I backtracked to the main path and turned right to continue along it for another 15 minutes before arriving at the next room. Peering inside this one could only be called tear drop shaped with the doorway at the narrowest point, once again reducing any possible cover. The edges of the room were in shadows and in the center of the room there was another group of the basic creatures, this time surrounded by ones with pistols.
I could clearly see that the ones carrying pistols were just as withered as the others, so they should be the dumb ones who don’t dodge and mostly have shit for aim. It was easy to line up with the first one and fire, hitting it in the face and sending it reeling back into the other creatures.
As expected, since I remained outside the room, none of the creatures fired at me, too stupid to realize that they would be picked off at my leisure. Not wanting to draw this out too much, I continued firing until all the creatures in the room were dead, which didn’t take that long since they just stood there waiting to be slaughtered. By this time, it took no thought to check the XP log and see that there had been 12 basic and 10 return fire creatures in the room.
Entering the room to look for the exit, I felt something move behind me and felt the pain of a feather being yanked out. Unprepared for this, I let out a scream of pain and stumbled forward out of the shadows. I could now see the shadowy forms of the creatures that were constantly running. Through sheer determination, I moved to the center of the room and collapsed to my knees as the pain continued to wash over me. This time it took much longer for the agonizing pain to fade to a manageable level, and I had the feeling that I would not be able to retrieve the taken feather.
Looking at the running creatures, I saw one with a single feather in one of its wings that was mostly white, with the base black like the other scraggily feathers in its wings. This confirmed what I had suspected, they were after my feathers. As I watched, within seconds, the white bled out of the feather, leaving it completely black.
Furious with myself for not realizing that the room had been too easy, an absolutely murderous rage directed at the creatures welled up within me.
“I’ll fucking kill all of you deformed pieces of shit!” I snarled as I haphazardly fired at the creatures, missing half the time.
This only infuriated me more, and I continued to fire in a haze until they were all dead and I had been firing at nothing for who knew how long. I could not tell how long this rage lasted, but I am only thankful I was too caught up to switch my ammo out or I would have stupidly blown through all of the special shells.
I checked my status. I saw my health was down to 92% and that when I was lost in my rage, the shotgun had leveled up as well along with an overheat stat that had increased to 55%. ‘Fucking hell.’
Level 5 Shotgun
Abilities: infinite basic ammo
Rate of fire: 1 per 0.6 seconds
Damage range: 1-15
Critical hit rate: 15%
Critical hit Damage: 29
It took me a minute to remember that these creatures drop the tracker rounds, and when I did, I began to search the room. I found one tracker round and added it to the storage, giving me a total of four. Then I checked the XP log to see that there had been only six of the dodging creatures.
I knew that I needed to get my temper back under control before I continued. Taking a few minutes to calm myself and focus on not beating myself up over my stupidity, since that would do me no good whatsoever. ‘Okay time for a self After Action Review (AAR)’ I examined my reactions to the situation in an attempt to understand why I had essentially flown off the handle.
“What went well? First, I was easily able to kill the creatures in the middle of the room by testing then taking advantage of the weakness that they would not retaliate if I did not step into the room. Second, I suppose that killing the shadowy running creatures as well can be seen as something that went well.”
I ticked off the positives from the encounter before moving on to the negatives.
“Next, what needs improvement? First, I felt that the room was too easy but did not exercise caution and listed to my instincts. Second, I failed to consider that the shadows may contain creatures even though I knew that it was possible. Third, I lost my temper when I saw that creature using my feather… why did I lose my temper?”
Contemplating this, it took a while, but I realized that I felt as if the creature stole more than a feather for some reason. ‘But why do I feel that way?’ breaking it down further I examined my feelings about the feathers and realized I saw them as part of myself and that made what the creature had done roughly equivalent to chopping off a limb and using it to replace a missing limb. Once I realized this, I was able to move on to how to improve.
“First, I need to think through all possibilities before entering a room in the future. Second, I need to be more observant of my surroundings. Third, I need to rationalize that though it feels like I’ve had a part of me ripped away if I lose a feather I need to maintain my composure to have any chance of surviving this and that sheer dumb luck will not get me far in the dungeon.”
Concluding my AAR, I explored the room to see if there was a way out hidden in the shadows that did not disperse when I killed the creatures. I started where I entered the room and carefully walked the perimeter until I found a gap in the wall. When I passed through this gap, I realized that there was no hallway this time and I had entered another room. ‘Fuck, what is in here.’
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The room was dimly lit, making it hard to see anything, which I guess is why I did not notice it before. Cautiously stepping forward, my gaze darting around looking for any creatures that may be lurking in the shadows. Suddenly a bright light flared in front of me, blinding me. Blinking rapidly to clear my vision, I instinctively moved to the side, knowing that this was a perfect opportunity for an enemy to catch me unawares. I suddenly heard a shot fired and dived to the ground, bringing my shotgun up, ready to fire. It took a split second to notice that there was one creature holding a shotgun, similar to mine. Quickly, I aimed and started firing as fast as I could, while being careful not to fire too fast. I did not want to increase the overheat stat any more than it already was.
The creature dodged behind other creatures I had not noticed until that moment. They were the basic creatures I had already encountered several times by now. ‘Shit, they’re going to swarm,’ as if reading my thoughts, they began to come towards me in their awkward shuffling gait. They must have been controlled by the other creature since a clear path was left for it to fire at me. With the clear view, I could see that while it had the same general appearance as the other creatures, it was less withered than the mid-tier ones and had poisonous green eyes instead of the yellow I had seen on all the other creatures. The other large difference was the wings, which had about a third of the feathers that would normally be on the wings, though they still had a scraggily appearance. These changes gave me the impression that this would be more difficult than expected. ‘Is this a boss fight?’
