by Ivan Kal
Ereden smashed two more snared skeletons, and then one who managed to push through and attack him, but he jumped back and crushed its legs before bringing his mace down on its skull. With that he jumped back, as the skeletons had almost freed themselves and more managed to get through. Vestella put her shield up and used up some of the water from her armor to make new spikes, which she sent flying into the skeletons. Morgan let another Arrow of Binding fly into the chest of another undead, bursting it from the inside, and then he just kept firing energy arrows.
They fought for a while, Vestella using her shield to keep the skeletons at bay, while Morgan took care of them. Ereden would jump forward when an opportunity presented itself and smash his mace into a skeleton, more often than not ending it in a single strike. Even Clara had an opportunity to shine when a skeleton with both of its arms broken off managed to get past Ves. The tiny orc stepped forward and brought her staff down on its skull, cracking it and sending the skeleton flying into the wall before Ereden finished it off. Quickly enough, they cleared them all.
“Whew, that was something,” Morgan said with a grin. Vestella kicked a skull, sending it flying down the tunnel just before it dissolved into blue dust.
“These things are so creepy. They don’t make any sounds, they just keep coming!”
“So, any levels?” Morgan asked as he noticed the notification telling him that he received some experience. Since they were not yet in the dungeon proper, they would get the experience once the encounter was finished. This also told him that there were no more skeletons rushing up at them.
“I got a level,” Ereden said.
“Congratulations, dude!” Morgan grinned at the man, who immediately got a faraway look to his eyes that told him that he had entered his soul space to ascend. Morgan turned to look at Clara.
“Not yet, but I am close to level thirteen,” she said.
“Me neither,” Ves spoke.
Morgan grimaced and checked his experience.
GROUP EXP GAINED!
22x Skeleton Warriors killed = 660 exp
Morgan Newton LVL 14 — EXP 983/6000
Morgan dismissed the message. The increase in EXP requirement was too much. They looked over the loot that had dropped from the skeletons—the gear was mostly useless, but they gathered what they thought could be of some value and then put it in Morgan’s bag of holding. He had emptied his bag before getting into the mine so that they could carry more of the loot out. The only other thing of note were the ascension crystals, which were of a lower quality, but still useful.
After that they continued, moving forward slowly. Their plan was to clear the mine first before getting down into the dungeon. So they went back and slowly checked every tunnel, following the map they had been given by the Captain. They encountered only fifteen more skeletons, isolated at the ends of the tunnels, and quickly took care of them. Then they finally started moving deeper to the single tunnel leading to the dungeon. They entered slowly, listening for any sign of enemies, but found none.
They slowly reached the end of the tunnel, finding a hole leading into another corridor that ran sideways. There were no skeletons here, either, so Clara sent her light down the hole.
The entrance into the dungeon was about halfway up the wall, so after they were sure that there were no enemies nearby, they jumped down and into the dungeon proper. The inside was much different than the mines. The corridor was made out of dark stone blocks—far more dungeon-like. They didn’t know which way they should go, so on a whim Morgan decided for them to go left. They followed the long corridor to a room that seemed like a dead end. It was empty of any skeletons, and there were tables that had decayed over the years and had just collapsed, as well as a bookshelf in a similar state. There seemed to be the remains of books, but it had been so long that they had turned to dust. On another corner were some kind of vials filled with strange liquids mounted on a wall rack.
Morgan turned to Clara. “You have any idea what those are?”
“No,” she responded.
Morgan tried to use his Inspect skill on it, but the only thing he got back were question marks. I really need to level up that skill.
Morgan carefully gathered the vials, making sure that they were properly secured and put them in one of their smaller bags, and then into his BoH. He wondered how they survived while most of the other things in the room hadn’t, but he didn’t dwell on it for long. They turned back and retraced their steps back to the entrance and continued in the other direction.
“There are no skeletons,” Morgan said after they walked down the corridor and encountered a few empty rooms.
Ves glanced at him but then quickly looked back down the corridor. “They might’ve all climbed up into the mine.”
“They could’ve,” Morgan said, but he didn’t really believe that. I am not that lucky.
Finally, they reached what looked like a large entrance. To the side they could see doors broken off the hinges and thrown aside, but the entrance was buried under rocks. There were clear attempts to dig out, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. “I guess this is the entrance to the dungeon,” Morgan said.
Ereden stepped over. “The dungeon must’ve gotten buried long ago.”
“Probably, and then the miners unluckily found it,” Vestella added.
They continued on, through a corridor leading in the other direction from which they came in. Still, they didn’t encounter any enemies. They found a few rooms and some items that could be of use, which they took with them. Finally, they reached a large doomed room with pillars holding it up. They spread around the room, looking for anything interesting. There were pedestals around the room, with items placed on them, but most were so weathered by time that they couldn’t even be identified.
“I found something,” Clara yelled out, and Morgan moved over to her, as he was the closest. She was standing next to a pedestal, and on it was a small ornate box.
“Huh, well that one is still whole,” Morgan noted.
“Right,” Clara said. “Which begs the question: why?”
