As he passed through the Dungeon barrier, a slight tingling could be felt deep in his bones. Alan almost got worried, but before he had the opportunity it vanished almost as fast as it arrived. Upon setting foot within the Dungeon, he once again felt a heavy weight draped about his shoulders. He also received another notification stating that he'd entered a Dungeon far beyond his current physical capabilities.
Maybe the barrier is a sort of scanner? Alan wondered, having never seen anything like it before today. And that would make the tingling feeling the actual scan in progress? So I guess the notification that's prompted to appear is dependant upon the level of the person being scanned. If I was level 15, would it tell me I'm too powerful for this Dungeon? Would it still let me in?
Unable to satisfy his curiosity, Alan dismissed his pointless line of questioning alongside the Dungeon notice. He made sure to inspect every inch of his surroundings while tiptoeing down the few remaining stairs. Alan arrived at the final step and glanced around the sandstone corridor. Almost immediately, he noticed that nothing seemed to have changed.
The instant he stepped off the bottom step and placed his foot on the sandy floor, the uncomfortable feeling of heaviness fell away. Before he had the opportunity to relish the departure of his invisible burden, he was shoved forward by several scalding bursts of high-pressure steam. The concentrated jets of water vapor sounded like snakes on steroids hissing in his ears as they hit him in the upper and lower back simultaneously, seemingly from multiple directions.
Caught completely by surprise, Alan stumbled forward, covered his head with his arms, and put his back to the wall to his left. Sliding his back along the wall, he safely shuffled down the hall and eventually made it into the nearby recess in the corner. Formed where the wall to his back met up with the wall at the end of this passageway, Alan's thought was that the recessed corner would at least help to protect his back.
Peering around like his head was on a swivel, the first thing he noticed wasn't in front of him, but a slight vibration on his back. Coming from inside the wall, the vibration was so subtle he probably would have missed it if his adrenaline wasn't increasing his focus.
Concentrating on the slight vibration, Alan was yet again surprised by a sudden rumbling coming from where he first entered the Dungeon. Uncovering his head and unsheathing his dagger, Alan faced the dungeon entranceway, and was shocked to see another wall of glistening sandstone instead of an exit.
"NO, NO, WAIT!" Alan yelled as he rushed back to where his exit should've been and began to pound on the wall. Unable to leave so much as a scratch on the most likely Mana-empowered stone, Alan cast [Stone skin] and punched the wall full power over and over again.
The sickening crunch of hardened knuckles striking the wall ended up being his only accomplishment. As the Spell's duration ended, leaving Alan's skin fragile once more, no visible damage had been done to the wall. No dents, no cracks, nothing but a bloody smear left behind from his reckless outburst.
You've got to be kidding me! I'm caught in a trap inside another trap! This just keeps on getting better...
Kicking the wall purely out of frustration, and not at all in anticipation that it may somehow succeed where his fists so recently failed, Alan studied the wall intently. After an exaggerated pause, when the wall failed to miraculously disappear, he shook his head sadly. Placing his hand on his face in mock embarrassment, Alan was soon grinning at his own foolishness.
During his damage assessment he noticed five small metal valves embedded in the stone around the former doorway. Two on each side, and one at the top. Angled slightly inward, they were aimed towards the back of anyone entering the dungeon. After noting the obvious exits for the assaulting steam, he realized they were fairly easy to spot now that he knew to look for them. He now had a better idea of how to safely proceed. Slowly and with a diligent eye on his surroundings.
Alan stared down at his bloody knuckles and was surprised to find they had already healed. Sitting with his back to the wall that had once been his exit, Alan again felt the slight vibration permeating the dungeon walls.
"Are these vibrations from the steam?" He wondered aloud. His plans of an easy retreat now out the window, he knew there was only one remaining direction available to him. Forward.
A fistful of trail mix and several gulps of water later, and still there was no sign of the one hundred enemies located on this floor his hidden quest warned him about. "Guess it's about time to get to work" Alan complained while getting to his feet. Removing a stick of charcoal and a piece of the overly thick paper from his inventory, Alan made plans to use them to attempt to map out his pathway.
Turning around, Alan slowly headed further into the dungeon. Passing the recess in which he was recently hiding, Alan followed the corridor as it turned to the right and then to the left again almost immediately. All the while he studiously noted down each turn in his path, slowly building up a map.
