In all of my excitement at the opportunity to take advantage of a second fountain, I did not stop to think to myself about why there would be a second one so soon. There hadn’t been a single fight in the last few rooms, while the first one had been after several encounters. Had I slowed down to consider that for even a second, I might have realized that this was a setup. Instead, I was about to receive a well-deserved lesson in awareness.
It kicked off when I was a few feet away from the fountain. My foot was in mid-step, just starting to touch the stone floor, when it was ripped out from under me. For the briefest of moments I thought that I had slipped on something, but I didn’t fall forward or land on my back. I was lifted straight up into the air. Something had latched onto my ankle and was hauling me upward. I twisted myself around in the air to try and see what had gotten me.
Then I saw the thing that had been hiding in the ceiling.
It was covered in thick stone plating that until a moment ago I had believed was the roof, but now could see it was a combination of predatorial disguise and body armor. Four long and black tendrils extended from around a gaping maw of teeth that looked razor sharp. I couldn’t see any eyes, so it was pure guesswork on my part as to how it detected its prey (me). In a few ways, I’d compare it to the product of an angler fish being crossed with a trapdoor spider. Then that unholy abomination got drunk and booked a room in a shady hotel for a steamy hookup with a brick wall.
Nine months later, this thing popped out.
Ability: Minor Speed activated
I managed to suppress my panic and took aim at its mouth, firing two bursts. This only seemed to piss it off, as lead wasn’t part of its normal diet, making it shake me around violently with the tendril like my nephew having a tantrum. Its stone plates moved to protect its main body. It refused to let me go, so I tried to shoot the limb that had hold of me. Right as I lined up my aim, a second tendril cracked like a whip into the side of my head.
Aura: 10%
I wholeheartedly believe that had I been a normal person, that wasn’t wearing a helmet, my head would’ve likely been removed violently from my body and sent across the room like a game of Mesoamerican soccer.
I aimed as close to my ankle as I could, and shot the appendage that held me. It flung me across the room and I felt the room shake as the creature squealed, the tendril lashed around splashing black blood along the walls and floor. I slammed into the wall, and thankfully my backpack took the brunt of the impact.
Aura: 0%
I slid down to the ground, and then the other three limbs came for me. One of them came in from the left, and I drew my knife and stabbed it. My blade lodged itself through, and then caught in the seams of the wall, pinning the limb in place. The creature gave it a pull, and it came free at the cost of a two foot long split right down the middle.
Trying to shoot the other tendrils in the air was a losing battle, and only served to waste the rest of my magazine. I let the empty mag drop and held the rifle up with my left hand so I could retrieve one of the armor piercing twenty rounders from my right glove.
I loaded the mag, took aim at the creature’s main body hidden behind its armor, and opened fire. My first ten rounds of fire left the stone cracked and crumbling, then the next ten dug their way through. Chunks of the stone broke free, and I could see the creature’s flesh peeking through. It tried curling its tendrils around the gaps, to shield itself, but this ammo was supposed to smoke through AR500 steel at a hundred yards.
Larger pieces of its armor shattered off, its limbs were left riddled and mangled. The second mag of that expensive ammo was slapped in, and dumped into whatever squishy bits I could see.
Two hundred dollars well spent in my humble opinion.
It was still squirming when that second mag ran dry. For good measure, I loaded a standard mag and unloaded it into the body, then another. I was going to do a third when its body began disappearing. I sat there and watched until it was fully gone, and its XP gem dropped down into the fountain along with its loot.
Ability: Minor Speed deactivated
Stamina: 45/100
Before I got up, I reloaded one empty mag with the last of my spare ammo, shoved the empties into the back pack, and pulled all four mags from my backpack. Two of the full mags went into my vest, the other two into my right glove. Overall, I still had nine full magazines left, and was feeling a lot lighter.
I took some time to check all the things in my backpack to make sure that nothing had been broken by my collision with the wall. It seemed everything had been fine besides two glowsticks which had been cracked. I tossed them into the corner. After recovering for a few more minutes, I stood up, pulled my knife out of the wall, and approached the fountain. As I got closer, the streaming water began to shimmer, and by the time I could reach out to touch it the water disappeared entirely. The stone of the fountain was suddenly cracked and weathered. The facade had been finally lifted.
That fucker in the ceiling really was a goddamn angler fish. Instead of a lure on its head, it used the rest spot instead.
I picked up the large XP gem and used it.
Gained 15 Soul Energy, 86/60
At the very least, the bastard was worth a fair chunk of SE. As for the loot, it looked like a chunk of rock. At first I thought it was a piece of the ceiling that had fallen down during the battle, but when I touched it I was corrected.
Key to the Lord’s Chamber
This was supposed to be a key? How? Is there a window to break through or something? It seemed the answer to my question was patience, as just after I touched the Key the wall opposite of the entrance began to shift, the stone creeping upwards to reveal a gargantuan door.
And it really was a door this time. Every other door frame had been just that, nothing physically separating the rooms. This was a real deal actual solid door. The thing was tall and wide enough that two pairs of ogres riding piggyback could’ve comfortably traversed it hand in hand.
