New Story -- Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Cautiously peeking into the open space, Thaden was glad he already had his Minor Repulsion Field activated, because even as he stuck his head inside, two Zombie Maulers reached out to grab him from either side of the opening. They were completely quiet and positioned just like a deliberate jump-scare inside a haunted house attraction around Halloween, and the ambush was only enhanced when a pair of Skeleton Warriors were across from the opening in full view, pulling the eye to them instead of worrying about what else might be inside.

Unfortunately for the Undead who actually did manage to jump-scare him a little, they were unable to penetrate his protective Field and were knocked slightly backward when they impacted it. The Assistant Healer didn’t give them any chance to recover from that as he immediately cast Minor Mass Healing and targeted all four of the Undead – the two ambushing Zombies and the visible Skeletons heading his way – with Minor Regeneration.

As the heal/damage-over-time spell did its work, taking off an average of 5 Health per 5 seconds due to his Stronger Healing Advancement, it was accompanied by not only his Weak Aura of Life doing an average of 2 Health damage every 5 seconds, as well as another 1 Health due to Afterglow. With approximately 8 Health was taken away from them every 5 seconds, which was only approximate because the 50% increase due to his Advancement rounded up only most of the time for some reason, Thaden was chipping away at their overall Health quite quickly – especially when another 60 Health was taken off from Minor Mass Healing every 10 seconds.

In a little less than a minute, all four of the Undead that had surrounded him collapsed to the floor at slightly different times due to their slightly different Levels. What surprised him the most about the now-fully dead Undead was that they were all fairly low-Level, around Level 21 to 24. Thinking about the RPGs he’d played in the past, he supposed that if it followed the same sort of theme, then the further he progressed through the dungeon, the harder the monsters and the higher the Levels he would encounter. These were what were typically considered trash mobs, which were monsters that were more of a nuisance than a threat, and they were easy to dispatch.

That certainly seemed to be the case here, as they didn’t last long against his multiple ways to heal/damage them. Of course, he was basing all of that conjecture from his knowledge of RPGs back on Earth; he still needed more data to be sure that was what was happening here. He didn’t really get a chance to investigate that sort of progressively more difficult them back in the Vogmite Tunnels Dungeon, mainly because his entry was more than a bit irregular.

When the Undead fell to the stone floor, Thaden finally got a chance to look around the open space he had walked into. The space was rectangular in shape, with 15-foot ceilings and the longest side being approximately twice that, so it wasn’t exactly large by any means. What was almost impressive was the aesthetic of the dungeon, however, as it portrayed a real mausoleum with old, stone plaques covered in so much dust they were illegible decorating the walls where he assumed caskets were interred. It wasn’t much of an assumption, though, because there were four sections on the wall where the stone plaque had been shattered, strewing rubble all over the floor – and it appeared to have been done from the inside, where the splintered and rotted remains of a wooden coffin could be spotted.

All of this was decorated with two iron chain pendant lights hanging from the ceiling that contained a bowl filled with magical fire, which lit up the room well enough to see, but the flickering flames also threw shadows all over the walls with great frequency. It made the displays of rusted armor and weapons on the two stands he spotted in the corners look like figures that would abruptly jump out and attack someone, which did make him have to look at least three times to ensure that wasn’t the case.

He didn’t want to get jump-scared again so soon.

With the naturally dark stone, it was perfectly suited to the environment of the Undead; a little cliché, perhaps, but it was still flawless in its execution.

Thaden chuckled a little at his assessment, his analytical side rearing its head as he looked around the room. Perhaps it was his nerves getting the better of him, with his mind wanting any sort of distraction to focus on to forget that he was inside of a difficult dungeon by himself. Or, it might be from the fact that he finally had to acknowledge that he was living in a fantasy world completely unlike Earth, and that there were people back home who would love to be where he was right now, exploring dungeons with the expectation of adventure.

What was most likely the case, however, was that he had started to become a little jaded toward the Undead because they couldn’t hurt him, as his experiences outside – apart from the first horde – had shown their lack of threat. For the first time since he arrived near the Mausoleum, he hadn’t felt scared at their presence – notwithstanding the intentional-or-not jump-scare at the beginning, of course.

