Wait.

What the fuck was I doing?

Wasn’t I fighting for my life just a few hours ago? Why was I going back in so soo—

The thick stone doors slammed shut behind me before I had a chance to turn around. I ran back down the stairs and shoved my crowbar into the seam and pried on it with all my might. It didn’t move an inch. I was trapped.

Just what the fuck had just happened? Everything had felt so natural, I had wanted to be here. Every bit of me was itching to get up those stairs. Then it was like a switch got flipped.

Whatever it was, I was stuck now. I had no choice but to move forward and hope this door would open again. I made sure my rifle was loaded, my handgun ready, and resumed my climb up the long staircase.

With each step that I took the air slowly grew warmer, to the point that I had to stop and take off my jacket. Even then I began to sweat, but refused to remove my shirt or plate carrier. By the time the stairs ended it was at least eighty degrees (Fahrenheit), and I needed a drink of water. The temperature wasn’t unbearable, but cardio plus hot air just isn’t fun.

I found myself in a medium sized room and looked a lot like the entrance downstairs. The ceiling however was much lower, so much so that I could almost reach up and brush it with my fingers without standing on my tiptoes. The stone that made up the structure was also much lighter in color. There was a single door to the direct north (assuming the staircase was south), which I approached slowly.

I checked to both sides before I stepped inside and entered what looked like another empty room. To the left there was another door, through which I could see a row of small columns. Two rows actually, three apiece. The room itself was small, and I couldn’t see anything moving around so I walked in. There were two doors, one south and one north. As I was mentally flipping a coin to decide which way I’d go, I heard a faint skittering.

My rifle came to my shoulder in an instant. I listened, and heard nothing. I couldn’t see a damn thing, even when I looked around the columns. Then I heard the noise again, this time behind me. I spun around ready to fire. Nothing but the wall.

“What the fuck?”

I finally had an idea. I backed up into a corner and brought the thermal up to my eye and peeked through. With the settings, the room was mostly gray, showing about 80°. The skittering sounded nearby, and then I heard a noise that I hadn’t heard since I was young.

The horrible noise of a cicada. Cranked up to eleven. With the way it echoed in the small stone room, it was impossible to nail down where it was coming from. My optic wasn’t picking up anything.

I brought it to my eye again, just in time to see a slightly brighter patch of gray jump at me. There was no time to fire at it, as it latched onto my chest. I looked down and saw the fabric of my plate carrier being cut, and felt something repeatedly stab into the plate over and over. There wasn’t enough room to maneuver my rifle, the invisible creature was too close. I drew my handgun and the Blade shot into its side, or at least where I thought it was. Black blood began to pour from an invisible source where the knife hit something solid. I watched the Blade disappear up to its hilt, and used that to judge where the thing was.

I pressed my 10mm into the thing and fired twice. The weight dropped from my chest to the floor, black blood pooling around it. A second later, it began to fizzle into view.

The thing was a massive insect, damn near the size of my cat. It had a shiny black carapace, and a stinger that shriveled up as it died. Six legs, eyes like a spider, and the body of a cicada.

“What in the unholy fuck is that!”

I was about to shoot it two more times but the body began to dissolve. It left behind an XP gem and a small piece of what looked like a piece of its carapace. I swept the rest of the room with the thermal, looking for any spot that was only slightly hotter, but found nothing. I warily crouched down to take the XP and carapace.

Gained 3 Soul Energy, 140/150

That one little fucker was worth three? Hot damn!

Voidcrawler Carapace (Tier 2)

I pocketed the small piece to experiment on later, and decided that I’d be heading north. I kept my thermal to my eye, constantly scanning. The next room was barely worth mentioning as it lacked either enemy or decoration. After that though, I entered a room that was about twenty five feet wide and forty feet long. Twelve columns lined the walls, six to each side, and two doors led east and west.

I heard skittering again and backed up to the door. I looked around, and finally spotted a hot patch, reading 90°. The room was so warm, and their body temperature so low, that it was impossible to see them unless I paid close attention. I counted four of them. I took aim and fired at one while my Blade nailed the second to the ceiling. Both of them died while the other two scurried along walls behind the columns and I lost sight of them.

