It took longer than I would have liked to reach the curve, and once I passed it, I could see another curve further down that looked like it may widen the path. As I reached the second curve, I discovered that it was actually a doorway that lead into a smaller room maybe 40 feet across and 30 feet deep. There were boulders scattered in the room that would make excellent firing positions, and a group of creatures milling about towards the back of the room. Behind the creatures was a doorway that I presume leads to the next area.
These creatures were a slightly more fleshed out version of the return fire grunts from the second room, with more feathers, and it looked like they were carrying the same type of pistol as well. ‘Lets see, they are slightly different from the other ones, so the movement patterns will be different as well. Since they have more muscles, maybe they will be faster, but I can’t know that for sure. Damn, I wish I had been able to tell more about the ones running around, that would have made this easier. I suppose it would be too convenient to get stats on the creatures in the XP log.’
Sitting here all day debating with myself on what these creatures could do would get me nowhere. I examined the room’s floor for any trip hazards. I could see what looks like stone chips scattered around the boulders. Then I noted that observing the creatures without being in the room would not get me any information, since there had been no indication that they even registered my presence outside the room. That gave me an idea. What if I fired from outside the room? Would the creatures even react, or would I be able to take them out without any issues?
I decided that I had the leeway to test this and positioned myself with the doorway blocking as much of my body as possible. I lined up my first shot, then fired. As if a switch had been flipped, the creatures ducked behind the boulders closest to them and I quickly turned so the wall completely covered me. When I did not hear any shots from them returning fire after a few minutes, I cautiously peaked around the wall to see that the creatures had resumed milling about. I could clearly see the one I hit, it was sluggishly bleeding from the shoulder. ‘I wonder if the creatures lose health over time from open wounds? I’ll aim for the others and observe to see if this one gets any worse without taking another shot.’ With that plan decided, I targeted another creature, aimed, fired, and immediately ducked behind the wall again.
This tactic seemed to work since the creatures did not fire on me and after a minute, they would return to their unguarded state. It almost felt like a video game with how they were reacting. I continued to target the second creature I shot and kept firing at it. Even with landing a solid hit every time, it took five shots before the creature died. This time, when I ducked behind the wall, a single shot rang out, striking somewhere in the room. It looked like they were only passive until I killed one. Waiting an extra minute before looking in the room again, I saw the about half the creatures were milling around, and the other half were focused on the door. Waiting another few minutes, I looked again and saw that all of the remaining creatures were back in their original positions. ‘Looks like the cool-down period gets longer with each creature killed. This could cause a problem.’ I still don’t know if there is an arbitrary time limit on this dungeon like I’ve heard about in other dungeons. That would be just my luck to have a time limit with the shoes and caution slowing me down.
Just in case, I prepared to fire continuously by lowering my position so the boulders in the room provided some cover. Aiming at a creature, I quickly fired two shots before they ducked behind cover, both hitting, with the second one only clipping it in the arm. Looking for any limbs that were not behind cover, I used the rapid aim skill and quickly fired at three more creatures, grazing the first and scoring direct hits on the other two. While I was firing, two shots rang out from the other side, impacting the boulder I was semi using as cover and causing a shower of stone chips to fly into the air.
Patiently waiting for the creatures to either come out of the cover or move to be able to fire at me, I zoned in on movement on the right side of the room and saw one of the creatures pop up and aim at me. Instantly I shifted my aim and fired twice before the creature got off a single shot that hit the room’s wall near the doorway.
For the next five or so minutes, a creature would randomly pop up out of cover, and I would hit them twice before they fired a single shot and ducked back down. I was astonished, but thankful that their aim was so poor that the only damage I took was a small nick to my cheek from a flying stone shard. By this time, I believe I hit all the creatures at least twice, but had yet to kill another one.
The next creature to pop up died when my first shot impacted with its skull. This caused three more creatures to pop up simultaneously and aim at me. I shot the closest one, and rolled out of the way, behind the wall, as a shot moved past where my head had been a second before.
‘Shit that was close, I really don’t want to know how a head shot would affect me here.’ When I did not hear any further shots fired, I peeked back at the creatures and saw that while most of them were behind cover, there were two on each side of the room that were standing at a ready position as if waiting to return fire. ‘Shit, this is turning into a fucked up game of chicken.’ Determined to win, I lined up my shot with the ones on the right, diagonally across from my position so I did not have to move as much from my cover. As soon as I pulled the trigger, I ducked back behind the wall and heard several rounds hit the wall, with one straying into the hallway and impacting the wall across from me.
Despite the danger I was in, the adrenaline pumped through my veins and I eagerly anticipated the next volley. I continued exchanging fire with the creatures, varying the time I spent in cover to prevent them from anticipating my moves and killed another eight creatures over the next ten-ish minutes.
The last creature’s death was met with a change in tactics from the remaining creatures. By my count, they initiated a continuous firing at the doorway with a five-second pause every 30 seconds. Waiting for that pause, I used it to fire a shot and duck back behind cover, counting for the next pause. I continued to do this, not checking to see if I killed any of the creatures, until I heard fewer shots each time. This let me know I had probably killed one of the creatures.
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Listening to determine if they changed tactics, I could still hear the five second gap that would allow me to fire. I continued taking advantage of it, firing at the closest creature each time until the number of shots decreased again. Once again, I listened for a change in pattern and heard none, so I continued using my current strategy.
