The Rise Of A Porter

While Arnold was taking care of the tower, Bad-Breath was having a tough time of his own. Arnold had sent him to investigate the situation near Kailash. But when Bad-Breath finally reached the destination after trekking for days along with the Indian representatives, there was nothing there. No dungeon, no mine, nothing. It just looked like any mountain range like the ones around Kailash.

At first glance, it even seemed like the Indians were pulling a rude prank on them. But Bad-Breath knew they weren\'t that big of a fool to try and prank Arnold, especially after seeing the ways he used to handle things. Arnold wouldn\'t have hesitated for a moment before destroying their nation if they so much as try tricking him. Just like he got rid of North Korea.

Also, Bad-breath thought they weren\'t trying to trick them because there were still some traces around that indicated there had been a mining operation going on there for quite some time. Like tools and necessary safety equipment. All in all, it looked more like an abandoned place than anything else.

"What the hell happened here?" Bad-breath asked one of the two people accompanying him.

"We... have no idea." The man replied in his squeaky tone.

"No idea? Don\'t you people keep records for the dungeons that appear within the boundary of your nation?"

"We do. But we haven\'t noticed any energy spike or changes in the dungeon. Also, it had been opened for a month already so we thought it was safe to assume this dungeon wasn\'t a typical dungeon..."

The representative that accompanied Bad-breath were just as surprised as he was. No one had any idea why this was happening. The disappearance of a dungeon only pointed at one thing, someone must have cleared the dungeon before they arrived there. But how could someone clear a dungeon if the dungeon had no monsters in it? 

Bad-Breath was not suited for brain work. Even though he had turned into a summon stronger and perhaps more intelligent than almost all of the warriors on the planet, deep down he was the same muscle for hire as always. The only change was that he had been permanently hired by Arnold at this time.

"Give me your phone, I need to make a call." Bad-Breath snarled at one of the men. He knew exactly who could help him in this time of need, "Sir Devon, I\'m afraid I have run into a problem that I can\'t solve by myself. You see, Master sent me to investigate a dungeon in India. But when I got here, there was no dungeon in sight. Even the officials don\'t know anything about it so I was thinking maybe you could help me out of this dilemma?"

They kept talking for some time, and while he was doing that, something weird happened. The ground below him started distorting. It felt as if they were standing in a plane out of reality. The Indians weren\'t familiar with this feeling but Bad-Breath was. It was the same sensation he felt whenever he was inside Arnold\'s domain.

But this time it felt a bit different. One thing was sure that this wasn\'t Arnold\'s domain because Bad-Breath knew Arnold was halfway across the globe, in the USA. So, if it wasn\'t Arnold, it had to be someone else, a vassal or a paladin. If it was a paladin, Bad-Breath was sure in this ability to stop them, but if it was a vassal then he wasn\'t so sure about it. Even if he was stronger than them, the vassals could have various aces up their sleeves to take care of him with little to no effort.

"You two, get out of here!" Bad-breath yelled as he prepared himself for battle.

However, it was already too late for them. All of a sudden, roots shot out of the ground like tentacles of Kraken and wrapped themselves around the two men. What happened next, left Bad-breath shook. The tree drained the humans out of their life force till there was nothing left.

For some reason, the roots completely ignore Bad-breath and only attacked the ones accompanying him. Bad-breath went to action and tried his best to rip off the roots from their bodies and save them, but as soon as he got rid of one of the roots, two more wrapped themselves around their prey.

Soon Bad-breath realised it was useless to fight against the roots as the men began to wither away. There was nothing left of them. Not even the bones were left behind as they were dragged underground along with roots. The only thing remaining there was Bad-breath with a satellite phone. 

Bad-breath was shocked so bad, he couldn\'t even realise what happened there. He just picked the phone and thankfully Devon was still on the line.

"Bob? What\'s going on there? You went radio silent for a couple of minutes." Devon\'s voice echoed from the other side of the comm. 

"I... I think I found out why the people were being disappeared around here..." Bad-breath could barely speak, "Something is really off with this place. I can\'t take care of this on my own, I think."

"What happened? Are you alright?"

"Something just up and swallowed the people who were accompanying me." Bad-breath replied, "I tried to save them but couldn\'t do sh*t! Whatever I did only made things worse."

"Okay, you\'re not making any sense. I\'ll be over there in a couple of days and then-"

"Don\'t even think about coming here. I guess I know why nothing happened to me here. It\'s because I\'m already dead." Bad-breath mumbled as he finally regained his composure, "The root or the tree whatever it was only targetted the ones with me and not me. And the people with me were alive unlike me. This is the only explanation I have that seems a bit realistic."

"You sure about that?"

"Pretty da*n much! But that doesn\'t change the fact that I need some help here. But I can\'t have any alive peeps here. Ask Talos for his help. If it\'s him, then we can find the truth about what\'s actually going on here."

"Okay... got it. In the meantime, you should retreat to a safer place."

"Yeah. Tell Talos I\'ll meet him at the airport. Sh*t! This place is creepy AF. I\'m just glad Master didn\'t come here or who knows what might have happened?"