Rich woke up. Or more succinctly he returned to consciousness. Everything was a blur and his left eye was covered with blood. Probably his own. He tried to sit up but couldn't quite make his body move. He turned his head to the side and saw a Wolf like blur half heartedly swinging his sword at what looked like a skeleton in robes. Rich started shaking a bit and passed out.
Wolf was not amused. He had intended to carry the new adventurers through a lvl 1 or at most lvl 2 dungeon to show them how horrific they can be. He was not intending to actually let them get hurt or try the final boss on their own. He tried to tell them that liches are a significant step up in challenge than the basilisk they fought in the first room. The damn goblin wouldn't hear of it. The goblin knew the trick to basilisk and knew about phylactery though. He thought he knew everything. He claimed he should at least get a try with Rich. Now he's missing both legs above the knee and if Wolf wasn't here he would certainly be dead. He might be dead anyway considering how the cleric was passed out laying limp against the wall the Lich kicked his dumb ass against. Wolf decided he didn't care. He was only slightly concerned about defeating the lvl 3 lich. Considering he was lvl 12 he really wasn't worried. He walked up to the monologuing lich that was trying to cast control person on Wolf. It didn't work. The difference in power was just too much. Wolf grabbed the bloody scythe out of the grandiose skeleton's hand and slammed it down with both hands on the lich. Wolf completely shattered the lich's skull. It was a powder. The body also fragmented and flew appart. it of course was still capable of moving. The lich's hand was still on the scythe griping it. Wolf knocked it off with his foot and powdered it with his boot. He then stomped all over the lich's corpse and found every bone that flew away. He kicked everything into a nice neat pile and proceeded to stomp on the bones of the lich. Yes the lich would rebuild but it does take quite a bit of time to regenerate a tangible body from a pile of dirt and powder.
Wolf casually walked over too the screaming goblin and pulled out some thin strong rope and pads of gauze from his inventory. The goblin had lost a lot of blood but they were very hearty creatures and their green blood flowed a lot slower than humans. He got to work. One gauze went straight into the mouth of the goblin because Wolf was tired of hearing him scream. Two more wrapped around the stumps on the goblins legs. He then set to work trying a tourniquet around the stumps of the goblins legs. The trick to tying a good tourniquet is to not need to tie a tourniquet. There was a fucking cleric. He shouldn't have to be doing this. If they had just listened the goblin would still have legs. They didn't thought. Wolf was in a fairly awkward position as well. With his strength attribute as high as it was he could end up crushing the goblins legs if he wasn't careful. So Wolf went slow. first he tied a lose loop around the goblins legs and then inserted a stick into the loop. He then kept twisting the stick in the loop gently until the skin was completely compressed against the bone and no green blood came out the leg. He used a bit of rope to tie the stick against the leg of the goblins leg so the first tourniquet to the goblin wouldn't come loose. There's no point in a tourniquet if it comes loose. Wolf started on the the next leg but tried to be a little faster and unfortunately heard a loud crunch. He had clearly twisted too hard and completely shattered the bone, he was too strong and the weak low leveled adventurers had weak bodies in comparison. That was someone else problem but at least the goblin would live. Finishing up his triage wolf took the time to make sure both Tourniquets were tied off and to check on the cleric.
The once lich now pile of dust was just sitting there. He could see some outlying fragments of bone and dust start to slowly move toward the main pile. The lich would take days to recompile. He was no concern any more. By the time he was any sort of threat Wolf would continue smashing everything in the room until the lich's phylactery was destroyed. It was probably the alter. It was almost always the alter or in the coffin of the lich. Lich are not that smart. He could see the Clerics chest rising and falling so Wolf was not too worried about the stupid new adventurer. Wolf took the time to properly deal with the Lich. To Wolf this meant walking over to the pile of dust, undoing his pants, and urinating all over the pile of bone fragments and dust. He thought for a second and spelled BITCH like he was peeing in the snow.
With the proper amount of respect for the dark arts shown he settled his manhood back in his pants and walked over to the cleric. With the hand he just used to honor the undead he lightly tapped on Rich's face. Rich eventually came too but his HP was bottomed out. Rich quickly channeled a healing spell on himself and the pain caused him to black out before the spell really kicked in. Sighing wolf tried to wake the stupid Cleric up again. Rich woke up after about 20 seconds of light taps and was in panic. Wolf tried to calm him down but Rich got up and ran over to Sue. Rich was crying and cast his last healing spell for the day on the goblin. The goblin was stabilized and fresh green skin grew over the stumps but his legs were still gone. An issue they could fix later but still traumatic now. Rich removed the tourniquets and felt really lucky that they didn't cause issues during healing and thanked whatever god dealt with healing that Sue was passed out. He saw multiple ribs move under the goblins body and the compound fracture on the goblins left arm very slowly retreated back into his arm and fixed itself. Rich was getting use to magic and how horrific it really was to have to watch the body quickly fix itself. Rich's brain just shut off at that point and he leaned against the wall and started crying. He wished he had listened to Wolf. Wolf was an expert adventurer and at one point in time was in the King's service. Why did Rich and Sue think they knew more than a man who lived in this world for over 30 years longer than either of them.