Nodding his head as he mentally acknowledged that truth, he stopped and recentered himself, reminding himself not to let his guard down. While this mausoleum room was quite easy to complete, that didn’t mean that all of them would be the same; there were bound to be something inside that might be able to hurt or kill him, and he needed to not be too overconfident.

Still, he couldn’t help but a little of that confidence slip through as he headed toward the opening on the right side of the room, which he assumed led further inside. He had been nervous coming in the dungeon in the first place, but after seeing how easy—

*click*

His foot stepped on a dusty stone block and it slightly depressed underneath him, eliciting a clicking sound that he remembered back from his first experience in a dungeon – and it wasn’t a fond remembrance. But before he could even think of reacting, the nearest stone plaque on the wall to his right exploded, sending out both shards of stone and sharpened leg bones as projectiles straight into him, like a claymore that shot out bones instead of steel balls.

He stumbled to his right as it hit him, or more accurately, rebounded off his Field; it wasn’t due to the impact that he stumbled, but because of surprise and shock at both the sudden attack and the deafening noise. As the dust settled, he stood still as his heart pushed itself back down his throat, before renewing his own Minor Regeneration spell out of habit – and to ensure he was prepared in case something made it through his defenses.

“You know, I was just thinking that I was being overconfident, and there we go – that’s exactly what I was talking about,” he mumbled to himself. Straightening his shoulders as he recovered from the abrupt attack, he continued. “Anyway, I forgot about traps for some reason, so I have to make sure to pay attention. If that had been a magical attack that was just as destructive, it might’ve killed me.” Shaking for a second at the thought, he pushed it away and moved on, picking up a rusty and partially broken spear that had fallen off one of the stands in the corner at the blast. Thankfully, the old spear was in such rough shape that it didn’t classify as a weapon, meaning that he wasn’t forced to drop it as soon as he picked it up, as it looked like it would fall apart if it had been swung or used to stab someone.

But it was perfect for what he wanted it for, which was to poke and prod the floor he was going to pass over, hoping to identify any traps before he accidentally walked right into them. With the Aura, Regeneration, and Field around him emitting a glow that lit up the area around him, he made slow progress through the rest of the room, visually looking for any sign of a trap while tapping the floor for any indication that the stone might depress if he stepped on it. Just before the exit leading further into the Mausoleum, his poking with the spear discovered a section of the stone floor moved slightly, and he smiled as he worked his way around the area and entered another hallway almost identical to the first near the entrance.

It was completely dark, but his glowing spells around his body were enough to light the way, which was free of debris unlike the previous room. A 90-degree turn to the left had him looking down the tunnel at what appeared to be yet another room, which seemed very similar to the first. Walking in while cautiously poking at the floor, he discovered that it was almost exactly the same, with the only difference being one of the Skeleton Warriors was one Level higher than the ones he’d killed previously. The arrangement of the room and debris was slightly different, with rubble strewn around in a random pattern and the destruction of the stone plaques was handled differently, but it was similar enough that if he hadn’t been looking for the differences, he might not have noticed.

Generic Mausoleum Room #1, essentially.

That was perfectly fine for Thaden, though, because it just made his job a bit easier. After re-killing the Undead, he discovered that the placement of the trap locations was different, but was still able to find them with his broken, trap-finding spear well enough to avoid setting them off.

It quickly became a bit boring as he kept going, following the hallways and nearly identical “Mausoleum Room #1s” over the next hour, as he progressed through a little more than two dozen of them. The only differences were that the Undead he fought slowly became stronger and more numerous, but even at the end of the repetitive rooms there weren’t more than 7 of them.

It was when he was least expecting it that something changed – but isn’t that always how it worked?

Traveling down yet another dark stone hallway, tapping the spear along the floor checking for traps, Thaden was suddenly enveloped by a dark cloud that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. The instant it touched his skin, it felt like it was being melted off, though unlike the green flames back in the Vogmite Tunnels, the effect didn’t feel like a burn; instead, it was as if his flesh was rotting away at a rapid pace.

The dark cloud reached his eyes and Thaden was almost instantly blinded, his eyeballs practically decomposing in their sockets.  Oddly enough, his mental faculties during this process were completely intact, as he felt no pain, only a bit of confusion as to what was happening; it was as if his body was dying so quickly that any of his affected nerves couldn’t even communicate with his brain.

