by Sarah Lin
It didn't get far before the grinding sound was overwhelmed by a ear-splitting roar. On the other side, they caught a glimpse of a massive skeleton, a full-grown drake animated by powerful necromancy. Gharavi raised the Wand of Undead Dominion carefully and the undead drake twitched, but then it roared again and began to charge them.
Bloodwraith pulled one of the plates back out of the door and it began to close again before the drake could reach them. He turned back to the others. "As I see it, we have two choices. We could fight this opponent fairly. Or..." His gaze slid to Meara, who was already smirking and working on something within her cloak. "We could continue to deny the box gods the pleasure and find some way to cheat."
"I have a good idea, just give me a little more time." Meara closed her eyes and kept focusing on creating a new potion.
Meanwhile, they gave Gharavi all of the Intellect-boosting equipment they had in their possession, even when it meant using inferior equipment. She even took Danniah's mace for its boost, though she wasn't trained for it and a box warned that her damage with it would be seriously reduced. But all that mattered was seeing how much power they could get out of the Wand.
By the time they had her ready, Meara triumphantly pulled out the potion she had been working on.
[Pure Necromancy Potion
Drink to temporarily increase necromantic power by 100%, while decreasing fire, lightning, and ice damage by 90%.
Rarity: Rare]
As she looked over herself, Gharavi shook her head slowly. "A year ago, I could never have imagined that I would have been in this position. I'll do my best, but I'm still not sure how well it will work, so don't act before I say the word."
They nodded in agreement and opened the door again. Once more, the undead drake roared out a challenge and began to move toward them. Before the door to its chamber had fully opened, Gharavi thrust the Wand of Undead Dominion out again. This time, the drake shuddered to a halt, though its wings and jaws twitched occasionally.
It wouldn't be enough to control it completely - a pity, since part of him had hoped that they could take control of the "boss" and use it to destroy their way through the third floor. Instead he resolved to destroy it, though first he waited for Gharavi to give her official evaluation.
"This... isn't easy..." Gharavi gritted her teeth and braced her wrist holding the wand. "I have it bound... but not for long..."
"Then we attack!" Bloodwraith unhooked his sword and led the charge into the room.
Since they couldn't depend on Gharavi keeping the undead drake down for the entire battle, he started off with the intent to disable. He performed a fully Enraged cut at one of the drake's legs, intending to sever a claw, and was surprised at how his sword barely cut into the drake's bone. This was heavy reinforcement... he would have been impressed, if he didn't suspect that it was simply some Earthian increasing a number in a box.
Meanwhile, Danniah ran to the drake's tail and began to smash at it with her secondary mace. The burning aura around it failed to make the bones catch fire, but it did deal serious damage. When she ran out of mana, she drank a potion and kept bashing away.
"Ooh, tasty!" He looked up to find that Izzy was perched on top of the drake's spine. She bent down and snapped up another bite, removing a larger chunk from the thick bone that held the drake together in the center. Another good strategic choice.
He kept hacking at the drake's leg until the bone claw came free, then kicked it to the side of the room. The undead creature staggered and fell to one side, but Izzy gripped tightly and kept biting at the spine. Bloodwraith switched to the other claw, glancing over his shoulder at Gharavi. Sweat was pouring down the sides of her face as she struggled to keep the drake bound in place, but she nodded grimly.
Shattering the tail, Danniah then moved to begin smashing the drake's teeth out. That got easier when the drake collapsed, Bloodwraith removing its second claw and Izzy biting her way through the spine at about the same time.
He took a step back and drank a potion as he considered his next target. Yet before he could attack, he thought he heard a sound from Gharavi. When he turned, he saw her drop to one knee. Her lips moved, but he couldn't understand what she said.
"Get ready!" Meara called out the warning as Gharavi slumped to the ground in exhaustion.
A moment later the remaining pieces of the undead drake shuddered into action. The smaller pieces remained still, but the front and back halves looked capable of attacking. Thanks to the warning, Izzy was able to jump out of the way as the back half reared up to smash at the place where she perched.
