The dungeon crumbled to pieces. Lieze couldn’t help but wonder what strange magical force could have been holding it together. When the established ‘rules’ of its passage were broken, it seemed intent on punishing whoever had sought a more efficient way of traversing its depths.
Lieze conjured [Blood Barriers] to shield her from the worst of the rubble dislodging from the ceiling as she sprinted through the shifting corridors, racking her brain to recall the path towards Drayya’s corner. No matter how far she strayed from the centre, the Flesh Golem could still be heard plummeting through the labyrinth’s layers, sundering the earth with its immense weight.
But Lieze was only human. She was bound to misstep at one point or another. As she rounded a corner, her foot sank into a loose stone, setting off a chain reaction that dismantled the damaged floor in an instant and sent her on a one-way trip to the dungeon’s next layer. Thankfully, she didn’t have far to fall - barely a few feet - though she didn’t allow the mistake to stall her momentum, scrambling forward just in time to avoid another chunk of stone descending from above.
Her whereabouts were unknown. She’d fallen into uncharted territory. The safety of the previous floor had been replaced by a trove of traps and monsters. The passage in front of her was unmarked and inconspicuous, but that was all the more reason to be suspicious of it. She leaned down to retrieve a pebble and tossed it down the corridor, causing its walls to extend inwards with such ferocious speed that the pebble was instantly reduced to dust.
“Hm.” Lieze turned her head, “Can’t go that way…”
She idled in the relative safety of that passageway until the worst of the chaos had settled, praying that the ground beneath her feet wouldn’t suddenly collapse into the abyss. There was no true ‘end’ to the destruction, but the worst of it had passed within a minute - enough that any shelf of the dungeon left standing was more or less safe to traverse.
Lieze wandered back to the point of her fall, amazed to discover the extent of the Golem’s carnage. She stood on the edge of a terrifying sinkhole spiralling towards the centre of the world. The dungeon’s unique architecture had created a series of ‘shelves’ exposing the innards of each layer. In the distance, triggered gas traps could be seen belching toxic fumes into the air, lifting towards the distant surface where rays of blinding sunlight tore through gaps in the dirt roof.
Lieze peered over the side, yanking herself back when vertigo reared to unmoor her balance. The sinkhole’s lowest point was choked with impenetrable darkness that not even the distant sunlight could penetrate.
“There must be a hundred layers, at least…” She muttered, “It would have taken us days to reach the bottom naturally.”
Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a notification.
Battle Report:
Goblin (x156)
Hobgoblin (x98)
Ogre (x44)
Greater Ogre (x61)
Black Slime (x18)
Wyrm (x3)
Crystalline Golem (x12)
Earth Elemental (x17)
Venom Stalker (x13)
Facestealer (x4)
Poisonous Snapper (x12)
Temporal Spiderbeast (x1)
Mimic (x5)
Total XP Earned - 10,343
Level Up! You are now level [45] HP + 10 MP + 45 MIND + 1
Milestone Reached!
Master Necromancy (lvl. 1) has been upgraded to Master Necromancy (lvl. 2) Description - Use 10MP to reanimate a creature of level 80 or below. The creature’s level as an undead thrall equals 2.5x its original level, rounded down. You can maintain a number of thralls equal to 15x your level, rounded down.
Necromantic Alchemy (lvl. 8) has been upgraded to Necromantic Alchemy (lvl. 9)
Enhancements Learned - [Designate Leader] Unique Undead Learned - [Skeletal Necromancer]
“Uh…” Lieze scratched the back of her head, “I suppose everything the Flesh Golem happened to crush was technically attributed to me? I should do this more often…”
She wasn’t about to complain about gaining nearly an entire level’s worth of experience in a matter of minutes. It provided her with a convenient excuse for her admittedly suicidal plan, which would be essential to prevent Drayya from getting too frustrated with her.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“...Level 2 Master Necromancy.” She muttered, “I wonder - is that as high as it’s ever going to go? Sokalar was on the same rank, and his level was much higher than my own…”
She had a hope that her growth wouldn’t be stunted by worldly limitations. Her ambitions were far too lofty to be affected by such things. She was eager to examine the capabilities of her newest [Necromantic Alchemy] abilities when she was free of the dungeon’s confines.
“Lieze!”
A voice yelled from not far above. She craned her neck up to spot Drayya’s raven hair and pale features peeking over the shelf. She didn’t look at all pleased about the destruction Lieze had wrought.
“Oh.” Lieze blinked, “You’re still alive.”
“Barely!” She replied, “Look what you’ve done! How are we supposed to get anywhere without the staircases!?”
Lieze paused, “...I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“How honest of you to admit it…” Drayya sighed, “Listen - I brought some rope with me. It’ll take some time, but we should be able to move ourselves and the thralls deeper into the dungeon. Just give me a minute or two to get everything ready.”
“Are you sure?” She asked, “Why don’t I command the Flesh Golem to climb up here? We could ride on its shoulders all the way-”
“No. No more Flesh Golem horseplay, Lieze. Not today.” Drayya shook her head, “Please.”
She shrugged. It sounded like a fantastic idea to her, but if Drayya couldn’t stomach the possibility, then they’d have to proceed in a more mundane fashion.
