Done with her gear, I hand Thia her things and she quickly puts them on. The other two girls helped each other into their armor already so they now help me into mine. With all of us ready, we go to the door that I sealed. Preparing ahead of time I cast Wisp a few times so that we all have one that follows us while hanging over our heads. Mentally commanding it, the door unlocks and we enter the tunnel beyond. It curves to the left after a short distance and a little ways in we are left with only the light from our wisps.
The tunnel seems to be decreasing in elevation and we take a few more lefts before we see light ahead. By now I’m pretty sure we have descended a couple floors worth. Around the corner of another left turn we can see the tunnel opens up into a large room about ten more yards down. The light source is actually coming from two things. One is the same mushrooms that are placed throughout the keep in alcoves all over. The other thing is what really draws our attention. We enter the room and look around. There is an obelisk of blackest obsidian in the middle of the room. It’s about ten feet tall, only half the height of the twenty foot ceiling.
The room is all marble with and octagonal shape, and has a total of seven stone arches set into the wall at even intervals. The arch that we came through from the tunnel makes the eighth side and, when I look, I see it also has a stone arch. The arches all have solid rock beyond them except for the one directly across from the entrance, which is where the second light source is located. In between this stone arch is a swirling sheen that reminds me of oil on water, or like rippling plastic wrap. The rippling, oily colors make it difficult to see beyond, but it looks like there is nothing there. It’s just a void on the other side as far as I can tell. No light can be seen and the light from the shimmering film seems to be sucked into nothing as we inspect it.
“This must be the portal into the dungeon like Lortan told us about” I say before going silent. Getting a bright idea, I use my newly improved Identify skill on it.
Dungeon Portal: Crypt of Aran’Tal: level 15.
I tell the girls what I see with my skill. “I think that we should give it a try. Azzaria is already level fifteen and the rest of us are only one level behind. What do you girls think? Oh, That’s right. At fifteen you pick a specialization. What did you get honey.”
Azzaria brightens as I direct my last question to her. “I think it’s worth a shot. And to answer your other question, the specialization I chose for my profession is Couturier. It allows me to make custom items for people according to their direction, without templates. It also allows for things I make to have a Fitted bonus when worn by the person they were made for. Of course, there is a penalty for anyone else that wears it.”
“That is amazing. We should all get you to make our clothes from now on. Especially Thia. Every little bit can help.” Looking around, everyone looks anxious to enter the dungeon. I do want to check something though. “IMA, can you hear me?”
“Yes Vol. Since you have entered I have been able to access this area. What can I do for you?” From looking at the others I can tell that the mental projection was directed at all of us.
“Good. Please notify Dolan and Grondar of the information about the dungeon and that we’re attempting to pacify it.”
A few seconds pass with no reply, but then IMA speaks again. “Done. They have been notified. Is there anything else that you would like me to do?”
“No. That will be all for now. Thanks IMA.” She may be artificial, but she is a woman. I find that it’s important you let women know you appreciate them. I shudder at the mere thought of what it would be like to have a pissed off IMA in control of the town. Coming back to myself I wave the rest to follow and walk into the portal. The sensation when passing through was…familiar. I don’t dwell on it at first because the transition only takes a moment and I am worried about attack. Looking around the room I find that we are in a twenty by twenty room with a ten foot ceiling. The girls appear next to me a moment later.
Looking around the room I see no threats. The walls are constructed of stone blocks and the portal we came through is set into an arch in the wall, just like the room we came from. On the opposite wall from the dungeon portal is a solid wood door banded with what looks like wrought iron. We can all see because there are lit torches in sconces along the walls. Without any danger in sight I notice a new message. When I read the first one another immediately shows up.
Congratulations! Your party is the first to enter the Crypt of Aran’tal. As the first, loot and experience gains are doubled for one week or until the dungeon has been cleared.
Welcome to the Crypt of Aran’tal! The entrance chamber is a Safe Room. Aggressive actions cannot be taken against or by your party while in this room. Creatures of the dungeon will not follow you in and health regeneration is increased when within. If your party violates the sanctity of any Safe Room then the exit portal will be closed and the benefits of the Safe room will be revoked.
Well, the benefits of being first in this dungeon are nice but the warning seems a little ominous. I can feel a little more anxiety added to my trepidation at entering a real dungeon for the first time. Good thing we aren’t planning on violating any safe rooms. “Alright everybody, this place is a crypt so I’m guessing we will face undead. I don’t have any Life magic for extra damage but my elemental attacks should be good enough. Azzaria, I want you to make sure that Timbre is buffed with Blessing of Life constantly. Other than that, go for the head?” With nods from the rest of my party I open the door and Timbre is the first through. Azzaria follows after her with me and Thia close behind.
When I release the door it closes on its own behind us but I’m looking around where we have entered. There are no enemies as of yet, but we are back in a cave that is ten feet wide and high. It leads off a ways like a hallway and there is light with a bluish purple tinge to it everywhere. When I notice this I look around and see more torches set in the walls, spaced evenly apart. The difference here from inside the Safe Room is that the flame coming off the torches is a sickly purple color. I cast Magic Armor on myself and then cast haste on Timbre while Azzaria’s hands glow a forest green color. The light show winks out when Timbres weapon takes on a soft glow of the same color. With nothing else here we start walking down the cave with Timbre out front and Azzaria covering the back.
