like she was about to haul off a wagon full of priceless loot.


    But there was no hoard. No real treasure. Nothing of value.


    We turned over every inch of the chamber, and after a while, even Bob lost interest in rooting around further.


    With a huff, Elunara picked up the wooden leg in one hand and regrouped with the rest of us.


    Bromm stared at her. Silent. Deadpan.


    “What?” she asked.


    “Leave the leg, Elunara,” Bromm said.


    “I want to keep it.”


    …He didn’t argue. Just gave a long blink, then turned away. Like this was just another day in the Hollow.


    “We best find an exit,” he muttered. “Sun’ll be down soon. And we got what we came for.”


    He glanced at me, and gave me a nod.


    There was only one tunnel left, aside from the one we came from. So we followed it, leaving the revolting chamber behind.


    Then—POP.


    “Oh man… that was disssgustinggg,” came a voice, drawn out and theatrical. The imp.


    “You’re sooo close,” it crooned. “You almost got it figured out. But still so far away…”


    Veldrin froze mid-step. His eyes went wide. Right. I’d forgotten he couldn’t hear the imp, so the sudden appearance of it, must of been jarring.


    Actually… I’d forgotten to tell him about what the imp said to me the day before.


    Everything had happened so fast.


    “Uh… Veldrin,” I started, the others turning toward me. “So, the imp wants you to help it get out of its phase shift. Said it’d help us in return.”


    Veldrin blinked slowly. Then he laughed. Sharply.


    “You—you—want me to trust an imp? Do you hear yourself? These creatures exist to serve chaos. They lie. They manipulate. They don’t help mort—”


    He never finished.


    A rock nailed him square in the forehead.


    “HOW DARE YOU!” he roared, spinning with enough fury to nearly fling his staff. Elunara jumped. Bromm instinctively reached for his axe. Neither of them could see it.


    To them, Veldrin had just snapped mid-rant and declared war on a shadow.


    But I could see it. Still standing there on the ground. Still grinning. The imp toppled over with laughter, kicking his heels in the air like this was the best theater he’d seen in centuries.


    Before anyone could react, a light flickered ahead.


    And with it—footsteps.


    We turned, weapons half-raised. I guess this dungeon wasn’t done with us yet.


    The steps grew louder. Heavier. Multiple sets trailing behind a much larger pair. Then, torches. Flames split the dark, and through them stepped… someone familiar.


    Tarak.


    The towering Tauren shaman emerged from the tunnel, flanked by a group of cloaked humans carrying torches.


    “What are you doing here, Tarak?” Veldrin barked, his voice sharp and suspicious.


    Tarak’s eyes swept over us, calm and unreadable. “The spirits whispered of danger. I came to offer aid. I didn’t expect to find you here.”


    The imp didn’t speak. Didn’t move. But it stared at Tarak, head tilted slightly, like it was seeing something it didn’t quite recognize.


    Tarak continued, “The mana here is twisted… tainted. I’ve come to cleanse what I can. The exit’s just ahead, about a hundred yards back. It’ll lead you out near the Fields, back toward the Hollow.”


    Without another word, he turned and kept walking. The humans followed silently, cloaks trailing behind them as they moved toward the tunnel we’d just come from.


    As Tarak passed me, he looked down—not at me, but at something near my feet.


    The imp.


    He stared just a second too long… then moved on.


    Veldrin scoffed. “More spirit talk. More vagueness. Of course.”


    Elunara turned to me, brow raised. “Alright, someone better start explaining. Why are you and Veldrin suddenly talking to shadows?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not on Madcap Dust, are you?”