Dustin pushed steadily through the shifting dunes, dispatching of anything that had any designs on them.
The two following him were unfit for the long treks, especially in dunes of sand, so he was making slow progress towards the center of the desert.
From the top of one of the dunes he could spot a light flickering among some trees. There was an oasis not far from where they were, and the previous pioneers had taken refuge within.
The monsters of the dungeon lived beneath the sand, and were blind to all but movement, so the oasis was perfect. The tree mix of tree roots and sandstone blocked any movement beneath the surface, and the guards were stationed with torches around to ward off any unwanted attention.
Dustin couldn't see the man or his family inside the oasis, but it wasn't hard to figure out that if the guards were surrounding it, he was inside. James and the butler collapsed into the sand beside Dustin and spared glances down at the oasis hungrily. Both of them were cold, tired, and most importantly, thirsty.
The butler managed to look at the situation better than his master, and noticed the armed guards were none other than the business mans escort.
"It would appear Mr. O'connor is down there."
James squinted his eyes to see the figures of the guards that stood fearfully with their torches. It made sense, after all, as their mysterious teleportation had occurred next to O'Connor's home.
They thought that O'Connor might have had some hand in it, and Dustin garbled something in his spirit language. Lei-Lei was starting to get confused why he was asking her so many random questions.
James and the butler looked at each other. Throwing themselves at a fellow neighbours mercy seemed a preferable alternative to following the cloaked man who dragged them around, killing the creatures silently.
Dustin could work out what they were thinking, and gestured for them to go. The butler stood up unsteadily and nervously thanked him, taking James down the dunes towards the lit up oasis.
He had no idea how safe the two of them were going to be, he didn't exactly want to sentence them to death. O'Connor was definitely into some shady shit, Dustin had heard rumours of him being involved in the arms trade.
By the time the two of them reached the water and looked back up the dune, Dustin was gone.
He had run along the side of the dune, hiding himself from vision, and engaged in fighting another centipede.
When it curled up into a spiral and died, Dustin spat out the mouthful of sand that had yet again collected in his mouth. He angrily opened the shop to purchase a mask. It was more for cosmetic effect, that defense, but it acted as a shield against the sand. His disguise mask, when morphed, did nothing to stop the sand from getting into any open holes.
He wondered if he needed the face paint if he was wearing an actual mask, but it wasn't bad to be cautious. As he walked along, he bought a couple of other accessories, which included some things to wrap around his chest. Strips of cloth held the cloak tightly to him, and his look began to remind him of a certain science fiction sand dwelling race.
The outfit was a lot more suited to fighting agile monsters, especially in the sand, which was their favoured terrain. He worked thoroughly to clear a path around the outskirts of the dungeon.
The sand dunes looked the same in every direction, making it difficult to track where one was going if they did not know to use the minimap.
Dustin was nearing what he suspected was the boss area, as the monsters were spread thin. Something bright was spitting fumes up into the air ahead, the smell very familiar to Dustin.
A pool of lava had laid claim to a small dip in the land, hard to see if not for the light it gave off at night. Dustin sat around the edges and waited, feeling that something was approaching.
Instead of attacking him, something shot out of the lava, sending globs of the molten liquid splattering everywhere. It was at least 15 feet tall as its body segments rattled against each other.
Dustin could tell what it was without the displays health, a Lava Centipede.
The boss arched back down towards the ground, smashing its head into the soft sand. It did not dig very far, and emerged with a scorpion in its mouth. The smaller monster was scrambling to escape, but couldn't avoid the fiery death. It was pulled into the lava by the centipede, accompanied by the hissing sound as it slowly sunk, being devoured by the boss whilst it was cooked alive.
Dustin frowned and took a couple of steps back. It was no wonder Dos had to re-adjust the dungeon calibration settings. The Lava Centipede was something guns would be useless against.
Unless the humans could bring massive armour piercing rounds, or fancy missiles, bullets would basically bounce off its shell. Even Dustin had to give pause as to how he would kill it. Its outer shell was naturally hardened by exposure to harsh environments, even the Queen Ant that he had killed couldn't compare in defense.
Its main weakness were generally the fact that it was blind, fairly stupid, and very much disliked the cold. If it was exposed to below freezing temperatures, the outer shell would grow brittle, enough to be shattered by attacks.
Dustin had his ice petals, but the boss was incredibly big. He could only attach a max of three, and the boss wasn't going to stand around and let itself freeze. The petals would be easily dislodged if it dug into the earth.
He could try putting one inside its mouth… but the Lava Centipede didn't get its name just from the environment. They could also vomit lava, which would no doubt incinerate anything he tried putting in its mouth.
Dustin bit his lip as he scouted around, but found nothing but the pool of lava, and a pile of misshapen skeletons.
They were too small and misshapen to be human, and the monsters in the dungeon didn't possess bone structures like these.
From what Dustin could tell, it was another race of pioneers. He skirted around what he could guess was the boss' aggression range, and finally saw the scrap metal that lay among the skeletons.
It was no wonder they were warped and twisted. Almost half of each structure had been replaced, or enhanced, by some time of metal. Dustin managed to push a little closer, and found something stuck in the sand by his foot.
