Ugh, well, now that I’ve gotten a general understanding of the situation, I guess I should start healing myself. With a grimace, I begin to invoke Healing. At first, it feels nice, like the gradual understanding of your joy, of fear conquered by raucous friends and bright lights. Like that one glorious moment long after the wound where you realize the pain is gone.
But as I take the aura into my hands and concentrate it down to a thin cone, where it touches me, I feel my flesh weaving back together, bones shifting as they move into the correct places.
After I sweep the cone over all the injured parts, I feel whole, although not well in the slightest considering the awful wriggling feeling of everything coming together.
I sigh, I can roughly feel that around 30% of my reserves of Healing were invoked with that burst of healing. I won’t be able to repeat that often. Additionally, the large healing rune along my back is not nearly as effective as the ones that repair my base.
Which confuses me: runes are generally most effective when used in ways that align with its purpose; the Hidden Beauty rune even actively dislikes when you try to use its sight for practical things. I assumed that a rune for healing would generally be used to heal people, so why is it so much more effective for iron plates?
The iron plates on my base heal so quickly that you can use the crumpled metal like a trampoline. While I wriggled and squirmed on the floor for an hour before I had the strength to get up.
Perhaps the rune is intended for keeping items in shape, or simpler objects are less complex and are thus easier to fix. Regardless, this rune is not as effective as I might have hoped; it seems to be ridiculously slow and not applicable at all to combat, and the healing I do have that’s quick enough to be used mid-combat is excruciating. Which is, as you might say, just a bit counterproductive. You can’t exactly concentrate on dodging while you feel your tendons wriggling back together.
Ugh, it looks like I won’t exactly be able to run through any damage like some sort of berserker. Although even if I could it wouldn’t exactly be like a berserker; they after all know home to use some sort of weapon. I flail my way through combat; it’s not exactly like I ever needed to know how to fight back home. Without training, it’s not exactly like you can be a master by just surviving. Wait a second.
I should probably negotiate for training from the Dual Tribe, the Hammer tribe, who, from what they said about themselves, are the finest warriors under the sun. They most likely aren't the best; after all, pride clouds the mirror. But considering my circumstances and the need to, at the very least, not freak out mid-combat, even a mild amount of training could be extremely useful. As I think of this many images of a bold and brave warrior dance in my head, overtaking my more mundane concerns of design.
Eventually I shake my head loose of such thoughts, turning to the dungeon around me and the more pressing matter of escape. I have no idea how I would even try to get out of here when the door has disappeared. My current best guess is to go forward and hope for the best, but hope is a flimsy thing; I cannot rely on it.
With a fully restored body, I walk over to the back wall of the now-meat-splattered room and examine the blank surface. Of course, as I discovered earlier, there is no door leading to the outside—nothing at all, in fact, just blank gray stone scattered with dimples.
But perhaps I’ll see something different with other eyes. Reaching for the side of my helmet, I tap a rune, and suddenly the room lights up under a barrage of blue windows attached to each unique object.
Staring at the wall, I see a simple pop-up that says
Dungeon Wall
Frustrated at the uninformative and entirely useless information I look around the room and see nothing of particular note, except when I skim over my fallen enemies I see something extremely fascinating.
When looking at the armor I see
Rosy Steel
And when I look at the meat itself, I see
Armor Crab
It looks like my earlier assumption that the fleshy thing was somewhat similar to a hermit crab is correct, additionally, it seems like the armor is made of a unique metal, although I’m uncertain as to why it’s called rosy steel, since it doesn’t look pinkish; instead, it’s a rather bland dark gray.
A sparkle emerging from my eye I approach the scene of the battle and pick up a piece of that rosy steel and tear it off of Sword’s helmet. With a whistle on my lips, I examine it with loving eyes.
Finally, something’s come of this trip to the dungeon other than annoyance or violence. I can’t wait to examine the metalurgic properties of the metal. If it’s called steel, it’s some type of alloy of iron and coal. I wonder what the other material is?
Considering my fantastical environment, it’s bound to have some strange properties I can use, but if I want to use the damn thing, I’ll need to get out of here first, and I still don’t have the soggiest clue of how to do that.
A grimace spreads across my face as I am ripped from the throes of joy into the grim truth that I don’t have a clue as to what’s going on.
With a tap to the side of my helmet, I turn off the previous rune and then turn on the Hidden Beauty, facing the back wall yet again.
But as I do so, I find that my gaze is drawn away from the wall and, inexplicably, towards the corpses behind me. My eyes are unable to turn away from their still frames, from the still dripping tears on Sword’s face, from the crumpled-in holes I tore into them, from the smell of cooked meat twisting together into the reaching arms of the corpses.
