Chapter 319 - Dragonling

Reivyn pulled up his Notification page he’d ignored the day before. He’d gotten distracted first by the lieutenant asking questions about how far they’d made it in the Dungeon, and then he’d focused on the Runes of Kefira’s new staff. At some point, the Notifications had just been pushed so far to the back of his mind that he just neglected to pull them up.

[Exiting Dungeon]
[Calculating…]
[First Floor: Complete]
[Combat Experience: Exp +2,000]
[Boss Defeated: Exp +4,000]
[First Floor Completion Bonus: Exp + 4,000]
[Calculating…]
[Second Floor: Complete]
[Combat Experience: Exp + 3,000]
[Boss Defeated: Exp + 5,000]
[Second Floor Completion Bonus: Exp +4,000]
[Calculating…]
[Third Floor: Complete]
[Combat Experience: Exp + 3,000]
[Boss Defeated: Exp + 10,000]
[Third Floor Completion Bonus: Exp +4,000]
[Dungeon Completion Bonus: Exp +4,000]
[Total Experience: 43,000]
[Level Up!]

Reivyn raised an eyebrow at only gaining one Level for the Dungeon. He had only gained just below half of what the Tier 5 Dungeon had awarded him. It took a hit to the combat experience portion because of just how weak and limited in number the nuisance monsters were, but there was a big bonus for the final boss even though it wasn’t a Hard Mode activation.

It would have been even less Experience for his father, who was a Tier above the Dungeon. Even with some of the bosses being Tier 5, the System would still calculate the entire encounter as Tier 4, thus he would only get 50% of the Experience Reivyn and the others received. They were lucky the Dungeons didn’t split hairs and apply the penalty for Party members to the Experience calculations, otherwise the Experience would be terrible.

The Dungeon was only available to clear once a month. 43,000 Experience might seem like a large number on its face, but considering it was only once a month, and it was meant for Tier 4 Classers, it wasn’t really as much as it seemed.

Reivyn checked out his Status Page before pulling up his Skill gains.

[                                   Status                                      ]
[Name: Reivyn   Class:  Hero  Lvl 23             Age:    16 (21)]
[                                 Grand Arcanist                            ]
[                                 Fighter                                       ]
[Health:  16,640/16,640 (+310)  Stamina:  32,080/32,080 (+410)  Mana:  17,175/17,175 (+50)]
[Qi: 1,200 (T4/Li)]
[Physical Stats   Mental Stats]
[STR:  1,664 (+10)     INT:     1,700 (+4)]
[VIT:   1,664 (+31)     MAG:   1,975 (+6)]
[DEX:  1,663 (+10)     CLA:    1,536 (+1)]
[CHA:  450 (+1)        PER:     1,420 (+1)]
[LUK:  440 (+1)]
[Bloodline: Lvl 1 Unknown 236,443/10,000,000,000]
[Experience: 14,483/30,900]

He only viewed his absolute Status. He didn’t feel the need to keep up with the penalty applied to his Physical Stats and Pools when reviewing his progress. The penalty was temporary in the long run. He could easily adjust what he saw in his Status with a thought if he needed his current numbers.

Reivyn briefly glanced at his Qi Pool with satisfaction. It had taken him months of channeling the method taught to him by Xudrid to build up 1,000 Qi, but now that he had advanced to Tier 3, he had managed to convert 200 additional Qi in one casual evening session.

He pulled up his Skill gains next.

[Skills Leveled Up!]

[Tier 1:]
[Aim (51 ->52)]
[Athleticism (79 ->80)]
[Observation (67 ->68)]

[Tier 2:]
[Acrobatics (35 ->36)]

[Tier 3:]
[Battlefield Awareness (56 ->57)]
[Blind Fighting (50 ->53)]
[Commanding Shout (48 ->49)]
[Decipher (1 ->2)]
[Identify (25 ->28)]
[Sense Threat (30 ->33)]

[Tier 4:]
[Spatial Awareness (77 ->78)]

[Tier 5:]
[Clandestine Prodigy (43 ->45)]
[Magic Prodigy (96 ->97)]
[Protection Prodigy (74 ->75)]

[Tier 6:]
[Regeneration (25 ->26)]

[Tier 6.5:]
[Perfect Domain (18 ->19)]

At first glance, it would seem like he had decent Skill gains, but he had so many Skills, the relative number that had gained a Level was actually pretty small. He hadn’t gone all out in the Dungeon, though, and he had relegated himself to a Caster role for the most part. He only took on the role of distracting the Warchief and defending against the Breath Attack out of necessity, but he had still done so mainly through his Casting Skills.

