by Rick Scar
“Good. But first of all, you see…”
“Yeah. I see it. But I will only be able to do it when I can move. You have to wait.”
“Okay.” Will turned away to the witches. “Now, please tell me one thing. Where is the nearest portal?”
***
Raven, Rako, Hades, and the paralyzed Ulfmar stopped in front of the hidden passage leading back into Damila’s Dungeon. This portal connected with all the other teleports in this area across El-Dato. As if someone had been deliberately destroying all the links with the side Raven needed, forcing him to use the same way to come back.
“Open it.”
“Shut up! And stop bossing me about. I’m only here on my elder sister’s order. I don’t obey you.” During the entire walk back, Rako had been snapping back at the rogue’s every word, making him wish he had subdued this insufferable witch – at least for the journey.
“Open it, please. I have no idea how to do it.” Will let out a heaving sigh and massaged his temple. He knew the burden of carrying the paralyzed vampire could endanger his life in the dungeon if someone had captured the White Tonic; but, with time being scarce, he had to take this risk. Besides, this dungeon couldn’t possibly have any monsters with a level higher than his own.
Thanks to his newly established connection with the witches (and to a timely reminder), Will had obtained a few weak night vision potions. They wouldn’t spare him any stronger potions until he proved he was a man of his word. Weak potions enabled his eyes to accommodate to the darkness, lightening it by 10%. Sure, it wasn’t that much, but it was better than staying completely blind.
“Phew. How are you going to kill that monster if you can’t even open a door?” The unending flow of verbal venom from her lips was bringing more and more reasons to subdue her and end it once and for all to his mind.
Despite her bristly temper, she was anything but stupid. Her friend’s words must have affected her deeply; now she was ready to go to any lengths to prove she was not at all afraid of Will.
After approaching the inconspicuous rocks, the girl dipped a brush into an open vial to paint a sign on each stone. Once she had finished, Will heard the sound of rolling boulders. Within a few heartbeats, the passage had opened up ahead.
“Piece of cake.” The witch stepped into the dark, waiting for no one.
Will uncorked and gulped down one of the potions.
Night vision increased by 10%
Duration: 29:59 minutes
Chapter 198. Yorgihor
J ust as Raven had expected, this place was filled with darkness. However, thanks to the potion, it was not pitch-black to his eyes, but rather dark gray. Will could barely make out the cave walls, which significantly reduced his speed. But the main issue was that he couldn’t see Rako.
She just can’t stand being close to me.
He ran, muttering curses under his breath. The sounds he made attracted Damila’s mutating creatures.
A gross-looking flycatcher dashed toward him. Harmless in its original form, here it was a vile monster… a barely discernible silhouette, with awe-inspiring speed, lots of legs, and giant feelers. But Raven just smirked and moved on, barely looking at it. The saneisa (this was the creature’s displayed name) shifted its legs hesitantly, not daring to attack Will. Its feelers twitched, searching for some weaker enemies, but none were to be found.
Without realizing it had been affected by Will’s Giant Aura, the monster turned around and glided back in. All the other creatures that had been enticed by the sound of his footsteps did the same.
Raven had almost forgotten he even had this skill, which was mostly useless on his native Floor 24. But here everything was making way for him as he marched ahead.
Where’s that crazy witch?
Three minutes later, he heard a fight and Rako’s furious voice berating the enemies, not caring that the vile names meant nothing to them. Coming closer, Will heard her mention his own name in a very unpleasant context, and seriously considered staying back and letting the local wildlife destroy this man-hater. But, unfortunately, this wasn’t the time for that: the witch had to be alive to keep updating Amatelia on his progress toward the Ifrit’s destruction. Shrugging, the rogue dropped Ulfmar’s body and, without even looking in the screaming vampire’s direction, told Hades to guard the lady, no longer caring about the vampire’s feelings.
Saneisa the Slider
Level: 63
Health: 15,400
Oh, there’s so many of them here.
After the flycatcher came four more monsters, whose appearance would have made any normal person cry in the shower while cradling their knees and shuddering at the recollection.
Raven slowly started to approach them.
“Hey, you!” Rako cried out. “Are you that scared that you’re going to offer yourself up as a sacrifice? Ahahaha!”
Stopping, Will looked around for a stone. Finding one, he tossed it in his palm to check its weight and, after finding the girl’s dark outline, he hurled the stone at her.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” Unlike Will, the witch had perfect night vision thanks to a stronger potion. She spotted the stone hurtling toward her and dodged it. She stooped for more rocks to throw back at this impudent male while still rebuffing the attacking insects.
“Oh, sorry. I can’t see very well. I thought I saw a monster, and wanted to distract it from you,” Raven replied and, smirking, activated Stealth.
“I saw what you were doing, so…hey! Where have you gone?!”
Dodging Rako’s spell that she had targeted at his head, Will rolled to the right and chopped two of the saneisa’s legs off with an Underhand Blow, slowing the monster down a little. His invisibility wore off at once. The creature counter-attacked, landing a surprisingly painful blow to his leg.
What?! Again?! Will gritted his teeth.