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Wolf watched all this and signed. He was probably going to have to talk to the Cleric again. He really questioned Rich's ability to survive in this world when he was just so delicate. Everything that happened, while not idea, will be fixed. Everyone will go home today. They may not be whole but they will be made whole. Wolf got up and walked over to the alter. He searched around for a minute and tapped on the side gently. It sounded solid so he moved on to the coffin sunk into the side of the dungeon wall. Wolf just pulled out the coffin completely from the wall and sure enough in a little hole under where the coffin would be was a deep blood red ruby that contained the lich's consciousness and secret to "eternal" life. He picked up the gem and Wolf immediately heard a voice in his head begging for mercy. Wolf had none. He sat down across the room from the crying Cleric and spoke softly to the gem. "Look I don't care what you're going to offer. I am only waiting to crush this gem because I'm waiting for another pee. You're a monster. You cut off the goblins legs. You hurt the Cleric. I just don't care". The lich had no recourse other than screaming manically at Wolf so Wolf just put the phylactery down and pulled out another water skin. He was going to give the cleric time and the goblin certainly isn't going anywhere.
Wolf contemplated the day and replayed the basilisk fight. The goblin, who wolf forgot the name of, did a good job.
> Sue was walking slowly through a dark corridor at the front of the small party. The party was just the 3 adventurers. Sue was mostly trying to look for traps and "jump scare" monsters and wanted to take point for the experience. Since he had night vision he was not too worried about the dark interior. he rounded a corner and held up his hand in the universal "stop" sign that all action movie stars and military men used. The three did work out some silent communication before hand so the other two stopped. Sue saw this ugly rock colored 4 legged massive monster in the middle of the next next chamber. It had a large over sized head and giant massive nostril. It had large eyes and rocky protrusions on it's bad. Sue thought he knew what it was so he didn't cast identify incase it woke up the monster. He slowly moved back to the group. He correctly identified the creature as a type of basilisk and had a plan to take down the monster without Wolfs help. Sue was an experience hog and knew such a high leveled adventurer stepping in would drastically affect the reward. Sue's plan was for him and Rich to both take mirrors and sneak up on the sleeping aberration holding their mirrors out. Sue would then startle the beast and hopefully trigger the monsters Gaze attack and turn it fully to stone. From there Rich and Sue could easily just smash the stone apart. The plan actually worked about as intended. Having two mirrors pointed at both eyes completely fucked the basilisk over and the monster didn't even fully get stood up before turning completely too stone. They then both grabbed one of Rich's hammers and counted down. They prepared to smash the basilisk at the same time. Sue even remembered to remind Rich to go on "GO!" instead of 1, which is a very important thing to remind people of BEFORE the mistake re-awakens a giant massive deadly monster. When the two massive hammers smacked both sides of the monsters neck at same time the combined effort caused a deep crack in the rock. The crack started at the top of the neck just behind the monsters head and traveled down. It didn't sever the monsters head completely but the crack did fissure through the neck going down about 4/5ths neck. When the stone turned back to flesh the basilisk let out a dying "Hurll" and a torrent of blood started pumping out the near severed neck. The basilisk immediately fell in a puddle of it's own blood and life had left it's eyes before the eyes even turned back to flesh. This also had the added benefit of keeping the basilisks eyes completely intact.
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> Wolf then told the two the value of basilisk eyes as an alchemical component and got to watch the two new adventurers get bloody up to their arms trying to extract a whole basilisk eye without popping it. They managed to get the first out successfully and Wolf added it to his inventory but the second popped and gore and puss completely covered the Goblin from head to toe in vitreous fluid. The goblin had his mouth open when the audible pop happened. Apparently it tasted good to a goblin and the Goblin started licking it off his hands. It made Rich heave and Wolf laugh.
While wolf was musing he got up and garbed the entire chest in the corner of the room and put the loot in his inventory. He would open it and split it up with the others tomorrow after the goblin got his legs back and everyone was in a better mood. He didn't even look inside or check for a mimic. He just picked it up and whole hog took it in side his internal space. Wolf knew that there was no chance for a mimic in a low level and new dungeon. He did not pass this info on to the new adventurers so they could build habits of checking for traps and monsters where ever they went. He was honestly glad the goblin got disfigured so gruesomely so the two would see consequences of their actions in a "safe" way. Then Wolf realized he almost forgot to take the lich's scythe and it was time to take another leak. He added the scythe to his inventory and then walked back over to the phylactery. He placed the blood red ruby in the middle of the pile of bone shards, did his business directly on the ruby, and then slowly crushed the gem under the heel of his boot. He reveled in the wails and pleas of the lich and even pretended to be interested at the last moment with the temptation of everlasting life. Right up until the lich began to cheer up and Wolf crushed his eternal life under his boot. So there the lich died, crushed to dust and covered and piss.
Eventually Rich stopped crying and used his larger shield as a sled for the second time. Wolf had to drag the shield but the two slowly headed out with their fallen, but alive, comrade in toe. The goblin was stable but still unconscious which was for the best. They had no issues walking back to the Wolves Den but the mood was somber.