His Magical Prodigy was creeping up toward the Level 100 bottleneck. He didn’t know what kind of Transcendent Ability he would work toward, but considering the plethora of Affinities he had unlocked, he wanted to lean towards a more generalist path. It could potentially harm him more than help if he specialized an Ability so focused it rendered many of his Affinities crippled.

After reviewing his gains from the previous Dungeon delve, Reivyn turned to the rest of his Party members waiting on him. It hadn’t taken him but a few moments to peruse his Notifications, so none of them had grown impatient, yet. He smiled at his friends and nodded his readiness.

“Let’s go see what this second Dungeon has to offer,” he said.

The Party made their way forward and entered the second Portal. Reivyn immediately noticed the difference in ambiance between the two Dungeons.

The first Dungeon, while underground and still containing the usual ethereal lighting of all Dungeons found in underground areas, had a sense of vitality to it. There was clearly living beings taking up residency with apparent activity taking place all throughout the caves.

This second Dungeon had a deathly pall surrounding it. It had the same ethereal lighting, but there was no sense of vitality. In fact, Reivyn even felt like there was something trying to suck the vitality out of him as they walked through basically the same caves as the first Dungeon.

Other than the overall ambiance, the other major difference was the size of the caves. They were much larger. Reivyn would guess that the caves were at least doubled in size as compared to the first Dungeon. The other caves hadn’t been anything impressive, so that didn’t mean these tunnels were particularly large, it was just noticeably different.

The Party didn’t face any nuisance monsters near the entrance to the Dungeon. They walked cautiously forward. After a few minutes of walking, bones began to litter the floor of the caves. Ancient, rusty mining tools laid broken and discarded throughout the caves. The bones were clearly the remains of the kobolds who had taken up residency in the cave system.

“I guess we can tell the chronological order of these Dungeons,” Reivyn whispered. He didn’t speak loudly, but his voice carried in the quiet, echoing off the walls surrounding the Party. Refix motioned for Reivyn to refrain from speaking, lest he alert any enemies to their presence. Reivyn hunched his shoulders a bit, embarrassed at the faux pax.

It didn’t matter, though, as the Party continued walking through the tunnels without encountering a single enemy.

Eventually, they reached the mirror of the first boss room of the first Dungeon. They stopped at the edge and peered into the room. It was deathly silent, and Reivyn could almost perceive the Death Affinity Mana pooling on the ground like a dark mist. He didn’t have the Death Affinity, so he couldn’t pick it out, specifically, but he could tell it was there.

The Party members exchanged weary looks with each other. Refix motioned for everyone to take several steps back before addressing them.

“This is very weird,” Refix said. “I’ve never heard of a Dungeon that wasn’t populated with monsters or beasts by the System. I mean, what’s the point of a Dungeon if it’s empty?

“Anyway, watch out for the skeletons to rise and attack us from behind as undead. That’s my only guess at this point. Let’s proceed carefully with that in mind.”

The others nodded their heads, resuming their delving formation. They cautiously stepped out into the wider cavern room, weapons at the ready, heads on a swivel. They crossed to the center of the room, and nothing happened.

Reivyn looked about with a frown on his face. The others were also equally perplexed.

“I guess split up and see if there’s a trigger for an encounter somewhere?” Refix said. It was the first time Reivyn had sensed a hint of uncertainty in his father’s voice when it came to Dungeons.

The Party members each picked a direction and spread out across the room. There were still bones of deceased kobolds, but there was no Mana infusing any of the skeletons. Reivyn gently kicked one such skeleton, and instead of bouncing away, it crumbled into dust. He quickly raised his shirt over his nose and mouth to keep from inhaling the bone meal.

The entire Party moved about the room before returning to the center, having found nothing indicating any kind of boss fight in the room.

“Maybe we just have to head deeper?” Teilon posited.

Refix shrugged.

“That’s as good a guess as any at this point,” he replied.

They resumed their trek, exiting the open cavern into the tunnels leading down on the other side. They were met with more of the same: just pockets of kobold skeletons occasionally littering the floor in small packs. They quickly reached the second boss room, only to be met with another empty room, devoid of enemies to fight.

“What is going on?” Refix asked. “I know they said there were opportunities in both Dungeons, but this one seems completely empty.”

“Maybe it’s a one-and-done type Dungeon, like the boss-only Dungeons,” Reivyn said. “It just happens to be the entire cave system instead of just the one room.”

“I guess,” Refix shook his head. “Let’s go ahead and head to the bottom and find out.”

The Party once more trekked forth. There was still more of the same to be found in the final stretch - they were assuming - of tunnels. Something tickled at the back of Reivyn’s mind though, as they made their way deeper and deeper into the bowels of the mountain.

“Wait,” Reivyn called out. “Has anyone else noticed the difference?”