Thankfully, despite being blinded, he was still able to see his Access Slots and see his spells, as if they were in his mind instead of being something he needed to physically see, which allowed him to react quickly. He quickly deactivated his Minor Repulsion Field and activated his Minor Absorption Field, feeling immediate relief as no more of the dark cloud reached him; as for what was actually killing him, he tried to use his Minor Cure Mental Affliction he already had in his Access Slots to get rid of it, but that did nothing. A swap to Weak Cure Physical Affliction and an instant cast of that seemed to help halt the progress of what was destroying his body, but didn’t get rid of it entirely.

That’s right, it’s only good for afflictions up to Level 20; that must mean whatever this affliction is, it’s source must be higher than that. Although it didn’t cure it completely, I can sense that it helped a bit.

The only reason he wasn’t dead yet was because his ongoing healing spells were staving off the inevitable, but it was a losing battle. Fortunately, a cast of Minor Mass Healing helped to heal all of the damage instantly, though the affliction was still present. He started to spam-cast Weak Cure Physical Affliction on himself, with each cast getting rid of a more and more of it. After about 20 seconds, and another use of Mass Healing, he felt the last of it leave his body, and he was healed back to full.

Remembering the description of the Weak Cure Physical Affliction spell, Thaden deduced that the dark cloud was likely a magical source of necrosis, which he could only assume was designed to rapidly decay his body – and he was lucky to have survived the trap that he didn’t even know how he set off. Once his vision was back and everything reset back to where it had been before, he looked around to see any sign of what activated the trap and could see nothing physical around. The only thing he noticed was a lingering hint of something in the tunnel, like a subtle glow that seemed magical in nature, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it was. He could only assume that this was what had set off the trap, or was the trap itself, but he didn’t really have a good way to detect it.

“Great. Physical and magical traps? How am I supposed to pick which ones to defend against?” After a minute or so of contemplation, he decided to keep his Minor Repulsion Field active most of the time, because if he accidentally activated a trap that made something explode into him, then it was much more likely that it would be fatal; if it was magical in nature, he had already proven that he could recover, even if having his flesh die and slough off his body wasn’t very pleasant.

The sudden appearance of the necrosis-based trap signaled the start of the next section of the dungeon, which abruptly changed from constructed stone walls to a rougher look, as if the hallway had been carved out of rock. The next room he stumbled upon was different, as well, with it looking more like a set of old catacombs rather than a more modern mausoleum. Instead of relatively “modern” stone plaques and spaces containing broken-open caskets, there were instead niches carved into the walls, where cloth-wrapped bodies were placed inside. The dry, unmoving air inside the new section was enough to keep the corpses from rapidly decomposing, which meant that the remains – for the most part – were intact.

Except where they were missing entirely.

A dozen, clicking Ghoulish Swarmers crawled out of almost imperceptible holes in the walls and the ceiling, accompanied by a squad of 4 Skeleton Warriors, all of them Level 25. Thaden was quickly surrounded because he didn’t want to try avoiding them and accidentally set off a trap in the room, though he had thought of that as a potential way to destroy the Undead monsters even faster; however, since he didn’t have any idea what trap he might set off, he didn’t want to end up killing himself with a magical trap when he needed a physical barrier protecting him from the monsters themselves.

Though, if he knew for sure what kind of traps he was setting off, it could definitely be a strategy he could employ in the future.

Even though the Undead were all 4 Levels higher than him, they didn’t last much more than a minute as they ineffectually attempted to attack Thaden who was safely protected by his Minor Repulsion Field. Once they were all collapsed on the floor, Larek took his time moving through the new type of room, looking out for any indication of a trap. None of the dust-covered stones underneath his feet seemed to depress when he used his makeshift trap-detecting stick, nor was he abruptly hit with another abrupt dark, necrotic cloud out of nowhere.

The following hallway was as slow affair as he looked for any indication of a trigger that would set off a trap, but he couldn’t see or sense a single thing. The only thing he was glad for when a large, swinging pendulum blade emerged from the walls and attempted to cut him in half was the fact that he had decided on keeping his physical-based Field active rather than switching to the Absorption Field for magical attacks – because the blade would’ve cut him in half, otherwise.