A few paces down this new hallway almost had Alan convinced that he had somehow gotten turned around and wound up back in the entryway, as everything looked almost exactly the same. Another slight left led him to a forked pathway. He could either continue heading forward on his current path, or take the new path that branched off to his right.
Unsure of which path to choose, Alan glanced down the path to his right, and while he was able tell it continued on about a hundred meters into the distance, an abrupt turn in the pathway cut off any further visibility.
Scanning the walls, floor and ceiling for any of the odd metal valve steam traps, he was unsurprised to notice a couple of them within thirty seconds of looking. Halfway down the path, two of the steam valves were fixed into the wall at chest height, one on either side of the hall.
Not wanting to deal with more traps just yet, Alan resolved to come back to this pathway after he'd run out of other options. Taking a couple of seconds to mark down the branching pathway on his makeshift map, a sudden notification suddenly appeared in the corner of his vision.
Remarkable! Due to your unwavering desire to chart out the unknown depths you travel, you have unlocked your Mini-map and acquired the (Uncommon) Skill [Steady Hand of the Cartographer]!
(U)[Steady Hand of the Cartographer] Lvl 1- This passive Skill provides the ability to automatically record the surroundings on your Mini-map as you travel, as well as the ability to upload any map directly to your Mini-map.
Depth and detail of auto mapping increase with skill level.
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Glancing at his PSA Screen confirmed his suspicions. When he concentrated on the previously blank Mini-map that until now had simply marked Alan as a blue dot in the center, he saw a map of his surroundings. Everywhere he had been in the dungeon was already mapped out with a precision he would be incapable of matching.
Unfortunately that only worked for the areas he'd been in personally, as Alan pretty much instantly saw that the majority of his map seemed to be covered in an impenetrable haze. Taking a few steps forward, Alan was pleased to see the haze on his Mini-map retreat in the area he traveled, confirming he now owned a automatically updating map!
Alan found that he was growing increasingly curious as to exactly how the Skill gaining process worked. He wondered if it could really be as easy as attempting to gain new information, or perhaps he simply needed to learn how to do things under the Systems watchful eye. Curiosity ate at him as Alan returned to the previous hallway and tried out his theory.
I know that I'm far from the best knife thrower around, though he would never admit such a thing in the presence of his brother, here, in the confines of his mind, he found it difficult to lie. Hells, Rexus is at least ten times more accurate than I am, and I can remember several different occasions that uncle Alex hit an apple flower with his tiny pocket knife from 20 meters away, but I wonder...
Alan started building up a pile of sand against the wall. Once he was satisfied with its height, he flattened it as best as he was able. His preparations complete, Alan placed his now useless paper map against the sand pile. After retreating twenty paces and unsheathing his dagger, he aimed at his map, and gently but firmly threw his dagger.
The dagger soared through the air, slowly spinning as it flew, before it plunged directly into the center of the map. Glancing around for a few seconds produced no notification, so Alan retrieved his blade, and retreated his twenty paces and executed another excellent throw.
Throw the dagger, retrieve the dagger. Back and forth he went, over and over again. Finally, as Alan was just about to call it quits, throw number thirteen finally produced the desired effect, gaining him not only one, but two new Skills.
Remarkable! Due to your basic knowledge of using the pointy end of a small blade you have acquired the (Basic) Skill [Dagger Utilization]!
(B)[Dagger Utilization] Lvl 1- This passive Skill provides a slight increase to comprehension of dagger usage and damage dealt when using daggers.
Comprehension and damage increase with Skill level
Remarkable! Due to your basic understanding of using a handheld weapon as a projectile you have acquired (Common) Skill [Throw Weapon]!
(C)[Throw Weapon] Lvl 1- This passive Skill slightly increases your accuracy, distance, and damage dealt when throwing weapons.
Accuracy, distance and damage dealt increase with Skill level.
Grinning like a fool, Alan felt as if he had suddenly broken the system. Given a bit of time, he could probably gain all sorts of skills. Now he needed to see if he would be able to figure out a way to power level his Skills, because from his experience with [Examine] he already fully expected that Level 1 Skills were bound to leave much to be desired.
One more idea came to mind. However this one made Alan a bit uncomfortable, but could also possibly pay off big in the long term. Hoping for some kind of pain tolerance Skill, Alan thought to subject himself to steady amounts of pain, but was unsure how to go about it. His entire life, he'd always done his best to avoid pain whenever possible, so this really wasn't an area in which he excelled.
Making a mental note to come back to that one later, Alan returned to the branching pathway, and again skipped the right branch, continuing forward instead. The pathway soon turned to the left, and placed Alan face-to-face with his first Dungeon Born Monster.