Danniah wasn't so lucky, the enormous jaws lunging out to try to smash her. Yet with many of the drake's teeth knocked out, she was able to catch herself between the drake's jaws. She strained there, holding the jaws apart as they struggled to crush her.
Bloodwraith ran in to attack, but he was surprised by how quickly such a bulky undead moved. The drake lashed out with one leg, and even though the back half was severed, it hit him with terrible force. He smashed back against one of the walls, his chest aching, and struggled not to fall.
Currently they had the upper hand, but it would become more difficult if they didn't finish disabling the drake soon enough. Since they needed raw force quickly, he decided this was a good environment to test his least pleasant skill. Bloodwraith closed his eyes and surrendered to the barbarian rage swirling within him.
This time, he didn't feel as though he entirely lost consciousness, though his vision turned red and bloodlust filled his mind. He rushed forward, smashing into the side of the drake's head hard enough to send it collapsing back again. Only after that did he realize that he was still holding onto his greatsword, so he began swinging wildly, sending chips of bone flying in every direction.
The drake hit back, yet he barely felt the injuries. He saw Izzy jump onto its skull and bite the narrow bones that connected the jaw. When it went slack for a moment, Danniah lunged in and delivered a burning hot blow to the roof of the drake's mouth.
It reared back and then collapsed. Though it began to struggle to get up again, Bloodwraith knew a wounded opponent when he saw one and his instincts threw him into the battle. He jumped on top of the beast's skull and ran to its neck before he began wildly hacking at it.
Finally his sword cut through and the undead drake crashed to the ground. He kept yelling and striking, even though a part of him knew that the creature's necromancy had failed. Cut into three pieces and battered by many blows, the power animating the undead drake had finally broken, yet his body refused to stop.
"Da!" Suddenly Izzy was on his back, her hands rapping against the sides of his helm. "Wake up, Da!"
The sound of her voice brought him back, less unpleasantly than last time. He still had rage swirling in his mind, but Bloodwraith did his best to rise above it. Nodding to Izzy, he slowly walked down the sides of the defeated drake to the others with her sitting on his shoulders.
"This one wasn't as scary as last time!" Danniah beamed at him as she crawled out of the drake's mouth. "Are you getting it under control?"
"I'm not sure," Bloodwraith said. "I don't think it will ever feel natural to me."
Nor did he want to become a person like that, but for the time being he had to use whatever tools he had available. More importantly, he needed to see how Gharavi was doing. Meara had her sitting up and drinking a cup of water - Gharavi looked weary but fundamentally in good health.
Behind the drake's body, a stone barrier began to grind downward into the floor, revealing only shadows. Since this one had opened automatically and there appeared to be no way to close it again, Bloodwraith braced himself for an attack, but none came. He shifted his focus between the yawning entrance and the drake's body, hoping that it was actually over.
[Victory! You received 214,486 EXP and one Undead Drake Body.]
When the box appeared, Bloodwraith let himself relax another step, certain that the drake wasn't going to rise up again in violation of
all laws of necromancy. The new power also put him well over the requirement needed to advance a level, and he eagerly anticipated the next box.
[Congratulations! You gained a level!
Current Level: 18
Current EXP: 189,130/1,476,225
Unassigned Stat Points: 5]
Over a million EXP to the next Level... the increase in the requirements was relentless. For the first time he realized just how intentional that was: the box gods couldn't let players grind forever, they needed to keep them moving toward a goal. The purpose of the entire system was to push them toward a conclusive battle, then harvest all the energy they had gathered once they moved to a new body.
If he intended to circumvent that system, he would need to be clever. In this "Testing Dungeon" it was easy enough to gain EXP, but the same would not be true once they finished. Previously he had been considering just ignoring the monsters left behind on the first floor, but now he started to reconsider.
While he thought, another box appeared, this one surprising him.