Looking away from them, I see my hands clasping the grim trophy I tore away from their corpse, flecks of meat still on the underside of the metal. I can clearly see the vision, the framing of the grim painting formed by my own sin.
Throwing away the chunk of steel, I frantically twist my helmet off and heave my empty stomach on the floor, forced to gaze upon the lovingly reconstructed scene of the refuse left at the end of the battle.
Hells below, what the fuck is that? It’s supposed to show me hidden beauty, not a horror show. There’s nothing beautiful about that. I didn’t even see anything worth seeing—just a grisly monument to my si- no it wasn't sin; it was self-defense. Worst of all it changed how I thought, it twisted my eyes to see new dimensions, a new message, a new scene.
The hidden beauty rune is more bizarre and dangerous than I first thought. I'm still feeling the strings of my throat burn as they try to chuck out the contents of my empty stomach. Turning away, I first tap off the rune before twisting the helmet back on.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I am nauseous still, but considering the situation, I push through it and activate the last of my enchanted gaze's, Oddity.
Looking back at the empty wall, my eyes drawn to the things out of place, I notice something, or rather, I feel something: there should be a door here; there can’t be a missing door without a problem. The door has to be here. Strange intuitions flood my mind as I instinctively understand that a proper dungeon must always have an exit at the start.
Staring at the wall, I begin to feel something on my face—something ethereal. Following the feeling closer and closer, I eventually find a tiny pinprick of utter blackness among the empty stone, and suddenly all seems right—the door is here after all, and I am freed from the grip of oddity.
Tapping off the rune, I stare at the tiny pinprick, hardly big enough to fit a needle into it. Well, apparently this is the exit, but how the hell can I use it to leave?
Am I supposed to shrink to the size of an atom and walk out? This is obviously rigged. I felt with the utmost certainty that there had to be an exit, but this exit isn’t anything more than a lie.
Filled with anger, I slam my gauntleted fist into the stone, yet despite my half-enhanced body and sturdy gauntlets, I don’t even leave a scratch upon the stone.
Snarling I start pulling item after item out of my bag and quickly shove those items in and out, replicating some of the more uniform items, arranging the others as I begin to take my anger out on this ridiculous excuse for a door.
—
Experiment Dungeon Wall Destruction (DWD)
Experiment 1
Hypothesis: By setting up two different wands, one that conjures extreme heat and one that conjures extreme cold, and then setting up rudimentary timers connected to them in a loop, I can create an automated system of two high temperture difference zones that will crack the dungeon wall.
Experiment Instructions
1. Take a wand blank,
2. Soften it with a heat beam
3. First carve in a Button rune
4. Using the clock tube mold, create a 30-second timer connected to the activation button for the wand (refer to the RCE procedure on the previous page).
5. Using the same button, connect it to a different 30-second timer, which, when finished, will activate the first 30-second timer.
6. Copy the heat beam rune from my gauntlet and apply it to the wand.
7. Repeat steps 1-6
8. Apply the cold beam rune to the second wand
9. Create a crude supporting lattice, made out of welded-together wand blanks (refer to the wand pillar and wand rod notes 47 pages back)
10. Picking up the lattices, place both wands pointed at the back wall
11. First, activate the heat beam wand.
12. 30 seconds before the heat beam is done, activate the cold beam wand so that during the 60-second break, the cold beam is activated for 60 seconds.
13. Monitor the two separate looping constructs until there are either results or they run out of power.
Rune Diagram Simplified.
1. 30-second timer -> 2. Heat Beam/Cold Beam Activated.
-> 2. 30-second timer -> 3. 30-second timer -> 4.Heat Beam Deactivated -> 4. 30-second timer -> Step 1
Automatic High Temperature Fluctuations
Damage Done(If the description exceeds the table, note which page the extended description is in)
First Build
No damage done
Second Build
No damage done
Third Build
No damage done
Failure
Error: In the future, timer designs will have to be slimmed down; the timers were more complicated and elaborate than the weapons! Plus the irregular mistakes in forging make it impossible to replicate each clock wholesale, and the incredibly confusing way the loops had to be done gave me a headache. I filled a page with diagrams, just trying to figure out how long each period would last. Hells, I could certainly use more meta runes that interact with other runes, they would be incredibly useful for the more complicated automated projects, but so far, the only runes I’ve made are copycats of abilities I already have, not entirely new ideas. So that’s a dead end for now.
