Underworld - Through the Belly of the Beast: A LitRPG Series

by Apollos Thorne

  “One of them found us,” I confirmed. Mage’s Deodorant didn’t seem to make much difference. I tried to examine it with Canine’s Sense of Smell and was able to pinpoint the supposedly neutral smell almost immediately. It smelled like new plastic.

  “What do we do?” Clarissa said, alarmed.

  “We use the cave’s slope to our advantage.” Turning to Mel, I told him to be ready.

  The first warg cleared the distance up the rock face around the Crystalis in just two jumps. Its nostrils flared as it rolled its head, taking in a great whiff. Without losing step, it headed right for us.

  Warg

  Level 501

  HP: 18,275

  Strength: 702

  Dexterity: 1,067

  Constitution: 731

  Intelligence: 72

  Wisdom: 67

  Besides the creature’s physical stats, its Intelligence and Wisdom were rather impressive. It looked like there were at least 50 of these things. This could get rather nasty.

  I didn’t allow myself to use Light Magic even though they were of the Dark Alinement. I knew the enemy had heard this warg’s howl, but there was no way for them to confirm it was us just because their scout found something. It would benefit us to keep them guessing as long as possible.

  As the warg entered the cave, I fired off a few rounds of Alpha Bullet.

  The giant wolf dodged them with ease.

  It ate up the ground between us with bounding strides.

  Mel’s skeletons raced down the slope to meet it.

  The warg tore into the lead skeleton’s leg, even as Mel’s minion drove its sword into the creature’s spine.

  Whipping its head to the side, the warg sent the skeleton flying back.

  The rest of Mel’s minions swarmed it. The rain of blows they unleashed finished it quickly.

  We leveled up from the bonus experience.

  “Two more! Incoming!” I said, seeing their dark mana speeding toward us from either side of the cave’s entrance.

  Mel suddenly lifted his hand with fingers outstretched. He clenched his fist. As he did I saw mana leave the dead warg’s corpse. It leapt forward into his fallen skeleton. As the energy entered the pile of bones, it rose up and its broken femur was mended before my eyes.

  “Not yet,” I said to Clarissa, placing my hand on her shoulder.

  She nodded but took a step back stiffly, trying to keep her nerve.

  This time Mel’s skeletons were fully formed up to face the incoming wargs. The two beasts met nothing but a chorus of sharpened bone swords.

  The monsters were superior to Mel’s skeletons individually but found out the hard way that when his minions acted as a unit, they didn’t stand a chance. Try as they might, they couldn’t get an angle so that they could tear into one of the skeletons and drag it back. Each lunge brought with it a new set of slashes and piercing wounds.

  The skeleton line seemed to falter. It opened up in the middle with enough space to let one of the creatures through.

  As expected, one of the wargs went for the gap.

  On my peripheral, I saw Mel’s Skeleton Captain surge forward from the back of the group. With two hands dragging a claymore through the air from high overhead, the captain slashed down and cleaved the warg in two.

  I nearly shrieked in delight.

  With the first one dead, the skeleton’s line opened once again, and they started circling around the warg, cutting it to pieces.

  Mel’s skeletons ranged between level 350 and 375, with their captain at level 387. With relatively low levels what they had been able to accomplish today was impressive.

  As I cast Intermediate Blood Drain, I check Mel’s level as well. He led them at level 392.

  Blood bubbled up and then seeped into my palm.

  +175 HP

  +6 Str

  +12 Dex

  The smile that the new stats gave me was quickly wiped from my face when I saw more than ten of them flying toward us from all directions.

  “Mel. It’s time to retreat. Get your skeletons back,” I commanded.

  He spun and started up the slope. His skeletons filed up both sides of the cave and followed him.

  “Clarissa,” I said, turning to her. “Be ready. When I say, give me as many pillars as you can that reach all the way to the ceiling.”

  “I’m ready,” she agreed with a small tremor in her voice.

