Reborn as the First Boss, Chapter 53

Yes, this is out of the typical order. My only excuse is that I started writing this morning, and only realized at 5:30pm that I was writing on my Friday story instead of Wednesday's story. So, Lich Queen tomorrow, and System Supervillain on Friday.

Chapter 53 – Something’s Wrong

Your party has defeated Watkyn the Bloated.

You each gain 1000 XP.

Loot:

200 gp

Foulrot Charm

Boots of Decay

Staff of Bloating

Watkyn the Bloated was the boss of the first floor of the dungeon. A boss, not a Boss, according to the Voice of the World. He was a vile, disgusting creature. Basically, take a man who was so fat that he couldn’t move under his own power, kill him, make his disgusting corpse bloat up a bit more, and then turn him into a zombie, only able to slowly roll around chasing prey. And then it got to the disgusting part.

See, Watkyn had several other nasty things about him. First off, he stank, even worse than most ‘fleshy’ undead. His undead flab was not only perpetually rotting, but also perpetually sweating and shedding oil making the smell of death even worse. It was so bad that he actually left a slime trail behind him as he rolled, which was caustic enough to eat through shoe leather!

Then, there was his attacks. If people were in melee, they got clawed at with his stumpy arms, or he unleashed a fart cloud that stank so badly it could paralyze people. Anyone paralyzed by the effect was crushed when Watkyn just rolled over them, smothering them to death, and healers couldn’t get line of sight to heal their party members. But you weren’t safe at range, either. In addition to the slime trails he left behind, he also had a projectile vomit attack that dealt acid damage and was every bit as foul as that sounded. Even if you somehow took no damage from the acid, the smell clung to you and gave stacking debuffs.

Thankfully, Watkyn was only a level 10. A strong level 10, but only level 10. He was the introduction to the dungeon for adventurers. Anyone who couldn’t get past this point had no business going deeper into the dungeon.

The loot, on the other hand, was… fine. They were nice pieces of kit for a level 10ish party, especially if they were going to focus on this dungeon. However, the pieces were all themed like the boss they came from, and none of us wanted to walk around smelling like death. So, they went into the storage, along with the growing collection of bone dust and zombie flesh we’d picked up from the different minions we’d met along the way. It wasn’t like I was going to run out of inventory space anytime soon.

Seriously, because of how broken my stats were, if I had gotten this ability back in my old life, I would have been able to store a pickup truck in my inventory, no problem. And not those little ones, either, the big extended cab ones! The only restrictions seemed to be that I had to be physically touching something to store it, the inventory wasn’t available during combat, and I couldn’t just steal someone’s armor off of them by touching it as I walked by. Other than that? I had yet to find the limits of the ability.

“Mistress, we’re ready to go.”

“Thank you, Angelina. Jewell, if you would?” We’d been in the dungeon for a couple hours, now, and had fallen into a routine. Astruth was our main tank, so he set the pace in combat. Angelina was our main healer, so we waited on her to get everyone healed up and recover her MP before moving on after a fight. Jewell was our scout and trapfinder, so she led the way as we explored new parts of the dungeon.

As we started down the stairs to the next level, Linette looked at me. “Mistress, why is it that the Adventurer’s Guild had such detailed knowledge of that… creature we just fought? If adventurers had fought and killed it before, how was it there to face us?”

I chuckled, and said, “I asked that question, myself, while I was getting information on the dungeon. The short answer is that the dungeon repopulates itself over time. Always with the same types of creatures, though sometimes in different amounts and distributions. However, the named creatures, the bosses of each floor, are always the same, and have a few standard pieces of loot that they always leave behind when they die.

“One theory, apparently, is that dungeons are living beings, though alien to our understanding. Which would explain why the ‘dungeon monsters’ disappear when they are slain, like conjured beasts, leaving only some loot from the Voice of the World behind. That theory says that each dungeon has a core, like slimes do, and the dungeon cannot be truly conquered or killed without reaching that core.”

