Wait, Hawke sent out mentally. He can cast those spells?
That’s my boy, Hawke thought before continuing his spiel. “That’s the Infernal side of things. Larry the Revenant has turned the local demons into some sort of Undead hybrids. We don’t know what kind of abilities they have, but we have to assume they’ll be worse than regular demons or zombie types. The only good news is that healing spells will damage them, so feel free to use them as much as possible.”
Everyone nodded.
“Any questions, comments, suggestions?”
Nobody had any, or kept them to themselves.
“Let’s roll.”
Nineteen
Warning! Entering this Dungeon will place your Reincarnation site on the entrance. You will lose 3 Identity points every time you die while inside the Dungeon.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Hawke grumbled as he stepped into the glowing portal. A moment later, he was somewhere else.
The heat was the same as the last time, a blast of dry, scorching air that stung every bit of exposed skin and turned his armor into an oven. His sweat evaporated almost immediately, doing little to lower his temperature, and his Endurance regeneration slowed down. Unlike the Labyrinth, however, this place stank. A rotten-egg smell hit him at the same time as the heat, as if he’d stumbled into a cookout from hell. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant stroll.
The portal had delivered him to an antechamber, the lobby of the Dungeon, so to speak, and the only place where they didn’t have to worry about being attacked. It was also the site where any Eternal killed in action would respawn. The room was five-sided, a pentagon, which matched the theme; five demon Barons, five portals. Except that there was a sixth and final level, too. And each level would be about as big and dangerous as an entire Lair.
The antechamber was filled with reddish light, although Hawke couldn’t find a source for it. Maybe it came from the walls, which appeared to be made of solid blocks of sandstone, carved with scenes of torment where people of all species were tortured and dismembered by grinning fiends. The depictions were so realistic that he suspected they were magical reproductions of actual events, like photographs somehow turned into 3-D models. Whether they were real or just the product of a sick mind, the murals were disgusting enough to make him avoid looking at them.
There was a single passageway leading out of the room and running for fifty feet before reaching a t-intersection. He scanned the corridor with all his special abilities and found no traps. There was enough room for everybody, even the pets.
You can all come in, he told Tava through Saturnyx. But before you do, take a few deep breaths. It’s the last fresh air you’re going to enjoy for a while.
One by one, the rest of the group arrived. Olaf looked like he was about to throw up, but he managed to get himself under control. Everyone else handled the arrival to the hellish place without complaint. Once the Party was assembled, Hawke had them set up a defensive formation in the antechamber and used Astral Projection once again. Time to do some scouting. He flew slowly and cautiously through the corridor and reached the intersection without a problem, after finding out he couldn’t go through the walls. Made sense. Proving Grounds were nearly indestructible and impervious to change. Nobody could dig tunnels there, and it took huge amounts of energy to breach the walls.
Looking to the left, his Enlightenment spell spotted the first trap in the Dungeon: a section of the floor glowed red. Advanced Mana Sight didn’t pick up any magic, so that was a mechanical trap. Other than that, the corridor turned a corner beyond his line of sight. He marked it on the Party map and looked to the right. That corridor wasn’t trapped and went down fifty feet, ending on an entryway to a large chamber.
A monster with a flaming skull for a head came into view and stared right at Hawke’s astral form. The hunched figure consisted of a blackened skeleton surrounded by flire that glowed with a mix of green and orange colors. The flames made Hawke think of radioactivity or toxic waste. Its stats showed that it was part of Laryn’s new crop of hybrid creatures.
Soul Burner (Infernal Undead)
Level 13 Elite Minion
Health 658 Mana 322 Endurance 658
The blazing orbs floating inside the skull’s eye sockets flared orange and Hawke started to burn from the inside out. So did the silver cord linking the projection to his body. He had been roasted to death, but whatever this spell was, it affected more than his body; he felt psychic pain as well, the anguish you felt when facing loss and sorrow, or the sense that nothing would ever be all right again. The agony paralyzed him for a few seconds, more than enough reduce his Astral Health from 988 to 628. Forcing himself to act through the mind-numbing pain, he flew back towards his body at full speed, snapping back into his physical form as his astral body took another hundred and twenty points of damage. He sat up with gasp and realized the wounds had carried over to his physical body! His physical Health was down to just over two hundred.
Gosto and Olaf cast their healing spells on him; he couldn’t concentrate enough to use his own magic. All he wanted to do was to curl up and hope for the sweet release of death. Normally, medicinal magic would greatly reduce the pain from wounds even before it fully restored one’s Health, but whatever the Soul Burner had done to him continued to hurt. Hawke had to drag himself out of the agony-induced stupor to use Lesser Healing on himself, which finally put an end to the misery.
“What happened?” Olaf asked.
“Ran into an Undead Demon and it used some new mojo on me.”
Hawke opened his Combat Log to see what had hit him. He probably should study the logs more often, but they were so filled with dense numbers and calculations that they made his eyes glaze over after a few minutes. As it turned out, hitting somebody with a sword involved dozens of variables before damage was calculated, things like the angle at which the blade had landed, the specific thickness of the armor, the relative speeds of the attacker and target, and so on. Luckily, spells were relatively easier to keep track of:
You have been struck by Soul Burn.