No damage was done to the walls over the entire period; the only notable thing is that I had to clean up the ice. Which is absolutely ridiculous considering I only stopped each attempt once the runes ran out of energy. This took several hours, and all I have to show for building the most elaborate marble-based death machine on this side of the Astral is a whole lot of nothing.
—
Experiment Dungeon Wall Destruction (DWD)
Experiment 2
Hypothesis: Earlier on, when attempting to make a durable iron for my wall, I tried to use Earth-Gather-Condense to somehow jack the metal full of earth energy to make it more durable. Instead, this series of runes creates a rudimentary earthen explosion. My hypothesis is that if I summon the earth into the tiny crack and then have it explode, then I might be able to widen the hole enough for me to jam my finger in and teleport out of here.
Experiment Instructions
1. Take a wand blank
2. Soften it with a heat beam
3. Engrave a Button rune that leads to an Earth rune, modify that Earth rune with a Permanent rune, and then send the earth out of the tip of the wand
4. After the targeting rune, connect it to a Gather and then a Condense rune.
5. Take some welded-together wand blanks and convert them into a stand by welding the wand to a wand blank rod (refer to 49 pages back) that reaches the height of the pinhole
6. Then stabilize the stand by welding a fan of wand blanks to the bottom.
7. Place the stand so that the wand is partially inside the pinhole
8. Make an eleven-foot pole out of wand-blank rods.
9. Take that pole and press the button from far, far away
10. Note down the results.
Failure
Error: The explosion did occur in accordance with previous experiences; it rattled me even while I was half way across the room. But it didn’t do shit. All of the stone just poured out without leaving even a single scratch on this horrid wall. In the future this combination can be used carefully in demolition, and with further testing could be used as a new wand template with different elements.
—
Experiment Dungeon Wall Destruction (DWD)
Experiment 3
Hypothesis: By placing an enhanced nail into the hole and then hammering into the side, I might be able to crack it open. I've got no hope for this, but FUCK THIS STUIPID ASS WALL!
Failure: All that happened was that the nail disappeared, ruining the leverage.
—
Experiment Dungeon Wall Destruction (DWD)
Experiment 4
Hypothesis: Since both the nail and the earth disappeared when they went into the portal, and I know that the portal teleports your entire body, even if only the tiniest bit has touched it. Well, then why can’t I stick a hair into the pinhole?
—
Squinting with my tongue out, I gingerly place my perfect hair into my crude replacement for a hair straightener.
Two flattened rune blanks engraved with a weak imbued heat.
Hesitant on account of never using a hair straightener before, I slowly place my hair in the middle before clamping down the two flat surfaces, and then pulling the very ends of my hair to a relatively straight form. It hurts, I can feel the hair snag and shrink through the dull heat I feel from the tool.
A frown is embedded into my face. I’ve always loved my hair, and mutilating it with a jury-rigged hair product is something I deeply dislike. Regardless it is necessary, my hair at 4C is too curly to fit into the tiny pinhole the exit is inside.
Sighing as I look at my bedraggled and most likely horrifically heat-damaged ends(I couldn't even wash it beforehand!), I pick up a single strand and slowly guide it into the pinhole.
It’s extraordinarily difficult, like stuffing a frayed thread into the shank of a needle but after a couple dozen tries I push it into the tiny hole. I guide the heat-damaged strand until I feel something strange.
Smiling I feel that now familiar sensation of everything glitching apart as I disappear.
—
HEAVENS ABOVE WHAT ACCURSED HELL SPAWNED THIS HELLION TO CURSE ME SO. FIRST, THEY DRAIN MY MANA BY PUMMELING THE WALLS, AND NOW THEY USE SOME STRANGE ARTIFICE TO TRANSFORM THEIR HAIR INTO A PIN SO THEY CAN EVADE MY CONTROLS.
NO, I WILL NOT ABIDE BY THIS!
In my room far away, my gem hisses like a teakettle as it begins to spin with outrageous speed and anger. A bead of spatial mana floats above me, a careful trap meant to work around the wench's absurdly high defenses to teleport them to a grave end. Hissing and spitting, however, I am forced to hastily break it apart in order to form a recursive loop around the pinhole exit.
As I do so, I begin to feel the flow of tainted mana slow and eventually stop as I trap it by refusing to allow anything to reach my exit.
I will die within the day if I do not open the exit again, but for my ascension, I am willing to risk it. I must consume this false spirit, it will take centuries to even attempt to ascend without their energy. All my dreams and all my power will slip away, as I am doomed to nothing more than mediocrity. A second seed unable to reach the stars like all the others.
Well, I refuse.
I do not care for the condemnations, or the danger I bring, I will not rest until this impudent wench is dead!