I pressed myself against the wall so they couldn’t get behind me and moved left. I watched it leap at me from the ceiling but the Blade caught it midair and pinned it to the wall. The scurrying to my right alerted me that the last one was coming, and I turned and fired four rounds. I think one or two hit, I didn't have time to properly aim. Regardless, it came into view and died shortly after.

Gained 12 Soul Energy, 152/150

Level threshold has been met. Would you like to level up?

No, I decided that I’d be holding off for now. There was no telling if I’d need that SE to make another item on the fly. These bastards were tricky, but the massive jump in SE from them was making it somewhat worth it. Without my thermal though, I think I’d have been rightly fucked. The noises that they made seemed to echo around the rooms in a way that made it damn near impossible to pinpoint exactly where they were until they were right on top of you. They moved fast too.

I decided that in the near future, if I made it out and had the funds, I’d be getting a thermal monocular to join my NVG. I’d seen guys run the bridged mono before, and it was expensive, but I think it’d be worth it. For now I had to settle for keeping my rifle shouldered and my sight glued to my right eye. Thank god that I had bumped up strength a bit a while ago. My rifle was anything but light between the optic, grip, IR device, and the new heavier barrel.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I decided that I’d be exploring the east door first, and found myself in an even bigger room. It was easily thirty by forty, with that same unusually short ceiling. In the southeast corner sat a singular lonesome treasure chest which I briskly walked toward. About ten feet from it I heard a noise like rustling stones, and then I found myself being launched head first into the ceiling.

Aura: 70%

I hit the roof hard enough that I think even with the Aura, I might still have gotten a concussion if it wasn’t for my helmet. I landed square on my ass a few feet from where I had started, and looked at the floor panel that had just shot up from under me. It was slowly rising out of the floor, and what came out under it was the stuff of nightmares.

If you were to cross a hermit crab and a trapdoor spider, I think this would be the result of that unholy union. It wore the floor panel on its head like a helmet, and its two pincers looked like thick blades for cutting sheet metal at a factory. It pulled itself out of the hole in the floor with six legs, and clacked its guillotine-like claws at me.

“Oh fuck!”

I pushed myself along the floor backward to put some distance between us as it began scuttling my way at impressive speed. I aimed and opened fire, to which it responded by putting its blades in front of it like a shield. My Blade shot around to the side and stabbed into it, to little apparent effect.

Ability: Minor Speed activated

I needed the burst of agility to get up and off the floor before it could trample over me. Then I had to run around its side to open fire on its exposed flanks. The thing couldn’t turn so fast, and with sixteen rounds right into its side it finally collapsed.

“Christ…”

It began to dissolve, leaving behind an XP gem and no loot.

Gained 2 Soul Energy, 154/150

For that amount of SE it wasn’t nearly worth it. I felt ripped off, and wanted to speak to the dungeon’s manager to get my ammo refunded. I took a moment to reload, repack my mag, and took a sip of water. I feel like the lack of loot was really salt in the wound.

I slowly approached the chest this time, poking around on the floor with my crowbar like a blind man with a cane. Then I poked the chest itself a few times to no response. Determining it probably wasn’t a mimic, I pried it open. Inside sat a sparkling crystal vial full of a red liquid.

Phial of Regeneration

Ok? What does that mean exactly? Would it regenerate my Stamina? Or maybe my Mana? Heal my wounds? It was red, which in every fantasy game I’d ever played indicated health but the Gem of Lesser Restoration had been green, so that threw out conventional logic. I pocketed the thing anyway, since in a worst case scenario I could use it and see what happens.

I walked back out of the room, tapping along the ground as I went. I really didn’t want to get launched into the ceiling by another guillotine hermit crab.

After leaving the large room behind I walked straight across the room and stopped outside the west door to peek through. Standing inside were another two rows of columns, six apiece, that lined the walls. I cranked up my ear-pro to the maximum volume and listened for a moment. Faintly, but certainly there, I could hear the tell-tale skitter of the voidcrawlers. I brought up my thermal sight and scanned around, counting out six that were bunched up in the middle of the room, but there could’ve been more hiding elsewhere.

They had that annoying ability to cling to the walls and ceilings, just out of sight. I decided quickly that I really didn’t want to deal with them again. If I couldn’t see them, then they were going to lose their ability to see me. I fished a flashbang out of my vest, pulled the pin, and tossed it in.

