Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 208: Puppet Mayhem

The three of us proceeded into the next hall under the cover of stealth, where we saw dozens more puppets. Some of them were sitting in various seats, clapping along with the performance and dressed like normal civilians. As for the performance itself, there was a large puppet swallowing one sword after another, going so far as to swallow even the hilt.

There was also a lion tamer with a puppet lion, a puppet that breathed fire, and multiple dancing clown puppets. Seeing these, Diane gave a little shudder. “Hate clowns.”

“Need us to deal with this ourselves?” I asked, but Diane shook her head.

“No, not afraid of them. Just hate them. It’ll be cathartic to fight them,” she said, already raising her blades in preparation.

With a nod, I turned my attention to the various monsters, utilizing both True Sight and Observe to figure out as much as I could about them. “It looks like the sword swallower and the lion tamer should act as mid-bosses of this stage,” I informed the others. “The sword swallower has ten swords in his abdomen, and it looks like there is a mechanism to open his torso to launch them out.”

“As for the lion tamer, the main focus is on the lion itself, which has multiple weapons built into its body. Its claws can extend into swords, its tail can extend like a spear, and it can launch poisoned darts from its mouth. The other puppets are pretty straight forward, aside from the clowns, who have a skill called ‘Repair’. They can be considered the healers of the circus.”

“If you two can handle the bosses and the audience puppets, I’ll deal with the clowns,” Diane said, lowering her stance like a snake coiling its body, prepared to strike.

Although it seemed like we had the harder task, dealing with both more opponents overall and the strongest of the group, I believed Diane had it even worse. There were almost twenty clowns, each one capable of repairing other fallen puppets. If she didn’t kill them faster than the clowns could repair each other, it would turn into a war of attrition that she couldn’t win.

“Should we set up some traps first,” I asked, and Diane looked over briefly before agreeing. Her posture relaxed slightly, and she used her own stealth skill to leave the bubble. I watched as she set one trap after another between the clowns, occasionally hiding behind the stands to recover.

As she worked, I started to hear voices from behind us. “Are you sure they came in here? Isn’t it a bit too quiet?”

Bella’s ears twitched, hearing the same thing and turning around to face the source of the noise. At the other end of the previous hall, a group of five people walked forward, looking like a group of Players. Three of them wielded short swords while the other two were clearly casters, one with white robes and the other black.

“This is the Martial King’s band we’re talking about,” the black-robed man said, holding a staff as he walked. “They might have already cleared all the way to the boss room. We just need to get in and take him out, or the boss will have our heads.”

Bella and I looked at one another. How had a group of Players gotten past the guards outside the dungeon? They knew that this was our timeslot, so they shouldn’t have allowed anyone else in. Three of the enemy group seemed to be rogue types, so had they snuck in, or did the guards let them through intentionally?

“Let’s just get this over with,” one of the rogues said, glancing around. “If his trait drops, great. Otherwise, the boss probably already has a plan to smooth things over.”

“Drake, should I...?” Bella asked, pointing to the group. I hesitated for a moment, unsure. Clearly, they were here to ambush us, but this just felt too odd.

“Don’t shoot directly at them,” I answered with a shake of my head. “Let’s step into the hall, and then fire into the wall. Let’s see how they react with the dungeon’s mechanic.”

Bella blinked, but did just that. The two of us left the performance hall after alerting Diane to our predicament. Once out there, Bella aimed at the nearest wall, firing multiple shots one after another and creating a few small holes in the wall.

One of the rogues looked over, as if sensing something, but unable to place exactly what it was. Bella was shooting silently, and the area where she was hitting was within the range of my stealth field, so his perception wasn’t high enough to detect what was going on.

A moment later, bullets began to pierce through the fabric walls of the hall, shooting towards the group from all directions. The more attentive rogue jumped forward in surprise, narrowly dodging the bullet aimed for him, while most of the others had not been so lucky.

Both of the casters had died immediately, their heads bursting under the impact of the bullets. Of the two remaining rogues, one took a direct shot to the chest, collapsing to the ground while the other was shot in the shoulder, staggering towards the wall.

“Stop!” the lucky rogue shouted in horror when he saw his companion trip, his hand brushing against the fabric wall. He no longer had the mind to care where the bullets had come from. Instead, he flipped onto his feet and grabbed his blades, rushing for his ally.

Before the other rogue could process what was happening, his neck had been severed, the man immediately looting the body to prevent it from remaining under the control of the dungeon. Then, he spun around, facing the other end of the hall where we were. “Dammit, they were waiting for us.”