You have taken 113 points of Chaos Damage.
You are afflicted with Soul Agony. -75% to all actions.
You have taken 121 points of Chaos Damage.
And so on. From the looks of it, the Soul Burner’s attack inflicted 100-150 points of damage per second and it incapacitated the target for the spell’s duration. And his astral form, which had massive defenses against most magical attacks, had zero resistance to Chaos magic. Throw in the penalty to all actions, and Hawke was lucky he hadn’t returned to the antechamber via respawning.
“Guess Demons and Undead are like chocolate and peanut butter,” Hawke muttered as he shook off the last of the spell’s effects. “No more astral scouting.”
With his gear, he had a combined 30% Resistance against Forces. And he could use his auras, which, as it turned out, did not work on his astral form. He’d thought he had a surefire way to scout the Dungeon, but nothing came easy in the Realms. It was time to do things the hard way.
“No traps leading to that room, so we should clear it first,” he said. “Let’s review everyone’s Resistance to
Chaos values.”
The news wasn’t good. The best-protected in the group were Hawke and the dragon-kits at 30%. Tava and Digger were tied for second place at 20%, in Tava’s case thanks to an inherent Slayer ability. Everyone else was in the 10-15% range, so those Soul Burns were going to eat through them like hydrochloric acid. The Party had a lot of healing available, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I’m going to burn my Farsight amulet’s daily use to see what we’re dealing with,” he said, and activated his enchanted device to look into the chamber. It was a great ability, but he could only use it once per day and had been hoping to save it for later in the Dungeon. A moment later, he found himself looking into the chamber. He spotted six flaming skeletons like the one that had almost gotten him. If the critter hadn’t gotten impatient, they might have attacked him all at once; he wouldn’t have survived that.
Hawke reported his discovery and outlined a plan of attack. “Digger and I, along with my summoned pets, will be in the first wave. Alba and Girl, move in after they’re busy with us and ambush one of them. Tava, Nadia, Gzzatt and Rabbit, you guys follow up after we get them aggroed, with Olaf and Gosto hanging back on healing duty. Grognard you stay with the healers and use ranged spells on whichever target has the lowest Health until it goes down, then switch to the next lowest. If a critter goes for the rear lines, run interference.”
“Got it.”
“You and your sister, wait until the monsters are occupied with us before you do anything. Focus on healing, and attack only if nobody needs heals. All right?”
“Good enough. Let’s get buffed. Got to deal with the Soul Agony effect.”
Olaf had a Blessing of Courage that provided 18% Resistance to mental effects for five minutes. It was an expensive spell at 25 Mana per casting, but a couple of Mana potions allowed him to use it on everyone. Another spell, Blessing of Light, added 6% Resistance to Infernal and Undead effects, which should help against critters that belonged to both categories. Gosto’s main buff, Bark Skin, wouldn’t do anything against Chaos damage, but might come in handy if the Soul Burners had other attacks. The Druid cast it on everyone as well, along with Seed of Determination, which created a magical acorn that, when eaten, would provide another 30% Resistance to mental effects. Between that and Olaf’s spells, they should be okay against the mental component of the enemy’s attacks.
Hawke added his personal buffs. They included three magical force fields, each doing something different to protect him from harm, and two weapon enhancers that augmented Saturnyx’s already massive damage. Besides that, he summoned two pets, a bear-shaped Nature’s Guardian and a skinny Animated Shadow. He didn’t expect them to do much other than get killed, but every enemy spell that hit the disposable critters wouldn’t harm him or one of his friends.
Their first chamber would be a good test for their chances of making it to the end of the Dungeon.
Twenty
Hawke and his summoned pets led the way, with Digger close behind. The Soul Burners had been expecting trouble, of course. The four intruders were welcomed by six Chaos spells. Hawke fired off Dazzling Light, hoping to blind and stun the targets, but the spell exchange was nearly simultaneous.
As he had hoped, he and the two minor pets each got hit twice, sparing Digger. The Soul Burns were reduced by 51 points each by his Shield of Light, and were absorbed by his Bulwark of Light, which went from 255 to 128 Health. Short version: he was unhurt. The Animated Shadow was obliterated, and the Nature’s Guardian heavily damaged, but the monsters hadn’t achieved much with their initial salvo, and it was Hawke’s turn.
As the Soul Burners recovered from the effects of the dazzling spell – from the looks of it, they had only been slowed down for a second or two – Burning Light’s cone of deadly energy enveloped the trio of monsters right in front of him, inflicting 34-306 Light damage apiece. Hawke absently noted the damage numbers flashing over the targets (102,1 65, 120) as he took one more step – and teleported right behind the burning skeletons, creating a cloud of darkness at his arrival point; Twilight Step was his favorite spell, one which allowed him to play Rogue and backstab people for fun and profit. He struck twice at the Soul Burner that had taken the most damage. Saturnyx’s twin blades flashed white wherever they touched the sickly orange flames, dissipating them as they tore through the blackened bones and shattered them. There was enough demon in the monsters to trigger the swords’ bane bonuses, and the critical hits on the surprised enemy each delivered enough damage to reduce it to below a hundred Health – just in time for Hawke to unleash Elemental Burst on all three targets, which sent one down to zero and its buddies to below half their Health. One down.