I barely remembered to turn down the volume before the grenade went off, saving my eardrums. The cicada-like noise was bone rattling in intensity after the bang. I walked in to get to work and found that four of them had dropped to their backs on the floor, legs and tails flailing. I sent in the Blade to stab away at their exposed undersides to conserve ammo. The last two of them had managed to stay attached to the columns they had been chilling on, being further away from the epicenter must’ve helped. Regardless, they were unable to move and quickly fell down after the Blade shot into their backs.

Gained 18 Soul Energy, 172/150

I thought back to the last couple rooms while I gathered up my XP gems and carapace pieces. I realized something. The voidcrawlers so far had exclusively shown up in the rooms containing the stone columns, while the crabs were showing up only in the wide open rooms. Was it the terrain advantage that they wanted? Crabs wanted room to charge around while the bugs wanted a jungle to ambush in? That made enough sense to me, I imagined that a crab would be defenseless in a room like this.

Whatever the true reason might be, I walked through the north door and walked down a short hallway. It ended abruptly after less than thirty feet. Blocking the way forward was a small stone door, the middle of which had a shallow nook that looked quite similar to the one outside of the Lord’s boss chamber.

“Guess that means I’ll have to go track down a key then.”

I turned myself right back around and made my way back through the rooms to the first voidcrawler chamber. There I took the south door through another hallway that led me to a welcome sight. Sitting in the middle of the next room was a fountain. The moment I entered the room the temperature plummeted, like walking through the doors of a supermarket store. A peek through my thermal told me it was a nice 68℉.

I took off my backpack and gently sat it down on the floor. Then I took my crowbar and tossed it across the floor so it landed right beside the fountain with a loud clang of steel on stone. I waited a few seconds but nothing took the bait and attacked. I walked forward slowly, my eyes darting up and down between the ceiling and the floor watching for the slightest hint of movement. Nothing sprang out at me. I was unchallenged as I made it all the way to the fountain and felt that familiar welcoming embrace emanate from it.

I forced myself to pull away so I could pick up my crowbar and backpack. It would be a waste to use the fountain now when I was in nearly tip top shape. I’d use it on the way back through if things went poorly.

The next hallway was long and twisted back and forth. I found a door leading to the left that led to a small room, but from the door I could see nothing worth stepping in, so I moved along. The hall went on for another hundred feet of turns before I found another small room. A single door on the other side showed me this was the right way. I once again tapped along the floor with my trusty crowbar as I walked step by step. This time I managed to provoke a hidden guillotine crab into rising and attacking.

It still felt like a massive waste of ammo and time to kill one for such a low reward, but the things were fast enough and deadly enough that I couldn’t just ignore them and walk past.

Gained 2 Soul Energy, 174/150

Yet again the tanky bastard dropped not a single morsel of loot, leaving me a bit ticked off as I marched through the door. I followed the hall around a u-turn, which deposited me into a final medium-sized room. At the very end of it sat a stone pedestal, atop which rested a stone chunk that I could only assume was the key that I needed. I found it odd that I was able to tap across the entire room without anything attacking me. The first key had a damn angler mini-boss to protect it. Even after I grabbed the thing and walked back out nothing happened.

I made my way back to the fountain room and sat down to have a short rest and wipe all the sweat off of my body. I tried dunking my water bottle into the fountain and was somewhat surprised that it actually worked. I gave the water a sip. I do declare that it might’ve been the best sip of high quality H2O that I have ever had the pleasure of drinking. It felt like a bottle of it would keep me going through the desert for a week or more.

Damn.

My Stamina and Aura both managed to top off in the time that I had before the magic of the fountain turned off. With that, I was on my way again. I wandered through the rooms until I found the locked door again and pressed the chunk into it. Just like last time the door slowly swung open, revealing a pretty massive room. It wasn’t nearly the size of the first boss arena, but still measured a good fifty feet on each side.

From the door I could see no chests or big giant enemies sitting in thrones or the audience stands, just a big empty room. In the far left corner was a smaller door that led onward. I grabbed the crowbar and started tapping away at the floor as I made my way across. I got halfway there when the big door slammed shut behind me. Then the small door closed off.

“Ah shit.”