New Story -- Chapter 36

Chapter 36

“I’m telling you, it won’t—”

As they walked inside the doors to the Mausoleum of Despair, Thaden – now as a Party Leader as assigned by the Party Interface – inwardly smiled as the message window popped up and the world slowed down while he made a selection.

The Mausoleum of Despair Dungeon

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal Medial Maximal

Party member Level discrepancy detected!

Dungeon Slayer World First Achievement override!

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal Medial   Maximal

Thaden was confused at first why the Minimal and Medial difficulties weren’t available for him to choose, but then he remembered what Diallo had said about the restrictions on parties and dungeons when it came to the highest Level person being a higher Level than 90% of the monsters inside – which definitely qualified now that he was Level 35, even for the monsters in the Medial difficulty section of the dungeon. It turned out that his Dungeon Slayer World First Achievement allowed him still select Maximal difficulty, because he wasn’t over-Leveled for it.

As soon as he mentally selected Maximal difficulty, the world sped up again and he took a step forward slightly unbalanced, but he recovered quickly.

“—work for us in your party—WHAT THE FUCK?!” Sarah finished, just as the doors they had walked through slammed shut behind them. He knew from experience that they could open them up again and walk out if they wanted because they weren’t in a “breaking” dungeon like his first experience with the Mausoleum, but they still closed behind him every single time he’d entered. He thought it was to indicate that they had started the certain difficulty of dungeon they had selected and not necessarily to restrict their exit if that was what they wished, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure.

Still more questions to ask… and I’m not sure I want to know any more.

“See? I told you we’d be just fine,” he said, turning to his shocked party members. It was quite a strange feeling being in their party, as he had a very vague connection to each of them and could pinpoint where they were at all times, as well as their general well-being. The actual feeling he received of their Health didn’t feel like it would be very accurate other than a general sense that they were alive, but when he looked at their name tags, they were brightly lit and easy to see; he was told that as they became more injured the text would start to fade all the way to black, giving him a much better indication of their current Health.

It wasn’t as easy as a red Health bar or a bunch of numbers to understand, but it was better than nothing.

The whole “Party Interface” was fairly user-friendly, too, as all it required was a mental nudge to open it up. While inside the popup window, the Party Leader could invite other people to the party or disband the party entirely, and could even assign the role of Party Leader to someone else. It also revealed the Classes that everyone in the party possessed, so it seemed as though once you were in a party you had to trust your other members not to use that information against you. Not that he particularly cared about that right now, because none of the Contenders in the world should be able to even attack him since they weren’t Level 21, but it was something to consider in the future.

“How? This shouldn’t be possible, Thaden!” Sarah said, pointing at him accusingly, while breathing heavily in what he could tell was a panic. “Maximal?! Are you trying to get yourself and then us killed? Again?”

He waved off her—their—concern, as he saw that everyone but Rayana appeared ready to faint. The Soldier looked fairly stoic in the face of the Maximal difficulty dungeon, but the white-knuckled grip on her sword gave away her absolute terror. “We’ll be fine. At least, I think so. Haven’t done this difficulty yet, but I’m sure it’s not a problem. Just, uh, stay back behind me while I go through it.”

“Stay back? Stay back?! But you’re a Support Class! A healer! You should be the one in the back!”

He waved toward the dimly lit tunnel in front of him. “If you want to go first, be my guest, but you’ll probably just delay it all by my having to resurrect you again.”

“Hell no, that’s no way I’m doing that. I’m not crazy. I’m getting out of here,” Sarah said, turning to head back out the doors, but Rayana grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Hold on. Let’s just see what happens in the first room of the dungeon. If it looks like he’s going to die, we run.”

“Exactly,” Thaden agreed. “I didn’t bring you in to kill you, after all. If I can’t handle it, I don’t expect you to stick around and die for nothing. From what I understand, the Maximal difficulty has the Undead starting at Level 40, so there’s no shame in running when you don’t have a chance of surviving.”