All of my gaming experience was screaming at me that this was the boss’s chamber.
I pressed my shoulder into the door and gave it a testing shove, but it didn’t budge an inch. Even trying to pry it with my crowbar didn’t yield any results. I stood there scratching my head until my eye caught a small nook in the side of the frame, the shape of which looked quite familiar to me. I looked at the Key, then the hole, and it clicked together in my head. I rotated the stone until it lined up, and pressed it into the hole.
The piece fused with the surrounding material, and began to glow as the doors rumbled. The two halves of it slowly slung inward, revealing the single largest room that I had seen up to this point. If I were to tell you now that it was at least a hundred feet wide and two hundred feet across, then I’d still think that I was understating the enormity of the room.
Two rows of stone pillars lined the whole length of the place, standing fifty feet apart, with massive pieces of abyssalite mounted on the tops of them which lit up the room. The floor was not stone, but sand, which shifted under my feet as I entered.
On both sides of the room there rose giant stone audience stands, where dozens upon dozens of goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs sat and watched me. I would’ve backed out at the sight, knowing in an instant that I didn’t have enough ammo, but the doors slammed shut behind me before I could make my leave.
I turned back around, ready to put up a fight, and spotted the raised platform at the end of the room, where a figure sat in a mighty throne. A crown of rusted iron sat on his head, and in his hand was a massive scepter.
The creature was easily double the size of the ogre I had already faced, and his presence filled the room. This, I decided, must be the “Lord”. He raised that scepter in my direction and roared, uttering a command that I couldn’t understand, but I think I knew the message.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Kill him.”
Ten goblins leapt down from the stands and began to charge toward me, crossing the sandy arena with impressive speed. I dropped to one knee and took aim, steadying my rifle even as a spear and a knife flew past me. The goblins seemed to want to take me out from a distance, but the poor bastards had no idea what ranged combat really meant.
I took a deep breath, and time seemed to slow just a tad as I flipped the selector to semi-auto. I fired five times. Five goblins dropped dead in the sand, while the remaining half broke formation and scattered behind the columns to take shelter. I rose back to my feet and began moving, flanking around the right side of pillars to find a cowering goblin which I shot twice in the side, then ran into and bowled over another that stepped into view a moment too late for me to slow down. We rolled together in the sand. My knife left its sheath and found a new home in his ribs, where it caught and stuck. I pushed him away as he clutched at it, then plugged his chest with a bullet.
Four goblins still remained in the arena, and they had begun to regroup as they closed in on me. I stood up and brushed off the sand, then moved out to confront them.
Soon enough, all of them were dead or dying, and retrieved my knife again before I walked back to the center to try and collect my XP. I watched as the gems floated into the air and flew toward him and were absorbed.
“You son of a bitch!”
He grinned at me, then roared again. This time ten hobgoblins jumped down into the sand, moving toward me in a well organized phalanx formation.
One of them used their Obscurement gem, and a massive area of darkness enveloped us. Just like with the first pair, they would’ve been at a massive advantage, if not for my NVG’s. I calmly shot each of them, and they didn’t seem to know what they should do. I don’t think it occurred to them that someone could still see them. And I’m not quite sure that they could actually see me. I reloaded my nearly spent magazine and waited for the cloud of darkness to vanish.
I could only watch as again my XP flew right at him and he absorbed them, a guttural laugh shaking the room as he did. He banged his scepter on the floor twice, and roared, and five orcs dropped down to challenge me.
The five of them split off in separate directions, and I started running toward the edge of the room so that they’d only have the one side to attack me from. Having my back to the wall wasn’t ideal, but being chopped in the spine was less-so. One of them leapt from halfway up a pillar it had climbed to tackle me from the air, and I juked left. He hit the ground and rolled, but never made it back off the ground, four rounds in his back made sure of that. Two of them came at me next, coming from both sides.
I waited until the last possible moment, then bent backwards as they swung in tandem. Their axes collided just above my face, and I fell the rest of the way to my back. The recoil of the collision seemed to have jarred them, enough that I could put two rounds in the bottom of one’s chin and one in the other’s throat. I could already see his veins start to bulge as his Berserker Rage started, but I wasn’t an anime protagonist that sat and waited while their enemy powered up. I put three more in his brain bucket and then stood up.
The final two watched me from a distance, weighing their options, peeking from behind the pillars. It seemed they had finally worked out, by watching the others, that they needed to take cover. I sprinted toward them, then took a wide left turn to flank the one to that side. I sent four bursts his way, of which five rounds found their mark in his thigh, abdomen, shoulder, and neck. He collapsed and the last one gave a defiant roar. Forgetting the need for cover as his Rage started, he kicked up sand as he charged toward me, ignoring the half a dozen holes that were poked into him as he went.
The last round of my mag caught him in the forehead, and his head snapped back, and he crumpled.
My XP yet again flew right to the Lord, and my patience had worn out.
Goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, there was only one other thing I could think of that he’d sent at me next, and no way in hell was I going to give him that chance. I took aim at that smug fuck and opened fire, dumping my mag into his chest. He quite calmly stood up even while his torso was peppered with holes that trickled blood. He cracked his neck, stretched his shoulders, and then came at me with a speed that I did not believe was even possible for a beast of his sheer size.
