It was oddly windy, making the already cold quarry somewhat miserable, I checked my duffel bag, which fun fact, I could see everything in it by using Inform on it, which was convenient.
----------
Duffel Bag
Contents:
Crimson Vial x2
Ammunition, 9x19 Makrov x63, 9M x60
Heart Piercer
7 Round Box mag x3 (Loaded)
15 Round Box Mag x2 (Loaded)
Flanged Mace
Shooters 'muffs
Foam Earplugs
----------
Name: Berreta M9
Condition: Near Perfect
Ammo: 9x19 Parabellum
Description:
A lightweight recoil-operated semi-automatic handgun chambered in 9m manufactured by Berreta. It possesses incredible durability while having easy-to-replace parts as it was designed to be entirely interchangeable. Before the descent, it was Legendary, used as the standard sidearm by all branches of the U.S. military for more than 30 years, it was adopted in 1985 and was replaced in 2017.
----------
John had trouble using guns for a reason I'd never considered, It has a normal arm, so my memory was significantly less helpful for it. The solution was simple, I just watched John fumble about until I started to understand the new things It could do which made It understand by proxy, It took a while but wasn't exactly particularly difficult.
We descended until we got to the final slope at the bottom. I did the general prep before I descended the slope.
After about 2 minutes of waiting it seemed the entrance was clear this time, so we began our descent. With Bandit in the front and John behind I was fully covered.
The first area was just a long hall, nothing here at all. I rounded a corner which led into the network of corridors again.
This time I knew my way through so it was far simpler to navigate, nothing in particular happened other than 3 Mudteeth who decided they cared little about living. No cores.
----------
+15 xp!
----------
Ah, reminds me. I had 6 AUX, a much higher starting value than other classes 2 each in Will and Mind, and 1 each in Toughness and Endurance. When you lv up, your AUX is applied in its relevant stat, and each application of each point is +5%. You could check your AUX via Inform applied to your main class.
----------
Main Class: Necromancer
Description
An expert in the dark arts, able to control bone and life. Their mainstay ability is to create undead and conjure spirits to serve them. Such incredible prowess has a price however, directly damaging spells and skills are few, and you'll never get an ounce of support spells or skills that apply to you, as such, without their minions they are practically worthless. Since this is a servant-based class your minion kills count as your kills.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Free AUX points: 0
Free spell/skill points: 0
AUX
Body: 0
Toughness: 1
Endurance: 1
Fortitude: 0
Mind: 2
Will: 2
Tolerance: 0
----------
My stats look like this now.
----------
stats
Body: 2.17, 2.17/30 x0%
Toughness: 6.02, 4.82/10 x25% (Mutation x2)
Endurance: 3.17, 3.02/10 x5%
Fortitude: 4, 4/10 x0%
Mind: 5.5, 5/10 x10%
Will: 9.53, 8.67/10 x10%
Tolerance: 2.1, 5.17/10 -60% (Mutation x2)
----------
Rant aside, I'd made it to the end of the maze. Up ahead was a hall with holes dotted along the walls. A solitary Mudtooth was sitting on the ground, It stared directly at me and then sprinted off.
How fun. As I approached closer to the first hole I had my John take a look, It gave me a thumbs up so I took a look myself. It was maybe 1'5 feet tall and about 11 inches wide. It was too hard to see deep in but it went further back. As I turned away I saw the Mudtooth peaking out at me from one of the holes before quickly retreating. I gave the duffel bag to Bandit, then loaded the m9 and handed it to John.
"Wonderful."
It looks like we were playing Pop Goes the Weasel with limb muncher Carl who lives in your walls. This was one of the more dangerous rooms in this dungeon, Carl was never a pushover.
I had john stand to my left, we stood back to back inching our way forward, guns trained on the holes in the walls, and Bandit stood behind us keeping watch.
Hole by hole we scanned the darkness as we inched along. After about 2 minutes we were nearing the middle section, this shaft was long, and the anxiety was heightened further by my inability to hear much of anything.
A spike made of mud flew from the hole in front of me and went deep into my right shoulder.
I fell to the floor and got all the wind knocked out of me, John turned around and fired a few rounds into the dark. I let out a wheeze as I tried to pull air into my lungs, barely managing a shuddering gasp.
" Hu-, Au-."
It was probably about an inch wide and 6 inches long, I grasped my fingers against the hole in the wall and pulled myself up. Blood flowed freely over my jacket onto the floor as Bandit passed me the duffel bag.
Fishing a Crimson Vial out from it I sat back down away from the hole, each movement sending waves of fire through my shoulder. Reaching up I grasped my fingers around it and started to try to pull it out.