When after a shot I heard the pattern change, I assumed that I had killed another creature. This time there was a shot every second, and it sounded like the creatures were alternating which side was firing each time. Cautiously I laid on the floor and peeked around the door to see that there were only two creatures left who had abandoned defense to release a concentrated fire where my torso would be if I were kneeling.
Taking a prone firing position, I aimed at the creature that looked worse for wear. Firing twice in rapid succession, I immediately rolled back behind cover without confirming a hit. The shots adjusted aim to hit where I had been laying but did not decrease in frequency.
“Fuck, how many more shots will it take?”
Adjusting my firing position to a standing one, I shifted out of cover slightly, aimed and fired a single shot before ducking back into cover. This time, the shot frequency decreased to a shot every two seconds. ‘Yes, one down, one to go.’ I listened to the shots for several moments and waited for the slightest gap to lean out and fire, then duck back into cover. I knew as soon as I pulled the trigger that I would miss, but this was enough to cause the creature to adjust its aim and begin firing where my head had just been. It seemed that it took the creature several seconds to adjust its aim. Banking on that, I took a knee while shifting out of cover. Aiming and firing, I got in two shots before the creature started adjusting its aim, and another three while it was doing so killing it before it could fire at my new position.
As I stood a received a notification about the shotgun leveling up again.
Level 4 Shotgun
Abilities: infinite basic ammo
Rate of fire: 1 per 0.7 seconds
Damage range: 1-13
Critical hit rate: 13%
Critical hit Damage: 27
Considering the increased rate of fire and damage, I could see that leveling the shotgun was an important part of clearing this dungeon. Checking my status, I saw that my health went back down to 94%, probably from the stone chip which hit me. While that is fairly good but I don’t want to get overconfident and make stupid mistakes. I must have been firing faster than I thought, the overheat stat was up to 25%. ‘Note to self, fire slower unless you want to lose your only fucking weapon.’ Looking at the XP log, I saw that these were called mid-tier creatures and each worth 50 XP. It seems that the higher XP a creature has, the harder it is to kill.
Entering the room, I saw that there were what looked like small piles at the back of the room. Moving closer, I could see that there were 15 piles of shotgun shells. I picked one of the rounds up, and the corresponding notification informed me that these were fire shots. Each one would do normal damage plus hit the target with flames inflicting an additional ten damage. This had the potential to be really useful in any boss fights. I gathered as many as I could hold before storing them. The shotgun’s buttstock now had 25 ruby red tic marks under the bronze marks from the tracker rounds. I continued to gather the shells and store them. When I was done, I had 114 fire shots available to me for future use.
I continued to examine the room and saw that there was a secondary door along the right wall. Since this doorway was closer to me, I went through it and saw a pristine path of hard packed earth. Following the path, I arrived at an empty room. ‘Fuck, this is the first room. If I had explored this room, I would have found the shortcut.’ Slightly pissed at myself for not finding this earlier, I turned back and backtracked to the other doorway.
This path was not quite as bad as the other one, but it was still dotted with holes that I needed to avoid. After a turn to the left, there was a side path that branched to the right. I took it and found a room after a short distance. The room was long and vaguely oval shaped with the side I was at thinner than the other. It sort of reminded me of one of those long bubbles kids make before it leaves the wand and becomes circular. The room was well lit, giving me an opportunity to observe from the shadows. The walls were unnaturally smooth, and the floor looked like a polished granite or marble.
Without crossing the threshold, I looked towards the far end of the room to observe what creatures I would be facing. At first it looked like a group of the basic grunts I had faced in the first room, but on closer observation I could see several creatures with pistols mixed into the group. From here I could not tell if they were the return fire grunts, ‘AKA the stupid ones who would stand there and get shot at’ or the mid tier ones ‘AKA the intelligent ones who would take cover before returning fire.’ I did not see any cover in the room, so that ruled out entering the room to draw fire.
Aiming at the closest creature with a gun, I tracked it until it was at the front of the group, then fired. Ducking behind the wall, I listened for any shots and heard none. Moving to where I could see the creatures, I saw that everything looked the same from here and there were no indications that anything had changed. Taking that as a good sign, ‘maybe they are all the stupid ones,’ I concentrated on whatever creature was closest to me and began firing as quickly as possible without sacrificing accuracy. Most of the creatures dropped in one or two shots until there were only some of the creatures holding pistols left.
When I spotted one raising its pistol, I ducked back behind the wall before I heard several shots hit. Listening to the shots impact the wall, I used the previous room’s rates of fire to estimate that there were three or four of the creatures firing at me.
Just as before, I adjusted my firing height and fired a few shots before ducking back behind the wall. It took several minutes, but I was once again able to kill the remaining creatures without taking any damage.
In the room, I found another 22 fire shells and added them to the storage, giving me a total of 136 fire rounds and three tracker rounds. Since I did not receive a level up notification this time, I checked the status and found that I was 98% of the way to leveling up my shotgun. My XP log now had another 18 basic, 15 return fire, and three mid-tier creatures. Further examination of the room revealed a hidden door along the far side of the room that was sealed shut. Since I could not open it, I figured that I would come back to it if the main path lead to a dead end.