As he squared off with the Soul Burners in front of him, he saw Digger pounce on one of the creatures, grabbing it between his pincers and sinking his stinger tail into the flaming rib cage. The poison was Life-infused, which affected Undead, making the Soul Burner’s dual nature work against it. One of the hybrids that were destroying the Nature Guardian was surrounded by darkness as the two Shadow Assassins teleported behind it and struck. That was all Hawke was able to notice before the remaining monsters fired off more Soul Burns and struck at him with claw-tipped hands. The ongoing damage from the first two hits had nearly burned through all his Bulwark’s Health; the new spells finished off the barrier and the four ongoing curses ate through three hundred and nine points of his own Health. The pain was tolerable, though, and he wasn’t overwhelmed with despair.
He used Lesser Healing to remove the damage-over-time effect and went back on the offensive, focusing on one of them just as his second team arrived. An arrow made of pure energy exploded out of the skull of Hawke’s target, finishing it off. Tava didn’t pause, sending another augmented missile at Digger’s opponent and destroying it as well, with an assist from Nadia and Grognard. Rabbit roared and joined the fray. Gosto and Olaf were working on keeping Girl healed.
Alba got hit with a Soul Burn, and its damage was dumped straight into Hawke’s Health. Just before he began to switch from fighting to first aid, a pair of Lesser Heals from the Drakofoxes restored 60 Health apiece, undoing most of the damage and letting him press on with his attacks. He glanced at the entrance of the chamber, where Blaze and Luna were hovering. The baby furries were casting his best healing spell more effectively than him!
The little bastards had listened to him and waited, at least. Even in the middle of the fight, he worried about what would happen when the two baby monsters stopped listening to their parents. Teenage godlike creatures were going to be a handful. But he had to be alive to deal with those things, so he turned his full attention to finishing off his opponent. He got hit by a couple more of the deadly Chaos curses – one aimed directly at him, the other transmitted by the Gift of the Martyr – but the Drakofoxes kept him healed up as he chopped down the last Soul Burner.
By the time he looked up from the extinguished skeleton, the fight was over. Digger and Rabbit had been wounded down to half their Health pools, but they were being healed back to full, and everyone else was fine. It hadn’t been a cakewalk, but nobody had panicked and they had overcome the first set of guardians. Time to collect their rewards:
For Slaying Your Foes, you have earned 1,440 XP (180 diverted towards Leadership; 180 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Current XP/Next Level: 23,950/30,000. Leadership XP/Next Level: 17,298/25,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 8,440/12,000. Current Guild XP/Next Level: 773/1,000
You have found: 7 gold, 6 silver coins, 2 Mana Potions, 1 Healing Potion.
“Ding,” Olaf said. He and Grognard had both made fifth level, the first Milestone on the Path to Power.
“Grats.”
“Thanks,” the Priest replied. “I’ve picked Lesser Healing, so I can remove DOTs from people, at least once every twenty seconds, for whatev
er that’s worth.”
“That makes four of us, now,” Hawke said. “That will help out a lot. If those critters pile two or three of those curses on anyone, the damage over time will wipe them out, unless somebody clears it off.”
“Found a secret compartment,” Girl announced from the other end of the chamber. “Trapped, but I cleared it. Want to see what we got?”
Girl had been a perfectly friendly team player since Hawke had removed her magically-enforced obligation. Sharing a bit of treasure instead of trying to palm it off without anyone noticing was a nice gesture, and something that wasn’t covered by her new oath to the Triune Goddesses. He decided to take it as a good sign as he strolled over to where she was kneeling. A section of wall had slid off, revealing an iron-bound chest, about three feet wide and long, and two feet tall. Something that big could have all kind of goodies inside. To his Enlightenment-enhanced senses, the chest glowed red from top to bottom, indicating it was trapped to hell and back.
“Handle with care,” he said.
“Yep,” Girl said, stepping back from the box. “My Disarm Trap ability informed me that my chance of not triggering the traps was twenty-percent. Not betting odds.”
“What are your normal odds of disarming a trap?”
“First time I’ve gotten that message. Usually, the trap just gets removed. This is new.”
“I have the same ability,” Alba said. “And I have never been shown a chance for failure, but this trap has done so.”
Hawke didn’t ask her what her odds were; since she was six levels below Girl, they must have been worse. When he checked the box with his thieving senses, he was notified that his chance of success was seven percent. Not good. He used Advanced Mana Sight on the box, finding a complex energy arrangement all over its surface, with an intricate knot of interlaced spells around the padlocked clasp in front. No, make that two knots: one infused in the clasp itself, another on the padlock. Each of them had a Mana reservoir of two thousand, plus another twelve hundred in the network around the chest itself. That was a lot of magical power.
Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3) Page 13
