Xavier decided, rather quickly, that he did not like the undead.
CRAAACK!
Using Heavy Telekinesis, he’d flung a dozen skeletons into the stone wall, breaking their bones and killing them instantly.
Skeletons didn’t have souls. Soul damage did nothing to them. They also lacked minds. He’d tested his spells—Willpower Infusion, Soul Strike, Soul Shatter, Soul Puppet, and of course Soul Strike were all useless against these things.
And so was Core Burn, which went a good way to explaining why he couldn’t see their auras.
They don’t have cores, there’s no aura for them to radiate.
Soul Block, however, did work. He couldn’t really figure out why. He supposed it had the ability to block physical and magical attacks. In a way, it made perfect sense to him. Swords and axes and spells didn’t have souls, after all.
Not that he’d been able to sense, anyway.
Crack!
He shoved a few more skeletons into the walls.
Spirit Break didn’t work on these bastards either.
Which meant Xavier was stuck with the spell he’d first made his mark with when he’d gotten into the tower—Heavy Telekinesis. Spiritual Trifecta worked perfectly fine as well, considering it simply boosted his magical potency, physical strength and defence, along with his general state of mind. He basically always had it active, even though there was nothing strong to fight.
“If Spirit Break doesn’t work on these things, how come they provide Spirit Energy?” Howard asked.
Xavier just shook his head. “Damned if I know. Because the System wills it, I presume.”
The Deathly Dungeon had an eerie feeling to it. Though there was no wind he could feel, there was an odd low whistling sound coming from outside. Cold temperatures never really bothered Xavier anymore, yet the cold in this place had made him shiver several times.
And the skeletons made no noise but for the clacking of their bones. He was used to roars and growls and shouts from his enemies. Not a silent being, its jaw working, opening and closing a mouth that released no words.
“This isn’t a good dungeon for powerlevelling,” Xavier said. He flourished his staff, slicing the head off three skeletons as they came within range. “But I’d like the three of you to kill something to ensure you get all the titles at the end.” He struck another skeleton, hitting it with the butt of Charon’s Scythe. The impact shuttered the undead thing’s skull.
Xavier swiftly dealt with all of the enemies within the room except for one. The others moved in. Howard was the only one of them that needed to get in close, as Justin had his Airstrike, and Siobhan her Divine Guardian. Xavier had scanned a few of the skeletons and found them all to be Level 30—lower than the levels of the crystal golems.
He quickly scanned the one the others were about to face.
{Skeleton Raider – Level 30}
Same as all the others.
Howard took a sword swing on his shield then slammed his double-bearded axe straight into the skeleton’s skull. The enemy died in a single strike. Bones clattered to the ground. Howard frowned, looked at his axe, then at the skeleton. “Huh. Guess we’re stronger than we thought.”
Xavier chuckled. “You all have been gaining a lot of levels, not to mention titles.” He shook his head. “I guess I’ve been underestimating you. I’ll take the lead, and you three can pick off anything that gets past me.”
The others exchanged glances, likely wondering how anything could get past him. But he would let enough things through to give them something to fight. Back in The Crystal Dungeon, they hadn’t been able to one-hit any of the enemies. It was good to see times were changing.
Those golems must have thicker skin, and maybe Howard hadn’t bothered using Power Strike back there.
Then again, Howard had just gained a bunch of titles at the end of that dungeon as well—maybe they were what gave him the boost.
Xavier pushed forward.
As he moved through the dungeon, a worry niggled at the back of his mind. He’d never before encountered enemies resistant to his attacks. As far as he could recall, he’d never really even considered it a possibility. But the undead—at least, the undead who lacked souls, there could very well be lich kings or queens out there who were undead but possessed souls—could pose a problem to him in the future.
Do vampires have souls?
Certain media certainly assumed otherwise. Though he probably shouldn’t use Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a reference for what now was his real life.
The Skeleton Raiders they’d faced in the mausoleum had been mindless, soulless beings. But a ghost or a wraith? Surely they were souls?
Still, he would have to put necromancers on his list of enemies to be wary of.
What if the threat to our sector is from something without a soul? Without a mind? What if it’s something akin to a natural disaster? How, then, would I be able to fight it?
