Denizens of the Labyrinth

DING!

YOU HAVE ENTERED THE FLOOR OF TORMENTURA!

THE FLOOR OF SIN!!

THE FLOOR OF RESENTMENT!!

BE WARY!

…

DING!

TORMENTURA IS THE FLOOR OF NEVERENDING WRATH!

EACH TIME YOU KILL A CREATURE; THE OTHERS WILL GROW STRONG WITH RESENTMENT!!

…

BE WARNED!!

…

The air shifted. A sensation of weightlessness gave way to firm ground beneath their feet as Jazmel, Charme, and Sadé emerged into the realm of Tormentura.

A vast, overgrown city stretched before them, a forgotten ruin swallowed by time and nature. Towering trees, their trunks thick as fortress walls, wove their roots through broken streets and shattered buildings. The foliage draped over crumbling spires and abandoned halls, as if reclaiming what once belonged to the living.

The leaves, in an endless cascade of deep crimson, burnt orange, and gold, drifted lazily from the canopy above. Each step stirred them into swirling eddies, the brittle crunch beneath their boots a whisper against the silence of the forsaken city.

Above them, the sky was locked in an eternal sunset. The clouds bled hues of amber and vermilion, casting long, wavering shadows through the mist that coiled around the ruins. A haunting glow clung to the edges of jagged rooftops and fractured pillars, giving the illusion that the city was still aflame, caught forever in the dying embers of a forgotten past.

Jazmel exhaled, his breath visible in the crisp, unmoving air. This place was stagnant caught in a limbo between life and death, beauty, and decay.

Charme rolled her shoulders, gaze sharp as she scanned their surroundings. "Not what I expected."

Sadé ran a hand through her hair, eyes flickering with intrigue. "It feels... wrong. As if the place remembers something it refuses to let go."

Jazmel said nothing.

Because he felt it too.

This was more than ruins. More than overgrowth and abandoned halls. This place held weight a lingering resentment in the very air, thick and suffocating.

DING!

THE CREATURES OF WRATH AND RESENTMENT HAVE CAUGHT YOUR SCENT!

BE WARNED!

…

As the trio moved deeper into the heart of Tormentura, the ruins loomed higher around them, swallowed by the passage of time and nature's relentless reclamation. The city was vast, its ancient streets stretching endlessly beneath the great autumn canopy, where twisting branches wove together like interlocking fingers, filtering the golden-red light into a perpetual dusk.

The architecture, though broken and crumbling, spoke of a civilization that had once thrived in grandeur. Towering spires, now cracked and hollow, leaned precariously against the massive trunks of trees that had forced their way through stone and mortar. The old buildings bore intricate carvings along their walls faded reliefs of faceless figures, etched in a forgotten language, their features worn away by time and neglect. What might have once been temples or palaces were now skeletal remains, their rooftops collapsed inward, forming deep wells where stagnant pools of water reflected the ember-lit sky above.

Roots thick as warships and gnarled with age slithered through the ruins like serpents. They coiled around fallen statues and split stone avenues in half, their bark cracked and pulsing with a faint inner glow, as though they drank from the very resentment saturating this forsaken place. Some had overtaken entire buildings, their trunks piercing through windows and collapsed ceilings, reducing once-proud halls into hollowed-out husks, swallowed whole by nature's embrace.

Along the streets, remnants of the past lay untouched, draped in autumn's gentle decay. Rusted lamplights, their ironwork ornate but broken, leaned at odd angles beneath the weight of ivy and thorned vines. Stone bridges arched over dried-up canals; their supports now homes to hanging clusters of crimson leaves. Torn banners, long since colourless and frayed, dangled limply from ruined towers, the insignias they once bore now lost to time.

The city groaned softly with the shifting of wind through its labyrinthine corridors. Every breath of air stirred the countless leaves that littered the ground, masking whatever lay beneath them. There was no movement, no sound beyond their own footfalls and the slow, whispering rustle of autumn.

And yet, the deeper they went, the heavier the air became.

As if the ruins themselves remembered. As if something lingered. Watching. Waiting.