“Trap ahead,” Jewell said, just loud enough for us to hear. Magical torches lit the halls at regular intervals, so trying to hide was relatively pointless, but loud voices could attract nearby monsters, so it was just good practice to speak softly, but normally. It was always easier to keep up good habits, than to break bad ones.

Looking forward, I saw Jewell marking a pressure plate with chalk. “Can you disarm it?”

“No, the plate is easy enough to see, with the [Trapfinding] skill, but the mechanics are hidden in the walls. But I think it is linked to those small holes,” She pointed to a line of evenly-spaced holes on either side of the hallway, running in a vertical line. “My guess is some kind of spear trap.”

“All right. Everyone be careful, and watch your step. Lead us forward, Jewell.”

The magic torches and these traps were part of the reason why no one was quite sure about the true nature of dungeons. This kind of trap was too elaborate for an instinctive snare, and the torches were a distinctly ‘living’ touch, since the undead had no need for light to see. Those spoke of a human, or at least humanoid, mind behind the dungeon’s design. Or, at least, the dungeon had something human to copy as it grew. But there was no record of anyone creating this place, and such a large construction project could not have been missed.

I put those thoughts aside as we reached an intersection. After the first floor, what had been a long and winding corridor with several rooms, culminating in Watkyn’s chamber, turned into a labyrinthine series of branching paths, designed to confuse delvers and cause them to double back on themselves, or even start going in circles. Fortunately, the Guild had maps of the explored areas of the dungeon, down to the fifteenth floor, where Akkras the Eternal was supposed to hold court. No one had ever defeated Akkras, though, so all that was known about him was that he was supposed to be a Level 25 Lich with the Necromancer class and the Scribe profession. No one knew what loot he dropped, because his magic and the elite undead he summoned to protect him were always too much for parties.

The only reason even that much was known about Akkras was because, for whatever reason, the lich did not pursue anyone who escaped his chamber, and some cautious adventurers had managed to use a [Dimension Door] spell to teleport to the other side of the massive stone door that sealed his boss room when the fight began. Fortunately for those adventurers, fighting their way out of the dungeon was not as difficult, since while the minions may have returned, the boss monsters had not yet respawned. It was likely that, if that had not happened, no one would know what was on the last floor of the dungeon.

“All right,” Jewell said, checking the map we’d purchased from the Adventurer’s Guild. “Looks like the path straight ahead leads to a dead end, going right leads, eventually, to the floor boss, but the left-hand path leads to the Treasure Room, before linking back to the main path.”

I nodded once. “We’ll go left. Might as well see if the Vault Guard is the same as reported, or if things have changed.”

After the first floor, every floor had a Treasure Room, which offered extra rewards if you cleared it. For this floor, the room was supposed to be guarded by the Bone Collector, a skeleton that could heal himself by absorbing bones from the different piles of remains in the room. The trick to beating him was to either overwhelm his HP before he could get to the bone piles, or ‘ruin’ the bones somehow. The two most popular ways of doing that were using holy water to purify them, or using fire to destroy them.

The first floor had been primarily zombies. This floor was supposed to be skeletons, and we were definitely getting more of them as we moved through the floor. However, even though we were mowing through the skeletons without issue, I was growing concerned. On Floor 1, the enemies were supposed to have Level 5-8 undead, with the boss being Level 10. However, the enemies we fought were all level 8-10, even if the boss remained the same. Floor 2 was supposed to have level 6-9 monsters, with a Level 11 boss, but we were facing level 10-12 undead.

So, part of the reason to check the Treasure Room was to make sure that the Bone Collector was Level 10, like he was supposed to be, or whether anything else had changed. Obviously, I wanted the loot, but if any of the named creatures were changing, I wanted to know about it as early as possible. Preferably, before we got surprised by anything and possibly trapped in the dungeon. The idea that the dungeon might be targeting women in particular was foolish, on the face of it, but now that I had seen evidence that the dungeon had changed, I was starting to get doubts about whether there could actually be something to it.

