“So whatever was in there is gone?” I asked.
“Not gone,” she said, looking up at me. “Merely…”
That’s when it hit me. A pain that was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and it hit me all over my body. A new ability bar appeared, but I was a little too busy crying out in terrible agony to pay much attention to what was going on there.
No, it was like someone was ramming a bunch of needles into every nerve ending on my body. Sort of like the feeling of a limb going to sleep, only instead of little pinpricks it was like someone was shoving knives deep inside me.
Fuck that hurt! Now I was the one going to my knees. Crystals appeared around me, and something seemed to stare at me from within those crystals. Something dark and malevolent. Something that I honestly didn’t care for, at least until the shadow bowed to me and then leapt for my body.
I cried out. Creepy shadows jumping for my body was not something I signed up for when I joined this game, thank you very much, but it’s not like there was much I could do about it. I felt the thing settle around me, and then just like that it was over.
I patted myself down. Then I did a double check inside my brain to make sure there weren’t any new voices in there that hadn’t been there before. Not that I was really in the habit of hearing voices in my head, but still. Best to make sure.
Then again if this game could implant voices in someone’s head and make them feel like they were going nuts then that was a development that was terrifying all on its own.
“What just happened?” Keli asked. “Are you okay?”
“The power of the crystal dungeon is yours,” the forest spirit said, a thin smile playing across her face.
“But that thing looked freaky and evil,” I said. “I mean I’m all for having new abilities, but I’m not sure that I’m cool with consorting with dark spirits to get them. Even if this is just a game, but whatever.”
“The spirits are neither good nor bad,” the forest spirit said.
“But I thought they were holding you captive?” Keli said. “I don’t get it. Something holding a magical creature captive doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a nice spirit would do.”
“They’re neither good nor bad,” the forest spirit repeated. “It all depends on what you do with the power you’ve been given.”
I looked down at the new action bar I’d been given, and boy was it a doozy compared to some of the other abilities I had. Most of them had a crystal theme, and I wasn’t sure what they did, but if I had even a fraction of the power that was on display in that dungeon then this was going to be a definite change of pace from my days of only being able to heal and crowd control.
One item in particular caught my interest as I perused the actions, and so I did a quick inspect to see what there was to see.
Crystal Armor: Provides a set of armor to the wearer with the following abilities:
20 armor points on all defensive zones.
+5 to defense.
5% resistance to all magical abilities.
Defeating more Crystal Dungeons will increase these abilities!
Huh. I hit that ability and I was surrounded by a translucent material that looked like armor made out of pure quartz. There was a gasp from the ladies around me. I stared down at the translucent stuff, wondering if this was real, then a grin spread across my face as I realized that I wasn’t quite as helpless now as I’d been.
I looked up to my companions. That grin only grew wider.
“Y’know what ladies? I think I just found a new goal in this game. So where’s the next nearest Crystal Dungeon?”
“I think we must proceed with caution,” Keli said. “The next dungeon is a few days’ march away, but…”
I stopped. Looked around as something occurred to me. Madison.
“What’s wrong?” Keli asked.
“The woman who I carried out of the dungeon,” I said. “Where is she?”
I looked around, but she was nowhere to be found. There was also no body lying around to indicate that she’d died and gone to a respawn point, which meant she must’ve survived and run off.
“I don’t see her,” Sefia said. “I didn’t even think about her until you mentioned her just now.”
“Shit,” I said. “We really need to get going now, because I don’t know how much of that she heard.”
“Is that a problem?” Sefia asked.
“If she decides to squeal to Tommy and set him after us? Yeah, it could totally be a problem.”
Fuck. It just went to show that no good deed went unpunished. So much for trying to be a big hero and save the girl.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We need to get a move on before he learns our plan and decides to try and stop us!”
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Dungeon Dalliance Page 10