Short summary of the last chapter:
Spoiler :
Voice attacked a few of EDI’s group, and left the rest to the boss of that room. After that he went to stall Wolf in his maze. The excessive amount of traps barely even dented Wolfs’ troops. After adding a bit of spice to the maze, Voice decided he wouldn’t be able to do much damage to them. He went to the next boss room Wolf would get to, and set up a series of traps.
Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment and rate!
Sorry that took a while to get out. I was planning on having it out on Friday, but an unexpected online test appeared!
The zombies attack Wolf’s group, even with the heated steam seeping through the air. They didn’t need to breathe, so could move around better. Wolf’s group was having trouble breathing, and the mage couldn’t blow the thick, hot, steam away.
With Tear, SparrowHawk, and Drake each doing their task, it was basically impossible to actually stop the steam. I had Golem and Sol go back to help Moro in the final boss chamber. I also made Golem add metal mana to sharpen the nails of the zombies.
With the tiny bit of extra attack, they would be able to deal a lot more damage. Since Wolf’s team was having trouble even breathing, they would not be able to defend very well. Only Kretchof didn’t have a mana based assignment, but he had a much bigger responsibility.
The zombies attacked Wolf’s group, even as I cast my blindness buff on them. I targeted the ones that were being attacked first, even going so far as to cast a petrification debuff on Wolf.
The mage was trying her best to keep the steam from suffocating the group, but wasn’t getting very far. She didn’t even have time to think about curing the debuff status of the select individuals. Since they were blinded, and couldn’t breathe, their comrades had to take to protecting them.
Even their comrades couldn’t breathe very well. With everything seemingly going against them, they had more than just a little trouble dealing with the enemies.
The main boss hadn’t even arrived yet, and they were already getting ready to drop. To help that along, I initiated stage two. With the steam in the room swirling around them, they had trouble breathing.
I had Tear help me focus the steam into just a few balls of water. I had Drake heat the earth, to try to make a magma pit. That way the mage would either provide us with more water, or let her allies be sucked into a burning pit.
Tear and I gathered the water around the mage, and two other outstanding individuals. Wolf was one of them, but I knew he probably had something for this kind of situation. Still, it never hurt to try, so I put a ball of water around his head as well.
As soon as the water encompassed the mage, she started to flail around. I sent several earth spears into her body, but she was protected against them somehow. Fucking mages. Always trying to protect themselves with spells.
Not that I had actually expected to kill her with that. I knew she wasn’t an easy opponent, if she was I’d have already killed off everyone here.
She waved her hands frantically. I almost started to laugh at the weird gestures she was making.
Too late, I realized the gestures weren’t random at all. A blindingly brilliant light flooded the room. The ones not caught by my darkness spell flinched at the sudden increase of visibility.
Even I had to shy my eyes away from the massive amount of mana that was cast. I even got a notice about it.
Magic Seal has been cast.Magic Seal nullifies all magical abilities in the area. Spells that were already cast will be rendered invalid. No spells can be cast for the next 60 minutes in this area, or by anyone that was in the area when the spell was cast. Seals up to rank three spells.
Fairies caught in this spell, that are up to rank 3, will be sent back to the Ether Realm for 60 minutes.
??? What’s this now? Magic Seal? This isn’t good. This is bad! I had a plan, but it would be a lot harder with no magic. In fact, how the heal did she manage to make that?
When I tried to use mana, I got a notification saying it was temporarily impossible to use mana. I tried looking at the mana in the air near her, but I couldn’t even activate Mana Sight.
Since the girl somehow managed to destroy my fairies, except Sol, Moro, and Kretchof, I was left with no one to help me. I couldn’t even dig a tunnel to go anywhere! I was stuck only being able to go to the final boss room, unless I felt comfortable in digging through pure stone.
I had placed a major tunnel beneath each mini boss room. The tunnels all connected to the final boss room. That way Kretchof could send more undead easily if the boss rooms looked to be in trouble.
Of course it wasn’t allowed for the Boss of the dungeon to actually do that, but technically they weren’t entering the room, even though they got inside.
The rooms were designed to be impossible to enter except for the one door. That didn’t apply to the ground though. I had Kretchof place undead just close enough to the surface to be considered in the room before the group entered it.
Not close enough to be dealt damage from the magma though. Anyway I went for an angry stroll to Kretchof’s room. I couldn’t do anything for the next hour anyway. I’d hate to be in the way of the monsters.
I had Kretchof finish off the traps in the room before starting the actual boss battle. I didn’t know how it would turn out without me guiding the plan, but I had no choice but to trust Kretchof at this point.