  The wargs were now approaching from all directions. Soon they would overwhelm us if nothing was done.

  I just wished I had had the time to test this spell first. Mana started to build in my empty hand.

  The first warg showed his shadowed face. The next one was right on his tail.

  Even once I had reached the appropriate amount of mana, I held fast, waiting for as many of them to come as possible.

  In my scepter, I funneled extra mana to a point, just in case this didn’t work.

  The first warg started to climb. Five of them had entered the cave.

  With Mana Sight speeding up my perceptions, I calculated the monsters’ approach.

  As the seventh warg joined us, the lead mob vaulted into the air, its maw open to meet me.

  That was close enough. With 100,000 MP focused into the palm of my hand, Rhyolitic Magma erupted.

  The warg hadn’t flown three feet before it was bathed in molten lava. It disappeared beneath the fountain that sprang from my hand and never resurfaced.

  Heat showered us, causing me to sweat the moment the lava appeared.

  I cast Health Rejuvenation on the both of us, then surrounded us with Ice Shards. I let them float in the air close to us to combat the heat. They sweated like a pig going to the roast but helped to shield us from the face of that open furnace.

  As the magma hit the ground it started to pool like an enormous orange water drop. It continued to just pour out of me. In seconds the pool overflowed its bank and it began creeping down the slope at a slow crawl. It started to gain speed.

  The second warg had no way of avoiding the molten mass. It ran right into it.

  The lava pushed right through the creature, quickly overcoming it and pulling it beneath its surface.

  By the time the third warg skidded to a stop, it was too late. The lava flow had accelerated and overtook it along with a fourth warg.

  The magma continued to gush out of me. I had no idea how long it would last.

  A large part of me wanted to finish the rest of the wargs, but the characteristics of the spell were perfect for what I had planned. It was a plan that could save us from having to face the three humanoids hunting us, all together. I hoped.

  “Now, Clarissa!” I cried.

  “Where?!” she screamed.

  “Where the second warg died.”

  Like claws dipped in blood, her pillars rose out of the billowing molten rock.

  As they did, the flowing magma pushed up against them like water against the pillars of a grand structure. Except, instead of flowing around the obstacle as easily as water might, the viscosity of lava caused it to pile up.

  Still, the magma poured out of me, so I raised my hand and started coating the five massive pillars Clarissa raised out of the ground with glowing orange rock.

  The temperature began to climb rapidly. It was soon scorching hot and I commanded Clarissa to flee. I think she was already on her way before I had said the word.

  I stood my ground, summoning more Ice Shards that now seemed to melt as soon as they appeared. It was a losing battle.

  The lava now covered the pillars from top to bottom, nearly sealing us off from our would-be attackers. The problem was that there was so much lava that it was oozing down and starting to puddle at their foundation.

  An insane idea came to mind. Using Ice Shard as a base spell I manipulated it into the consistency of slush and let it flow.

  The sizzle of evaporating water and the crack of fracturing rock sung. With one hand I sprayed the wall with molten rock and the other with a blizzard of ice. With t
he ice, I cooled the rock before it reached the floor and slowly worked my way up foot by foot until a solid shell of igneous rock started to form at its base. Where is Trevon when you need him.

  With the lava, I sprayed the upper levels until the spell gave out, filling gaps that formed as the liquid rock was pulled down by gravity. When I had finally finished there were only a few small gaps at the top too small for the wargs to squeeze through.

  I started to wobble, my consciousness faded. Staring at my MP I still had 37,640 left, so why was I losing consciousness? Gas. Out of panic, I stumbled back, falling. I crawled as best I could up the slope still facing the newly formed wall at my rear and pumped more mana into Rejuvenation.

  As if my body hadn’t wanted to rid itself of the gas, but now had no choice, I began heaving. My coughing was so extreme that my stomach clenched up and I was unable to continue moving.