It goes a hundred yards or so before turning. As we come around the right hand turn we find the first opponents since entering, zombies. Not the infested ones like we had fought with beetles inside. These are true undead. The magic that permeates their bodies can be felt as though it is tangible. The corpses have pale, rotting flesh and open wounds leaking black ichor. Three of them are about ten yards down the tunnel, now shuffling our direction. None of them are carrying weapons and you can see a purple light like the torches twinkling deep in their rheumy eyes if you look closely.
We stop as they advance and Timbre takes a defensive stance while the rest of us spread out behind her. They are all level fourteen and moving slowly like a movie shambler, groaning as they stumble forward. Testing their strength I point my staff forward and start channeling mana. I envision the runic circle I instinctively know from the Fireball spell book I learned it from, pushing it into my staff with the mana needed. Spells do not require a verbal component to them, though it may help. Through my own practice and some reading I learned that they are all achieved with runes and spell circles. This can be done with ritual circles or formed instantly in the mind to invoke the necessary magical reaction. The cast time is variable because of charging the spell circle, even in the mind, and is dependent on the person’s ability to feed the necessary amount of mana to the spell structure. This is determined by the level of the magic type being used, the person’s WIS stat, and the Mana Manipulation ability, or in my case Advanced Mana Control.
It only takes a little more than a second for me to form the ball of flame at the end of my staff before it sails forward and impacts the center zombie. The resulting detonation knocks the cente
r zombie onto its back and the other two into the walls of the cave. The one that took a direct hit lost more than half its health and the other two lost around twenty percent. “OK, Thia. Use lightning. Let’s see how well it works.” A moment later a lightning bolt fires from the hand of our gold haired mage. It strikes the zombie on the right and then jumps to the one in the middle and then on to the one on the left. It was her Chain Lightning skill. The damage is ok but a little less than my fireball.
Without needing to ask her to, Azzaria fires an arrow that shines with the use of a skill at the center one. The three zombies are almost onto their feet again when mid-flight the arrow splits into three with one heading to each of the zombies. Middle zombie takes the arrow in the eye and falls over, unmoving. The one on the left gets one of the copied arrows in the center mass and does take some damage, but not much. The one on the right has the last copy buried in the forehead. It takes a lot of damage but it was the one with the highest health when she fired. That leaves two with low health.
Having seen they are slow and uncoordinated I don’t think they pose much of a threat to us with so few. “Timbre, your turn” is all I tell her. That’s all it takes and she is charging the right one. Its health is at sixteen percent after taking our three hits and can’t stand up to my fierce companion. As soon as she is close she slams her shield into the face of the only female zombie of the three and it goes flying back into the wall. Even before it hits the wall I can tell it’s done for. With a turn and a hop Timbre closes with the other one and swings her hammer from the side, right into the zombie’s temple. The power of her blow caves in the skull and ichor leaks out. Dead, the last zombie falls to the side and doesn’t move.
Timbre looks at me with a smile and I smile back, but then my attention is drawn back to the zombies. They are glowing. Noticing my lapse in attention and where my focus is Timbre turns back with her shield up, but relaxes slightly when she sees what we are watching. The zombies are becoming a translucent purple color then breaking apart into little motes of purple light. The little purple lights float into the ceiling, the walls and the floor, disappearing from sight. In a few seconds all the motes drift away and are gone leaving ten copper where the zombie on the left was. When Lorton told us that the dungeon would absorb everything we killed to repurpose the energy I was not expecting that. It reminds me of when I was back on Earth playing U.F.O. and a player died.
The others bring me out of my reverie as they look to me. “I guess that is how they are absorbed back into the dungeon” I say with a shrug. I pick up the coins and examine them. They’re unfamiliar to me with a hammer on one side and a shield on the other, but they are the same weight as other copper coins I have. I place them in my storage space and we start moving down the tunnel again.
Testing done, the next group of four we encounter is attacked all at once. I send a wave of fire that rolls over all of them and Thia tries out her new spell. Forming a basketball sized ball of lightning in her hands she condenses it by closing her hands around it and squeezing. When it reaches the size of an apple she waves a hand forward and the Ball Lightning shoots into the middle of the zombies. It hits and lighting rolls out like a wave catching the other three. The first one dies a second death and the others lock up for a moment in paralysis. Azzaria fires another shinning arrow that glows green. When it hits there is a flash and the zombie falls like a puppet with the strings cut.
After that Timbre cleans up the last two with her shield and hammer like last time. She hit a couple of places other than the head for minimal damage but then she switched to the head again, quickly putting down the remaining two. It’s actually a let down as the zombies just groan and try to grasp her. They try to bite but are not fast enough and Thia has no problem putting precise strikes into their heads. When all of them are down we see the lightshow and collect another ten coppers in loot. I check the amount of experience that I’m getting from the zombies and it isn’t bad. I’ve already picked up a couple percent to the next level and they are the same level as me.