Ability: Minor Speed activated
If I had taken him head on, it’d be much the same as a deer squaring up to a freight train, I dived to the side to avoid certain pulverization. Even as I was rolling across the sand I still fired the remainder of the mag into him, and pushed myself up and began to sprint away while I reloaded. The sand caught my feet and slowed me down.
The Lord it seemed did not have the same problem, as he caught up with me in an instant. I heard him right behind me, and a whistle of the air as his scepter swung. The only thing that stopped that slab of metal from obliterating me was the stone pillar that I managed to put between us. The column cracked, and I hauled ass away, resuming fire but aiming for his face, taking potshots when I could. I had believed in the power of the 7.62x39, it had reigned supreme so far, wiping out every other enemy I had shot with it. At that moment I cursed myself for two choices. One, I had wasted all of my armor piercing ammo on the angler fish. Two, I hadn’t brought a .308.
His skull was made of something that prevented his melon from being Gallagher’d, and the knocks to the dome just seemed to irritate him. I needed a new plan, and an idea popped into my head after he hit a pillar again. The massive stone column crashed to the floor and made the room shake.
Stamina: 30/100
I had very little time left to enact my new plan. I pulled the paracord from my pack and put it in a pouch for easier access, and took off running again. I led him to the first pillar he had struck, presenting myself for him to take a swing. He obliged, and I dodged back. The pillar’s base cracked like it was made of styrofoam, and I moved again, running away from the column.
I began dumping my mag into his right knee, focusing fire on it. He didn’t seem to mind at first, but even a grown man will start to feel it if they let a kitten chew on them long enough.
I emptied two mags into his kneecap, and finally it happened. The muscles had been sufficiently torn apart, and the joint buckled under his weight. He kneeled, but still swung at me, his mace impacting the ground. I took aim at his eyes and fired, not quite hitting my target but he still instinctively let go of the grip to shield himself.
In the short moment that he couldn’t see me, I tied off an end of the paracord to the mace’s head. I took a few more bursts at his hand to discourage him from peeking, and tied the other end around my crowbar. Then I backed up again. When my fire stopped, he grabbed the mace with his bleeding hand and brought it up to swing again, just as I threw my crowbar with all the might I could muster.
A complete hail mary if I’ve ever seen one. One that paid off when the crowbar sailed right over the top of the pillar just as he began his downward swing. The paracord linking his weapon and my tool went taut, and the steel bar caught on the top of the column. The cord was rated for only five hundred pounds, it snapped almost instantly, but it held just long enough for the Lord’s swing to pull the pillar free of its base, and caused it to fall down toward him.
Timber!
Ability: Minor Speed deactivated
Stamina: 0/100
He could clearly hear it coming toward him, and he tried to get out of the way, but with his knee unable to support his own weight anymore he could just barely move. His attempt to throw himself to the side only saved him from a dead on impact. His lower body was completely crushed.
This wasn’t enough to kill him, so I backed up out of the range of his swing and reloaded my rifle, then began mag dumping his face. Even after thirty rounds, and his face being unrecognizable, he still tried to pull himself free.
Another thirty rounds, I could see his skull peeking through, and he still refused to die. I drew one of the mags from my left glove, and continued.
It took forty more rounds straight to the bone to crack through it, and five more directly into his brain for him to stop moving.
The whole time I had been executing him, the crowd had been silent, I think watching their lord become so powerless had shaken them.
I was about to put more lead in his head when I noticed his body dissipating, and then the room was flooded with three sources of blinding light.
First, the XP gem. The thing was the size of a damn soccer ball, and I picked it up in an instant.
Gained 105 Soul Energy, 191/60
My breath caught when I saw the number, then again when I saw the next items.
Three golden gems floated in the air before me, and three purple gems beyond that.
I recognized the Ability gems, so I checked the purple first.
Congratulations! You may choose one Class Endowment Gem!
(Warning! This choice is permanent!)
Hell of a way to drop it on someone, and only three choices? Wait a moment…
“May”
So it was optional. I could just ignore them, and try to find others if I didn’t like them. At least that was how I read it.
Class Endowment Gem (Uncommon): Beastmaster
The Beastmaster is capable of forming bonds with various creatures, imbuing themselves and their animal companions with greater power.
Alright, cool enough. I wouldn’t mind having a little buddy following me around. I wondered if I'd run into others that would constantly harass me in public for duels? Did I get a government issued rival?
Class Endowment Gem (Uncommon): Duelist
The Duelist thrives in one-on-one combat, able to lock other enemies out of the fight while they engage a single foe.
Hard pass, right off. It just wasn’t my style. I dismissed it entirely, with prejudice, and looked at the next one.
Class Endowment Gem (Rare): Artificer
The Artificer is capable of infusing ordinary objects with magical properties, turning mundane items into potent tools of power. Whether it's imbuing a sword with flame, a cloak with invisibility, or a ring with protection, they can empower themselves and others with enchanted gear.
No fucking way.