Not that he thought he had anything to worry about facing higher-Level Undead, as he’d been doing it for the last few months, but he didn’t really want to go into why he felt so confident. In addition, he really didn’t want them to die…

…because he still had plenty of questions he needed answers to.

It took her nearly a minute to calm down with her breathing returning to normal, but Sarah eventually turned back and folded her arms over her chest. “Hmph. Fine. One room, and then we’ll decide if we stick it out or get the hell out of here.”

“Excellent! Alright, everyone just stay back like I said and you’ll be fine. Let me handle this.”

Walking down the tunnel that led to the first room, Thaden’s confidence was on full-blast as he recognized the familiar space ahead of him. The mausoleum-themed walls were essentially the same as usual, though it was the Undead that were quite different. Instead of Zombie Maulers, Skeleton Warriors, or Ghoulish Swarmers like he was used to in the Medial difficulty version of the dungeon, the room was filled with something different.

Grave Stalker – Maximal

Level 41

Grave Stalker – Maximal

Level 40

Grave Stalker – Maximal

Level 42

The Grave Stalkers that ranged from Level 40 to 42 in the room, all three of them, were much larger than the normal Undead he had seen through the Medial difficulty version of the dungeon. For one, they were large, nearly reaching the top of the 15-foot ceilings with their height, and they appeared to be some sort of wraith-like Undead that floated above the ground, wearing a dark, ragged cloak that covered all but their red-glowing eyes that drilled into him when he walked inside and their bony, grasping hands that were nearly as large as his entire body. They practically filled the entirety of the small room, and they gave off an eerie chill that caused a foggy mist to emerge underneath them when they moved.

And they moved fast, immediately swarming Thaden before he could even get his bearings. A glance behind him showed that the rest of the party were staying far back from the room, still inside the tunnel in fact, and looking like they were on the verge of running.

As the nearest of the Grave Stalkers swooped down onto him, only to have its hands repelled as soon as they touched Thaden’s Major Repulsion Field, the Lifewarden made sure all his spells were up and ready to go. He already had his Lesser Aura of Life active, which was actively hurting the Grave Stalkers as they got close, which made them screech so loudly that he was fairly certain he would’ve been deafened if he hadn’t had his Fields up. Before he cast anything else, he used Major Mass Healing to do around 180 damage to all the Undead around him, before slapping each one with Major Regeneration.

All of the rapid damage didn’t seem to do much to the Level 40+ Grave Stalkers, though there were signs that they were being injured by his spells; a few more random holes in its raggedy cloak here, a cracked finger bone there, and a very slight dimming of its glowing red eyes. The kind of damage output he was capable of with just those spells wasn’t showing to be too significant, but it was all adding up, nonetheless. As the next 10 seconds went by, he was able to cast Major Mass Healing twice more, speeding up the process, and one of them was even cast twice thanks to Lifewarden’s bonus trait. The Stalkers were also being injured by themselves as every few hits resulted in 5% of the damage they were trying to inflict upon him with their blows against his Field being reflected. Afterglow also played a lesser role as it took effect, wreathing each of the Undead with its bright aura. Overall, with the Aura of Life going and the additional damage being done by multiple spells and effects, he thought it would take less than a minute for them to die – but he wanted to prove to the party behind him that he could handle himself against whatever the dungeon could throw at him.

He had to admit that his frustration over his missed PICK and the new knowledge of the role that Contenders and the Assimilation System played in the survival of his home made him want to be a little reckless. A blast of frigid air that immediately started to freeze his skin slammed into him as soon as he canceled his Major Absorption Field, as it was a magical effect that he was being attacked with in addition to the physical blows that were raining down, but he pushed through the pain and cast Lesser Healing Circle right at his feet, which enveloped both Thaden and all three of the Grave Stalkers. The rapid healing/damage of 18 Health per second was just the thing he needed to both counteract the cold damage that was being inflicted upon himself and speed up the process of killing the wraith-like Grave Stalkers.