[Quest Advanced!
Sub-Quest II: Raise Gharavi's Level.
EXP +5000]
So Gharavi had reached Level 18 as well. That was fitting, as he could imagine how much she must have pushed her limits to hold the undead drake in place for so long. Though the box system would no doubt push his Level higher due to its unfair advantages, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction that they had reached the same Level together.
"So, what do we do now?" Danniah came up beside him, apparently little worse for the wear despite the battle.
"For a start, I think Izzy would be unhappy if you interrupted her." Bloodwraith pointed to the drake's skull, where Izzy sat on top of it, chomping on a claw with a look of pure bliss. Danniah laughed, but then turned back to him.
"Right, and I know Gharavi probably needs some more time to recover. But after that, are we pushing straight on to the next floor?"
"I don't see why not. Escaping this place is still our highest priority."
"Do you think we'll find a way to make the last floor easier too?"
Bloodwraith looked toward the passage to the stairs and shook his head. "I strongly doubt it. Each floor of this place has had a specific 'theme' - and even if they don't seem to fit together, there's a certain logic to it. I doubt we'll see another undead creature in this place."
"Yeah, but what if it's a fire theme or something? That would be good for me!"
"We can hope." Bloodwraith smiled at her, but his eyes stayed on the passage upward. No, he doubted that the third floor would be anything so simple. If he understood the box gods at all, they would want the final floor to be something even worse than the ones that came before it.
Though he was restless, Bloodwraith recognized that his body did need some time to recover. He spent a while sitting with the others and Meara pulled out some food for all of them. Since she was just eating bones, Izzy joined them as well without making Danniah nauseous. The food tasted good, but what truly restored him was eating with all of his allies.
They seemed to relax, yet Bloodwraith couldn't get the entrance to the next floor out of his mind. Once they were done, they gathered themselves, repaired equipment, and headed toward the dark entrance. As they got closer, he saw that there was actually an unnatural darkness surrounding them. Within, however, there were ordinary stairs leading upward.
Meara moved ahead, lifting her mana torch higher, but it didn't seem capable of penetrating deep into the shadows slipping around them. This staircase was longer than the previous ones and the shadows intensified until they could see nothing but a sphere of light cast by the torch, nothing before or behind.
"I... think this is the next floor." Meara slowed down, taking a step forward instead of up. When Bloodwraith stepped up beside her, a box immediately appeared.
[Floor 2 Complete!
EXP Bonus: +250,000]
Good, the bonus hadn't decreased. But just as Bloodwraith was feeling satisfied by the new power, another box appeared.
[Holy fuck, somebody got this far? If you're a beta tester, seriously talk to AdventureCorp about a raise.
Look, I'll be honest with you: we didn't really expect anyone to get here. The third floor is a mess of shit we left on the cutting room floor. Is that mixing metaphors? Fuck it, I'm just writing this because I don't like leaving uncommented code.
If you're determined to go forward, I strongly recommend turning on God Mode and just enjoying the ride. The floor layout is a mess, though, so if you just want to get out, it might be easier to head back than to head up.]
Bloodwraith frowned, unsure what to make of that message. Was the third floor cloaked in darkness simply as a matter of laziness? Yet as he dismissed the box, he realized that lights were slowly rising around him, revealing a hallway forward.
The walls appeared to be constructed from identical blocks of stone, utterly without ornamentation or artwork. Yet one of them was bright pink and another one was checkered black and white. For some inexplicable reason there was a potted plant lying on its side ahead of them. Further ahead, the floor became... a picture of a cat?
"Um, what?" Danniah scratched her head and took a few steps forward to stare at everything before looking back to him. "Does this make any more sense to you than to me?"
"The box gods have dedicated themselves to vexing me right to the end." Bloodwraith unhooked his greatsword and moved forward. "Let's go kill everything."