  Something grabbed me from behind under both arms and I was dragged backward up the slope. Even after I reached the top and the ground leveled out, we didn’t stop moving.

  My coughing continued, but my head started to clear. I saw the boney frames of Mel’s skeletons dragging me even as they slowly crumbled away from coming into contact with my Rejuvenation spell. When those two skeletons failed and fell to the floor lifeless, two more took their place and dragged me another 100 meters before they failed as well.

  “I’m good!” I cried out, waving the next two away.

  Even then, I sat there trying to hack up whatever poison was left in me. If it wasn’t for my ability to heal, there was no doubt my own magma spell would have killed me.

  It was another minute before I made it to my feet. Immediately, I thanked Mel. “You saved my life.”

  “It’s the least I could do. You probably just saved ours as well,” he replied.

  “Uh, Mel? There’s something I’ve been wondering.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you see in the dark?”

  “Sure. What good is a Dark Mage that can’t see in the dark?” he said with a shrug.

  “Oh. I just didn’t know.”

  Both Mel and Clarissa walked by my side, steadying me as we started the trek to catch up with our group. All the while I hoped the wall would hold. Or at least stay standing for a day or so to give us the time to get away. Deep down, I knew it would be only a matter of time.

  Chapter 23 – Horse’s Head

  Hours later, we had caught up with the group and were marching at a steady pace. I stayed with the main force as Travis and Steve scouted out the area because I was still coughing every couple of minutes.

  I hadn’t allowed everyone to stop for me to regain my MP. I gambled that putting distance between us and our pursuers was more important. It seemed like it had been the right decision. I had slowly replenished my mana anyways and we had covered a lot of ground now that we were making full use of our Light Orbs. This way I was also able to keep Invisibility cast on everyone, even if Light Orb would give away our presence. Being in an ethereal form could save lives.

  Aeris had taken her place sitting on top of my head and we walked near the center of the procession.

  Mel once again brought up the rear, now four skeletons short of the 17 he had started with. I had apologized more than once even though he told me that it wasn’t a big deal. Unlike me, he just needed to wait until we ran across another corpse to resummon his minions. Undead Dominance only allowed me to animate something that was already dead. If my minion died, I would have to get another and level it up.

  “Steve and I have an update,” Travis said through group chat.

  “You’re clear,” Olivia said.

  “We have reached a place where the cave expands into a large open room. It’s still full of stalagmites and looks natural, but there are multiple tunnels we could take.”

  “Is there a large pillar in the middle of the room in shape of a horse’s head?” Zorik asked.

  “Uh. Yes,” Travis replied.

  “Wait for us. We are getting close.”

  “It’s familiar to you?” Olivia asked.

  “Yes. The dungeon we are heading to is where I was born,” he said, his eyes staring off.

  I shared a quick look with Aeris. Her brow was creased in concern.

  No one asked Zorik about his birth, but I knew we would soon need answers.

  ***

  When the cave opened up, I immediately spotted the horse-headed stalagmite at the center of the room. It stood at least three stories tall and overlooked the rest of the room. Unlike the Belly, this cavern was only a few hundred meters in circumference. There were five tunnels we could take.

  Travis and Steve met us at the entrance. There were a number of were-rat bodies scattered about. Mobs they had taken care of before contacting us. I didn’t even bother to drain them.

  As we entered, without a word, Zorik flew up from his place in the middle of the group and headed toward the horse-headed stalagmite. Everyone remained silent as we watched him fly toward it. When there, he placed his hand on the horse’s head and then nodded to himself before heading back toward us.

  Stopping before the group, he hovered at eye height. New resolve filled his words. “As we enter this next cave, we enter into the outskirts of the dungeon. It is vaster than the Head Mistress’s Labyrinth but is most likely still in ruins. Unless there is a new master, few Lesser Creatures will remain. There will be a residue of magic left in the region which usually has that effect. Even greater creatures will find it uncomfortable, so we can expect little resistance as we look for the Master Chamber.

