Sirus soon left the cave. Today he wanted to explore some of the side caverns that had popped up when he was exploring, after all there may be more loot like there was in those ruins from earlier on.
"Hopefully I get something useful." He had spotted an odd cavern branching off the main one, odd because it had a sort of green fog billowing out from its entrance, it gave off a sickly odor but Sirus figured he'd probably be alright because of the Infection Resistance skill.
Not soon after he arrived at his destination, the cavern entrance itself looked somewhat unnatural because of the green fog, somewhat resembling what Sirus would expect from a zombie apocalypse novel.
"Knowing my luck there are probably zombies in here too." He remarked sadly and headed through the entrance.
Immediately after going through, a few sort of bug-like creatures attacked him.
"Horizontal Slash!" The attack drew blood and burst out in flames, instantly killing them.
"Hmph, pretty weak for the monsters I've seen so far," He muttered "But at least they aren't zombies."
Coughing lightly, he caught a vile scent in his nose.
"The hell?" He exclaimed "That's disgusting!"
Again commenting on his absolutely vile luck, he set off to find the source of the smell, knowing that more likely than not there was something valuable at the end.
Soon enough dozens of those bug monsters came out of nowhere and started attacking him. whilst he was burning them to a crisp, he managed to identify one of them.
[Giant Plague Gnat
Level: 67]
"Huh..." He exclaimed while still slashing the bugs, "Plague monsters!? Are the gods actively scheming against me?"
Sighing, he decided to eradicate them before they could spread throughout the rest of the caverns.
Finally catching a break from the small-fries, Sirus laid his eyes on a stone tablet with writing on it and walked over to inspect it.
He scratched below his empty eye while thinking to himself 'Sadly, although the system does automatically translate spoken words, it doesn't translate written texts or books, I do wonder how Dylan managed to learn a water spell from a scroll that time.'
The tablet had some text written on it, but more importantly it had an arrow pointing to the side.
Sirus glanced in the direction the arrow was pointing towards and quickly spotted another human-sized crack in the wall. If he wasn't looking for it he probably wouldn't have noticed it.
Walking over, he went through the opening and found himself in a circular chamber with archaic designs all over the carved stone walls; they also looked to be letters, but differed from the ones Sirus was used to.
"Perhaps an ancient language?" He wondered, putting aside his thoughts, he walked over to the little mossy stone shrine in the middle of the room and saw a clothing stand with a long black cloak settled on top of it.
"An item..." He said with greedy eyes "Identify!"
[Name: Raiment of Plague
Description: A full cloak made from spun black-steel spider threads, and inscribed with multiple effective runes.
Runes:
Rune of Self Repair: Automatically repairs accumulated damage
Rune of Static Defence:
Rune of Spatial Storage: Store and retrieve items from a 15 square meter wide pocket dimension with a thought.]
"Nice!" Sirus exclaimed in delight. He immediately put on the cloak and felt a surge of life force run through his bones like a breeze. "Now I don't have to carry around this shabby backpack or wear this torn tunic" He activated the spatial storage ability and put both his pack and shirt into it.
Suddenly the room started rumbling and a monster broke through the rocky ground.
"Wrahhh!" It roared.
Sirus pulled his sword out of the sheath on his back and stood in front of it warily.
"Identify!"
[Plaguemonger
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Level: 127]
"Dammit!" Sirus said "I need to get out of here."
The crack he had entered through was immediately sealed shut by a boulder falling out from above it.
"Ahhhhh!" He screamed in frustration. The monster had now fully come out of the ground, resembling a human sized puckered green corpse with strange boils covering its entire body. It was extremely ugly, so much so that Sirus retched in disgust.
He started circling around it thinking, 'This ugly thing seems to be hostile and I'm barely a third of it's level... Although if I can manage to defeat it, I'm sure I could get something good...' Making up his mind, Sirus decided to attack.
"Wrath Manipulation!" He pulled the ball of red-purple flame out of his socket and in front of his outstretched hand, he then expanded it into a massive fireball "Form!" He shaped and condensed the ball into a cone and forced as much of his rage into it as he could, "Condense!" The cone condensed into a small spike about 2 feet long and a foot wide at the longest.
"BURST!" The spike that now looked like a solid cone of flames, erupted at the point and sprayed the Plaguemonger with a massive flamethrower of his Wrath Aura.
All of that happened in 5 seconds.