I knew that he couldn’t see us, but my proclivity for stealth should have been well-known. Even if they couldn’t identify exactly where we were, the man knew that we were watching. “I need to get the rest of Limitless on this,” he said, before turning to flee.

Bella lifted her pistol to begin shooting again, but I stopped her. My brows furrowed as I watched the would-be assassin leaving. If they had come here to ambush us, knowing who we were, they were vastly underprepared. And they even recklessly mentioned their ‘boss’ and the Limitless Guild? I knew that Players could be brazen, but that seemed to be pushing it.

“We’ll talk to Roku after we leave here,” I said with a shake of my head. Diane had already told me that the Questing King had numerous enemies. Whether this truly was an attack by the Limitless Guild, or one of those enemies trying to frame them, we would only know after we left and gathered more information.

As for leaving now? That was out of the question. We still needed the wire control skill for Diane, or this whole trip would have been wasted.

“Are they gone?” Diane asked, finished with her traps back in the stealth field.

“Yeah. Drake wants us to gather info later,” Bella answered, looking back at the performance. “Are you ready to fight?”

Diane gave a firm nod. “Any more traps, and I’ll get mana burnout when I trigger them all. This should be enough to take out most of the clowns. I should be able to deal with the rest and help with the other mobs.”

The three of us returned to the performance hall, making sure to stand clear of the explosions. “Bella, get your rifle. You’ll be in charge of the first shot. The sword swallower is probably the biggest threat, so you should target him first. After that, aim for the tamer. The lion is heavily armored, but the tamer is the one controlling it, so you can take out both by eliminating that one.”

Bella nodded at my instructions, taking a shooting stance with her rifle and aiming towards the large sword swallower puppet. “Got it. Firing in three, two…”

I quickly created a triple-layered barrier behind the sword swallower as Bella counted down, knowing that I needed to be able to catch her bullet to prevent it from being turned against us later. The performers briefly paused, looking at the barriers before a thick cracking sound filled the room, the sword swallower’s head exploding as a black bullet pierced through, striking at the barriers.

The performers immediately jumped into combat mode, with even the audience rising from their seats. The clowns turned to rush for the stage to repair the fallen puppet. However, Diane made a small hand gesture, and dozens of clustered explosions rang out, blasting those clowns back and shattering most of their bodies.

With that taken care of, Diane lunged into the inferno, her blades slicing through one puppet after another, not giving them the time to recover. Bella shifted her stance to aim at the lion tamer, who was frantically hiding behind his lion puppet. However, between the first shot and the explosions, he didn’t seem to know which direction he should be defending from, circling around the lion shakily. 

This gave Bella the perfect chance to fire off another shot, shattering the head of the second miniboss. Both the tamer and the lion collapsed to the ground at the same time, leaving only a few performers left, such as the fire breather. However, this one wasn’t as big of a threat as the others, so I didn’t worry too much about it.

Instead, I turned my attention towards the stands, where more than fifty puppets were climbing down to join the fray. None of them were armed, but I could see a small wrapping of threads around their hands. “Don’t let the puppets grab you. They might have a way to possess those they touch directly,” I warned the other two.

Bella swapped to her twin pistols, no longer worrying about silence as she fired at the puppets one after another. Nearby, Diane had split open the head of the final clown, turning her attention towards the horde of advancing onlookers. Without hesitation, she dove at them, her stealth dropping as she clashed with them.

As for me, I had to multitask. Part of my focus went towards making sure that Bella’s bullets didn’t hit the walls, setting up barriers wherever I noticed her aiming. Another part went towards defending Diane.

Aside from all of that, I also had to fight the flamethrower puppet, who had turned its attention to our now-revealed ninja. Its mouth clicked open, revealing a blackened tube. However, I created a projected bubble around its head for defense. As soon as it began to spew flames, this bubble filled with scorching heat, exploding a moment later.

To my surprise, the hardest part of the whole thing was actually dealing with the audience. At one point, I created a barrier to block a puppet from grabbing Diane, causing it to lay its hands on the barrier instead. The puppet then stole this barrier, wielding it like a shield to fight her. Sure enough, anything that they touched directly with their hands would be under their control.

Worse yet, because the projected barrier had been stolen away, I could not simply dismiss it. The shield did not disappear until Bella managed to shoot that puppet in the head, causing it to collapse.

This was quickly becoming a very annoying dungeon.