  “Once there, we will place the Fire Orb on the pedestal in the Master Chamber. It will allow us to claim the dungeon for ourselves. The power in the orb will activate the Dungeon Engine and allow us to trigger some of the dungeon’s capabilities. These capabilities range from traps to moving walls, crafting stations to living chambers.”

  He made a choking sound to clear his voice, continuing in a lower, darker tone. “If there is a new master, then the dungeon may be full of monsters. It might be better for us to flee as opposed to try and take possession of it. Even lesser dungeons can take time to clear. Time that we don’t have. There is another dungeon, much further away, that we could flee to if this one doesn’t work out.”

  “When were you last here?” I asked him.

  “It’s been two decades,” he said with a gulp. “An Incubus was the master then. He bred Imps and stole them from other Greater Beings. The Head Mistress ultimately wiped out the dungeon and killed him because he was taking her slaves.”

  “Was he a good master?” Aeris asked.

  Zorik’s eyes shot to the ground. “No. And yes. He wouldn’t allow any imp to reach the level to evolve into an Incubus, but other than that, we mostly lived without fear.”

  “Clarissa,” I said, interrupting to draw the attention away from Zorik. “Raise a wall to block the way we came. Rest if you have to between casts, but make it airtight.”

  “My pleasure,” she said.

  Wading through the skeletons at our rear, she began her work. She only had to rest once to finish. It looked much better than the atrocious thing that I had come up with.

  After she had rested up, we headed out as a group, entering a tunnel to the right of where we had entered. Zorik stopped us to let us know that the next tunnel closest to us was also a part of the dungeon.

  I shook my head at the revelation.

  “How many entrances are there, Zorik?” I asked.

  “Hundreds,” he replied. “But only a few main avenues into the heart of the dungeon.”

  Well, that meant we couldn’t just wall the way behind us. Not that that would be wise anyway. If there was a new master of this dungeon, then we might need a way to escape.

  I moved with Aeris still on her perch to the front of the group. With Mana Sight going at its fullest it gave me five times my normal perception of time. We approached slowly.

  In only a few hundred meters, the rock around us sta
rted to change. The blue-grey stone turned blue-green, with waves of blue and green woven throughout. There was even a subtle light that came from the rock itself. Mana Sight made the change even more obvious. It seemed like trace amounts of Nature, Water, and, to a lesser extent, Wind magic were a part of the dungeon itself.

  “Welcome to Old Originem,” Zorik said aloud, letting his longing show.

  The dungeon tunnel looked to be opening up just ahead. Holding up my hand, I turned to face everyone as we slowed, placing one finger over my mouth to indicate to all it was time to be as silent as possible.

  Aeris lifted up off my head, turning to face everyone, and mimicked the gesture for all to see.

  Pointing to Travis and Steve, I waved them to come with me. We left the others and approached the opening.

  I upped the mana flow to Canine’s Sense of Smell as we closed the distance. The draft of the tunnel brought the air from our destination right to my nose. I smelled no signs of the living. For once, I hoped we wouldn’t run into any mobs. As impossible as that sounded.

  The three of us approached carefully, wringing the most out of our stealth and invisibility abilities as we could. Steve crouched along the wall to my left and Travis took the one to my right. I walked straight up the middle of the path, but a number of meters behind them. The chamber started to come into view.

  Instead of a cavern, the chamber had smooth stone walls, floor, and ceiling. It was small and rectangular in shape but also rundown, with pits of broken rock that had fallen from the ceiling and walls.

  Wind whistled toward us from the hallway of a passage on the left side of the room. It ran throughout the chamber and split, exiting through an open doorway across from us, and passed over us, back the way we came. The room was empty.

  We took a moment to inspect both paths we could take, then came back and waved our group forward. Aeris was watching for us and directed them when we did.

  I motioned for Zorik to join me at the head of the group.

  “Is it a good sign that there are no monsters here?” I asked.