Bone Collector

Level 11 Skeleton Warrior / Boneshaper

Titles: Undead Toughness

“Shit,” I cursed, as we got to the treasure room. The Bone Collector was there, two and a half meters tall and armed with plate armor and a longsword, just as he was supposed to be, but now not only did he have a class, profession, and title (NONE of which he should have!), but he was also Level 11. That was a problem.

Which meant I couldn’t hold back. I took a breath, and returned to my true form. Supposedly, I had the same attributes and abilities, no matter what form I took, but, through experimentation, I’d discovered that my full succubus form was best suited for using Hellfire. Whatever the reason, the fire just flowed more naturally and was easier to call and control in this form. And I needed that control.

“Do it as we planned!”

With my command given, my pets charged into battle, leaving me several steps behind. But that was fine. I had my own role in this fight. I stretched out both hands, and from them unleashed streams of hellfire, targeting the piles of bones closest to the Bone Collector.

Our plan was simple. Astruth and Linette use their skills to hold the Bone Collector’s attention, Jewell does what damage she could to it, Angelina keeps all of them alive, and I use hellfire to blast the bone piles and turn them to ashes. Admittedly, I had been expecting to use Demon’s Due for this, instead of my natural abilities, but I could adapt.

The Bone Collector’s flaming eyes turned towards me as I began roasting the bones, destroying his collection and making them useless for his purpose. He tried to break through to me, but Astruth and Linette were not going to let that happen. He let out a roar, wholly magical in nature, since he had no lungs or throat to roar with, and smaller skeletons, unarmored, and armed with a bone club, rose up from the unburnt piles, their eyes all focused on me.

“Keep to the plan,” I called out, as I roasted two more piles, and the skeletons in front of them. The little skeletons didn’t look terribly strong, and I had a lot of defenses. In fact, other than Astruth, I was probably the best one to deal with these guys.

One of the skeletons came in from the side, and struck my outstretched arm with its bone club. I felt the impact, but there was no pain. My defense was almost 1000 by this point, and the [Too Pretty to Hit] ability on my robes reduced any damage I took by my CHA, which was at 479 with all my buffs and items. So long as I avoided any critical hits, I could probably play tank against these summoned skeletons. They were meant to harass and harry Level 10ish backline casters and the like, not a level 21 with cheating stats and abilities.

With my hellfire tearing through skeletons and bone piles alike, and their attacks having little to no effect (I had only lost 2% of my HP so far), the rest of the fight was effectively done. When the last bone pile was ruined, I added my damage to the others’ as they attacked the Bone Collector, and it crumpled in a heap. But we didn’t celebrate until, several seconds later, the death notification appeared in front of us.

Your party has defeated the Bone Collector.

You each gain 2000 XP.

Loot:

200 pp

Boneblade Scimitar

Shield of Bones

Gorget of the Unliving

Spiritual Retreat

“Well, at least the [Spiritual Retreat] is still part of the loot, Mistress,” Linette said, as she looked over the loot screen.

I sighed as I nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that will be most helpful. Especially since the Bone Collector was quite a bit different than he was supposed to be. More evidence that there has to be a Boss somewhere in the dungeon, I suppose.”

Spiritual Retreat

Type

Tool

Rank

Rare

Price

62500 gp

Weight

0 kg

This simple pewter disk, showing a campfire on one side, and a tent on the other, is heavily enchanted. Once per day, it can be used to create a pocket dimension for the user and up to (CHA/10) creatures. This pocket dimension lasts for 10 hours, and is furnished with comfortable bedding and furniture for the user’s race, as well as a fire for cooking.

Soulbound: Bound on use, binding ends with user’s death

The second-floor Treasure Room was the only one in the dungeon that gave out these items, and the dungeon only ever gave out one per party, and only when no one in the party had been in a group that had received one before. Every party wanted one, because it meant that they could camp out in the dungeon, without worrying about setting watches, amongst other things. And the soulbinding requirement, along with the fact that the dungeon only ever gave out one per group, meant that they were very rare, and almost never appeared on the market.

Which was good, because there was something very wrong with this dungeon, and I doubted we’d be visiting a shop anytime soon.