The monster was completely enraged at this point, it charged Andaris at full force, with no regard for anything else. It kicked off the ground just before reaching him and launched at him, both its front legs outstretched to skewer him as fast as it could manage.
Andaris rolled out the way just in time. The fact that the monster's attack was lopsided due to its middle left knee being injured, did not escape his senses notice.
As the monster impacted the wall, where Andaris had been just a moment ago, its talons dug deep into the rock, momentarily getting stuck. Andaris followed through on his roll, agily swiping a medium sized rock off the ground as he did so.
He continued his twirling motion, as he lightly kicked off the ground, building up momentum in his inhuman spin. Stretching out his rock hand as he did so, he twirled around bringing the rock to bare right on top of the monsters left hind knee with impressive force. Andaris heard a crack as the amour near the knee joint actually shattered and the left side of the creature completely crumpled to the ground.
Even the rock crumbled from the force of the blow. And the monster did not roar this time, so much as it cried out in pain. The monster had not managed to free itself yet, so Andaris took the chance to quickly pick up the nearest dropped shiv. He charged back at the monster, hoping to score another critical hit on it before it recovered.
He was too late. The monster finally yanked its left blade free from the wall and swung it awkwardly in his direction, its left side completely dropping to the ground as it did so. Andaris barely had a moment to dodge the low swing, he leapt off the ground while advancing, the blade still managing to sever Andaris’ left foot completely off.
He did not care. He would finish this! The pain also seemed dull and removed somehow.
Andaris landed on the monster's back and wrapped an arm around its throat to keep from sliding off. He then plunged the shiv between the armour plates of the head and the torso, as deep as he could. The shiv was short for this, but he could still feel damage being done. Vital damage.
The monster roared and bucked as Andaris stabbed again and again. The force of the monsters’ resistant movements, cracking more ribs, the force required to hold on and not be flung off, contorting and tearing at his arms muscles.
In a final desperate move, the monster kicked off against the ground, hard, flipping its entire body up towards the wall with alarming force. Andaris let go of the monster's neck and desperately rolled out the way. Not a moment too soon as the monster’s back crashed into the wall with serious force. Had he still been on its back, he would have been pulverised.
Andaris, still mid air, noticed that the monster had contorted so hard, that it had snapped its left blade right off, still stuck in the wall; and was now free. The monster was pissed and no longer cared about things as trivial as landing, it immediately lashed out with its one good left limb, while still mid air.
Andaris tried to kick off the wall to get out the way, having no other way to dodge a strike mid air. He was too far away from the wall however and could not get enough force, the monsters’ blade severed right through his right leg.
Andaris landed on the ground nearby, helplessly, his left foot not having healed yet. Apparently healing back entire limbs was difficult and took a lot more time. The monster having also just landed, immediately dragged itself over towards him. Andaris tried to use his arms to drag his body along and put some distance between them, but it was futile.
The monster soon reached him and drove its front left talon straight into his chest and through his left lung, pinning him in place. It hurt. He couldn’t breath. And he couldn't heal while the talon was buried inside him.
The monster loomed over him and brought its head down as if savouring the moment of its hard earned meal.
It was not to be.
Andaris drove the shiv into the monsters left eye socket in retaliation. The creature pulled away and wailed in pain. Outraged, it opened its maw wide, revealing all its teeth and plunged in, fully intending to bite Andaris’ head clean off, no more fucking around!
Andaris waited until the last possible moment and drove the shiv, along with his entire arm, into the monster's mouth, plunging the full lenght of the weapon into the soft roof of the creature's mouth. The creatures oversized mouth and rather flat shaped head meant the dagger penetrated its brain successfully.
The monster momentarily froze in panic, as if realising the moment of its demise. With a sharp tug, Andaris pulled the shiv along the inside and gutted the roof of its mouth and sliced through a large portion of its brain.
The monster unceremoniously dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut.
Andaris gasped for air. With the last of his strength, he pulled and lifted the monsters talon out of his chest, the wound beginning to slowly close up immediately. Andaris breathed raggedly, regularly coughing up blood in between breaths. He waited with the heavy weight of the monster on top of him as his limbs slowly regenerated. The effect of the healing having grown even weaker now.
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His skin no longer glowed or steamed. Just the thorough coating of dirt, blood and the monster ichor on him. Suddenly the monster dissolved into millions of motes of gentle light, before dispersing into the air and disappearing completely. It did however leave behind six greyish blue metallic talons.
Monster drops. His first loot as a delver. Despite his dire condition and his likely dying friend, he could not help but smile.
Andaris, dragged himself over to where Antonio was. It took him a while to reach him, as by now his energy had been sapped to a ridiculously low level. By the time Andaris finally reached Antonio, his limbs had mostly finished regenerating.
“Antonio!” He called out. He had never uttered a slaves name so loud before, the act itself bringing him a sense of freedom.
