Looking into the next room, the smooth and perfectly straight stone walls were becoming oddly shaped rooms with weird angles. The rooms were clearly conformed to fit within the existing natural cave now, though the walls were still smooth and vertically straight. Within the slight curve of the wall just to the right and left of the door there were two pairs of stone bowls side by side reminding Felix of water fountains in a public building. The bowls were empty now and there was no indication of what they contained before though they did have pipes and faucets above each.

After checking the room for traps, Felix tried to open the faucets but nothing happened. Either the pipes had some other purpose, they weren't connected or they had rusted through somewhere. There was a door to the right and the room continued to the left winding through the existing cave a little bit. Felix inspected and opened the door to a long room slightly too wide to be a corridor. It had doors on each of it's walls and a series of beds lined up along the long walls. In some of the beds lay a dozen or so Devoured all wearing long bright red robes, the first clothes Felix had ever seen Devoured wear outside of the undercity center.

None of them seemed to have noticed Felix at all, all of them either lying down on the beds, eyes open, staring at the ceiling or sitting on the edges of the beds, staring at the ground. A small barrage of Mana Bolts fired out of Felix's fingers, at least one of them hitting each of the Devoured in the hall. They all screeched and ran towards him getting incinerated and tossed around as they passed through the door way. Once they had all been dealt with, Felix walked back towards the room but then more Devoured began to pour through the opposite doorway, on the right side of the hall.

He had no idea there were Devoured in that room at all, he had assumed there could be but they had never really paid that much attention to each-other before. If they were in the same room or really close by, they would swarm. Back in the manor though, Felix fought Devoured, they screeched and the ones in the next room just didn't care. For some reason these were different.

Felix fired a torrent of spells over his shoulder as he ran back the way he came, mixing normal force spells into his barrage to slow the creatures down. With just a few of the Devoured left, a stream of liquid fire shot through the Devoured towards Felix. He wasn't expecting it at all and some of the fire poured into his sleeves and up his neck. Felix gritted his teeth through the pain and cast a standard Mana Shield, unfortunately the Shield spells inscribed into his armor wouldn't protect his neck.

His cast time wasn't great though and he failed twice, due to the pain, before the Shield finally appeared. The burns weren't fatal but they were painful as hell. The fire had also claimed just over half of his health pool. Cowering behind the shield, Felix removed the still flaming remains of his cloak and tossed it to the side. Once the stream of fire abated, Felix looked through his Shield and inspected it's source.

[D] Dragon Priest: Devoured (Lvl 152)

Luckily, it seemed Dragon Priest did not mean priest that was a dragon. The Dragon Priest wore similar robes to the other Devoured, long and red but these were more ornate with white embroidery and vertical stripes. Other than the robes and the name, they appeared like any other Devoured creature. Though, they were the first to be able to breathe fire. The Priest screeched as they ran at Felix, smoke pouring from their open maw to either side of their head.

Felix cast a Fire Ball at the creature but it leapt to the side and bounded off the wall, completely dodging the spell and diverting itself around the Shield. Felix tripped but managed to keep himself from falling as he stepped back in surprise. He swung the shield around to bring it between him and the Priest just in time to hold it back from swiping at his neck with it's claws. The Priest hopped off the Shield and backed up a step.

The priest screeched then stepped to the right, Felix's shield following, except that it was a feint, the Priest had already stepped past the shield to the left. A fist made contact with Felix's head knocking him onto his ass and stunning him. He felt himself lifted by his armor, the Devoured Priest holding him with both hands from his robe, mouth wide just a few inches from Felix's face.

The first thought in Felix's mind was disgust at the creature's breath that reeked of rot, the second was dread as he saw a spark in the back of it's throat. He no longer felt the Mana Shield he had cast earlier, it had likely dissipated when he was punched in the face. Most of the spells Felix could cast would be too slow but there were two spells he could cast very quickly. He was pretty sure Fire Bolt wouldn't save him so he put all his hope on the other.

A cylinder of Solid Mana shoved itself inside the creature's mouth and into it's throat just as a trickle of liquid Fire poured out of the sides of it's mouth, trying to force it's way out. The fire spilled onto Felix's cheeks, burning his skin but only doing a few hundred points of damage. The priest let go of Felix's robe with one hand to pull the Mana Bolt out with the other giving Felix just enough time to cast a simple Force spell just to push the thing away from him. The priest held tightly to Felix's robes but the spell had pushed it an arm's length away.

Fire Balls were too slow and likely to hit both of them so instead, an excessive barrage of Lightning Bolts descended onto the creature, blinding Felix in the process. Felix stumbled back a step when it's hand released his robe and then felt something hit him from the side and pin him to the wall. The Priest held it's forearm to Felix's neck, it's maw open unnaturally far and a faint orange glow growing in the back of it's throat.

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Felix knew what to do and once again cast a Mana Bolt into the creature's mouth. This time, instead of turning it's head to the side it simply reached up with it's free hand and pushed harder with it's fire breath giving Felix no time to cast anything creative. His hand's were free though so Felix reached up and held the creature's free arm with one hand and punched it in the face with the other. It felt like Felix was punching a shell, it's skin was thick like leather and did little to cushion the blow against it's bones underneath.