A little over ten seconds after he began to cast Lesser Healing Circle, all three of the Undead collapsed as he added in a pair of Major Mass Healings, the latter of which finished them off entirely. With a smile as he saw the collapsed forms of the Stalkers, which was basically a pile of dusty cloth, bones, and rotting flesh underneath, he checked his message feed. Normally, he’d probably have waited until later, but he wanted to make sure that his PICK accumulation wasn’t messed up anymore.

You have slain a Grave Stalker – Maximal – Level 40!

You have received 40 PICK!

PICK reward altered based on Party and Monster Level disparity!

You have received 80 PICK!

You have slain a Grave Stalker – Maximal – Level 41!

You have received 41 PICK!

PICK reward altered based on Party and Monster Level disparity!

You have received 82 PICK!

You have slain a Grave Stalker – Maximal – Level 42!

You have received 42 PICK!

PICK reward altered based on Party and Monster Level disparity!

You have received 97 PICK!

Yes! It works again!

Turning back to the party, he smiled as he saw them staring at him with wide eyes and open mouths. “See? Easy enough, huh? Now, did you all receive PICK from them?”

Sarah was the first to recover somewhat as she shut her mouth with a *snap* and nodded. “Yes. I believe there’s a penalty I didn’t know about in there somewhere with you being such a high Level, but we all still received PICK. Uh, 10, 11, and then 12 PICK for each of the Grave Stalkers. That’s more than we would earn killing the monsters outside of town in an hour – if we could find enough to kill, of course. And you did it in less than a minute.”

There was silence after that as the four of the original party members looked at each other and seemed to communicate amongst themselves without any words needed. After a few seconds, they turned back to Thaden and Sarah said, “I think we’re in agreement. If you can keep doing that, we would love to come with you. But…” she trailed off and looked down at the floor, as if embarrassed.

“But what?”

“Well, we, uh can’t really pay you anything for doing all of this for us. This is much more than what we hoped, and it doesn’t seem fair to you to carry us through this dungeon. Not that I’m complaining,” she said hurriedly, lifting her hands up in a placating gesture, “but this arrangement seems wholly lopsided. Perhaps you can keep all the loot? The system will automatically divide it up between all of us, of course, but we can let you have it all; you’re doing all the work, after all.”

“Ah, we can figure that out later. We have a while to go until we get to the treasure room at the end, anyway, and you can pay me back by telling me more about things that I don’t know. For instance, what are these dungeons, anyway? Why are they here on this world and how do they operate? Why can I select different difficulties? More than that, what and where exactly is this world of Tarth? Why are there monsters at all? Where do they come from and seem to respawn so quickly? Why—alright, that’s probably enough for now,” he said excitedly. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been keeping a lot of questions bottled up inside, and the natives here really don’t want to answer any of them. Getting some of those answers is payment enough for me.”

“Uh, alright, I think we can do that. We don’t know all the information you probably want, but we’ll do what we can to give you as much as we can.” Sarah looked at Thaden confusedly as she tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean wait until the… what did you call it? The treasure room? Why wait until the treasure room to discuss loot, when something might come up while we’re going through the dungeon?”

Now it was Thaden’s turn to become confused. “What are you talking about? I’ve never once found any other treasure on the way to the Boss and the treasure room in any of these rooms.”

“Well, from looting the—wait. Are you telling me that you’ve been through this dungeon before, albeit at a lower difficulty, and you didn’t loot the monsters you killed?”

“Loot the monsters?” What is she talking about? Thaden kicked the pile of cloth, bones, and nasty rotting flesh around a little, but he didn’t notice anything. He’d never noticed anything on any of the decaying corpses or piles of bones before. Unless she means gatherable resources like Bone Dust or Ectoplasm? I’ve done plenty of that, at least. “But there’s nothing here but a threadbare robe and nastiness underneath it. You’re welcome to rummage around in it if you want and are welcome to anything you find. I for one don’t want to get my hands covered in disgusting fluids and who knows what else if I can help it.”