Afterwards, he detected a hint of magical residue floating in the air, like some sort of echo, but he still didn’t know exactly what it was. Still using the broken spear to test the ground at least, he continued to navigate his way through the dungeon, finding even more rooms similar to the one with the Swarmers and Skeletons. He was hit by another necrotic cloud while he was still in one of the rooms, though fortunately he wasn’t being actively attacked at that point; he fared better now that he knew what it was, and while his flesh decayed and died quite a bit still, he was able to recover in less than half the time it took during the first attack.

Overall, he didn’t really mind it all that much, mainly because there was an absence of pain that came with it; his skin rotting and falling away was surprisingly pleasant when he compared it to the green fire he’d suffered from in the Vogmite Tunnels. Being blinded as his eyes melted in their sockets was a bit annoying, but thankfully it was easily fixed by a quick use of Minor Mass Healing.

Another hour of cautiously making his way through the different rooms brought on another change, though the change in its aesthetic wasn’t as drastic as before. The rough stone rooms with dug-out cavities stayed the same, but many more of the wrapped corpses were missing, and large quantities of broken bones could be seen all over the floor. What was somehow even more creepy was that he started to see skulls arranged in odd pyramid-shaped piles every once in a while, like some sort of ritualistic pattern or something.

It was the Undead that really began to change, bringing with it the first challenge to Thaden he’d experienced thus far in the dungeon. Gone were the Ghoulish Swarmers and there hadn’t been any sign of a Zombie Mauler since the beginning mausoleum-type rooms; instead, there now more Skeletons – and not just Warriors.

Skeleton Death Mage – Medial

Level 28

Skeleton Ranger – Medial

Level 27

The new Skeleton Rangers weren’t necessarily a problem, given that the arrows they attempted to pepper Thaden with would simply bounce off his Field, but the Death Mages were a different case entirely. Walking into the room for the first time against them, Thaden was hit by a projectile that seemed constructed of pure darkness; the impact hit with enough force that it sent him flying backwards to land on his back, dropping his broken spear where it practically shattered when it hit the floor, and he could feel the same necrotic effect as the traps eating away at his chest where the projectile had hit him. It wasn’t a cloud, thankfully, as it didn’t spread from where he was hit, but it steadily ate away at his flesh and he could feel it digging deep. Thankfully, spamming the Weak Cure Physical Affliction spell worked to clear it up, and his usual Minor Mass Healing helped his Health recover from the damage the affliction had upon him. It was a close thing, however, as his Health had dipped into the low single digits from just that single attack and an extra few seconds of letting it eat away at him, so in a way it was even more deadly than the traps.

When he added in the fact that the Skeleton Death Mage wasn’t limited to just a single necrotic projectile, their threat level rose through the roof. Rolling back to his feet, he barely avoided being hit by another one of the deadly spells, only to be surrounded by a half-dozen Skeleton Warriors who had closed with him while he was down. Hit by another Death Mage spell when he was unable to easily move from his position, Thaden was flung up against a Warrior which stopped his momentum, but he was still damaged by the spell.

While he was healing from the attack, the desperate Assistant Healer started to push through the surrounding Warriors, letting them shift back a little when they attacked him, as he aimed straight for the Death Mage. With his eyes one the magic-slinging Undead, Thaden witnessed when another bolt of death shot his way, and while it was headed his way, he quickly deactivated his Repulsion Field and activated his Absorption Field, which appeared just in time to swallow up the projectile when it hit. A quick switch back to his physical protection was just in time to block not only an arrow that attempted to pierce him through his eye, but a sword slash from one of the pursuing Warriors.

Without thinking about it, he raced ahead of the other Skeletons and threw himself at the threadbare and ragged, black-robed Skeleton, tackling the surprisingly lightweight monster and sending it to the floor with a clatter of bones. Thaden then rolled off the figure and stood up, before kicking the Death Mage’s skull, hoping to knock its head off its magically reinforced neck – but it barely shifted to the side from his blow. Instead, it struggled to its feet, apparently unable to cast spells while on the ground, but by that time he had already been doing steady damage to it through the use of his ongoing spells, and another cast of Mass Healing was all it took to finish off the Mage. They apparently didn’t have nearly as much Health as the others, which made it easier to put down, but it was also more difficult for him to prevent its magic-based damage.

After that, the rest of the fight went smoothly as both the Warriors and Rangers had nothing they could do to hurt him. When they were defeated, he took a breather to fully reflect on what had just happened.

The dungeon had finally shown its teeth, and he just hoped he was adept enough to see his way through.