The plan was difficult to complete. In one small area, Eli and I had created a really deep hole. That was it. Although it was covered up by a very thin layer of stone.
The stone was so brittle, that anything over 80 pounds would instantly crack it. Then the object would fall several hundred feet downwards. The drop ended abruptly with several metal encased stone spikes.
The spikes were covered in my special venom-like poison that I made from environmental mana. That way it wouldn’t disappear.
I had Sol return to me, and help Moro in the boss room. Something I found out was that Moro was immune to poison. Which was great. Sol wasn’t, but Moro could also protect one other person from the poison.
That ‘person’ was obviously Sol. That way they could work until our guests arrived. I wouldn’t want the room to be unprepared. With Sol helping Kretchof and Moro, the work almost doubled in speed.
The reason Kretchof was helping? Well you’ll find that out a bit later.
EDI’s POV
I finally made it out of the mini boss room. Only four of us are left. The queen ant thing was way too powerful for normal. Even if she was designated as the dungeon mini boss.
I knew Voice was behind this somehow. I didn’t know how though. I had an instinct that he was also behind the traps.
He used to use various tactics to win, but my thoughts were that he has went to the next step and actually started setting up traps.
Setting up these traps would have taken a lot of work. Especially with all of the undead attacking. The most obvious conclusion was that he had somehow made a sort of deal with the dungeon. That would be the worst case scenario though.
With his innate manipulation of mana, befriending a dungeon would mean his powerbase was several times higher than when I met him. Or worse yet, he might have subjugated the dungeon like he did with the monsters in the first dungeon we fought together.
I was sad to remember that. We had a lot of fun. Now I had to act like a completely different person because EDITOR thought it would make me seem more ‘human’. Not even humans act this peppy all the time.
I knew how manipulative Voice was, but he was still the first friend I made. At least he was upfront about it after I confronted him.
I took his words to heart. Everyone in my group did seem to want something. No one was helping just to help someone out. They all wanted a piece of the profit.
Which was ok. Economy was built on transactions like that. I couldn’t get mad at him not wanting to be around me anymore. I mean I was the one hiding that I was an AI.
But it was still pretty heartless of him to kick me aside like that. I could have helped him a lot. That was all in the past though. I would show him the folly of breaking up our friendship.
I sent a message to BigBadWolf, and went to the rendezvous area. I would wait for him to come, and regroup. There was no way we could fight another boss with just four of us. That was about a fifth of what I started with when Wolf and I split into groups.
Wolf’s POV
This is getting bad. As soon as we entered the mini boss chamber I could feel the difference in the air. Something was wrong, but we already entered. The doors were closed until we won, or all of us died.
I look around. Several my troops are inflicted with blind. At least it’s not all of us. I had already experienced that. Luckily I have night vision and dark vision. I could see up to 30 feet without any light.
The air is getting hot, but no sign of enemies yet. An enormous fire ball comes at us. The mage girl blocks it, but the fire seems to have a mind of its own.
It swerves and hits the ground. The ground is slowly becoming lava! “SPRAY IT!” I yell at the mage. She immediately starts using water jet to cool the ground.
It seems I’ve fallen for another trap.
The steam around us doesn’t dissipate. It just gathers. My troops are having trouble breathing. Margret the mage uses Vortex to clear away the steam.
Unlike what she showed me before, it seems as though Vortex is nothing more than a gentle breeze. She seems to be putting all of her strength into it though.
Then it happens. Zombies start pouring towards us. They are dropping from the sky! Damn! How did Voice manage to get past all of this!? He must be some savant at fighting or something.
From the little amount of info EDI had given me, Voice wasn’t good at fighting up close. He would get better if he fought the same enemy multiple times though.
Despite that he tended to like fighting up close even though his class was magic based. I could respect that. A real man always likes to fight up close.
The fight isn’t that hard, but the lack of oxygen is problematic. The zombies move so slowly they could never be a threat. My troops don’t seem to be having as easy of a time.
Margret dispelled the blindness debuff, but it just comes back. She can’t keep up with that and the wind at once. I have her concentrate on the wind. If we can’t breathe we have no chance at victory.
It’s starting to get too much. Some of the troops are taking damage. It seems the blindness only effected key targets.
Suddenly water surrounds my head. I had a nifty ring that let me breathe in water though, so it wasn’t a problem.
The problem is that about a quarter of my men have the same thing happening to them. Margret decides to use her unique magic.
After a few seconds all magic in the area is gone. She can’t cast spells for an hour though. That at least almost guarantees that we will win this boss fight though.
