I ignored the paintings and moved to the wall next to the fur. From the size, it would take some work to pull it down. I slipped my hand under the fur along the wall to see how much overlap there was. I was expecting there to be a small overlap, but I extended my arm fully and did not feel the edge of the wall. I moved around to the other side and did the same thing. On this side, I was able to just barely feel the edge of the wall with my fingertips. The large overlap gave me an idea. I went back to the other side of the covering and lifted the flap enough to slip behind. I paused in case the movement caused a reaction. When there was no movement, I slowly moved forward, feeling along the wall to make sure I did not go past the entry. I arrived at the edge of the wall and looked towards the entry. From the little bit of light that I could see, the gap was actually a short passageway through the rock wall. I slowly entered the passage and moved as quietly as I could.

At the end of the passage, there was a large room covered in stalactites and stalagmites. Though each rock formation was about 20 feet long, there was still a large empty space between the two. In the center of the room was a flat area where a boss and two area bosses stood. While I observed, I was able to see many basic creatures wandering around the room in between the stone formations. While the attention was not on me, I switched to the acid rounds and found a large formation to use as cover. I lined up my shot, aiming to get the critical head shot on the boss. I rapidly fired five shots and took off running to avoid the instant retaliation I knew would come. I heard the automatic fire of an AK-47 impacting the stone behind me.

Several basic creatures appeared in front of me. I fired at them while running, dodging behind another stalagmite to avoid them. I continued running until a group of creatures cut off my path. I launched myself into the air and began weaving in and out of the stalactites. Avoiding the fire from the boss. It was difficult to tell what the area bosses were carrying over the AK-47s firing. Once the boss stopped firing to switch guns, I was able to slow down slightly and look at the guns held by the area bosses. One held a semi-automatic rifle, and the other held a pistol. That made things easier since their firing patterns were easier to evade.

The boss creature got a shotgun for its new gun. This was better than getting the AK-47 again. I continued to dodge fire from all three while occasionally getting off a shot while moving. The difficulty of firing while dodging made it so I was only able to get two shots off before the boss’s fire paused and the shotgun changed back into an AK-47. ‘Fuck, I hate this damn gun. I want to take all of them and chuck them in a scrap heap.’ I was back to dodging, unable to get off any shots. At least there was some cover this time, so I was not nearly as panicked as before.

I waited for the gun to change again while dodging. There was no opportunity to fire back while the boss was using the AK-47. After a minute, it paused, and the gun began changing. Taking advantage of the few precious seconds, I was able to aim, fire three shots, and continue moving in that time. I almost wanted to cry when I saw that the boss still held an AK-47. My luck had not held, it looked like this would turn into a waiting game.

The instant the fire from the AK-47 stopped, I was aiming and fired another three rounds. Luckily this time the gun changed to a pistol and I could slow my dodging slightly with the slower rate of fire. Despite the possibility of having to deal with the automatic fire again, I shifted my focus to the area bosses for two reasons. First, in this instant the semi-automatic rifle posed more of a threat than the pistol, and second, I was more likely to kill the area boss before the bosses gun changed again. Within seconds, the break from the three-round bursts came, and I immediately fired five rounds into the center of its chest.

“Shit.”

Only three rounds impacted fully, the other two just clipped the creature. I was able to unload another two shots before my window of opportunity expired. This was not enough to kill the area boss, and I had to focus back on the boss as its gun was changing again. ‘Oh, fuck this shit! Stop getting the damn AK!’ It once again got the AK-47, and I was back to dodging.

Another minute and the gun was changing. Instead of firing at the boss as I had previously, I fired at the area boss, ignoring the risk of being hit when I slowed. Two shots and I was moving faster, it was enough to kill the area boss, but again my luck was practically nonexistent and I was clipped just above my hip. Then again, I must have had some luck still since the boss’s gun changed to a pistol.

Again I focused on the remaining area boss. I wanted to reduce the shots I had to dodge. Since this one was carrying a pistol, I was able to increase my distance and slightly slow my flight to shoot at it. While my accuracy was not the greatest and I’m sure I did not get any critical shots, I was able to steadily fire. It took almost the entire minute and ten shots, but I was able to kill the creature before the boss’s gun changed again.

‘And this time we have, you guessed it, the mother-fucking AK again’ I was back to dodging, again. Another minute, another three shots at the boss, and dodging the AK-47. Again. ‘For fuck’s sake, give me something other than the AK-47.’ This was so much worse than the area bosses AK-47, at least with the area boss, there were cool downs to take advantage of. At this point, I was not expecting to get any opportunities to fire except for when the gun changed. I fired my three rounds when the gun began changing, and was surprised that it was enough to kill the boss.

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“Fuck yah! Take that, you bastard!”

I could not stop the victorious shout that left my mouth if I tried, and I didn’t even try. I hovered above the stalagmites and looked at the horde of creatures that I still had to kill. There were easily over a hundred, maybe even 200, of them. This would take a while. I switched to the fire shots and began firing at the closest creatures. With my last level ups damage increase, I was taking out a creature with every shot. Less than a minute into this, I received a level up notification.

