Empire Builder 1: Breed, Populate, Conquer by Dante King (free e books to read online txt) 📕

trailed after it. Ben pulled the head through the doorway and hooked his blade around to sever the vine, allowing him to pull the door shut.

The head was a big round sphere, the size of a basketball. Ben’s scimitar stuck straight through its open jaws and protruded from the other side. The big ball was featureless. It had no eyes, no ears. Its jaws were simply an opening, as if it had been split open on one side and had a bunch of short sharp teeth inserted.

Ben held the head up for everyone to see. “If it has no eyes and no ears, how does it sense us? It somehow knew we were opening that door.”

Melody shrugged. “The bestiary was not totally clear about that. Perhaps they sense us through taste, or through some other sense we do not understand.”

Nipper had certainly sensed the vine monster’s head himself. He stood up on his hind legs, trying his hardest to reach up and sniff at the head, which had green sap dripping down its jaws onto the steps.

Ben lowered the head slightly for Nipper to reach. He wasn’t sure he felt comfortable feeding monsters to his newborn kitten, but he didn’t know what else a monster child was supposed to eat.

He didn’t need to worry, he quickly realized. Nipper took one sniff when the head was within reach and gave a disgusted mew, turning away and spitting, as though trying to get rid of the taste. Obviously, he conformed to stereotypes and refused to eat vegetarian. He and Vinata would not get along.

“How do we defeat these monsters?” Ben looked up at Melody.

“Old fashioned weapons and combat will do,” she said cheerfully. “Elemental magic should work on them too. Oh,” she added, glancing at the torches. “And fire will do the trick as well.”

“You don’t seem too concerned,” Lulu commented.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Melody replied, holding her wand at the ready. “The vine monsters are not hard to kill, but we don’t know how many of them are waiting in the chamber beyond. We must all be ready.”

“Roger that,” Ben offhandedly acknowledged.

“Who’s Roger?” Melody looked around.

“Just a saying,” Ben shrugged, not having time to explain. “Let’s do this.”

Melody smiled. “You have some endearingly strange sayings on your wor—where you come from.”

That was a close save. It still wasn’t the right time to explain where Ben was from. But he knew it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to reveal the truth.

That moment, however, wasn’t right then.

Ben turned to Imogen and took his torch back, knowing it would probably be just as effective as a scimitar against plant monsters. Unlike stone, plants burned.

He stretched his leg up, ready to kick the door open, while the women waited to attack. Nipper poised on his haunches behind Melody. He was smart enough not to stand in the line of fire.

Ben put his foot against the door latch and kicked the door open with a bang.

The hall that opened in front of them was a similar size as the last one, but the ceiling was lower. The passageway was filled with a bright green light, which came from pulsating growths on the walls. Ben quickly reconsidered his plan to burn them—there were so many that if they all went up the resulting fire might prove more deadly than the monsters themselves. Torches would not have mixed well with plant monsters. The walls themselves were carved in a regular but wavy pattern out of stone, with bubble shapes rising and falling across the entire surface.

And down the whole length of the hallway, vine monsters stretched on their long vine stalks out of the walls. At the other end, these vines appeared to be dormant, but the vines closest to Ben and his party were at the ready, and there were at least twenty of them.

As the door banged open, the hall filled with the screeching and roaring of hungry monsters. The nearest half a dozen monsters lunged straight for Ben’s face.

Ben held out a torch in one hand and his scimitar in the other. With no other option, he plunged the torch straight into the face of one vine monster, scorching it and setting it on fire, the flames whooshing and illuminating the passage. The flame fizzled out, burning through the vine quickly enough to snuff itself out.

Melody cast her lightning spell with a crackle and a boom. The bright blue light flashed through the doorway and scorched a second monster, leaving it charred and blackened.

Imogen burned a third with her torch, and Lulu used her water spell to ensnare the head of a fourth vine. Using the water as a chain, she yanked back and heaved the vine’s head right off.

The other two monsters were just out of range. They stopped short of the adventurers and snapped ferociously, springing back and forth to try and get closer.

“The vines don’t seem all too bright,” Ben called out. “They’re rushing straight into our attacks. But let’s not relax our guard, we don’t know if they can learn from the mistakes the others make.” Ben knew this was how he would’ve designed the level, to learn from the dungeon divers and always present a challenge.

The others nodded, and they all advanced through the doorway. Several more vine monsters appeared to detect them, but these ones did not lunge forward to attack. Ben had a sinking feeling they would wait for the adventurers to come within range. It looked like he was right. They learned fast.

Using his scimitar, he made short work of one of the two vine monsters that were still close to them, carving them to pieces with well-aimed swipes of his blade. Green blood-like liquid sprayed against the stone walls and trickled down the length of his blade. Melody and Imogen together burned the other one until its screeching stopped.

Ben looked at the women when it was all over. “Is everyone alright?”

They nodded.

“Be on your guard, the other monsters are waiting for us to get close.