He shook that thought away. He could deal with the enemies before him, whether with Heavy Telekinesis or with physical attacks.
Undead, right now, were the least of his worries.
Xavier stepped through the archway, exiting the mausoleum and leaving nothing but broken bones and dead undead behind. The archway opened up to a cavernous space. Stone pillars rose up to a high ceiling. Braziers upon pedestals dotted the area, flames blooming to life as he entered the area.
It was harder to see here than it had been back in the mausoleum—and much harder to see than The Crystal Dungeon had been—and Xavier still couldn’t sense any auras, though he wondered if there might be something else blocking them. Surely not everything in this dungeon lacked a core.
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“Do you think the dungeon boss is a necromancer?” Justin asked.
“Could be,” Siobhan said. “Or some sort of lich.”
“Necromancers, liches, skeletons… not what I expected to find when we returned to Earth,” Howard muttered.
Lights flickered to life in the distance, but these were not the braziers he’d noticed before. These were a different sort of light—a light that Xavier recognised.
The light that souls emanated.
He pointed toward the lights. There were a dozen of them, swiftly floating toward their party. The first signs of life out here—if the undead counted as life. Other lights were flickering into being around the massive stone hall. “Can you guys see those?”
“See what?” Siobhan asked. As she spoke, her Divine Guardian stepped in front of her, taking on a defensive posture.
“Souls.” He narrowed his eyes. The souls had an outline to them—they looked a little like his soul apparitions, though their light wasn’t as bright.
“I see them,” Justin said. “Floaty, ghostly looking things.” He squinted. “I can only see them when they pass the torches.”
So only I can see their soul-light.
They looked mostly human, except for the fact that they glided over the stone instead of running across it. They also had flowing, tattered white robes.
Xavier scanned one of them, but he figured he already knew what they were.
{Wraith – Level 30}
Xavier frowned. He decided it was about time he got a little more use from his Identify skill, and examined the Wraith with that. On the fifth floor, he’d gotten used to the enemies being stronger than his skill. After the fifth floor, the enemies were too weak for him to be interested in gleaning any more details about them.
{Wraith – Level 30}
Wraiths are undead creatures born in places heavy with death, such as crypts and graveyards, or battlefields untended by the living where souls have been left to languish. They may manifest randomly, or they may manifest because the powers of a necromancer are at work.
Though a wraith is a soul manifest, a wraith does not retain the memories or personality that it did in life, and becomes a new being in death.
The targeted Wraith has the touch of necromancer upon it, and that of another’s will influencing its own.
Identify has reached Rank 28!
“Whoa,” Xavier breathed. “That’s awesome.”
The wraiths were quickly moving in on their position. Xavier stepped forward. If he’d understood this correctly, wraiths possessed both a soul and a mind. Which meant…
Willpower Infusion!
Purple mist flowed from Xavier’s staff. It shot through the air and seeped into the wraiths. Something interesting happened then—it wasn’t merely the wraiths’ mind that he was fighting, he was also coming up against something else.
Another mind.
A necromancer.
He was sure now, that some sort of necromancer lay at the end of this dungeon—as the floor boss.
Xavier easily overpowered the necromancer’s control, along with that of the Wraiths’ minds as well.
He commanded the group of a dozen Wraiths to still, then he cackled. “I’m back in control!” He explained to the others what he’d discovered using his Identify skill.
“The influence of another…” Siobhan nodded. “That’s rather interesting. Something tells me your soul and spirit spells will actually work on this thing as well?”
“Indeed.” There were plenty more groups of Wraiths heading toward their location, so Xavier targeted one of them and cast Soul Strike. He should be able to harvest their souls as well, especially since he could see them.
A single large soul apparition of a crystal golem bounded forward and crashed into the Wraiths, killing all twelve of them in an instant. To his delight, he was able to harvest their souls as he’d suspected.
Xavier released a sigh of relief. “So it’s only mindless, soulless undead I’ll have to worry about.” He looked at the Divine Guardian. “And maybe constructs.”
“Robots,” Justin said, raising a finger. “Don’t forget about robots.”