A little ways down the tunnel we come to a chamber with two exits. We quickly take notice of the four zombies in it, but we handle them in short order. That only leaves the choice of which way to go. “Any ideas?’ I ask the girls. Nothing, well I guess it’s time for the tried and true method of ‘go left’. Shrugging to the girls I then walk into the left tunnel. After taking out a few more small groups of zombies we come to an area where the ground in the tunnel is turned up dirt instead of stone. Continuing on, we turn a corner and see the passage dead ends about ten feet away. As we start to turn around to go back the ground under Azzaria, who is in the back, shakes and explodes upward. Azzaria’s high agility is what saves her from loosing a leg because she is able to dart to the side. With the dirt that shoots out of the ground is a worm about as big around as a fifty gallon drum. The four part mouth is full of rows of sharp teeth that close on empty air where Azzaria was a moment ago.
Undead Tunneler Worm, level 15. 100% HP
It’s the highest level creature we have encountered so far but there is only one of them. The worm has pieces of skin hanging off it in places and has a grayish pallor to the rest of it. When it misses Azzaria it keeps coming out of the tunnel it made in the ground until it is fully visible. Between us and the only exit in the dead end cave, the worm coils up like a snake and doesn’t move. We are all waiting for it to strike or do something but it just sits there. That is when I notice it has no eyes. Now I am not completely sure what undead use to sense prey but this thing didn’t even have eyes when it was alive. Sight is probably out as a zombie. As something that digs through the ground I can only guess that it uses vibrations.
Before I can say anything to the girls about my conclusions Azzaria takes a slow step toward the rest of us. As soon as she sets her foot down the worm’s head swings in her direction. I wave my hand at her to stop moving and she freezes. I cast a Mana Barrier on myself and then speak in a whisper that everyone should be able to hear with their sensitive ears. “It senses vibrations…and apparently sound qualifies.” As that last part was said it swung its head in my direction. I finish speaking and the worm lunges at me. Prepared for it, I raise my staff and activate the shield ability it has. A curved half dome of energy springs up in front of me and the worms head strikes it. It is so fast that I’m still surprised and barely get the shield up in time. The worm’s aim was off because it doesn’t hit straight on but glances off the shield to my left.
Reflexively I drop the shield and fire off a couple of Mana Bolts into the side of the worm. Though it’s the first spell I ever learned I’ve never stopped improving my Neutral type magic, and coupled with the staff and my high intellect it is still pretty strong. Plus, I can cast it instantly. The ethereal blue bolts of magic leap from my staff almost before I think to cast them. When they hit they punch through the hard outer skin of the worm, causing it to screech in pain and anger. I jump back to gain distance and Timbre is there, seamlessly taking my position near the worm. When it swings back around it’s met with a projected shield from Timbre and a follow up with her hammer. Swinging it from overhead, the down stroke of the hammer drives the worm’s head straight into the ground. Already it has a couple arrows sticking out of it from Azzaria’s bow. Each had made a flash of light indicating that they were imbued with extra Life magic from Blessing of Life.
It has tough skin, what’s left of it at least, so the arrows aren’t piercing very deep. The life magic is making up for it though. Then Thia uses Screech right into the worm’s face. It’s a little odd seeing her use this skill since she looks like an elf but sounds like a bird. Pulling myself out of my musings I turn back to the worm as its stunned form is hit with a Zapp, right in the mouth, followed by another overhead strike from Timbre. Aiming for one of the holes made by my Mana Bolts I draw mana into my staff and cast Ice Lance.
The spear of ice shoots the few feet to the undead worm, a streak of cool blue flashing through the air, and imbeds i
tself deep into the opening in its hide just behind the head. The magically hardened ice digs about half way in before its momentum is arrested. The tunneler screams again in pain as frost starts to form around the ice. Seeing an opportunity, Timbre rears back and swings her hammer from the side while the undead worm is distracted. Her blow doesn’t connect with it though. Instead it hits the back end of the jagged ice protruding from the tunneler, driving it deeper than ever. At the blow the creature freezes up for a moment before falling flat on the ground again.
After a little thrashing and a few moments of stillness our ambusher dissipates to be absorbed by the dungeon again. In its place is a small knife and a silver coin. I store the coin and pick up the knife. It’s too small to be a dagger, less than six inches long for the blade. Using Identify I get the description.
Stone Cutter: Created from the tooth of a Tunneler Worm the blade suffers no durability damage from cutting materials. This blade, like the tooth it is made from, can cut anything short of a full dragon’s skin like butter. Item class: Rare. Durability: 5/5. Base Dmg: 1-2.
Interesting, kind of useless for me at the moment, and at first glance it looks like trash. As a weapon it may be, but as a tool I can see how that second part of the description can be invaluable. I store the knife and turn to the others. “Good job. That thing was way tougher than anything else we found here and we didn’t have any injuries. Let’s head back but keep an eye out for more tunnels without stone for a floor.” Their spirits high they all give me a smile while Thia also radiates a smug satisfaction through our bond. Going to have to watch how much praise I give out lest they become insufferable. I keep this thought to myself of course.
A Mage Rising: (The Chronicles of Herst 2: A LitRPG Saga) Page 12