When he had been fighting in that desert, he had felt like the enemy attacks had started bringing more pain. Now he felt it again. Oh shit. How can I even feel that? I’m long used to my 100%. What the fuck?!
Breathing out and setting these thoughts aside for later, Will ran up to the cockroach-like monster. He didn’t notice an obstacle in the surrounding darkness, tripped over it, and flew straight toward the creature’s jaws, which were ready and waiting to tear his body to shreds.
Fuck you. Twilight Walker.
The rogue’s body dissolved, and he managed to avoid the Yehi-Nato’s mouth. Its jaws clamped shut around thin air, making the monster shudder with discontent, before sending its large feelers creeping over the ground in search of the enemy, who was now hiding in the darkness. Having made his way onto the ceiling, Raven activated Ambush and attacked the flycatcher from above. The blow was so strong that Will’s legs pierced straight through the creature’s body. He Double Jump-ed and abruptly changed his direction, striking another enemy in its side. The monster’s chitinous shell boomed, reducing the damage. Will would have finished it off with another blow if it hadn’t been for the stream of mutants that was coming to help.
The situation wasn’t yet critical, but Raven needed to push on toward the exit. He tried using Lightning Copy, but he failed to illuminate his path; the light from this powerful skill was consumed by the darkness.
“Why the hell did you run away from us?” he asked as he slashed off a thin-legged spider’s hairy limb. The spider then lost its balance and let its small, round body drop to the ground.
“None of your business.” Dark flames burst from the witch’s open palms and devoured the fat mite with a long, blood-sucking sting that was standing in front of her, setting it alight.
***
More and more fighting. Will sensed that something was wrong when the new cave, which they had just entered, suddenly felt cramped. Ulfmar was down in a distant corner, guarded by Hades, the last line of defense. The first line was Raven himself; the witch did not count as she could hardly be expected to protect a man.
“Hey! Little mite!” Rav
en had finally had enough of the names and insults that Rako was throwing at him and, rather than murdering her, he had invented a name for her, too. “We must get out of here. Can’t you see more and more of them are coming?”
“You!” Apparently, Rako was pissed off by the new nickname. A short woman, she must have really hated such a blatant reference to her lack of height. And poking fun at this fact really offended her. In other words, she had a complex. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do, you useless male body!”
“My God, I just can’t express how much I hate you. Are you going to die here?”
The witch gave no reply. She was the one who had started this mess purely to prove she was afraid of no one: neither men, nor the local monsters. This emotional decision had put their group in a deadlock; she had to admit they were badly outnumbered. She wished there was a quick way out of this dungeon, but fighting their way through was getting more and more difficult on account of all the new monsters leaping out to block the way.
“Okay. I’m leaving.” Having had more than enough of the witch, Raven was no longer going to cater to her whims. “If you want to leave this world, little mite, who I am to stand in your way?”
After receiving Will’s command to activate Eye of Duat, Hades ran out into the center of the cave, where the most bodies were concentrated, and stopped. The single eye of the great hound’s second head glowed red. The cave shook. A bloody mist started to gather around Hades, hiding the space and dead mobs from sight.
The mobs that were still alive froze, sensing the weird magic coming from the dog. In the silence that fell, Will heard a whisper: furious, unintelligible, low at first but growing louder. Then Hades gave a loud howl, and the mist surrounding him started to transform. As if rising from beneath the veil of the dead, the local dwellers of Damila’s dungeon that had just been killed started to float over to the dog.
Freezing with astonishment just like Rako, Will watched the small army of dead mobs gather. Wow.
Identification.
Summoned Soul
Level: 62
Health: 15,830
There were twenty of these bodies.
A surreal sight.
Will guessed that a power like that should have some limits, and he was right. The souls appeared to be trapped within a 60-foot radius of the summoner, unable to leave it. To make the most of this skill, I’ll need someone to kite all these mobs to their respawn point. But at least I’ve tested it.
In order not to let the XP be wasted, Will dashed along the caves and corridors, attracting monsters that formed a long tail behind him, to bring them to Hades who stood in the middle of the soul herd, watching it like a shepherd dog. Ulfmar was down by the dog’s side, stoically enduring the pet dragging him over the floor by the collar when moving around. The past few days must have been some of the worst in the vampire’s whole life.
Within the five minutes of the skill’s duration, Hades reached Level 20.Once the skill had expired, absolute silence fell in the cave. Raven had already collected all the loot dropped by the mobs.
“Is it just me or is something different about this place?” he asked, watching the exhausted witch who had spent her strength trying to finish off this or that mob. Had Will not known that she was a local and about her bitchy temper, he would have suspected her of stealing his prey out of greed.
“I hate to admit it, but we must get out.” Shoving her ego up her ass at last, as well as her attempts to look fearless, the girl finally understood the situation.
Will’s night vision was too weak to make out his surroundings clearly, but he did not need his eyes to sense the oppressive aura.
“There’s nothing running toward our voices. But…” Clutching the short stick she used as her staff, the witch peered into one of the passages. “Will you bother coming out? Or just keep staring at us?”
“Um. Do you know what that is?” Unsure what to do, Will glanced at the paralyzed vampire. A battle could be about to break out. Realizing this, Raven gave a mental command to Hades, who instantly snatched the vampire in his teeth and dragged him into a distant corner.