Chapter 19
As they headed down the truly bizarre corridor, Meara rubbed her forehead to hold off the coming headache. The others seemed not to notice, but to her every part of the third floor felt deeply wrong. Everywhere else, the influence of the system on the real world was a smooth flow, but here it was erratic and broken. As if the Outsiders who had created it had simply left their tools lying about.
Usually she needed to strain to feel the exact nature of that flow in order to find quests, but here the objectives practically screamed at her. When she felt a knot of power coming toward them, Meara was able to raise a hand to warn the others before it even got close.
"I think we have a monster up ahead, coming this way," Meara said. Bloodwraith nodded.
"You should step behind us, just in case. We'll put the skeletons forward first and see what we can learn about our new foes."
Though usually monsters could be no threat to her, in this place... Meara decided that he was right and retreated behind the line of fighters. Ahead of them, they saw something emerging from the shadows, heading directly toward the line of skeletons.
It was... some sort of lion mixed with a spider? Yet as it came closer, Meara realized that she had entirely misunderstood its structure. There was a head like a lion, yes, but it was surrounded by a series of hind legs that branched in all directions to create some sort of wheel. It had no other body parts, just a bouncing lion wheel...
Really?
"Steady!" Bloodwraith kept his sword in ready position and began gathering mana. "Regardless of how it looks, the beast may be dang-"
The beast ran into one of the skeletons and fell over onto its face. Though its hind limbs flailed randomly, it failed to get back to its feet. For the first time since they'd entered the dungeons, the skeletons actually had a chance to attack something. After standing dully for a moment, they leaned down and began to stab their rough blades into the... lion wheel.
Though it let out a roar and thrashed, it failed to knock any of them over. When it did finally connect by chance, the skeleton was destroyed in one blow, but the lion wheel was extremely bad at connecting. The skeletons kept stabbing... and stabbing, and stabbing. Meara glanced over at Bloodwraith and smirked. "Did you spend all your necromancy on Izzy, or are you just terrible at skeletons?"
"It's not that." Bloodwraith finally lowered his sword, staring at the strange monster in disgust. "That creature may be useless, but it has over 1000 Health. They're going to take a little while to kill it."
Since i
t was still howling, Izzy stuck her fingers in her ears. Danniah winced and glanced back to them. "Should we put it out of its misery?"
"No. It could still be a trap." Bloodwraith sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone, however. Meara wandered closer, giving the creature a closer look before it was stabbed to death.
"Why do you think they would create something like that? It doesn't look particularly menacing and I don't think a beast like this could function on any world."
No one answered her, since there wasn't much they could say in the face of such an absurdity. Eventually the skeletons successfully killed it and there was no final explosion or trap. It just died and soon enough a box appeared.
[You received 3444 EXP and one ??? Pelt.]
Meara chuckled, realizing that even the boxes didn't know what to name the creature. The others just seemed baffled. When Gharavi tried to take the creature's pelt, it fell apart into a mess of slime. After staring at one another for a while, they all agreed to just never speak of it again.
As they headed down the corridor, Danniah turned back to smile at them. Well, her helm glowered ominously, but Meara could tell that she was smiling.
"At least that means this floor isn't so bad, right? Things have been so serious lately, I could us-"
The ceiling ahead of them smashed down, crushing the front skeleton to splinters of bone.
All of them leapt to attention, humor gone. Ahead of them, their path was entirely blocked by a large stone cube from above, but it began to slowly retract back up into the ceiling. As it went back up, revealing nothing but a few bone fragments, they all began to breathe again.
"Such a trap would be fatal to almost anyone." Gharavi took a few steps closer, examining it in concern. "How can we get past it?"
Danniah stayed a good distance away, but bent down to peer at the floor. "Is there some kind of pressure plate, maybe? The front skeleton must have triggered it."
Though the latter part was obviously true, Meara didn't think that they would find anything like a pressure plate. She couldn't quite figure out the mechanism in front of them, but she was quite sure that it operated on pure box rules. It was no physical mechanism triggering the trap, just a raw dictate from the designers of this place.