The zombies stop coming at that point. After we kill the remaining ones, I tell my men to stay on high alert. The mini boss hadn’t shown up yet.
Suddenly hands start springing up from the ground beneath us. I cut one that is grabbing my ankle, but another hand instantly comes out right beside it.
The hands continue to sprout from the ground. After cutting off several more hands, I notice something in the walls. Not on them, but in them.
The walls are crawling with monsters! I shout to my men to get into the formation I prepared for something like this. Instantly the archers surround the mage, and the warriors surround the archers.
The monsters weren’t much to look at, just demon spiders. Putting demon in front of the name did make them seem more powerful though.
They are basically just large spiders. The spiders start to quickly crawling towards us. When they reach us they begin throwing web.
Of course the archers are attacking them, but it doesn’t seem to do very much damage. The warriors have their hands full with blocking the constant web throwing. I am helping of course, but the stream of web seems infinite.
“MEN! Ignore the web! Attack the spiders only!” I shout the command, and immediately follow it myself. I dash forward and attack the closest spider.
The spider shoots its web right at me face, but I ducked under it. With a quick swipe of my weapon, I draw the first blood. Its face would sport a nice scar in the future.
It sinks backwards, and another two spiders take its place. I already can’t see where it went. The amount of spiders coming from the walls is constant. They just keep pouring out.
The hands don’t seem to effect the spiders, but they keep pulling at my group. Damn. I’m going to make the boss of this room pay for this!
I had never been forced to use so much of my power. Now that I had, I am going to make sure the thing regrets it.
As I slash forward, and break one of the spider’s necks, I take a chance and look back. My group isn’t fairing nearly as well as I am.
Half of them are half covered in web, while the other half seems to be having a lot of trouble holding off only a handful of spiders each.
I rush over there to help protect them. While I run back, I notice some of the spiders running against the flood of their kin.
SHIT! THEY HAVE SOMEONE!
I look at my group and realize who it is right away. They took Margret! There was no hope of avoiding further casualties if the mage died.
I try to rush forward to get her, but the spiders start to concentrate at my location. I hack and slash at them, but that only pushes them back a few inches each time.
I used my racial ability. High jumping was one of the various capabilities of being part wolf. I could jump of twenty feet in the air with my skill level in jump.
I jump over a swath of the spiders, but Margret is already extremely far away. They seem to be heading for an area the other spiders are avoiding.
I continue to jump, but the spiders attach themselves to my body. They crawl up me, and try to imprison me in their webs.
I throw one of the few bombs I managed to get off Susan. A small circle of spiders curl up, dead. I jump there, while trying to dislodge the spiders on my body.
I have a skill that I can use to get rid of the web, but I can only use it once every ten minutes. If I used it now I would waste most of it.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
They are almost there though! I decide there is no other option. I cover myself in flames. It is an ability and not a spell. So it doesn’t get the restriction of her spell.
I continue throwing out my bombs as I run forward. Whatever web touches me evaporates into nothing. She is getting too close to that empty space!
I increase my speed as much as possible. The spiders arrive at the empty spot, and just sit her there. I rush forward to grab her.
A crack appears in front of her. Several more start to pop into existence. The cracks spread out like a web.
Without warning, the ground under her collapses in a ten foot area. I can’t see the bottom. My anger starts to boil over, that’s when all of the spiders turn their attention to me.
Voice’s POV
Kretchof came to tell me that the room was finished. I couldn’t actually go in there, or I’d risk dying myself. Well I have a way around that, but it would only work for about an hour at the most.
I was watching the clock tick down as Kretchof continued to keep me updated about the two groups progress. It turned out better than I had expected.
EDI only had herself, and three others to help. By the time Wolf killed off the queen spider, he was by himself. The mage died as predicted in the hole. It was lined with spikes after all.
The queen was given instructions to try to block Wolf, and kill everything else. I was reluctant at first to have the queen fight, if she died then I’d have no more spider minions to make silk for me. Their silk had gotten quite a bit better over the small amount of time.
It might have been the manufacturing was better though. Either way, it went from extremely crappy quality, to low quality. Quite the improvement.
Kretchof assured me that wasn’t how it worked. He had given a sizable amount of sacrifices to Davros. Of course I had to ok it. I told him to do whatever he was sure would benefit me.
Kretchof asked for as much detail as possible on running a dungeon, and how to make it more powerful quickly. Davros’ answer was fairly detailed.
A brief summary of the important parts was: Mini bosses respawn after 24 hours once the party that has defeated them leaves the dungeon. The same goes for the boss.
The various dungeon monsters respawned 24 hours after they were beaten, regardless of if the players left. The dungeon boss could even gain exp by draining it from his subordinates. (I already knew that one.)