Lieze had some rope of her own to contribute. With a bit of elbow grease, Drayya tied the two lengths together and fastened one end of the spool to a free-standing pillar separated from the dungeon’s foundation. It wasn’t safe by any stretch of the imagination, but the two of them had become so accustomed to ‘unsafe’ that it didn’t seem risky in the least.
Drayya tossed the rope into the abyss, unsure of whether it would lead them straight to the bottom thanks to the sheet of darkness enveloping the lowest layers. Lieze grabbed the hempen coil and gave it a firm tug to make sure she wouldn’t immediately fall to her death. When her feet left the safety of the ledge, she resisted the urge to gaze into the abyss and focused her mind on inching down the rope.
She observed the dungeon’s ecosystem layer-by-layer as she slid. Every ten stratums or so, the design of the walls and floors would change, melding from stone to marble to brilliant black quartz. She could only imagine the sorts of treasures that were hidden within its deepest recesses - and those she had unquestionably destroyed by summoning the Flesh Golem.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness soon enough, revealing the rubble-encrusted sanctum at the epicentre of the Golem’s violent landing. The thought occurred to her that she hadn’t been informed of the guardian’s defeat via a quest notification.
“Is it still alive?” She wondered aloud, “That shouldn’t be possible… nothing could survive being crushed by that Golem.”
Her mind raced with possibilities. Something amorphous, like a slime, could have weathered the worst of it. Worse yet, an ethereal beast like a spirit could have simply made use of its immaterial form to negate physical damage entirely. Or worse still, the guardian could have been a creature of such unprecedented might that the full weight of a 50-feet tall Flesh Golem wasn’t enough to leave so much as a scratch upon it.
Her predictions would have to wait. The rope ended three layers shy of the sanctum, Forcing Lieze to swing herself towards the nearest ledge. Her steps were loud against the glossy black surface, deepening the already-choking darkness. She remained there with her guard up while Drayya - and the rest of the thralls - slid down to join her.
“Gods, they’re slow…” Drayya craned her neck upwards to spot a number of Gravewalker shimmying down the length of the rope, “I hope it goes without saying, but we can’t bring along any of the more monstrous thralls. Their bodies aren’t exactly adapted for descending ropes.”
“How many does that leave us with?” Lieze asked.
Drayya swung the end of the rope towards the ledge and landed with a stumble onto the quartz.
“Oh, I don’t know… 50?” She replied, “We’ll make do. I imagine the Guardian’s already dead anyway.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Lieze said, “We’d better explore what remains of this layer to see if we can’t round up some more. I don’t want to rush into a difficult battle with only Gravewalkers to support us.”
“I did tell you we’d have been better off bringing a Briarknight or two.” She placed her hands on her hips, “-But you can never do things the easy way, can you?”
“We’re at the bottom, aren’t we?” Lieze shrugged, “Don’t argue with results.”
The Gravewalkers in question arrived after a painstaking wait. One or two of them lacked the fine motor abilities needed to clear the gap between the rope and the floor, but such sacrifices were common in Lieze’s line of work.
“Let’s not waste any time.” Once the final thrall was regrouped, Lieze wandered into the darkness, “If we’re lucky, we might find a staircase leading down to the next layer.”
Intermittent tremors plagued their expedition through the dungeon’s final floors - a groan of imminent death from the last foundations keeping the structure from becoming a heap of rubble.
The beasts there were stronger. More cunning. Lieze learned so the hard way. A matter of minutes into her delve, something amorphous and shadowed emerged from between cracks in the floor, taking the form of a panther whose body was studded with white spots like a tapestry of stars against the night sky.
Void Beast Level 48 Aberration HP - 9,608 / 9,608 MP - 7,188 / 7,188 BODY - 22 MIND - 20 SOUL - 6
Lieze raised her focus in preparation to cast a spell, but the creature was already halfway through a fearsome pounce. She was tackled to the ground in an instant, staff loosening from her grip as the Void Beast’s celestial paws morphed around her wrists like shackles to eliminate any hope of escape.
Lieze’s MP - 980 / 1,980
Forced to rely on her natural reserve of mana, she drew 10 litres of blood from her Bag of Holding to form a concave [Blood Barrier] just in time to block the Void Beast’s pure-white fangs from sinking into her throat. Before it could redirect its attack, however, a [Blood Spike] sank into its starry flank, causing its grip on Lieze’s wrists to weaken.
Void Beast’s HP - 9,108 / 9,608
Gravewalkers surged forward to immobilise the beast’s body, gouging chunks of smoke-cursed flesh with their diseased gums.
Void Beast’s HP - 7,261 / 9,608
The Void Beast relented in its assault, shaking off its assailants before somersaulting through the air and landing clear of Lieze and her allies. Drayya began to cast another [Blood Spike], only to reconsider when she witnessed the creature dissolving into a tar-like puddle, quickly escaping through a crack in the floor.
“...Hah.” She relaxed her posture and sighed, “What was that?”
Lieze dispelled her [Blood Barrier] and scrambled to her feet, “...A Void Beast.”
“Eh… never heard of it.” She replied, “Are you alright?”
“I’m unharmed.” Lieze patted her robe clean of dirt, “But that was too close. We’ll have to keep our wits about us down here. Who knows how many more of those beasts are wandering around.”
With that said, a tinge of excitement ran down Lieze’s spine. The thought of defeating such a creature and adding it to her ranks was too enticing of an opportunity to refuse.