Dungeons of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #1) - A LitRPG series

by G. D. Penman

Celaphox has died

  Skaife gains 4021 experience.

  [LEVEL UP]

  The tentacles that had been filled with murderous intent flopped uselessly to the cavern floor.

  It was over. They’d actually won. Blessed silence fell over the cavern.

  [ANNOUNCEMENT: Iron Riot have defeated Celaphox, Harbinger of Catastrophe, The Year of Sorrow]

  Twenty-Three

  The Burdens of Triumph

  Yo! Congratulations broseph! That thing killed me twice before I gave up.

  Nobody could have killed that thing. You liars.

  Ayyyy I’ve been waiting for somebody to murk that squid for months, nice one! What did you do?

  How the hell did you kill Celaphox? I thought that thing was meant to be unbeatable.

  You taking new recruits? I’m on Deep Twenty-Two, but I’ll come back to you. No questions asked.

  Total bull, nobody can kill squidface. You’re cheats. You’re scum.

  How did you do it? Didn’t Vengeance get you?

  Can I join your guild? I’m a level seven knight.

  Good job buddy. Next round is on me.

  The messages started almost immediately. First one or two, then dozens. Hundreds. A deafening chorus of voices. All of them begging. All of them demanding. A few of the more flattering ones were looking for membership in the guild, but the rest were aggressive.

  How had they done it? How had they killed the unkillable boss?

  Martin looked around at his guild, scattered around the corpse of the fallen boss. The monster was dead, but now they looked shell-shocked.

  Julia kept opening and shutting her mouth, trying to answer one direct message before the next arrived and never getting a moment. Martin slapped his hand to his guild crest and bellowed, “Don’t say a single word to any of them! Not to anyone. Not yet. Knowledge is our only advantage, and the game just slapped a big target right in the middle of our backs. We’re the ones to beat now.”

  Just like the orders he barked during battle, this got the same immediate response. Jericho nodded firmly, Julia smiled nervously, and then they both barked out, “Iron Riot!”

  It was something primal that bypassed all of the logic Martin usually prized. This was his tribe. This was their victory. He threw back his ratty little head and howled.

  “Iron Riot!”

  It wasn’t easy to ignore the clamor of voices. The deniers and the parasites ranted and raved as Martin and the others attended to the practicality that followed their great victory: a lot of healing spells.

  With that done, Martin left Jericho and Julia standing guard over their prize for a moment so he could go and inform their glorious leader of their victory.

  He should have remembered to turn out the lights when he logged back into the game. The headache was sharp and immediate the moment his eyes opened in the real world. His phone was buzzing away frantically by his side, and to his absolute horror, not all of the messages were from Lindsay.

  He had dozens of emails, mainly from auction sites and their representatives. According to the first message, typed all in caps, nobody had ever killed this boss before, which meant its loot was going to be completely unique. Even if it was useless, that uniqueness meant folks would pay a premium for it.

  There were frankly staggering sums of money listed at the bottom of each email, bids to buy everything as a job-lot, but Martin just flicked them away until he found the tab with the two hundred and rising messages from Lindsay.

  “Come on dude, did we win?”

  “Did we win?”

  “We all died didn’t we.”

  “You killed me for nothing, you rat-faced rat.”

  “Sorry that wasn’t very imaginative. I’m a little stressed.”

  “Because NOBODY IS TELLING ME WHAT IS HAPPENING.”

  “I am now guessing that we did win, and you are too busy making out with the tentacles to answer me.”

  “I hope you and sucker-pucker are very happy together.”

  “Will you answer me???”

  “Please tell me if we won or not. I’m so booooored.”

  “Not bored. Annoyed. Because you aren’t answering me.”

  “How can you still be fighting? After my super-duper drop-kick suplex meteor strike nuke-it-from-orbit-it’s-the-only-way-to-be-sure attack it is totally mush by now, right?”

  “Mush! MUUUUUSH!”