Morgan tried to use his Inspect skill, but again it did nothing. Stupid skill!
“Well, let’s find out,” Morgan said as he reached over to the box.
“Don’t!” Clara raised her arm to stop him, but she was too slow. Morgan touched the box, and then there was a flash of light. The floor beneath their feet disappeared, then, and they were falling. Morgan managed to catch a glimpse of Ves and her eyes widening before they were plunged into darkness, the floor above them closing back up.
They hit the angled wall and slid down for what felt like minutes, before finally crashing down into the darkness in a tangle of bodies. Clara was on top of him, and the only thing that Morgan could hear was their ragged breathing. Clara’s ball of light had remained upstairs.
“Damn it, Morgan! Why are you so thoughtless?” Clara demanded as she attempted to rise from his chest, but Morgan grabbed hold of her and didn’t let her. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
“Quiet,” Morgan whispered as his head turned to the side, where he had heard something.
There, in the darkness, two glowing blue embers watched him.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Clara, light, quick!” Morgan said as he rolled her behind him and stood up. His bow was here somewhere, but he had lost his grip on it when they fell, so he grabbed hold of his short sword and drew it. Clara murmured a string of words, and then there was light.
The room they were in was round, and about ten meters across with four sarcophaguses on the sides of the room. They were made out of the same stone blocks as the rest of the dungeon. Across from them, on the other side of the room, was a throne with a skeleton sitting on it. It was different than the others; its eye sockets shone with blue light instead of orange, for starters. But the differences didn’t end there: it wore steel armor and also held a long sword in its hands. In front of it stood four more skeletons, the same skeleton warriors that they had
fought so far. Morgan used his Inspect on the one sitting on the throne.
Skeleton Lord LVL 15
Fuck me sideways! Morgan thought to himself as he pointed his sword at the skeletons, his mind thinking quickly about what to do. He could see his bow about halfway into the room, but there was no way that he was going to get it and then have enough time to fire before the skeletons attacked. “Stay behind me. Try to support me and protect my back if they try to surround me,” Morgan told Clara.
The skeleton lord stood up from the throne, and its jaws opened up in a soundless roar as the four undead charged. Damn it! I am an archer, for fuck’s sake!
Thinking quickly, Morgan reached with his right hand into his quiver, pulling out one of his Exploding Arrows and throwing it at the closest skeleton. It flipped over in the air, but he was lucky and it hit point first on the skeleton’s chest and exploded. Nature energy sent a shock wave that knocked it back a bit and staggered the other three. Before they recovered, he already had two of his Arrows of Binding in his hand and then flying through the air at them. His superior agility made him extremely quick and precise, and his arrows hit their marks. One hit one of one skeletons in the chest, and the roots and branches broke it apart, while the other hit the floor and tangled two of the skeleton’s legs.
Morgan rushed forward and slashed with his sword, cutting one of the skeleton’s heads off. The other one slashed at Morgan, and he barely managed to get his sword up in time to block it.
“Morgan!” he heard Clara yell out, and he saw the skeleton lord approaching, his sword raised.
Morgan didn’t have the time to evade. Instead, he waited for the last moment before activating Arcane Shift. The two-handed sword flew through Morgan’s head with no resistance and stabbed into the ground. Using his superior speed, Morgan had already moved out of the way, even while the skeleton lord’s sword was passing through his body.
He tried to stab his sword into the skeleton lord’s skull, but the fourth skeleton attacked him, forcing him to move back instead as his Arcane Shift was now on cooldown. The two remaining skeletons recovered and started surrounding Morgan, with the skeleton lord staying in the middle. Goddamn it, why is this so much easier with a tank? Morgan lamented.
He didn’t know what to do. His sword play was passable as he had the Weapons I skill, but he was no expert. He had speed, but he didn’t know how to fight in a melee—he was a range user. If I get out of this, I swear I will train to fight with a fucking sword!
The skeleton on the left jumped forward and Morgan raised his sword to block. The one on the right took the chance to try and attack his side, but Clara was there. Her staff came down on its arms, breaking the bones. Its sword tumbled to the ground and she followed up with a swipe that took the skeleton’s head off.
Morgan raised his blade to attack the skeleton in front of him, but the skeleton lord had seen his chance. Clara stood unbalanced with her side unprotected, and the skeleton lord took advantage. He raised his sword and aimed for her head.
Morgan tried to move to help her, but he couldn’t get there in time. Fuck! Morgan saw the skeleton before him preparing to thrust with his sword, but he had no time. He threw his sword at the skeleton lord, hitting his two hander as it was coming down on Clara’s head, wrenching it from his hands.
The rusted blade of the skeleton in front of him came then, and Morgan couldn’t move out of the way. It stabbed him in the chest, and he grimaced even as he pulled out an arrow out of his quiver. The skeleton looked at Morgan with embers in his sockets, silent and cold, and Morgan stabbed an arrow into one of its sockets. Grow! he ordered as he pushed his energy inside, forcing it to grow branches. The skeleton’s skull cracked open under the pressure.