The momentary distraction observing the creature used precious time. It raised its shotgun to aim at me, and I quickly began moving to the side, trying to put the basic creatures between us. This did not work well since they seemed to be forced to leave a lane open between the new creature and me, even if they had to retreat. If I couldn’t use them as cover, then I needed to get rid of them sooner rather than later. While continuing to move in an erratic pattern to force the creature to continually adjust its aim, I started shooting at the basic creatures. I did not have the luxury of having perfect aim with each shot. Lucky for me, they were close enough that every shot hit and soon I had killed one of the basic creatures.
My gaze shot to the edge of the room, drawn by the echoing crack as part of the floor fell away. That was not good, either the floor would fall away more with each creature I killed or it was timed for certain intervals, but I didn’t think that was likely with this starting when I killed one. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and could only do my best to continue killing the creatures and hope that the floor came back when I killed all the creatures. Moving more carefully to stay away from the edge of the room, I tried to effectively split my focus between my position, the creature’s positions, and maintain awareness of where the floor was now missing.
At the time, I did not notice my wings helping me to move more fluidly and how I was becoming lighter on my feet. I thought it was adrenaline from the fight, but it was my wings integrating more fully with me. When I realized that I saw them the same as a limb, my brain took that and started integrating knowledge on how to control them, as if I had been born with them. As I killed more creatures and dodged the occasional shot from the new creature, the ring of area where the floor had fallen away was slowly increasing. When the room was less than half of its original size, there were five remaining creatures and it was getting more difficult to fire at them while avoiding the one with the shotgun. I fired on a creature that was already bleeding from several wounds, killing it, when I felt the floor falling out from under my feet. Desperately I dove for secure footing, leaping as high as I could to counteract the sinking of the floor. I could feel the lack of floor under my feet, but I was not falling. Looking over my shoulder, I could see my wings beating, keeping me in the air. ‘What the fuck! I can fly… why have I been killing my feet in these heels if I could fly the entire time.’
I had no idea where the knowledge came from, but I somehow knew how to perform aerial maneuvers. Taking a minute to make sure what my brain was telling me matched reality, I flew higher and performed some basic maneuvers to dodge the shots fired by the creature below. This explained why the ceilings were so high in all the rooms and why the creatures were obsessed with taking my feathers.
With the advantage of the creatures being unable to touch me, I shifted my focus to taking out the creature with the shotgun. It seemed that while I could maneuver with no issues, firing a weapon was a different matter. It took a few tries to figure out how to fire without the recoil, sending me backwards through the air. Once I figured out that I needed to time my shots with my wing beats in addition to my breathing, it was much easier. That said, it seemed like this creature had an insane amount of health. I hit it with more than ten direct hits and it still showed no signs of being anywhere close to dead. Another ten shots had it looking more injured. By the time I killed the creature, it took close to 40 shots, and I am sure some of them were critical hits. The creature’s corpse disappeared into dust and a small pile of shells was left behind.
I did not want to risk losing them if they rolled off the edge of the floor, so I used a maneuver to fly parallel to the floor and grab one of the shells. The notification informed me that this was an acid shot and that it did an additional 15 damage from the acid, plus another damage every second for 30 seconds due to the acid remaining on the target. It took two more passes to grab all of the shells. From the area boss I had received 28 of the acid rounds that became emerald green tic marks on the buttstock.
From there, it was easy to kill the rest of the basic creatures with a few shots. As the creatures continued to die, the floor continued to fall away. When the last one died the remaining floor, a small circle about five feet across crumbled, leaving the room as a deep chasm. ‘That was unexpected. I think flying is required past this point…. Thank god I figured that out.’
Checking my status, I saw that the new creature was called an area boss and worth 250 XP which explained why it was so hard to kill. While it was not enough to level up my shotgun, it did cover a good chunk of the XP I still needed. Looking around the room, I could see one break in the wall to the left of where I had entered. Flying over to the break, I found a narrow passage that would be too narrow to fly through. Angling it so I would go into the passageway, I gave one more flap of my wings before closing them and using my momentum to land in the passage. I followed it for a few minutes before it narrowed and began to look more familiar. The passage exited into a crevice in the second room I had been in. ‘That was a waste of time, its like the dungeon is taunting me with shortcuts I could have found earlier.’
With nothing else to find in this room, I went back through the crevice and down the passage. At the end of the passage, I again looked around the room to see if I could find another way out. I did not see anything at the height the floor had been. I considered the possibility that since this room was essentially a fly or die room, the door may be located at another height. I scanned the upper portion of the walls of the room, but was unable to see anything from my perspective. I then started scanning down the wall as far as I could see, but with the only light being that filtering down, that was not very far. I had to get closer if I was going to find anything.
I leaped out of the passage, spread my wings, and started flying slowly around the room. I started near the ceiling and worked my way down in a spiral pattern. It took a while, but I found a large hole in the side of the wall that was barely visible in the dim light. It was wide enough to fly into, making it easier than trying to dive in while folding my wings. Once in the hole, I could see that it had a corridor coming off of it that curved sharply to the right. The corridor was not tall enough for me to fly through, so I had to land and walk.