As Jazmel, Charme, and Sadé moved through the shadowed corridors of Tormentura, the eerie stillness of the ruins was shattered by a sudden, unnatural rustling. Leaves swirled up from the ground, and the air seemed to crackle with an energy both primal and foul. From the crevices of the broken city, emerging from the depths of the rotting buildings, came the first signs of life.

The creatures appeared from the shadows Grudgelings small, twisted beings that seemed to embody the very essence of anger and spite. Their bodies were hunched and frail, barely standing taller than a child, yet their movements were frantic and unpredictable. Their skin was an unsettling shade of grey, stretched thin over gaunt frames, mottled with blotches of black and red. Patches of black fur clung to their spindly arms and legs, their eyes glimmering with an almost feral hunger.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Their faces, contorted with rage, were little more than a mass of sharp teeth and twisted features. No discernible noses, just gaping mouths that could open unnaturally wide, revealing rows of jagged fangs. Their ears were long and pointed, twitching at every sound, their mouths dripping with venomous saliva as they let out a shrill, screeching war cry that echoed off the ruins, sending a chill through the air.

The Grudgelings' claws were elongated, thin, and jagged, perfect for digging into bone and tearing flesh. Their fingers, bent at grotesque angles, dripped with a dark, oily substance that seemed to sizzle as it touched the ground. And though small, they moved in unison, a violent swarm driven by an insatiable need to rip and rend.

As the group advanced further, the Grudgelings pounced in a blur of motion, rushing at the trio with surprising speed despite their small size. Their rage was palpable, their twisted forms crashing through the underbrush, their teeth gnashing as they howled with fury. They were a living wave of spite, their relentless charge fuelled by an ancient grudge, driven by a single instinct: to destroy anything that crossed their path.

In a maddened frenzy, they surrounded the trio hissing, clawing, and biting, their furious assault relentless. The sheer number of them was enough to obscure vision, their shrill cries overwhelming the senses as they scrambled over one another, attempting to pull their enemies into the heart of the swarm.

Sadé stepped forward, her eyes narrowing with focus as the Grudgelings rushed toward them. The air around her hummed with growing power as she released only three of her nine tails. The tails crackled with raw, untamed energy each one flickering like a live wire, the storm within them brewing, ready to strike.

Stormflare

The moment the words left her lips, a violent surge of mana erupted from her tails. The very air around her seemed to distort, filled with the scent of ozone and the hum of gathered power. In an instant, a powerful gust of wind swept through the area, whipping the leaves into a frenzy.

But it was the storm of fire that followed that set the Grudgelings into a frenzy of terror. Lightning, infused with the intense heat of fire, shot from the tips of her tails, weaving through the group of creatures with blinding speed. Each bolt struck the ground in a crackling burst of flame and electric current, igniting the very air around them. The fiery arcs of storm born power raked across the creatures, their shrill cries mixing with the roar of the flames and the crackle of lightning.

As the flames spread, the Grudgelings shrieked, their bodies writhing in agony as the storm seared their flesh and the lightning struck with unforgiving precision. Some of the smaller creatures, unable to withstand the power, were instantly reduced to ashes in the wake of the attack. Others, caught in the whirlwind of fire and thunder, flailed, and screeched, struggling to escape the deadly storm that consumed them.

The sky above darkened slightly, as if the land itself reacted to the intensity of Sadé's skill. The wind howled louder, carrying the scent of scorched earth and singed fur, as the remaining Grudgelings faltered, disoriented, and burning.

Sadé stood in the centre of the destruction; her stance unwavering. Her three tails pulsed with energy, and the lingering remnants of smoke and crackling lightning filled the space around her.

Jazmel stood, his eyes scanning the chaotic scene in front of him as Sadé's Stormflare roared to life, engulfing the Grudgelings in a storm of fire and lightning. The air around them crackled with the intensity of the attack, and the scent of burning flesh and singed earth filled the space.

Sadé's skill had decimated the small creatures in a brilliant display of power. But as the last of their shrill cries faded into the smoke, a sharp feeling pricked at the back of Jazmel's mind. A cold weight settled in his chest, a rising concern that he couldn't shake.