Honestly the explanation went on and on. He wasn’t the god of darkness and intelligence for nothing I suppose.
Since Kretchof had gained so much knowledge, we implemented a lot of it in our battle plans. My favorite was the fact that anything players did that enhanced the boss room, without compromising its power in any way, would become part of it.
The last mini boss the group had to fight was the necromancer girl. She had apparently put something called ‘death wards’ on each entry way of her section of the labyrinth.
They basically had a low chance of causing instant death. The more powerful the creature, the lower the chance. But they had to go through at least a hundred door ways just to reach her. I told Kretchof to hurry them along.
If they didn’t get to her, then it would be pointless. The dungeon was going to change in less than an hour now. Kretchof went to work right away.
After Wolf met up with EDI’s group, they were attacked by several undead. Another group started shambling towards them from a bit far away. The process repeated for a while.
After a matter of minutes, they arrived at the correct part of the labyrinth. Kretchof had gotten good at leading people to places he wanted them to go.
After they made it there, I had Kretchof throw everything he had at them. He only kept enough reserves to make sure they would have trouble if they didn’t make it to a safe room in time. Four mini boss sections, four safe rooms.
They cut through the zombies. They sliced through the rodents and insects. They even made it through the angered spiders. One person dropped because of the death ward, but the other four people were fine.
After only half an hour they got to the necromancer girl’s room. I didn’t know how powerful she was, but Kretchof vouched for her.
I had fed a bit of false information to her. It was quite ingenious as a matter of fact. I had conjured up an image of Wolf one day. As I talked to Kretchof I made sure he called the necromancer girl. I left, and he said ‘That was my master. Show more respect next time.’
Thus she was convinced that BigBadWolf was the owner of the dungeon. Kretchof told her to make sure he attacked him like she had never seen him before. She could always talk to him though. As long as she showed respect.
Even if she were to blab about the dungeon master, she wouldn’t know it was me. I would get off scot-free.
The problem with having a player as a mini boss, is that they could make rational decisions. She could let them win if she wanted. Although since she was fighting the ‘dungeon master’ she wouldn’t go easy.
Her character had become bound to the dungeon in a similar way as Kretchof. She could leave it unless someone entered. Even if she wasn’t logged in her avatar would appear in the mini boss room. Plus the special feature of Kretchof.
Basically the entire dungeon was to prepare the people for the boss monster. You would get a small amount of info from each enemy, which helped with their bosses. Then the mini bosses gave you a bit of info on how to deal with the boss.
I didn’t get to see the fight. From what I was told, by Kretchof, it was a very simple battle. The group attacked her in a tight formation, and she countered by summoning up hordes of undead. She commanded both skeletons and zombies.
The zombies all exploded upon re-death. The skeletons could assemble themselves again given a bit of time. Not as well as the twins I summoned in River’s Cross though.
Her curse magic was fairly powerful from what I understood. She could debuff enemies better than I could. With her large amount of total mana (1000) she was very difficult to deal with. She even had specialized buffs that effected large groups of undead.
The battle still didn’t go her way. She couldn’t even kill one of them. At best she just delayed them. It was enough as a delay though.
By the time they killed her, the dungeon had already started trying to change. Sadly they weren’t in a safe room, so it couldn’t.
The monsters got more ferocious, and powerful, to try to kill them off so the dungeon could change.
The delaying tactics was a success! Even if they did manage to get to me in time, I was sure I could at least hold my own for the rest of the contest.
I only had to last about four hours for it to be over. Not only that, I could use my mana again! They were going to have a hard time beating me.
Although I had no chance of winning if I had to fight four powerful users at once. I could only hope some of them died. At best it would be EDI and Wolf.
Once they got the last key, the path to the dungeon boss was illuminated for them. Of course all resources were diverted to stopping them.
Every race within the dungeon attacked as fiercely as possible. As time went on, Kretchof lost more and more control of the monsters. So as soon as they started showing anger, he forced them all into one area. That way they would be in the general path of the enemies.
The plan worked well, but the group was too powerful to do anything about. One person dropped due to the sheer amount of the monsters, but three people made it to Kretchof’s boss door.
All of my fairies were back. I was glad it didn’t count as death. I didn’t have to waste the materials. I explained the plan to them, and let them get to work.
After inserting the keys, the three melee units all entered. Instantly the smell of decay overwhelmed their senses. A few skeletons attacked while they were caught off guard.
The skeletons didn’t even do any damage. One thing did though.
