Healer Book 6 -- Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The tunnel leading further underground reminded Thaden of the many dungeons that he’d delved throughout the Region, if only at its most basic level.  The winding passageway led to multiple larger caves, each of which contained Gorillum of higher Levels than the ones he’d fought outside and at the bottom of the pit.  The caves themselves weren’t simply empty, either, but had wide, dark grey stone pillars with connecting branch-like extensions, as if the pillars were pretending to be fossilized trees or something similar.  The scaled monsters waited upon these pillars and “branches”, where they could descend upon anyone coming into the cave; he had to admit that it was a good ambushing tactic, especially as the environment was pitch black and the Gorillum camouflaged well against the greyish stone.

Unfortunately for them, the multitude of spells that surrounded Thaden were more than enough to provide him ample illumination, and as soon as he detected any of the Gorillum in range of his devastating offense in the form of Wild Health Leach, they dropped from the pillars before they could do anything.  Even those he couldn’t actually see with his eyes but he could detect with his other senses inside the cave died to his presence, and soon enough he was rushing through these areas with impunity.  It quickly became a challenge to identify and cast Spiritual Reclamation on the Gorillum before they died, especially with the short casting time the spell required; he wasn’t going to pass up some extra stats if he could get them, especially since he wasn’t in any kind of significant danger, but with them being relatively hidden before he noticed them, his opportunity to tag them with the spell was spotty, at best.

Finally, after 5 of these progressively larger caves with Gorillum that increased in Level, with the final ones being Level 400, 20 Levels above those outside, he came to a larger cave that was actually illuminated somewhat – which allowed him to see the monster that seemed to be waiting for him there.

Scaled Gorillum Ambusher (Mini Boss) – Advanced NEST Defender

Level 430 (Perceived Level: 559)

One moment, the Scaled Gorillum Ambusher was standing at the opposite end of the large cavern, all 15 feet of sleek muscle and a darker shade to its scales, and the next it seemed to disappear completely.  His Celerity was high enough that he would’ve seen it move, but that didn’t happen; instead, it simply appeared behind him with its fist already descending toward him in an effort to squish him into a pancake.  Unfortunately for it, despite its ability to seemingly disappear and appear where it wanted, something he had no defense against, all it took was him being aware of its presence for his Wild Health Leach to affect it.

Given that it wasn’t very strong, it died instantly as it was hit by more than a million damage.  A second after it hit the ground, falling to the side of Thaden as it collapsed lifelessly, there was a deep gong that echoed throughout the cave, and the illumination that brightened the cave slightly began to fade.

“Huh?  What was that?” he asked, looking at Sadia.  She just smiled and shrugged as she stared back at him.  “Nothing yet?  Fine; then I guess we keep going.”

 He quickly extracted loot from the Mini Boss, again finding nothing particularly worthwhile, before backtracking down the tunnel.  It wasn’t too long before he was moving through the right-hand tunnel, which was slightly different from the left-hand one he’d just cleared.  Instead of pillars with “branches” inside the caves, they were filled with large, cracked boulders, all of which provided ample hiding places for the Gorillum to await for him to appear in an ambush. 

Needless to say, it didn’t help them, as they died just as quickly as all the rest.

When he got to the end of the tunnel, he encountered yet another type of Gorillum as a Mini Boss.

Scaled Gorillum Bombardier (Mini Boss) – Advanced NEST Defender

Level 430 (Perceived Level: 559)

Instead of disappearing and reappearing close to him, the 15-foot-tall Bombadier with larger arms and a heftier chest than the normal Scaled Gorillum started picking up pieces of shattered boulders before chucking them at Thaden from nearly 250 feet away.  When the first one hit him, he was surprised at how much damage it did to his defenses, as it took a significant chunk of it away.  It wasn’t enough to concern him, of course, but it was still strange enough that he looked closer at the next boulder piece thrown at him; a subtle glow around it told him that it was likely magically empowered to do even more damage than normal, so he deftly avoided it with his high Celerity.

Killing the Gorillum Bombardier was fairly easy after that, as all it took was running toward it faster than it could stay at range, and his healing spells did the rest.  He only glanced at Sadia as a pair of gongs rang out and the illumination in the cave began to dim, not bothering to ask her for any information.  He was fairly certain that she would share anything pertinent with him once she actually could.

Another backtrack through the tunnel had him going through the one opposite of the large stone door, and that one was yet slightly different from the others.  Rather than pillars or broken boulders with ambushing monsters, the caves had tiered platforms along their edges that held at least twice as many Gorillum in each cave than the others he’d ventured down.  As soon as he walked into the caves, all of the monsters attacked in a group, attempting to overwhelm him – which, of course, did absolutely no good against someone like Thaden.

The final, illuminated cave held a third Mini Boss, another Gorillum-type monster.