  “I regret to inform you that Lindsay is now dead. You killed her. With your failure to answer messages. I hope that you are proud of yourself. She was a beautiful genius with her whole life ahead of her, and now she is dead.”

  “I regret to inform you that Lindsay is not dead, but you soon will be if you don’t ANSWER ME.”

  “I am not afraid to come over to your house and slap you. I have your address.”

  “Slappy slap slap.”

  “That’s it, I’m calling a cab. I’m going to drive three states over, break into your apartment and slap the crap out of you while you’re still in Strata.”

  “Dude that is a creepy thought. What if someone broke in while you were playing to rob you and found you all zombied out with the headband on.”

  “They could draw soooooo many dicks on your face.”

  “Forget slaps. This is the new plan.”

  Martin managed to type a reply through his tears of laughter.

  “Put down your pens. We won.”

  There was a momentary lull in Lindsay’s ceaseless tirade, then one last message came through.

  “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssss.”

  He tried to stay focused.

  “People are going to try to contact you. This is a world-first kill. Don’t tell them anything yet, okay? Let’s get our story straight and decide how much we’re willing to give away.”

  “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSS.”

  He snorted.

  “I kind of feel like you might not be listening.”

  “We woooooooooooon.”

  He grinned.

  “Yeah we won. But don’t tell anybody how we won. And don’t sell any of the drops. We don’t even know what it has got yet.”

  “Go loot the squid, dude! Save me something shiny! I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “All right,” he typed back, already lying down on the bed. “Talk soon.”

  “YAAAAAASSSSSSS.”

  The last thought going through his mind before he plummeted back into Strata was: that had better not become her new thing.

  There were a lot more people around than Martin had expected when he logged back into the game.

  None of them dared to approach the remains of Celaphox, whether out of residual fear of the thing, or a healthy respect for the colossal Wulvan standing on top of it.

  Jericho turned his fierce grin towards Martin. “Call the exterminator. We have got a tourist infestation.”

  For once, Martin was glad to be an overlooked Murovan. He was able to scurry across to the body and loot it before anyone even noticed him.

  Celaphox, Harbinger of Catastrophe, The Year of Sorrow

  This horror was the firstborn of the Heart of Strata. Imbued with all the fecund evil of its creator, it turned the strength of the crusaders back against them, bringing all the power of the Heretic to bear.

  Loot: 438 Silver, Bloodletter’s Kris, Schisming Flagellant Ninetails, Defender of the Faith, Saintly Vestments.

  Requires Leatherworking to Harvest: Waterproof Hide, Grapple Suckers, Illuminating Eyes.

  Requires Herbalism to Harvest: Blue Ring Venom, Red Ring Venom, Essence of Darkness, Darkling Ichor.

  The Kris was a wavy dagger that was destined for Lindsay, whenever she got back down here. As for the Ninetails, it was a short, multi-headed whip with a crackling mote of red light clinging to each of its tips.

  That one was meant for martyrs, but Martin was going to have to get Jericho to read out the rest of the details to him so he could work out exactly how such a vicious looking thing fit with that class’ whole aesthet
ic.

  The Defender of the Faith was a gently glowing shield in the shape of an eagle with spread wings meant for knights only. That, they could sell.

  The Vestments were probably the most interesting out of the set, usable by either hierophants or invokers. They seemed to have entirely different effects depending on which of the two was wearing them.

  But most frustrating of all, there was nothing for him. Again.

  It would be petty to be annoyed about something like that after they’d had a big victory and leveled up to boot. But he was only human, and he wanted shiny new toys just like the rest of them kept getting. The most interesting item he’d found in the whole dungeon so far were a couple of rocks that he’d strapped to his wrists. Even now, days later, the Master was screwing him over.

  Martin sent each of the items to their new owners and kept that bitterness to himself.