As the end of his little speech, all four of his party members froze as they stared at him, before absolutely cracking up as they bent over in deep-bellied laughter. He even heard Diallo start to wheeze as he ran out of breath, smacking his hand against his leg, while the women were wiping involuntary tears from their eyes.

Indignant, he was of half a mind to either disband the party or remove himself from it, as he didn’t appreciate being laughed at. See, this is why I don’t like people.

Sarah finally straightened back up from doubling over in laughter, and she must have seen something in his face that sobered her up immediately. She slapped whatever she could reach of the others behind her without looking, which caused them to stop a few seconds later.

“I apologize, Thaden; that was more than rude and I for one feel bad for laughing at your ignorance.  Can you forgive me?”

Grumbling under his breath, the Lifewarden eventually said, “Yes, whatever. But please explain what I’m so obviously ignorant of. It feels like I don’t know what the three seashells mean or something.”

“Three seashells?” Sarah asked, genuinely confused.

“Ah, I think that’s in reference to a movie from back in the 1990’s,” Diallo answered helpfully. “Demolition Man or something like that?”

“Uh, okay, sure,” Sarah said doubtfully, before focusing on Thaden again. “Anyway, for each monster you kill, you can loot it by touching any part of its remains and mentally commanding, ‘Extract’. This will automatically provide you with loot that can range from absolutely nothing, which is typically the case for many of the weaker monsters out there, to money, resources, or – more rarely on common monsters – items.”

“‘Extract’? That’s it?” Thaden asked, wondering if the woman was playing a trick on him. At her nod, along with nods from the others in the party, he bent down where he was, placed his hand on top of the dusty, ragged cloth cloak that had covered the Grave Stalker, and mentally thought, Extract. Almost immediately, the remains of the Undead began to break apart and disperse underneath his hand, and he stood up in surprise. After a few seconds, as the majority of the remains disappeared, a window popped up.

Extraction complete!

Loot obtained:

3 Silver, 10 Copper coins (total of 15 Silver, 50 Copper coins divided among 5 party members)

1 Shadow Cloth Scrap (total of 5 Shadow Cloth Scraps divided among 5 party members)

Startled at the sudden message, he looked around for the Silver and Copper, as well as the Shadow Cloth Scrap, expecting them to appear in front of him similar to when he completed a Quest and received a reward. However, he didn’t see or hear anything fall to the ground, which left him perplexed.

“It seemingly worked, but where is the stuff it says was extracted?” he asked, looking at Sarah in confusion.

“It’s in your Inventory, of course. Where else would it be?”

“Inventory? What are you—oh, for fuck’s sake!” Thaden uncharacteristically cursed, his anger spiking as simply thinking the word Inventory opened another window that showed a grid-like space that held the items he’d extracted. “Are you telling me I’ve had some sort of internal inventory this entire time and I didn’t know it?!” The thought of all the loot he’d left behind, not just from not knowing that he could “extract” it from normal monsters, but from all the treasure room chests he'd opened, made him furious.

“Uh, yes?”

“Damn it! Of all the motherfu—you know what, I need to kill some things or I’m going to explode. I’ll leave the extracting to you guys; in the meantime, I’m moving on – and now I have a lot more questions that I need some answers to.” So saying, fuming so much that he felt like his vision was turning red and figured steam should be coming out of his ears like some sort of cartoon. The revelation that he had an Inventory this entire time was the last straw, and he stomped through the room and into the next tunnel, deliberately setting off the trap he noticed along the stone floor along the way, only for the explosive detonation that blew apart the left wall to bounce off his Major Repulsion Field.

When he got to the next room, he didn’t even bother to slow down or activate his Major Absorption Field when presented by four Grave Stalkers, but instead began whittling them down with applications of Lesser Healing Circle and Major Mass Healing, along with all the other heal-over-time spells and effects that he was capable of. Deliberately setting off a trap in the room once they were dead, with his Absorption Field back up, a black cloud of necrotic energy attempted to eat away his skin, he left the others to clean up his mess as he looked for more things to kill.