Scaled Gorillum Berserker (Mini Boss) – Advanced NEST Defender

Level 430 (Perceived Level: 559)

The name “Berserker” was fairly straightforward, and the massive 15-foot-tall Gorillum immediately charged at him, closing the distance with incredible speed while a reddish aura surrounded the monster.  Strangely enough, the first impact of damage against the Berserker only seemed to increase the intensity of the reddish aura, followed by a second instance of damage that made the intensity of the aura nearly blinding.  The third impact of incredible damage, however, killed the Gorillum while it was moving at speed toward Thaden, and he stepped to the side to avoid the corpse-like projectile as it slammed into the wall of the cave with a heavy thud. 

Three gongs rang out in succession, and the illumination in the cave faded. 

Thaden didn’t bother looking at Sadia as he extracted loot from the Berserker and backtracked through the tunnel.

As he somewhat expected by this point, the faint bluish field covering the stone door was gone when he returned to the bottom of the NEST pit, and the door itself had been cracked open a few inches.  For all intents and purposes, it appeared as though it was inviting him in.

“Let’s not keeping them waiting,” he said out loud, even as he started to walk toward the entrance to what he could only assume—and hope—that this was the final area of the NEST.  With that in mind, he activated a few other spells, including Incarnation of Protection and Mirrored Vigil, just so that he had some extra protection in case whatever was waiting inside the doors was much stronger than what he’d faced so far.

Pushing the doors further open took a slight bit of strength, but his Physicality stat was far above what it required.  Once he could see inside, he was grateful not to see yet another set of tunnels, though what he was greeted with wasn’t exactly something that most people would be relieved to encounter. 

A huge, 1,000-foot wide, circular cavern spread out ahead of him after a short passageway, illuminated by glowing rock chandelier-type formations.  There were pillars of stone with “branches” holding at least two dozen Gorillum, ready to drop down on the unwary; broken boulders were interspersed between these pillars, partially blocking the way forward and giving the two dozen Gorillum behind them an opportunity to ambush those working their way through; and there were at least three dozen Gorillum simply waiting in between the pillars and the broken boulders, as if daring him to walk through them.

And past all of the pillars and boulders, just barely observable from his position at the entrance, was a much larger figure.

Scaled Gorillum Mauler (Boss) – Advanced NEST Defender

Level 450 (Perceived Level: 585)

The Gorillum Mauler stood 20 feet tall, towering over the other Mini Bosses that he’d faced thus far, and it was significantly larger in frame than normal, with bulging arms and chest, and it also had a darker shade to its scales.  If he had to guess, then it was possible that the NEST Boss had some of the same qualities of the three Mini Bosses, though until he saw it in action, he couldn’t be entirely sure. 

Behind the massive Mauler was a swirling, multi-colored, arch-shaped portal thingy approximately 30 feet tall and half that wide, and even as he glanced at it, he saw another basic Scaled Gorillum suddenly emerge from it.  The monster ran toward the forest of pillars and boulders separating Thaden from open space around the Boss and the portal, before jumping up onto a branch and waiting patiently for a victim to walk by.

“Huh.  Interesting.  Will that portal keep spawning monsters forever?” he wondered aloud, and a quick look at Sadia showed that the squirrel was still tight-lipped.

With no further information coming his way, Thaden figured he would simply discover it all for himself.  Wary of any traps that he didn’t notice right away, he walked slowly through the forest of pillars and broken boulders, instead of rushing through.  The moment he took his first step inside the cavern, the Gorillum reacted, with those who weren’t in hiding rushing toward him; they died first, of course, and the only delay the presented toward his progress to the Boss was having to navigate his way around their corpses.  The ambushing Gorillum didn’t fare much better, as his path through the pillars met them as they appeared, killing all of them within seconds, as they didn’t seem to be eager to wait for him to approach too close to him. 

In less than 30 seconds, he was through the obstacles in his way, and even as another weak Gorillum emerged from the portal behind the Boss, Thaden started on his way toward the massive Mauler.  He was still wary of some sort of trap or sudden surprise that would jump out at him, so he took his time – but the Boss was of an entirely different mind. 

It rushed at him with a red aura surrounding it, while it held two large, stone boulders in its hands; when it was only about 250 feet away, it launched both boulders at him, and they flew faster than the Bombardier could manage.  They still weren’t too fast for Thaden, however, so he easily dodged out of their way, even as his Incarnation tanked one of them.  He could feel that it had taken significant damage from the hit, more than the Bombardier, but it wasn’t enough to substantially harm it; any normal Contender, without a lot of protective defenses in place, would likely suffer some painful injuries.