Xavier smirked. His instincts told him robots wouldn’t be a problem, but considering how little he knew about the Greater Universe… he was probably very wrong.
They discovered a few more interesting things when it came to wraiths. The first thing was that physical attacks did no damage to them unless those attacks were amplified magically in some way—with Spirit Infusion, Toughness Infusion, or a spell like Power Strike.
Heavy Telekinesis, unfortunately, didn’t do a damned thing against wraiths either. He assumed because they were incorporeal. It was a complete reversal on what fighting the skeletons had been like.
Fortunately, none of this posed a problem. Though the skeletons had given him pause about powerlevelling his friends here, now that he’d encountered the wraiths he realised that wouldn’t really be an issue for much of the dungeon.
The Deathly Dungeon was dotted with more mausoleums along the way, giving them more skeletons to fight. Yet in the expansive hall filled with stone columns that stretched up to the high ceiling, all they encountered were wraiths. Each of them was touched by the mind of another, and when Xavier encountered the skeletons for a second time, he decided to use his Identify skill on them, finding them to be touched by an external influence as well—though the description listed that influence as a magical one.
Perhaps they are controlled in a different way, as they lack minds—the skeletons are more like tools.
He was beginning to wonder if the wraiths they encountered had once been souls attached to the skeletons’ former bodies. Could a necromancer summon two minions from a single dead being?
Definitely works differently to Soul Puppet.
Maybe necromancers wouldn’t be the bane of his existence as he’d first thought.
Finally, they reached the end of the grand hall, where another archway sat. Xavier ran a hand along the stone of the arch. He couldn’t help but wonder how this place had come to be. How dungeons were created in the first place.
He pushed on, not wanting to spend too much time down here. There was still one more dungeon—The Moon Sky Dungeon—to deal with before he could claim the area and plant his Seed Sanctuary.
Then we can finally move forward from this area and clean up Earth. We need to show these invaders what happens when they try to mess with us, and clear them off the map.
As Xavier stepped through the arch, braziers along the walls exploded into life. It was brighter here than it had been in the previous chamber. The chamber was smaller than the massive hall that had preceded it, and appeared to be some sort of throne room.
Columns rose on either side of a long, red carpet. The carpet reminded him of the one he’d found in the leader of the invaders’ tent, the one that had led to the portal.
But it was what lay at the end of the carpet that drew his interest. A figure sat upon a throne, their face shrouded by a dark hood—reminiscent of the one Xavier wore. He tilted his head to the side, staring at the figure. They were adorned with gaudy jewellery. Strings of pearls, diamond necklaces, rings of ruby and emerald. The figure stretched their long, thin fingers, which had been grasping the ends of the throne’s armrests.
“Who dares disturb the resting place of the Great Romalda Heralda?” The voice was that of a woman. It had a harsh, rasping quality to it, as though the words were dragged out of a desert-dry throat.
“The great who-what now?” Justin muttered, then went oof as Siobhan gave him a swift elbow in the ribs. “What was that for?”
A crone-like cackle emanated from the figure upon the throne. “You enter my throne room without knowledge of who I am?” The figure made a tsk, tsk sound reminiscent of sandpaper dragged along rough wood.
Xavier sighed. The last thing he wanted was to stand there and listen to this woman drone on about how powerful she was, and how much danger they were in, and how she would turn them into her minions. He raised his staff and was about to use Willpower Infusion when a veritable army of shambling corpses appeared from nowhere.
The Great Romalda Heralda cackled some more. She must have somehow been shrouding the rest of her undead minions.
There were thousands of them.
Xavier couldn’t help but smile. “That’s a neat trick.” He stepped forward, his boots muffled by the red carpet. The zombies slowly shambled his way. Romalda Heralda still remained sitting on her throne, cackling wildly as though this were all a big joke to her. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about dungeons?” His voice was loud, echoing off the stone walls, easily heard over the low moaning of the newly appeared zombies.
Romalda ceased her cackling. She pulled her hood down, revealing a face as pale as snow with paper-thin skin stretched over a bony visage. The woman was marred by scars that looked as though they would never be able to heal. “What?” She motioned toward her zombies. “Why… why aren’t you afraid?”