“Stop moving me around like that, please!” Ulfmar protested, but Will ignored him, hearing a strange whisper.
“Oh, you haven’t run away… like you always do… the celebrated messengers. How many of my children did you take away? Now I can have my revenge. At least on one of your kind.”
“What the…?”
Whose voice is that? For the first time in a very long while, Raven’s back was covered in goosebumps.
“So, you’ve come out.” The witch’s voice sounded strained; her emotions were difficult to understand.
“Shut! Up! Witch! Our fragile truce, and your moving about this dungeon unrestrained, are both thanks to my good graces! You’d better value them.”
“You’re just as conceited as ever. Are you challenging The Twelve, Yorgihor?”
“Ha, ha. You’re alone here, but bold enough to mention your masters.”
“Hey!” Will intervened. “Will you stop cooing over each other and get down to business? You were going to get back at me, yeah? But I haven’t got a fucking clue what’s going on. What children are you talking about?”
“You vile bastard. How dare you lie that blatantly to my face? My children. My little fragile souls. I don’t spend the whole day raising them just for you to hunt them down and kill them! Are you going to destroy all of us? Why come again and again to steal my babies?!” The voice, which was emanating a bitter anger, came closer and closer until a vague shape entered the cave.
Damn it! I can’t see a fucking thing! Stolen babies? It must be talking about the Tonics. So, it… it’s the Black Tonic? Should I use Identification?
Will’s train of thought was interrupted by an attack, which broke down his defenses and reduced his health by almost 20%. Considering Raven’s strong physical and magic resistance, this attack must have been tremendously powerful.
What the fuck?! Identification!
Black Yorgihor
Rank: Count
Level: 51
Health: 93,000
A count?!
Chapter 199. Who’s the Boss Here?
“T hat’s the wrong way to start a negotiation, you bastard.”
Annoyed by this sudden attack, Raven realized he might not be able to negotiate with this creature at all. But the question remained: was it the Black Tonic? This thing was apparently much larger than the small fireflies described by the guy whose name Will had totally forgotten.
Can you even catch a monster like that? I doubt it could even be stunned.
Higher ranking game bosses were stronger, but exactly how much strength came with each rank? This information wasn’t just unavailable to Will, but to all players. As this was his first encounter with a count-rank boss in this game, he decided to triple his caution.
“I’m not planning on negotiating, messenger. I just want your dead body as my trophy.”
Another blow knocked Raven down, sending him rolling over the ground, and he hit the wall at full speed.
Fuck. How strong is that thing? Motherfucker that hurts…
Will coughed. A battle like this could trigger his locket before he had even had chance to land a single blow to the enemy. Considering he had forgotten to save at a different point, he would be sent back to the extinct volcano in front of the hermit’s chambers. A long way.
“Rako! Aren’t you going to help?” He really could use the witch’s help now.
“Stay away, witch. Or I’ll consider it a treaty violation and kill you first.” The monster’s growling voice was low but inspired primal fear.
The witch walked away, clenching her teeth. Being realistic about her strength, she knew she wasn’t able to challenge Yorgihor.
“Hey, little mite! Are you only brave when you’re talking? You do realize that if we kill it, there’s no point in your treaty?” Will wasn’t just standing idly while he was enlightening and encouraging the
witch. Using the fact that he had been thrown away from the boss, Will pulled out his dice and, after dropping it to his feet, he used Clone, and two shadows set off running in opposite directions.
Endurance: +11
He would have smirked at that if he had had time to read the message. Although, +110 Health was anything but bad. This extra drop of vitality could save his life at some point. Thanks to his items and dice, Raven currently had 2020 health points, which had increased by 10% during the battle by his Warrior Spirit.
“Come on, you witchy scum. Put your life on the line. Unlike him, you will not res…ARGH!” The monster wheeled around abruptly, having taken a blow from the rogue’s clone. “Huh. Your attacks are nothing but a mosquito bite for me. Annoying, but far from doing any real damage.”
That was something Raven could see, too. His dagger seemed to hit a thick layer of rubber, bouncing back and barely scratching the monster’s flesh. As the rogue attacked, the boss killed his clone with a single blow.
-105 HP
Impossible! Is its physical resistance that tremendous?
“What the fuck are you made of?!”
Yorgihor gave no answer. Its blurry shape started to collapse in on itself. The only thing Will saw next was his health bar hitting red as his back hit the wall.
“Fucking piece of rubber. I’m clearly going to have to get the big guns out! Terror! Salvation!”
Attention! This creature has no fear.
Oh shit.
Nonetheless, Salvation took effect. The enemy’s body crunched, stretching and shrinking until it took human shape.
“What? What have you done to me?! AAAAH! Why am I turning into THIS?!” the monster shrieked at the top of its voice. “HOW DISGUSTING!”
Climbing out of the crevice the enemy had flung him into, the rogue stretched his neck and, after gulping a health potion, addressed Rako: “Hey, little mite! Time is scarce so put your usual kidding aside. Answer my question, or I’ll make short work of you once I defeat this thing. What weak spots does it have?”