He bent down and picked up an odd contraption. When he dusted it off, he realized exactly what it was, and whom it belonged to.
There was a bunch of wires sticking out the side of it that were covered in dry blood, and a small green ball was rolling around in a rusted socket. Dustin dropped the piece of equipment to the ground in disgust and had a bad taste in his mouth.
It belonged to a race of half rat, half machine, pioneers. The Brine. Dustin had met some of them before, and each encounter seemed worst than the last. They were convinced that they were destined for greatness, and despite the vermin upbringing, took to technology to fix their faults.
They were excellent hackers, and could make a gun out of scrap, but were always held back by their size. The biggest of them was no larger than a teenage human, and the more machinery they used to replace their living parts, the higher up they were in society.
Unfortunately it also made them forsake anything like honor, virtue, or mercy. They did anything to survive, and had convinced a great many other pioneer races to kill their comrades. If there were Brine skeletons in the dungeon, and especially next to the boss, which was very well alive, it gave Dustin a very good idea of what the secret was.
To confirm his suspicion of where the secret was, he completed a full loop of the dungeons outskirts, confirming that the oasis, and the lava pool, were the only two points of interest.
Perhaps there was some kind of secret hidden underground chamber, but it was unlikely. The oasis was almost definitely the location of the secret, and Dustin hurried back to take a look.
Sure enough, James and the butler were tied to different trees, and the guards were still keeping an eye on the surroundings. A child like shadow flickered against the flames as it sat on a stool, but Dustin knew what it was.
It was small, which was a good sign. He couldn't see just how much of the Brine was converted to machine, but wasn't likely to be much. Smaller Brine couldn't handle much conversion beyond their heads, as it put too much stress on what little living matter they had.
Dustin had to quickly come up with a plan, as the Brine was no doubt negotiating with O'Connor on his survival. If the other Brine were any indication of their depravity, James and the Butler were probably going to be executed.
There were two things for certain. The Brine had to kill another pioneer himself, to regain the status, he had to kill the boss to open the portal, and kill the remaining human pioneers to be allowed to escape.
The scenario Dustin imagined would happen was convincing them to launch an attack on the boss of the dungeon. The Brine probably had no idea of the humans strength levels, but was likely planning to kill one of them during the boss fight.
If he killed a human before being able to escape, the notification would alert the remaining members that escape was only possible if the Brine was dead, nullifying any previous agreements he might have made.
There was exactly 0% success chance for O'Connor and his guards to kill the Lava Centipede, which meant that the Brine would end up remaining the dungeon until he returned to being a secret, and another party of pioneers appeared.
Step one for Dustin was to kill the Brine, the less time it had to run its filthy mouth, the better. The next step was ensuring James and the butler were safe. O'Connor wasn't going to just kill the two of them without good reason, he was obviously aware of their status and would have to be incredibly careful.
Evidently the Brine hadn't gotten far in his negotiations as the duo were still alive, giving Dustin a little more time to formulate a plan. It ultimately came down to the boss, as realistically no one in the dungeon mattered if it wasn't killed.
Dustin couldn't kill it by himself, and especially not when it remained in the lava pool. The best course of action would be to fight it in the oasis, where the hard ground would made it incredibly hard to dive down, and the cold water would hopefully shatter a couple of plates, letting them get some damage in.
Luckily, Dustin had just the tool to piss the centipede off, and enough agility to lure it all the way over. He just had to do so quickly, before the two precious heads of the Belson families son and butler were removed.
It was a lot easier to navigate back to the boss from the oasis as he had already discovered the direct path on his mini map.
He approached the lava pool stealthily, and played the waiting game. Attacking it head on was suicide, he couldn't detect where it was under the ground. He just needed it piss it off and run, getting a good head start on it was key.
If he had some distance on it before it gave chase, it wasn't going to catch up before he got to the oasis. Moving under the ground didn't have any obvious advantages over running on the surface other than stealth, so it wasn't going to be going any faster.
If it had been flying, Dustin might have had been trouble, but it was a ridiculous motion. If the day ever came that he worried about flying centipedes, he would eat his shoe.
When he felt a small vibration under the ground, he readied an ice petal, and waited until it broke through the surface of the lava. Rather than attaching it directly, Dustin watched it repeat its previous performance, and catch a worm that had wiggled too close to its home.
He chuckled as the worm gave up a good fight, clinging tightly to the earth. The centipede pulled it out with immense force, like tweezers pulling a hair loose, and started to swallow it.
Dustin nodded in satisfaction as he turned to run away, missing the last part of the worm that dropped down into the centipedes gullet, adorned with a pretty blue petal.
He also happened to miss the centipede's growing anger as it rejected Dustin's choice of seasoning, expelling a torrent of stinking lava from its depths, burning away the cold that spread throughout its mouth.
It had no eyes, but could feel the soft vibrations that rang out like a wave towards it from the direction Dustin had ran.
It returned to the earth, but did not remain in the lava pool, instead following the trail of the attacker. Dustin could definitely feel the rumbling that indicated his plan had worked, and he pushed his speed up a little, taking off towards the oasis.
He was not alone in feeling the underground movement, as no monsters popped up to attack him, they were all too busy leaving the area as quickly as possible.