“Andaris” Antonio responded weakly, but smiling at his friend all the same. “That was incredible.”
Antonio took a moment to take in Andaris’ still regenerating right leg. “And a divine gift of all things.” He coughed up blood weakly.
“Antonio, we have to get you to the surface.”
“No. The guards will kill a slave returning to the surface without their warden.” Antonio whispered weakly, the light almost gone from his eyes. “I'm done.” He said slowly and carefully. “Live.”
The last breath he drew was to impart his dearest wish and final instruction upon Andaris.
Andaris did not cry, not on the outside. There was no room for tears in a dungeon after all. He closed Antonio’s eyelids and got up, now fully healed. He was exhausted to the point of being about to pass out. The effect of the healing was also wearing off fast, he didn’t have much time.
Andaris went over to Shiva’s corpse, and withdrew his steel hunting knife and remaining incendiary potion. Throwing the potion down created an intense patch of incredibly hot flames. Andaris plunged the blade deep into the flames, screaming at the pain of his hand and part of his arm constantly burning and counterhealing. But he bared it. A slave was no stranger to pain after all.
Once the knife was glowing bright yellow from the heat, Andaris pressed the flat of it hard against the slave branding on his right shoulder. His scream of pain was nearly choked out by the smell of burning flesh. Once done, he lifted the blade and watched hopefully as his shoulder healed. It had worked, the flesh healed back, this time without the slave branding on his skin. Andaris had panicked for a moment there, the healing was already so slow that he had worried it wouldn’t even finish. The power had now pretty much completely left him.
Andaris cut his slave collar off and ‘borrowed’ some things from Shivas. Like his belt and sling satchel, along with his rather ‘light’ coin purse. Andaris also gathered up the six talon drops.
He took one last look at Antonio’s corpse, momentarily wondering if he should burn it. He decided against it, the dungeon would soon claim it. We delvers had a saying after all, “We take from the dungeon until the dungeon takes back.”
Andaris made his way to the first floor and then made his way through it, passing a number of parties, all of which gave him a mixture of different looks. He must look like quite a sight after all, covered head to toe in blood, dirt and ichor.
Andaris finally exited the dungeon. He panicked as he noticed that the same guard was on duty that had handled their entry that morning. His hope of slipping by, ‘no longer a slave’ was about to be dashed.
The guard approached him, “Looks like you had quite a day” He laughed, but stopped midway, insteady eyeing his ragged form and what little ragged clothing actually remained attached to him.
“You a slave?”
Did he not recognise me? I just looked like one? “No”
“Fuck you! I know a slave when I see one!” The guard grabbed Andaris arm and pulled him close to inspect his shoulder.
“Bloody hell. You’re such a mess you even had me thinking you were a fucking escaped slave.” The guard relaxed a bit. “Now, let’s see your guild tag.”
“I don’t have one. When I entered the dungeon you guys weren’t here yet and I’ve never signed up, this is my first delve.”
“That was two days ago- First delve-” The guard was rather surprised and seemed to see him in a new light. “Well that being the case, I can’t do an appraisal of your earnings for tax purposes, so you will have to hand over ‘out of guild’ fees. Show me what you got, I'm gonna need half of it.
Andaris showed the guard everything he had, with only the talons clearly being dungeon drops. The guards eyes went wide when he saw them and took three of the talons. Even he could tell this was an incredibly valuable drop item.
Andaris then asked for directions to the guilds headquarters. Before heading there, he first washed up in the towns nearby river. He could not do anything about the abysmal state of his clothing, but if nothing else the cold water had served to refresh him a bit. He managed to shake off some of the torpor that even now threatened to take him.
Andaris then made his way over to the guilds makeshift headquarters. He eventually managed to meet one of their information brokers. The man did not even bat an eyelid at Andaris’ condition, clearly used to meeting all kinds in this business.
Andaris then proceeded to sell the information about the insane elite monster of the second floor, going into great detail about how it wiped out his ‘party’ and his fight with it and how he had only managed to prevail thanks to an extremely powerful divine gift breakthrough.
He used the talons as a form of pseudo proof, but the idea of such a monster existing on the second floor was still rather far fetched. So the the man forced Andaris to join the guild and receive its crest before he would be rewarded for the valuable information.
The crest was a magical device of sorts embedded in your flesh and bound to it magically. If you broke one of the guilds rules, like selling false information, they could disable it remotely and then anyone with enough talent to read its state would know you are an outlaw of the guild. And that would likely not end well for you.
Andaris received a substantial reward for his invaluable information.
Now a member of the guild and with a decent amount of money, he rented a spot aboard an outbound carriage. He would return to this absurd dungeon one day, when he was strong enough to face it. But for now he needed to get stronger. He would pursue his dream, for himself, and for those that left him with the responsibility of making their deaths matter and not be in waste.