Level 9 Shotgun

Abilities: infinite basic ammo

Rate of fire: 1 per 0.2 seconds (Maxed)

Damage range: 1-22

Critical hit rate: 22%

Critical hit Damage: 43

Before the notification disappeared, I felt something pressing into my back between my wings. I glanced over my shoulder while moving slightly lower. ‘SHIT! The ceiling is coming down!’ it looked like the ceiling started lowering as soon as I killed the boss creature. Worse, I had maybe 30 seconds before it lowered completely. I looked for an exit, willing to give up the extra experience to get out of the room, but could see nothing. ‘Fuuuuck, I have to kill all of these before I can move on, don’t I?’ While it was a mental rhetorical question, the ceiling sinking even further seemed to taunt me.

There were still so many creatures below and I really did not want to land, but I wanted to be forced into the middle of them even less. I found the area with the fewest creatures and made a beeline for it. Just as I landed, the ceiling lowered even more. There was almost no space remaining between the stalactites and stalagmites. I swept my eyes around me and spotted the creatures running towards me from several directions in their slow shuffling gait.

I picked the group closest to me and began firing into them while advancing to keep some distance from the group behind me. I was not expecting the ambush from the right when I came to a gap between two stalagmites. There must have been at least 30 of the creatures that practically fell on top of me. Clawed hands grasped at my wings and began ripping feathers out. I screamed in pain, and have no idea why I did not pass out from the pain. Maybe it was my increased mental fortitude, but I could not tell you.

“Flame Wall!”

I activated my single skill I was allowed to bring into the dungeon. Flames burst out from me, throwing the creatures off of me. They pushed out and created a wall surrounding me. This would not kill the creatures as they passed through, but would severely weaken them. I knew that if I did not get up, then I would die. I forced myself to my feet, panting through the pain and weakness I was feeling. I frantically began firing into the crowd of creatures as they started pushing through the wall. The stench of burned flesh permeated the air until that was all I could smell. I frantically span in circles, firing as fast as possible. Even with all of this, the creatures were slowly surrounding me. I stopped firing and swung my shotgun like a bat, knocking the closest creatures down. It only bought me a second or two. I resumed firing. I had to do this several times before the horde of creatures began to slow. I did not slow my frantic pace of firing until the last creature was dead.

As the need to fight left me, I collapsed, shaking in pain. Maybe it was a side effect of the near death or the large number of feathers that had been pulled out, but I felt like raising my hand was beyond my capabilities at that moment. I could see seven white feathers on the ground in front of me, but could not force my body to pick them up. ‘Move. Move damn you. Move right fucking now!’ Despite screaming at myself, there was nothing I could do. I was forced to watch a feather begin dissolving into dust. If not for the pain of permanently losing a part of myself, it would have been an ethereal sight. I was able to force my fingers to twitch. It was not enough. The second feather was dissolving before me. Something in me snapped.

I practically fell forward, grasping at the remaining five feathers. I roughly jerked my wings forward and grabbed a feather to put back in. There were too many holes. I randomly picked one to try, but there was no snapping back into place. I tried another, and another. On the fourth attempt, the feather snapped back into place. I hurriedly moved onto the next. This one took only two attempts before snapping back into place. Luckily none of the remaining feathers had dissolved yet. I grabbed the third, tried hole after hole with no success. I released that wing and grabbed the other one. Finally, I felt the feather snap back into place. I went to grab another feather, but they were gone, dissolved into dust.

With no immediate actions required, I fell forward. I curled into a ball, shaking from the agony coursing through me. I do not know how long I lay there until I could move again. I shakily checked my status and cringed when I saw my health was at 46%. ‘Fuck! That was almost a third of my health!’ I had to finish this dungeon, and quickly or I would run out of health. Forcing myself to start moving, I winced at the throbbing pain moving my wings caused. I would not be flying for a while.

I hobbled over to the pile of ammo dropped by the bosses and stored it. For the first time, I was still left with blackened tick marks. I had used more fire shots than I had received. With that done I checked the overheat stat, saw that it was at 83% and grayed out. ‘Did maxing rate of fire do that?’ I did not have time to worry about it anymore. I had to look for an exit. All the formations in the room made it hard to see anything. At one point, I ended up at the wall and simply followed it. I ended up back where I entered the room and had to backtrack. When I made it to the other end of the room, I was panting with exhaustion. It looked like my health might be tied directly into my stamina.

The exit was a large hole in the wall. As I passed through the hole, the rough stone smoothed before transitioning to a sleek metal that would not look out of place in a science fiction movie. ‘Is this dungeon fucking ADD or what? There is no continuity here… is it screwing with me? Of course it is, you dumbass.’ The sounds of my heels clicking on the metal floor echoed around me. Shortly, I arrived at what appeared to be a dead end. There was a glowing pad next to an obvious seam in the wall. This must be the next room.