Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

The workers ran after us as we pelted through the nest and into the high-ceilinged corridor beyond. I turned to smack one away with the spear, sending the others scattering. As one, they turned and scuttled back toward the nest.

“Yeah! You run!” I shook my fist at them. “You call yourselves wasps!? You’re just a bunch of pussy-ass ants!”

“Hector.” Karalti backed up into me. “Turn around.”

From the other direction, at least twenty wasps boiled toward us along the walls and floor. These [Wormhunter Wasp Soldiers] were bigger, blacker, and meaner than their worker cousins. Each was about the size of a Doberman pinscher, with mandibles capable of clipping my head off like scissors and huge stingers that dribbled venom. The corridor was wide enough for two of us to fight abreast, but not any more than that.

“One day, I swear to Khors, I’m gonna tape your mouth shut.” Suri rushed in. “Stay back and buff if you can!”

I circled, trying to find a way to help, but this fight was up to Suri. The wasps mobbed her, stinging wildly, but nine out of ten times, their spiny butts slid off her heavy plate armor without dealing any damage.She blasted circles through the clump of their bodies, and when the carnage was over, the hallway was covered in insect parts, insect goo, and small loot bags.

“This looks like stuff you'll want.” Suri grimaced after checking one. “For potions and shit.”

“Hell yeah! Potions and shit!” I wiggled my fingers over the first bag. “Let’s see here… Giant Wasp Guts – mm-mmm – and Giant Wasp Venom. Splendid! I’ve heard that goes marvelously in tea.”

“You're so full of it.” She shook her head, flicking ichor off her blade.

“Full of venom? Yeah. Among other things.” I stuffed [Giant Wasp Venom x 25] and [Black Chitin x 20] into my Inventory, and moved to the next bag. There was something in there other than monster parts. “Oh shit. This one has a key. You know what that means, right?”

Suri visibly braced herself.

“It was the Bee-key-per!” I chortled.

Karalti groaned.

Suri leaned toward me, sword clutched in her hands. “I WILL destroy you.”

I paused for a moment. “Don’t you mean… punish me?”

We ran the rest of the way down the tunnel: me laughing hysterically, Suri in hot pursuit, Karalti confused but happy to be running.

Wasp tunnels were bored into the walls to either side, full of agitated insects. They were making the marching boots sound by flicking their wings all together at the same time. No more of them came out to attack us, though. Instead, they began to scuttle away into the depths of their hive, ignoring us entirely as adistant bassy rumble reverberated through the floor like distant thunder.

“Don’t tell me,” Suri groaned.

I grimaced. “Surely the game wouldn't do that, would it?”

“Throw a Level 100 giant monster at us? Probably,” Suri replied. “With the exception of Rin, all the Architects we've met have been assholes.”

Well, now that she mentioned it... “Good point.”

The key-locked door was one of four at the end of this hallway. We found some loot inside of stone chests: copper, iron and a mysterious ‘ancient ore’; several Harpy Claws, a gold bar worth 100 olbia, a papyrus scroll containing a spell, Holy Boon, that none of us could use but that could probably be sold. We also found a map of the Rose Vault, which showed us that the locked door was the Trophy Room: our last stop once we were done looting.

“Alright. My hunch is that we’re up for a fight in here.” Suri inserted the key and looked to us. “Ready?”

I gave her a thumbs-up, and Karalti did the same. Suri nodded, turned the lock, and then kicked the door in ahead of her.

The room beyond was round, almost like an underground tower. The ceiling was just a mass of pipes, all feeding into the wall on our right. The floor had a golden ring around the edge of it, and lit alcoves that displayed weapons of all kinds. There was a pair of finely worked scimitars, a spear and sword combination, even a pair of pistols. There were also some tools: a fine hammer and level were also on display. On the other side of the room, directly across from the door, was a row of chests.

“Huh.” Suri frowned. “Guess we were both wrong. No boss, no monsters. Just the wasps.”

“You sillies! There won’t be a boss in the trophy room! It’s just treasure!” Before I could stop her, Karalti squeezed past me, danced out into the middle of the room, and was dumped down into a trapdoor with a short shriek of surprise.

“Fuck! Karalti!” I pushed past Suri, who grabbed my arm and hauled me back as the hole in the floor continued to expand, tiles collapsing in like dominos. It stopped collapsing inward when it reached the ring: and then, a chorus of mechanisms began to grind and turn. The door behind us slammed and locked as the floor rose up, pushing Karalti and a giant into view.

The creature had to be undead: undead in the way a vampire was undead. He was about fifteen feet tall, ugly as hell, lurching against the glowing chains that bound him toward Karalti as she scrambled away. She bounced back with a scream as it broke one chain, then the next, then lunged for us all. I dashed to the side; Karalti scrambled away, less gracefully. But Suri, still standing near the door, froze like a deer in the headlights.

The [Rostori Brute] let out a wet bellow and then, arms open wide, charged straight at her. It was disturbingly fast. We could do nothing as Suri came to her senses a second too late. The ogre bodyslammed into her, picked her up around the waist, and smashed her into the wall once, twice, three times before throwing her across the room and into the smooth tiled wall between eaves.

[Suri takes 1800 reduced bludgeoning damage!]

[Suri is unconscious!]

“Fucking fuck-!” I