Standing nearly to Alan's waist and close to three feet in diameter, it looked like an excessively large egg formed completely from sand. Two overly large blue eyes hung so far out of its 'face' they almost seemed to sag. Peering intently at the disturbing eyes, Alan realized that they were sitting above four arm-like protrusions that seemed unable to decide what size and shape that would fit them best.
Rapidly shifting between long and skinny, to short and thick, and then random variations of both, the shifting-arm situation this thing had going quickly began to upset Alan's stomach. As the weird sand-egg slowly advanced towards Alan, he saw it was incapable of moving at more than a snail's pace. Left with plenty of time to spare, Alan used [Examine] and was then hit with two simultaneous notifications.
Lvl 7 Juvenile Desert Flan Hp: 250/250
Remarkable! Your skill (B)[Examine] has grown to Level 3!
Just as he viewed his notifications, from the corner of his eye Alan noticed three more Desert Flans wobble around the corner, creeping up behind the one he'd already seen. One of them appeared slightly bigger than the others. Now sorely outnumbered, Alan grew cautious, but was still fairly confident, as these monsters were just pathetically slow.
Using [Examine] on the newcomers revealed that the front two sat at Level 7 and the final slightly larger bringing up the rear was Level 8. Slowly walking backwards, Alan first cast [Healing Fog] to not only reenergize himself, but to make use of the obscuration provided by the fog, and move without being so easily seen.
Drawing his dagger Alan advanced on the first Flan. He attempted to stab it in the eye, but the Flan saw it coming and swiftly withdrew both eyes into its face right before the impact. This unexpected turn of events made Alan miss his target and stab his blade into its sandy body instead. His knife met almost no resistance, and plunged hilt deep into the Flan.
As Alan began to withdraw his blade, the flan formed one of its four appendages into a long, thin tentacle and wrapped it around Alan's left leg. At the same time another one transformed into a club-like shape, whipped around and swiftly smashed into Alan's face. The solid blow sent him flying into the nearby wall. The collision both left him feeling dazed and prompted a notification to pop up in his vision. Which he angrily dismissed.
Glancing at his Hp bar, he realized that he'd already lost 75 Hp, almost a full quarter of his entire Health pool. Understanding began to sink in, Alan had been underestimating these monsters based on their lack of speed, not realizing that they could more than make up for it with their reach.
In a bid to allow himself sufficient time to recover, he retreated further into his [Healing Fog]. As he felt his Health pool start to replenish, Alan cast [Lightning Strike] on the leading Flan. A tiny grey storm cloud rapidly formed above its head. Unaware of the Spell building in the air up above it, the oblivious Juvenile Flan continued slowly shuffling toward Alan.
The small grey cloud dropped a violent payload of energy on the unsuspecting creature. As the bolt landed, the affected area began to glow red-hot. A deep crater was ripped into the point of impact. The Flan's sagging eyeballs almost instantly froze up as the surrounding sand that formed its 'head' was turned to a bowl of glass.
Not willing to waste this opportunity, Alan tossed his knife, which stabbed directly into the creatures paralyzed left eye. The damage caused the Flan's left eye to rapidly deflate and begin to leak a turquoise fluid. Another notification flashed in his periphery, but he dismissed it, hopeful to finish this Juvenile Flan off once and for all.
Rushing forward, Alan arrived before the injured Flan and pried his knife free of its face. With a blade once more in hand, he began plunging it into the right eye, the nearly deflated left eye, and everything located in-between. Over and over again. Every time he withdrew his dagger from an eyeball, a thick spray of turquoise fluid splashed across the front of his armor. Within seconds, Alan's hands and even his face were liberally coated in goo.
Not long into his attack Alan managed to shatter the glassy layer of sand, revealing a bowling ball sized dark blue, many faceted spherical crystal hidden within the beasts head. Both of the deflated eyeballs were protruding directly out of the front of this crystal. As Alan sank his dagger into this hidden stone, he met very little resistance. As it turned out this crystalline object was actually a thick fluid encased within in a thin shell of crystal-like substance.
As his blade slid roughly into the dark blue Core, the Flans body began to sag, swiftly losing it's form and ceasing all movement. A flood of information arrived as Alan received his first ever kill notification, which unlocked a new tab called Kill Log. The Experience Alan received from his victory sent a flood of powerful euphoria climbing up his spine, and rushing into his brain.