  He tried to be amused by Jericho, who was looking at the whip in utter puzzlement, and be pleased when Julia made a delighted noise and equipped her new dazzling white robes an instant later. At least they wouldn’t lose her in a crowd.

  With a wave, Jericho called him over.

  “I don’t understand this new item. It makes no sense. Doubles damage of all self-inflicted wounds and doubles effects of Penance and Sufferance.”

  Martin cocked his head to one side. “I mean, it obviously makes you into a better damage sponge for the group?”

  “But why double damage to self?” Jericho leaned in closer. He’d always been a bit embarrassed about asking advice, and the crowd that had started to gather was not easing his self-doubt. “This makes no sense,” the wolf-man growled. “Why would anyone want this?”

  It was a puzzle to Martin too. As he tried to think it through, his eyes strayed to Celaphox. He stopped and stared at the monster. It was already starting to decay and melt.

  The tooltip had said that Celaphox had all the powers of the heretic. What if that was another class?

  “Do you know what your PvP class is called?”

  Martin was almost whispering too. He really didn’t want the second set of classes to become public knowledge if they hadn’t been properly explored yet, although it seemed unlikely that the first thing people had done in the game wasn’t trying to murder all their friends. “You know, the one that you switch to when your Sin gets too high?”

  “This is first I am hearing.” Jericho’s brows furrowed.

  “When you kill other players, it adds to your Sin score. Once it gets high enough, all of your abilities switch. They invert. My spells that make light make darkness instead.”

  Jericho started to race ahead himself. “You think that instead of absorbing damage for others, I deal damage when I’m hurt?”

  Martin nodded. “Vengeance. The same mechanic that seafood here was using against us.”

  Jericho grinned. “Shame I will never get to use that part. Never been a fan of killing other players. Like you, I play for the game, no?”

  Martin smiled at him, then headed over to where Julia was surrounded by a cluster of admirers, all cooing and offering her cash for her new robes.

  “Sorry, they’re not for sale,” she crooned, reveling in the attention.

  This close to the robes, Martin could make out a pearlescent sheen on the fabric, embroidery made from thread so close to white he hadn’t even noticed it before. He sidled up to her.

  “What do you want to do?” he whispered. “Start fresh when all of this attention has simmered down a bit?”

  A Wulvan in the crowd shouted after him.

  “Hey rat-boy, how did they kill Celaphox? Did anyone see them do it?”

  Julia gave Martin a discreet nod then did her best to ignore the noise going on around her. There were more players in this deep than Martin would have suspected, but then, he supposed the game had been running for long enough now that most of the players had migrated deeper. It made sense that the higher levels had fewer people around.

  Traffic from up above had started to trickle down too, a half-dozen players from up above descending the steps on the waterfall without a care in the world.

  They weren’t going to be able to get anything done with all these people around — they made Martin too uncomfortable to concentrate, and it was probably long past any sensible person’s bedtime anyway.

  He touched his guild-crest and spoke softly.

  “I say we call it a night. Get some sleep, reconvene at midday tomorrow for a full day. That will give Lindsay time to catch up too. What do you think?”

  Jericho nodded to him across the room, then vanished in a beam of light just a moment later. Julia was trying to be polite and say goodbye to each member of her new court of admirers before leaving, so Martin held off to make sure she got logged out safely.

  The best plan seemed to be to emulate the other sightseers and hope that they continued to overlook him.

  It was while he was doing a wide-eyed circuit of the gigantic decaying corpse that he noticed something that was actually interesting. The central pool of the chamber was still exposed on one side, and what looked like a Wulvan invoker in filigreed robes was crouched down beside it.

  Martin sauntered closer. “What is it?”

  She didn’t even look up, just answered in a voice like a purring lion.