He didn't think about it much though as he pushed it's head to the side as hard as he could to try and keep the fire breath pointing anywhere but at his face. It had managed to push the Mana Bolt out of it's mouth with it's breath alone but luckily Felix was noticeably stronger than it was so he managed to keep it's head pointed away. They struggled for a little while until the creature jumped back and pointed it's breath back towards it's target. Felix dove the side using the inscriptions in his boots to buy himself enough time to cast a Mana Shield between them. He only got burned a little bit, losing a few thousand health though he managed to block the majority of it.

The creature ran towards Felix without stopping it's fire breath, trying to bound off the walls and around the shield again. Though he was expecting it, Felix was still slow to react because the bar of solid flame connecting them was blinding him and making the creature impossible to see. He did manage to back up enough steps to keep the Mana Shield between them, but only just barely as the Priest's arms flailed around it. The Devoured tried to grab onto the shield to climb over it but Felix hit it with a Force spell from above to push it back down. Having learned his lesson earlier, Felix began hitting the priest with Lightning Bolts but this time he didn't go overboard and blind himself. He cast the spell from the side and made sure he kept an eye on the creature the entire time.

Ding You have slain a [D] Dragon Priest: Devoured (Lvl 152)

It took him a few minutes and a lot of Lightning Bolts as well as Force spells to keep it back but Felix finally managed to kill the creature. It's robes were entirely charred, just a few scraps remaining and had worn nothing else. Before doing anything else, Felix walked back into the room with the bed and sat down behind the wooden wall in the middle and began meditating. He didn't shift his consciousness to his soul garden, instead he focused entirely on his body.

The burns were bad, the cells that made up the skin on his face and neck were basically entirely dead. On top of that, the heat had reached through his skin and killed cells much deeper, like roots growing into his body. He manually controlled his energy and assisted his immune system in repairing his cells and slowly rebuilding his skin. Once he was done with that, he regrew some hair on his head because he wasn't super into the idea of being bald.

Well that was… a disaster.

You are alive.

Yeah, I am. That could have gone way better though.

Yeah. Seems like you don't really have enough battle experience. Since you were killing things so quickly before, you didn't really have to think about how to fight.

Even the world bosses, that took more time, were just too big and slow.

Unfortunately, the only way to get battle experience is to… well, battle.

Yeah. Wish I had known sooner how… well awful at fighting I was.

You're the first person I've ever watched fight so it didn't even occur to me until now. It makes sense though and seems so obvious in hindsight.

So do the lessons I learned mid battle. Don't assume your enemies are all mindless idiots. Don't assume they've shown you their entire repertoire. Don't assume all the enemies are the same. Don't blind yourself with your own spells. Always keep an eye on your enemy, don't let them get out of sight if you can help it.

Keep your Mana Shield at the ready.

Inscribe Mana Shield's into my armor that block my face.

Or get a hat to do that.

Now I need a new cloak too. I really liked that one, even though it was unenchanted.

At least it was cheap.

Yeah, but I need something that isn't going to fall apart as soon as I get into a fight.

That seems reasonable. Hopefully there's one in the vault or even the city.

Yeah, finger's crossed.

Once Felix had topped up his health, energy and most of his mana he got up and walked back towards the hall with the beds. The Priest had come from the door just to the right in the hall which was now open. Looking inside that room, it looked like the inside of a small church. There were two columns of five pews with a column in the middle. At the front of the room the pews faced a large stone altar with grooves that fed into the wall behind it with pipes. The stone of the altar was stained a darker red color than the rest of the room.

I guess they weren't water fountains.

There was also a wooden table at the back of the room, but it was completely empty. There was one other door next to the table at the back of the room and looking through it, Felix saw what looked to be a simple sitting room. There was a small square table with four chairs and an equipment rack. Judging from his map alone, Felix knew the door on the opposite side of that room led back into the first room with the carpet and the flame trap.

The one on the left had to lead back to the hall he was just in so he didn't even walk into this room, there was nothing of value in it and he didn't want to risk any traps. He walked back to the hall with the beds and looked towards the other two doors. The one on the left from where he came in and the one on the opposite end of the hall. He started with the one closest to him.

Opening the door and looking into the room, without entering, the room was simply a sitting room. There were a handful of tables all of a different sizes with chairs scattered about. The walls had shelves on them that had once contained food, judging from the smell and residue. There was also another door on the right. Before entering, Felix walked back into the hall and to the other door he hadn't checked. Looking into that room, it seemed to have once been some kind of kitchen.

There were crates and barrels on one end of the room and a counter with a large metal box on the other. The metal box had likely once been a stove or oven at some point, or at least that was Felix's best guess. There were two doors, one that led back into the first room with the red carpet, meaning he now knew where all the doors in that room led. The other door was on the left and likely led to the room he had just looked into, before this one. Felix checked the room for traps then walked across to the door and looked into the room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .