Chapter 41: The Djinn in the Bottle (1/2)
“SURPRISE ATTACK!”
Invisible thanks to his blinkblink ring, Vainqueur unleashed a mighty poke at a golem, turning it into scrap. His finger felt sore, having felled dozens of these puppets since he began searching for his missing minion.
So he switched hands, crushing an undead minotaur with his right index finger claw.
The tunnels had grown smaller and tighter the further underground Vainqueur smashed through, eventually leading them to an underground, crumbling mausoleum. The number of suicidal monsters eager to die to him, however, had only increased. Bandaged mummies, skeletal fighters, and clay golems had emerged from hidden chambers to swarm them.
Vainqueur would have loved nothing more than burning them with his breath but lacked the space to do so without harming his niece or take flight. What was it with architects refusing to make areas sized for his kind?
At least each of these warmups left a treasure behind, from gems to golden rings. Vainqueur’s [Born in Purple] Perk had returned to him, much to his joy.
Knight Kia, who had finally let go of her dragon-riding obsession to fight on foot, cut through hordes of ancient undead warriors like butter. Her sword shone like the sun, empowered by a glowing aura. Meanwhile, Jolie swallowed a bandaged elf corpse with her mouth, letting out a belch.
At long last, Vainqueur finished smashing the last of the golems, the mausoleum turning silent.
Congratulations! You earned a level in [Gladiator].
+30 HP, +2 STR, +1 VIT, +1 AGI, + 1 CHA, +1 LCK.
“It’s getting harder as we go down,” Knight Kia said, sheathing her sword.
Harder? No, tiresome, especially since he only got a level out of it. Vainqueur looked at the exit, finding it smaller than the previous. He could barely slip his neck through!
“They get tastier,” Jolie said, her belly full of dusty undead meat. “Dry food is the best food!”
“I am not squeezing through a dusty tunnel again!” Vainqueur complained; he already had sand sullying his claws. “I will make a bigger one!”
“Your Majesty will collapse the whole floor on us if you do that,” Knight Kia protested.
Vainqueur grumbled. While he would undoubtedly survive it and didn’t care if Knight Kia didn’t, he wanted to protect his niece.
“MINION!” Vainqueur shouted. “MINION! Get back here! I am not digging further down!”
Charisma check failed. You could not overcome the anti-teleportation effect.
His chief of staff popped up among his new treasures, a bottle in hand and with a new goblin minion.
“Ah, minion, here you are!” Vainqueur rejoiced, the system having finally recognized its mistake.
Both his minion and the goblin looked around, Vainqueur realizing that he hadn’t negated his invisibility. “Blink,” he said, revealing himself in his full glory, the blue critter speechless at the sight.
“Vic, good to see you alive!” Knight Kia rejoiced almost as much as the dragon, before noticing the bottle the half-dragon carried. “You have found the artifact?”
“Yep, and here is Mot,” Friend Victor pointed at the goblin following him. Seeing a dragon for the first time had floored the critter, who glanced up at Vainqueur in silence. “I see you didn’t waste time.”
“When you teleported away, Vainqueur broke the ground which revealed pathways down,” the knight told him. “We have gone down seven floors since.”
“There’s a dangerous mummy waiting at the bottom, Akhenapep,” Friend Victor said. “He’s very tough. In the eighty level league, according to my Monster Insight. I managed to talk him out of killing me, but the next one to wake him up will not share that mercy.”
“This mummy is just as dangerous as King Balaur.” Knight Kia sounded excited at the thought. “I knew there was something worth fighting down there. I will bring my whole party to finish him off.”
“King Balaur?” the blue goblin, Mot, asked. “The first dullahan? He is still around?”
“Kia killed him,” Manling Victor said, the goblin’s eyes widening in surprise.
“Pff, he was only the second calamity of this age,” Vainqueur replied, puffing his chest. “Neither can this mummy compare to me.”
“Oh, it is an elf mummy, right?” Jolie asked, salivating at the thought. “Where does it make its nest? Does it have friends?”
“At the bottom of the dungeon, in a hidden crypt,” Manling Victor said. “Since Mot wished me up, maybe he can help us skip the floors.”
“No I cannot,” the blue goblin said. “No wish can negatively affect the creator of my bottle, Akhenapep. I cannot wish him away, teleport armies to his doorstep, or cause the tower to collapse. You will have to fight your way through.”
“Also the tunnels are too small for dragons,” Friend Victor said. “Unless we polymorph Your Majesty and his niece into smaller shapes somehow.”
“Like what, a manling?” Vainqueur asked.
“Yes?”
…
…
...
Vainqueur erupted into laughter until he struggled to breathe, making Manling Victor frown. “Good… good one, minion. Seriously, I am not clearing out a hundred floors again. We have the bottle, the quest is finished, and we need to get my new shinies back to my hoard. Time to claim my reward.”
“About that,” Manling Victor frowned. “The quest giver forgot to mention the content of the bottle.”
“You said Mot wished you up?” Knight Kia asked. “Is it a genie in a bottle?”
“Yes, phenomenal cosmic powers and all, although not limitless.”
“What kind of goblin is this?” Vainqueur asked, smelling the creature. The scent seemed disgustingly familiar but too faint for him to remember why.
“I am a djinn,” the goblin replied, “I grant my master’s wishes.”
“Like a chief of staff?” Vainqueur asked.
“Yes, except this one is blue,” Victor replied with his strange flat tone.
“I can grant any wish from the owner of the bottle, within limits,” said Mot.
“Like only three wishes?” Victor asked.
“You can make as many wishes you want, Master Victor, but I can only fulfill yours.”
“A minion’s minion?” Jolie asked, looking at the goblin with her big, curious eyes, much to his discomfort.
“If someone wants to become my master, Master Victor has to transfer ownership of the bottle or be killed for it. Now that I think of it, if my master gets killed and then revived, maybe it would count as ownership transfer…”
“I am not paying millions to raise Manling Victor again,” Vainqueur brushed the creature off. “What wish can you grant, chief of staff of my chief of staff?”