  “Just a skip. Not the real Deep Gate. You probably don’t know this, but when you beat the Archdukes, your respawn point shifts further down into the dungeon. There are more settlements deeper in, but a lot of the equipment and stuff for sale up in Beachhead is only available there, so there are these extra gates that we can use to move around faster. This will take you right down to ten. Carnifex’ cave. We found the skip to twenty and thirty, but never this one. Nuts that they hid it from us. Even the shortcuts they’ve put in are hidden. It’s crazy. It’s like they really don’t want anyone to win, yeah?”

  Martin smiled. “Yeah. Crazy how they want to challenge us.”

  She glanced up at him and then rolled her eyes. “Eh, what do you know. Noob.”

  Martin rolled his eyes right back at her, but then caught sight of the tell-tale flare of Julia logging out in the periphery of his vision. He gave the Wulvan woman a big fake smile then logged out himself.

  This time, he was ready for the lights. He kept his eyes shut and just lay still for a long moment as he settled back into his body.

  Sleep probably would have taken him then and there if it wasn’t for the persistent buzzing of his phone beside him. Vibrating closer to the edge of his bedside table, one inane message at a time.

  “Dude, being dead is super boring. Why do people do it? I’m going to have to be immortal. It is the only way to keep from getting bored. Right? You’re a smart guy. Make me immortal.”

  He fumbled for the phone with hands that were too big and clumsy for his purposes.

  “Hey. We’re going to stop for the night since it is 3 a.m. Reconvene by the pool at midday tomorrow. Don’t tell anyone how we beat Celaphox.”

  “Ugh. But I want to stab things now. You promised me stabbings.”

  She had probably been bouncing up and down waiting to get back into the game — he felt a little bit bad.

  “You’ll get a new knife to stab things with tomorrow. Very rare. Very magical. Probably. Looks cool, don’t know what it does. Knave only.”

  With the inevitability of the rising sun, she replied.

  “Yaaaaaaaassssss.”

  “I beg you, please stop saying that.”

  It was probably just going to encourage her, but he had to try, for his own sanity as well as the sanity of others.

  “Shan’t.”

  He didn’t know whether to sigh or to laugh.

  “Goodnight.”

  “See you in, like, a few hours, dude.”

  With the phone finally falling silent, Martin moved as quickly as he could through his bedtime rituals, setting an alarm for 10 a.m. so he could get some reading in before gaming then moving his trash towards the can, even
if he didn’t quite get everything in it.

  The lights went out and he finally started to feel at home again. He settled into the well-worn dip in the mattress and let the long overdue sleep take him over.

  Twenty-Four

  The Dark Descent

  First there was darkness. Then came the light.

  Not dazzling, not even all that bright, but still more than the void that surrounded Martin now. He was dead, he had to be.

  This was that dark place that you had to log out of, to wait out the timer before Strata brought you back. The shadowy backdrop on which all the structure and mechanics of Strata had been laid out.

  The light was a dull green to begin with, but as time went on, it pulsed brighter and brighter, until Martin could see the great green phosphorescent eye down beneath him staring right up into the hollow where his body should have been.

  He couldn’t be seen. There was nothing for it to see. But still that great green eye stared up at him, full of sinister passion, crushing him with the weight of its attention. He tried to call up a menu, to log out, to get back into the real world where it could not reach him, but nothing responded to his thoughts. He was truly dead, suspended in this nothingness with no hope of salvation.

  “Come to me.”

  It wasn’t a voice, because that would have implied sound. It would have implied lips and air and vibrations, and none of those things could exist here.

  All he had was the knowledge of what that great green eye told him. Words sprang fully formed into his mind, unbreakable and unshakeable knowledge lodged inside his skull, wherever he had left it.

  “Come to me, Skaife. Come down into the deep, into the dark. You belong to me. You are mine. Born of my will. Born of my power. You belong at my side.”

  Martin had no voice of his own, but he wanted desperately to reply, to deny the words that were seared across every inch of his consciousness, driving all rational thought away with the sheer dark majesty of the one who put them there. He did not belong in the dark. He did not belong to Strata. He was there to conquer it. Not to be swallowed up.