Without wasting a moment, Morgan turned around, the blade still buried in his chest. He stumbled forward as he saw Clara try to attack the skeleton lord with her staff. The undead caught it with one arm and then backhanded her, sending her flying across the room and hitting the wall. Then Morgan was there, an arrow in his hand, stabbing toward the skeleton lord’s eye socket.
The undead turned and blocked Morgan’s attack, sending the arrow flying from his grasp. Morgan tried to punch him, but the skeleton lord just slapped his hand away. Stupid Morgan—and now you are going to die! he said to himself as the skeleton lord stepped forward and grabbed him by the throat with both hands.
The wound in his chest hurt, and the undead’s bone fingers around his throat squeezed. Morgan’s hands just couldn’t get any real grasp on the undead’s fingers, no leverage to pull them away. And he was not strong enough. Fuck me, I should’ve put more points into strength!
The skeleton squeezed, and soon his vision tunneled. For a moment the only thing he could see was Clara’s ball of light, and then there was only darkness. Suddenly, the pain went away and Morgan blinked as his sight returned. He saw the gray mist all around him, similar to his soul space—only there was no Sabila here. His first thought was that he was dead, but this didn’t feel like death. He was not back in the tunnel, and there was no bright light, only the gray mist.
He turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin when he noticed a person standing behind him. Oxylus stood there looking at him with an intense look in his eyes. His clothes were different than the last time he had seen him. He still wore something resembling an overcoat—only this one was far more ornate, with glowing lines and strange patterns inscribed with what looked like glowing strands of light.
“So, I’m dead?” Morgan asked. Stupid idiot, you got yourself killed.
“Are you dead?” Oxylus asked, raising an eyebrow.
Morgan frowned. He opened his mouth to snap back with a witty remark, but he didn’t. The situation he was in now was far too serious, and there was a coldness around Morgan’s heart. I don’t want to be dead, Morgan thought desperately to himself. He wasn’t sure why the thought came, but it did.
“This doesn’t feel like the last time I died,” Morgan said slowly.
“What does it feel like?” Oxylus asked.
“Like the times I went into my soul space, when I lost consciousness.”
Oxylus didn’t respond. Instead, he seemed content to stand there and watch as Morgan processed everything.
“I’m…I’m unconscious,” Morgan whispered. That meant that the skeleton lord was still choking the life out him. “Can I survive this?”
Oxylus shrugged. “That depends on you.”
“Can’t you help me?” Morgan asked pleadingly.
“Why?” Oxylus asked with a tilt of his head.
“Why?” Morgan yelled. “You brought me here! I am here because of you!”
“Are you now? I did not make you choose to come to my world. I only offered you a second chance. You were the one who died the first time.”
Morgan wanted to speak out, to deny what Oxylus had said—but it was the truth. “How can I survive, then? I am being choked to death, and I am unconscious. How do I wake up and then get out of that all alive?”
Oxylus studied Morgan for a long minute. “Why do you want to live? What is your purpose in life?”
“Uh, to survive? To live a long life?”
“Are those questions?” Oxylus asked with a frown. “This cannot be a thought that has just appeared in your head. You cannot laugh it away and tell some stupid joke. Your purpose is something else, something deeper. It is the truth about who and what you are.”
“I don’t understand,” Morgan said slowly.
“What is your goal, the drive that consumes you wholly, that spark that pushes you forward always?”
“I…” Morgan stumbled as he thought about his life. There had never been anything like a purpose in his life, not here on this world and not on Earth. That’s because I am a fraud; I am only a mask. How can a mask have a purpose? “I don’t know,” Morgan admitted at last.
“That is fine, but if you want to live, you need to discover that. Or at least glimpse it—and you are running out of time.�
� Oxylus gestured to the side. Morgan turned his eyes and saw the gray mist slowly contracting as an overwhelming darkness slowly crept in. Somehow he knew that if that darkness touched him, it would all be over.
“But how can I do that? I…I am empty,” Morgan said. “On Earth, I lived because I was too weak to do anything else. I ran to the worlds inside my head and in the games I played, and never cared enough to try and live outside in the real world. I do not know if I could live in that manner here.”
Oxylus shook his head. “Do not believe what you have been taught all of your life on Earth. In most realities, that world is filled with the small minded who do not dare grasp for the sky. Life is not about what they tell you it is. A life fulfilled is about choice. To live your own truth, to make your choice and stand by it, never wavering from your chosen path. To live for the things that make you happy, that make you laugh and make you feel that rush inside your chest that tells you: Hey, you are alive. To dream and know that you will reach your goal. If you have never felt anything like that before, then finding a purpose is easy. It should always be to find that feeling, and once you do, then you will know it.”
Morgan thought about it—he had felt like that before, in the moments after he had ascended, after he had gained power. But is it that simple? he wondered.
“I like ascending, becoming stronger,” Morgan said slowly, timidly.
There was a flash of something in Oxylus’s eyes, and for a moment Morgan thought that it might be pride, but it was gone too quickly for him to be sure. “Getting stronger is a good goal, a good purpose.”
“But how can knowing that help me now?” Morgan asked.