"Mh-mmm-mm cmon you c-can do this. You've felt worse, you-you can do this."
With the little resolve I'd gathered I gave it a fair tug out. I immediately lost any self-confidence as I struggled to get another breath.
"N-No sir, nope, not g-gonna happen."
I exhaled and let my fingers drop off the spike.
It's a good thing I had friends to do the things I couldn't do for myself, John wrapped his bony hand around the spike and I clenched my now free hand around the vial.
With a yank, my brain fell away as my eyes swam with iridescent dots and my shoulder burned like lava under my skin.
Gathering back little bits of my brain I raised my hand up to my mouth and took out the cork with my teeth and downed it. Somehow the feeling of it healing was worse than its removal.
I stood up, the wound was too big to fully close with just 1 Vial and I wasn't keen on using the other on this now manageable wound, it wasn't even bleeding anymore. I was now aware of 2 things:
1, nobody ever mentioned that Carl was this smart.
2, my plan, was, apparently worthless.
John stood to my back again but this time we advanced much faster. And it wasn't long before another spike flew from a hole at John's side, this time it missed and we both fired down the Hole.
Swiftly we made our way forward till we were at nearly the end of the corridor and were onto the next section, then Bandit slammed one of its arms into a hole behind us and dragged out Carl before slamming it into the floor and ripping its head apart.
----------
+17 xp!
----------
I guess the answer was lv 6, Carl didn't even drop a core, little bastard. I had bandit get back in front and we continued down the hall where I was met with the fork. Picking left I ended up in the treasure room.
----------
Treasure Chest
Contents:
Crimson Vial
Cyan Vial
Loose cartridges, 9x18 Makarov x13
Miners Lantern
----------
Miners Lantern (Full)
Condition: Rusty
Description
an old rusty lantern with a built-in ignition system, useful for delving in the dark.
----------
I took it all then continued further down until I was faced with what looked to be a breakroom of sorts.
Tables and chairs upturned into barricades, trash, and rotting food stunk up the room, but even worse was the loud shuffling sounds ahead. Navigating through the mess I rounded a table and was met with an eager canine, it was aiming to pounce on me but John shot the thing just before it lept up. I finished it off with a double tap to the dome.
Mudteeth started leaping over tables and diving under chairs, and it very quickly turned into an out brawl. I put my gun back in its holster readied my mace and swung at one who just crawled out from under a broken table destroying its skull.
I felt one latch onto my ankle and I swung around and clocked it in the head, John quickly followed up on its surprise and executed it. This time though it was John who got taken down as a Mudtooth threw itself into his legs sending him tumbling. dropping my mace I drew my gun and fired at the thing, none landed but it was distracted for long enough glaring at me that John Grabbed his M9 and blew the thing's head off from below its chin.
It seemed to be the last of them. I've no idea where Bandit went but I didn't need to wonder for long as he reappeared behind us covered in mud.
----------
+58 xp!
--------
Wading my way through the mess I collected all the cores I could find and we headed to the end of the room which kept going for maybe 2 minutes before I ended up staring down into The Pit.
I used the same strat as last time but without blowing out my eardrums and without any of them slipping by, there was much less of them this time. Only 7.
----------
+61 xp!
lv up!
Aux Applied.
please select a skill to lv.
----------
Animate Dead, lv 1: Animate a fallen humanoid corpse/complete skeleton as a minion, costs 35/15 mana, casts in 0.5 seconds.
Boneworks, lv 0: skeletal minions, remain till they fall, as knowledgable as you under most circumstances. Costs 35 mana, you've currently animated 2/2 skeletons.
Fleshworks, lv 0: fleshy minions, Rapidly decays after 24 hours, retain only the knowledge they had in life. Costs 15 mana, you've currently animated 0/3 zombies.
----------
Boneworks, lv 2: skeletal minions, remain till they fall, as knowledgable as you under most circumstances. Costs 35 mana, you've currently animated 2/3 skeletons.
----------
With another lv in Boneworks, I gathered up all the cores and headed back to the treasure room and threw back that Cyan Vial I got, and added a new friend to the party. This one's name is Joe.
---------
Mana Overcharge (Moderate)!
You've overcharged more than 50% of your max mana, be wary of treading further.
----------
Mana Exhaustion (Minor)
You've expended more than or equal to 33% of your max mana within 30 seconds, a precursor to greater symptoms.
----------
We started down the other path at the fork and I stared at the ladder ahead of me.
It was deep and dark.
I began my descent into the black.