Soon the flames subsided and the Plaguemonger was revealed.
You could barely compare its previous green and puckered appearance to how it was now. Its flesh was ripped out in chunks, leaving the bones below blackened, similar to its previously green skin.
Although it looked to be dead, it still clung onto the last vestiges of its life, and it started to chant a spell.
"Sikus Avil-" Sirus started to rush towards it, but he was too late "Plagus Servicus!"
Nearly as soon as the chant ended he was next to it.
"Hyaaah!" He covered his blade in dense flames and performed a vertical slash, completely bisecting the Plaguemonger.
Even after it died, green fog started to billow into the room in full force, forming a sickly green lance, the lance then shot towards him at a speed faster than he could dodge, even with Adrenaline Rush.
The lance flew straight into him and disappeared. Sirus, who was expecting it to impale him, turned to where it shot from with a confused look on his face.
"That's it?" He asked, taken off guard, but suddenly he got a system notification.
[Alert: In its dying moment the {Plaguemonger} has inflicted upon you the spell {Fatal Sickness}
{Fatal Sickness:
An extremely strong sickness will consume and kill those inflicted with this spell, only strong healing magic can eventually rid someone of this.}]
"FUCK!" Sirus screamed. He quickly attempted to drink the Health Potion in his canteen.
[Healing factor is too weak. Not Effective]
"AHH!" He quickly started to sprint back to his alcove, whilst thinking, 'If I can get back to my camp and equip my watch and use its ability I might be able to survive!.'
Running as fast as he could, with Adrenaline Rush still active, he arrived back at his camp and quickly put on the watch and used its ability.
"Timekeeper's Last Resort!" A green tide of healing essence rushed through his body and healed his minor injuries and removed the Fatal Sickness effect on his status page.
"Yes! I'm ali-"
[Status Condition {Fatal Sickness} Reapplied]
"..."
"Fuck, Fuck, Fuck! I can't just die after all I've been through!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.
Suddenly a nauseating sensation assaulted him, he doubled over and vomited out blood, whilst his vision went black.
"Uurgh" He dropped and fell unconscious on the spot.
---
Riria was sick of it, after being drop-kicked into this hellhole of a dungeon all she had experienced so far was misery! She couldn't even fight those thrice-damned monsters! She had a combat class but it was no use against enemies dozens of levels higher than her, so all she could do was run. Although she had chanced upon some ruins and gotten a treasure, it was some useless healing artifact that held absolutely no use against monsters.
"How dare that idiot king throw me down here!" Riria seethed "I was innocent! What the hell is wrong with being a swordsmith!?"
Suddenly an obnoxiously loud voice sounded out, "-after all I've been through!"
...What? There was someone else down here?
She quickly looked in the direction of the voice, it looked to be coming from some small crevice on the walls of the cavern. She ran over and carefully entered the crevice.
Upon entering she immediately set her eyes upon an unconscious man on the floor, he had white hair and was that... No left eye? He didn't even have a fake eye or a covering, so she could directly see the flesh through his socket.
She took a step back, somewhat repulsed.
"What happened to him?" She questioned.
She chanted one of her support spells "Condition!"
[Name: Sirus
Level: ???
Status: Near-death. Afflicted with {Fatal Sickness}]
She let out a gasp, "Fatal Sickness? Isn't that a really strong affliction spell?"
Putting aside what monster among monsters afflicted this spell on him, she thought 'Since I can't see his level, he must be much stronger than me. If I save him with my healing artifact he might join forces with me...'
She quickly pulled the Healing Artifact out of her bag, it looked like a large 3-pronged leaf made of brass and she assumed it was extremely valuable.
"Oh well, I can't sell it if I'm dead."
She placed the artifact on top of the man and stepped back. Golden light flowed out of the leaf in rivulets, effusing him with healing essence.
"Heuk!" The man coughed out blood.
She checked his condition again.
[Name: Sirus
Level: ???
Status: Extremely Weak]
Riria sighed in satisfaction, the condition was gone, and he was no longer near-death. She then went up to him and placed her fingers on his neck and felt for his heartbeat, it looked to be beating at a moderate pace, so he should be fine.
Still close to him, she muttered, "Phew, looks like it worked."
She was about to take a step back but suddenly she felt an odd heat from near his head, she leaned in closer and tried to find the cause. Suddenly his left eye socket burst into red-purple flames while his right eye slowly reopened.
"Who... are you?" He rasped out.