The others stopped at his call and shared confused looks between themselves. Teilon looked back and forth between the others before shrugging his shoulders.

“The tunnels are wider?” He asked.

“No, look at the tunnel walls,” Reivyn pointed. “What’s missing?”

The others looked to where he was pointing. They didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Reivyn waited to reveal what he had discovered until they had an opportunity to think about it. After several seconds, Kefira snapped her fingers.

“There are no bones protruding out of the walls!” She exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Reivyn nodded. “The other Dungeon had bits of the Dragon’s bones exposed throughout the tunnels leading down. Those are absent in this Dungeon.”

“Interesting,” Refix agreed. “We’ll have to keep that in mind as we reach the final room. Not much else we can do with that information at the moment, but still, good observation.”

They continued.

After another several minutes, they finally made their way to the parallel of the final boss room. It looked the same as the others, just with the inclusion of three broken, rotted cauldrons on their sides in the middle of the room.

There were no lit torches this time, so they had to advance into the room to see everything.

There was no Dragon skull sticking out of the wall. Instead it looked like the rocks had caved in to fill a void where it had been. Boulders and rocks of various sizes were strewn across the room in a pattern that looked like they had come crashing down and bounced around before settling.

Reivyn finally spotted the enemy, though.

Resting on the rocks where the Dragon skull used to be, a figure sat on some boulders, slouched over, cradling a bone greatsword.

The creature’s head snapped up once the Party entered the range of the ethereal lighting of the Dungeon. Reivyn recognized facial features close to the atavistic Brood Master. Upon closer inspection, Reivyn also realized that the creature was huge. It would have towered over the Brood Master, easily being twice the height of Reivyn himself.

The creature didn’t move from its perch. It simply looked at each of the Party members as they stepped into the visible range. Once its gaze landed on Reivyn, however, its eyes narrowed. It slowly stood up, joints cracking and popping.

The Party members raised their weapons and assumed a ready stance, but the monster didn’t make any overtly threatening gestures. It didn’t even raise its weapon. It simply watched them for another few moments.

Reivyn tossed an Identify at the creature.

[Dragonling, Tier 8 (Tomb Guardian) (severely weakened: Tier 5 Lvl 50-60)]
[Unable to process Threat Level]

Eventually, it spoke.

“I see,” it said, addressing Reivyn directly. It seemed to have a bit of trouble forming the Haman words, but its meaning was clear to everyone present. “So that was the solution one of the Masters decided upon. I don’t recognize your Essence.”

Reivyn shared a look with the others. They didn’t relax their stances, but Reivyn turned back to the Dragonling.

“One of the Masters?” Reivyn asked.

The Dragonling stared at Reivyn. The silence lasted long enough that Reivyn wasn’t sure if it actually heard him or would respond.

“One of the Dragon Matriarchs or Patriarchs,” the Dragonling eventually supplied. “It is well-known that Dragons are… lascivious, for want of a better term, but they rarely allow impure offspring to survive, which implies it was deliberate.”

“Offspring?” Reivyn continued to ask.

“The blood of a Dragon flows through your veins, Haman,” it spit the last word. “Surely you can figure out what that means.”

A smile tried to pull at the corner of Reivyn’s mouth, but he held it still.

“The infusion of Dragon blood into my ancestry happened so long ago, there are no clear records of how it was done,” Reivyn tentatively said. “There is speculation it was accomplished in a more… unnatural way than what you imply.”

The Dragonling snorted.

“There are some things that cannot be changed, no matter how much one wishes to. Stealing Dragon Essence for oneself without the Dragon’s explicit permission is one of those things. It is impossible.”

“Ok~ay,” Reivyn didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, you mentioned a solution. A solution to what?”

The Dragonling coughed and wheezed for several seconds. It took a moment for Reivyn to realize it was laughing.

“Has it been so long that you do not know your history?” It asked back. “I know that I am but a Shade. A figment of imagination created by… the System, but I do not know how long it has been. One moment there is nothingness, then I am here.

“You seem to lack any knowledge of the Masters. I can see it in your eyes. In your very soul. Do you know anything about the Masters?”

“The Dragons?” Reivyn asked.

“The Masters,” The Dragonling nodded in agreement.

“There are no Dragons on this continent,” Reivyn replied. “Only their bones, and occasionally ‘shades’ within Dungeons.”

The Dragonling bowed its head for several long moments. Reivyn perceived a single tear drop from its closed eyes. It finally lifted its head, its greatsword lifting into a one-handed ready position along with it.

“Very well. Let us end this farce of an existence.”

It dashed forward at incredible speed, swinging the greatsword as large as Reivy himself as if it were weightless.