His gaze flickered to the remaining Grudgelings those that survived the onslaught writhing in pain and fury, their bodies slowly regenerating as they stumbled back to their feet, eyes filled with an even greater madness.

He had seen this before.

It was resentment.

Jazmel's eyes narrowed as the sudden weight of the situation hit him. The floor itself wasn't just a twisted, haunted place it was feeding on the very violence they caused. The creatures' anger wasn't merely a reaction to being struck down it was growing, magnified by the storm of destruction they had unleashed.

"We need to be careful," Jazmel muttered under his breath, his eyes darting to the Grudgelings rallying once more, their strength seemingly returning faster than expected. He turned to Charme and Sadé, his voice low, but steady.

"This floor doesn't just retaliate. It feeds off every kill. And if we're not careful, every fight will be worse than the last."

Charme glanced at him, her posture never shifting, but there was an unreadable expression in her eyes. She, too, had felt it the shift in the air, the sense of rising tension.

Sadé, her tails still flickering with residual power, let out a slow breath. "I noticed." Her voice was tinged with a rare edge of caution. "But there's no stopping now. We have to keep moving forward. The creatures here don't just hold grudges they live by them."

Jazmel nodded, though his brow remained furrowed. They needed to make their way through this cursed place, but with each strike they delivered, they would only make things harder for themselves. The question was not if they could defeat the creatures, but how many they would have to face in the end.

They would need to be strategic.

He thought to Paldane, who was sleeping peacefully while he was undergoing an evolution. His hibernation was happening within his ring, looking in with his mind's eye. He saw Paldane nestled atop his spatial ring where he kept his wealth. Like a true dragon, Paldane was slumbering atop a hoard.

As the trio pushed deeper into the overgrown city of Tormentura, the Grudgelings seemed to appear from every shadow, their shrill screeches echoing through the ruins. They rushed forward in droves, more persistent with each encounter, their twisted forms slithering through the undergrowth and debris, clawing their way toward the trio. The scent of decay and fire clung to the air with each wave, their rage palpable, infectious.

Each time, Sadé stepped forward, her aura crackling with power as she flared her mana. With a single thought, her remaining six tails lashed out, weaving through the air, gathering the storm within them.

Stormflare!

The storm unleashed once more, a burst of fire and lightning that tore through the group of Grudgelings. The creatures shrieked as the flames ignited their fur, the electric currents crackling through their bodies, reducing them to smouldering husks in seconds. The last of their screams dissolved into the sound of crackling fire, their bodies turning to ash in an instant.

But as the last of the creatures fell, Jazmel's gaze lingered on the remnants of Sadé's mana. There was something different this time. Each wave of her power, each kill, left behind a visible mark on her energy a faint distortion in the air, as if her mana were growing heavier with every moment. He could see the slight shift in her aura, the way her mana seemed to build with each destructive surge.

He didn't need to say a word Sadé felt it too. She knew the cost. Her usual storm born grace seemed to falter for just a fraction of a moment as she stood still, watching the last remnants of the Grudgelings turn to ash.

Charme's eyes narrowed as she observed the same thing, her fingers tightening around her weapon. "It's not just the creatures that're growing stronger," she murmured, her voice sharp with concern. "This place is feeding off of us."

Jazmel's frown deepened, his gaze flickering over to Sadé. With each kill, they were leaving a mark on her mana, a sign of the building resentment a growing burden that could, if left unchecked, corrupt the very power she wielded. He couldn't let this continue.

"We need to move faster," Jazmel said, his voice steady, though tinged with the weight of the realization. "The longer we stay here, the worse it will get. The more we fight, the stronger it becomes."

Sadé gave a nod, her three tails flickering once more as she stepped forward, her resolve firm despite the burden building within her. She knew it wasn't just the Grudgelings they were fighting, but the very land itself an enemy that fed on rage and resentment, strengthening with each conflict.

They had to keep moving. They had to find the heart of Tormentura before this wrath overtook them.