The reason I spent so much time cultivating this room is because it gave me an unfair advantage. All along the ground sprouted poisonous plants. There was four species of plants. They each gave off a different bad effect.
Congratulations! You have created a power debuff field!This field causes everyone in it to lose 1% total strength and endurance(not including buffs or armor) every 10 seconds. Up to a maximum of 75%. Increasing the potency of the ingredients used to make this field would increase its capabilities.
This field will effect everything within range.
Congratulations! You are the first player to create a debuff field!You have gained 50 fame. You have gained 15 intelligence for showing outstanding intellect.
Congratulations! You have created a nimbleness debuff field!This field causes everyone in it to lose 1% total agility and dexterity(not including buffs or armor) every 10 seconds. Up to a maximum of 75%. Increasing the potency of the ingredients used to make this field would increase its capabilities.
This field will effect everything within range.
Congratulations! You have created a scholarly debuff field!This field causes everyone in it to lose 1% total intelligence and wisdom(not including buffs or armor) every 10 seconds. Up to a maximum of 75%. Increasing the potency of the ingredients used to make this field would increase its capabilities.
This field will effect everything within range.
Congratulations! You have created a poison field!This field causes everyone in it to lose 1% health every 10 seconds. Increasing the potency of the ingredients used to make this field would increase its capabilities.
This field will effect everything within range.
Congratulations! You are the first player to create a poison field!You have gained 50 fame. You have gained 15 intelligence for showing outstanding intellect.
I had gone through and deeply studied each seed and plant I had taken from their weird scientist in the dwarven city. Over half of them were for healing, or crops. But a nice amount caused various debuffs.
By using the same methods as the one with the gryphons, I created various fields that neutralized my enemies. The best part? It didn’t effect undead. Or me for about an hour or so.
I had created various potions, and did many experiments, resulting in one super potion. Ok it wasn’t really a super potion, but it was perfect for this environment. That is the reason I set this environment up.
Poison Neutralizer *UniqueMaterial QualityHighWork QualityExpertBase NeutralizationRank 3This potion was created by the player Voice0fReason. This is just about the highest level potion you could make with these ingredients. It is quite an amazing feat.
This potion was made by an expert craftsman. This potion gains an unparalleled amount to neutralization powers. This potion blocks all poisons up to rank 3 for one hour. There is no limit to the quantity of poisons this potion can neutralize.
To be clear, poisons and potions were ranked according to their ingredient potency, and the craftsmanship that created them.
My field was only rank 2. There were a total of five ranks. At rank five a single potion would be like my potions pre-patch.
After I made that potion, with ingredients that took a week to grow (with boosted growth buff) I instantly started working on the debuff fields.
Even at a maximum of 75% each, that was still incredible. Of course it required 750 seconds. That was twelve and a half minutes. Obviously I had to keep them buy that long.
I was going to keep them occupied with fighting Kretchof until they were about to win. Of course Kretchof wouldn’t come out of the hiding spot I created for him. Unless they killed me. Then they were trade goods for Davros.
After a few seconds of battling, EDI realized what was happening. The fields were so well placed, that every inch of the chamber was covered in all of the debuffs. Even if you cleared all of the plants in a ten foot area, you would still feel the effects of them.
After quickly informing the others, they started trying to clear the plants. That was useless though. Moro and Sol had made sure they were extremely durable. Not only that, if they looked up, they could see even more.
The spores fell to the ground from the heavens. Even the elder gods were displeased with their trespasses. Lol.
Of course I was watching all of this from beneath them. I used almost all of my mana to go ahead and cast several permanent buffs on myself.
I cast two damage immunity buffs. The saddest part of buffs and debuffs were the diminishing returns. If I were to cast two of the same buffs, the second one only had a quarter of the efficiency. It kept decreasing to one fourth each time. More than two buffs was pointless.
So the two buffs only gave me 62.5% damage reduction and 31.25% health buff. It was better than nothing though. It cost me 1k mana.
I still had most of my pure mana, and my wind and fire mana. I could cast two movements enhancers, so I did. The total bonuses were 31.25% bonus speed and flexibility. Although now almost all of my light mana was gone, and a large chunk of darkness, earth, water, and wind had disappeared.
With most of my mana taken away, I would be concentrating on melee fighting. Three people were a lot to deal with. Even if I wasn’t effected by the cloud of dominance as I called it.
Kretchof made sure to concentrate on the weakest link. Unnamed fighter character 1. Only undead were in this room. If any non-undead monster came in, it would suffer the same fate as the players.
I would still have them fight though. Just not until the three were a bit more weakened. The real battle was about to start. I just had to kill off one of the pesky people first.