When it was just about to enter the range of his offensive healing spell, the Mauler disappeared similarly to the Ambusher, only to appear next to him already trying to smash him.  The Incarnation took the blow, suffering even more damage, while the monster took damage from Wild Health Leach; its red aura increased in intensity multiple times, and unlike what a Berserker would’ve done, the Mauler seemed to recognize it was in danger.  It disappeared again, seeming to want to gain some distance, but the action was only partially successful.  Halfway to a nearby pile of large boulders, which it was likely going to use as ammunition, it suddenly appeared and collapsed in death simultaneously.  At that point, the final Gorillum that had emerged from the swirling portal got within range of his deadly healing spell, and it, too, fell dead.

The next second, he looked at the swirling portal-like arch and watched as it began to rapidly shrink as it collapsed upon itself; it didn’t take longer than 10 seconds before it disappeared completely with an odd suction sound at the end.  A victorious-sounding ding reverberated through the cavern, unlike the gongs from earlier, and he could visually observe the glowing rock chandeliers gradually starting to lose their illumination.

And yet, there still wasn’t any reaction from Sadia.  He even checked his messages to see if he had triggered something, but there wasn’t anything but the expected kill notifications present.  With a sigh, he quickly extracted loot from the Mauler and the other Gorillum in the cavern; a quick glance at them showed that he actually got some impressive gear – for anyone but a Support Class, as seemed to be the norm.  Most of it was for a Fighter Class, though there was a nice Epic-Rarity Cloak for a Scout Class – though all of them were for someone a much-higher Level than anyone back in Region #1.  Still nothing with a flying ability, unfortunately, but he hadn’t really expected one like that from the Gorillum.

“That was… underwhelming,” he remarked to Sadia as they walked back to the stone doorway.  “Why was this so… easy?  I’d almost say that there were Minimal Difficulty Intermediate Dungeons that were harder than this back in the Region, in fact; well, other than the Level of the monsters, of course.”

Sadia only returned a smile, though he could see her attention was now focused on the doorway ahead of them.  More accurately, she was focused on something beyond them.

Walking back out of door, Thaden immediately found that something had changed at the bottom of the NEST pit that he’d descended earlier.  In the middle of the pit floor, a clear crystal pedestal approximately 5 feet tall and a foot in width glowed brightly with a familiar blue tint to it, and it illuminated the bottom of the pit to the point where there was no longer any difficulty in seeing everything around him. 

Sadia bounced ahead of him and took a position next to the crystal pedestal, looking at him with expectations, before gesturing toward the glowing object that seemed to have come from nowhere.  It only took him a second of consideration before he walked up to the crystal, his only hesitation being that this seemed like the trap he had been expecting this entire time; given that his squirrel companion appeared to approve of it convinced him that he likely wouldn’t come to harm.

Reaching out a hand, he placed it upon the surprisingly warm surface of the crystal pedestal – and he was suddenly inundated with a few messages that he was prompted to read immediately.

Congratulations!  You have destroyed the spawn gate from NEST #3823!  Please gather all members of your Raid Party to this location.

All Raid Party members present…

Prepare for NEST subjugation…

Out of nowhere, the ground began to rumble around him, but it wasn’t enough to even test his balance.  With his hand still on the crystal pedestal and Sadia seemingly unconcerned, he simply stood there as he felt and saw the floor begin to move upwards, as if he was on a large stone lift, reminding him somewhat of the Descent Into Darkness Dungeon.  Unlike that dungeon, however, he was ascending to the surface, and he could feel tremendous energy roiling beneath his feet.  If he was correct, then the tunnels and caves that comprised the majority of the NEST were being filled in, and he was being pushed up by the process.

It took approximately a minute to reach surface level, and as soon as it did, he saw a waist-high stone wall suddenly spring out of the ground around where the original pit perimeter had been.  More than that, an odd figure materialized over the course of a few seconds, standing a few feet away from his own location.

The figure looked vaguely humanoid, if he considered that it had a head, two arms, a torso, and two legs.  Where it differed from a normal Human was the fact that it stood 10 feet tall, had a round head that was twice the size of a Human, its limbs were almost perfectly straight, and it was completely black.  Not like a skin color that was black, but like a void of color without any reflection.  Frankly it reminded him of a large stick-figure drawing, though it at least had a bit more definition and a torso that was wider than a single line. 

As he stood there staring at it, it seemed to fill out a little bit, morphing into a shape that was a little more Human, with actual hands and feet appearing, followed by a shifting of its general body characteristics so that its head shrunk a little and became less round, and he could even see what appeared to be muscles along its body and knees and elbows on its straight arms.  It was almost as if it was a simple clay sculpture at first, and over time it was being molded to match a model.

And that model, unfortunately, was Thaden.  A naked Thaden, still all in black and 10 feet tall, but it was recognizably him.

“What the hell is this—?” he began to say, turning to Sadia, but he was interrupted by a flood of information that staggered him for a moment at the implications as he comprehended it all.