Once I was past the curve, the corridor began to slope upwards like a steep hill. That, plus the heels, had my calves burning by the time I arrived at another curve in the path. At this point, the path evened out and opened up into a larger area. It looked to be large enough to easily fly in without hitting the walls. At the far end of the area was an archway that led into another room. From here, I could see the shadows that I have previously seen with the dodging creatures, but could not tell if there were any other creatures with them.
As I approached closer, I could see a vague outline beyond the dodging creatures. It vaguely looked like the area boss, but I was unsure since I could not clearly see the wings and form between the blurs of shadow caused by the dodging creatures. If it was an area boss, I knew there I would be potentially facing an arranged attack that could easily hit me, so I circled to the side and skirted the edge of the room approaching the entryway.
I examined the room and saw that the ceiling looked to be about 50 feet high, which was perfect for flying. Since the archway was not wide enough for me to fly through, I considered my options before deciding to run past the dodging creatures and take flight to avoid the other creatures in the room. With my mind made up, I backed up and started sprinting as fast as I could towards the archway. Within moments, I was past the archway and dodging creatures. I spread my wings and combined with a leap, I shot into the air before I could register any of the other creatures in the room. Once I was far enough that the creatures could not reach me, I slowed my movement and began flying in an erratic pattern while observing the creatures I would face.
As usual by now, I could not count the dodging creatures. There was one of the area bosses with what looked like an AK 47. ‘Fuck, I really hope this does not mimic reality… does this mean each area boss has a different gun type?’ There were also some mid-tier creatures with their small pistols.
Without any knowledge of how the AK 47 would behave in the dungeon, I focused on taking out the area boss. While I fired at the creature, I contemplated using one of the fire shots since I had the most of them when my shots abruptly changed to the fire shots. I fired two before I realized what I had done. One impacted with the area boss’s torso and a small ball of fire scorched the skin of its torso, while the other hit it in the left shoulder. It let out a roar of pain and raised the AK 47, then released an erratic spray of fire. I frantically dodged, while hoping that it could use the spray occasionally. Within 30 seconds, the shots ceased and I could see the barrel glowing slightly from the heat. ‘That is way too fast for the barrel to overheat. Lucky break for me, hopefully it will have a cooldown period before it can fire again.’
A pungent charred flesh stench had drifted up from the creature and I fought not to vomit. It was unsettling that these creatures smelled similar to burned human flesh. In the middle of a fight was not the appropriate time to ponder the similarities between these creatures and humans.
While I was distracted by dodging, the mid-tier creatures had hidden among the shadows of the dodging creatures. They now began to fire at me, and I once again found myself dodging to avoid being hit. While dodging, I followed the direction the shots came from and saw that the creatures were not moving their positions. I focused on eliminating them one at a time, with the fire shot, I was able to confirm where I hit by the illumination from the small bursts of fire. It surprised me when it only took three shots to kill the first creature.
Having eliminated a creature, I focused back on the area boss. The barrel of the AK-47 was no longer glowing. ‘Shit, it can probably fire again soon.’ Aiming at it, I continued using the fire shots and unloaded five rounds into the creature before it raised the AK-47 again. Prepared to dodge the rapid spray of rounds, I was surprised when it began firing in three-round bursts. While there were fewer bullets to dodge, it was more difficult since the accuracy increased with the more controlled firing pattern. While there were no direct hits, I was clipped in the calf with one shot. My boot took most of the damage, and I felt minimal pain, so I assumed it was a scratch since I did not have the time to examine it. I kept dodging, waiting for a lull that I could use to fire back.
This time, it took about two minutes for the creature to stop firing. As soon as it stopped, I fired. It must have been almost dead, since this last round killed it, leaving a small pile of rounds where it had been. With the largest threat out of the way, I focused on the mid-tier creatures hiding in the shadows. I did not want to waste more fire rounds, and thought about switching back to the normal rounds.
Testing if it worked, I fired once at a shadow that was not moving, making it obvious that it was not a dodging creature. Even with having to dodge the fire from the mid-tier creatures, it took no more than five minutes to eliminate all of them. I no longer had to dodge and was able to master the timing quickly for hitting the dodging creatures accurately. These seemed to stick to the intertwining snake pattern that it had previously seen. While the timing was fairly quick to get, it still took a while for me to kill all of them.
Once all of the creatures were eliminated, a door appeared on the wall across from the entrance. Before looking at the door, I checked my status and saw that my health had decreased to 89%, ‘why is my health down another three percent? That scratch shouldn’t have been that bad?’ I looked at my leg and saw that it really was a scratch, not nearly enough to account for how much my health dropped. I would just have to keep an eye on it and see if I could figure out why my health was decreasing. I went back to my status and saw that the shotgun was less than a percent from leveling up.
I checked the buttstock of my shotgun and saw that there were 11 blackened tic marks where I had fired the fire shots instead of the previous ruby color. Looking around the room, I started gathering the rounds that dropped from the creatures. When I added the fire rounds, the blackened lines became red again before new red tic marks were added.
After a last sweep of the room, I went over to the door, cracked it and saw a short corridor that ended in another door. I pulled the door wide, showing that the walls, floor, and ceiling were a smooth dark material. It looked like obsidian, but with a glossy finish, like it was coated in pristine glass. Leary of how slick the floor looked, I took a cautious step, while I held the door for support if the floor was slippery. Surprisingly, it felt solid beneath my foot, and it took effort to slide across the surface. I released the door and carefully walked down the corridor to the door at the other end.
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The door was a simple, dark wooden door, set in a cut out portion of the wall. It was annoying that I could not see what was in the room in advance, but I guess that was part of how the dungeon upped the difficulty on the divers. I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. Immediately I ducked behind the wall, grateful for my reflexes, when two shots rang out and impacted the corridor close to the room I had left. It did not sound like a shotgun or AK. If I had to guess, I would say it sounded closer to a 9 mil.
I crouched and peaked around the door for a split second. There were two area bosses and a swarm of basic creatures. ‘On the bright side, they only have pistols.’ Focused on the ceiling height, I took another peek at the room. The ceiling was the same height as the previous room. In fact, the entire room had the same shape and size as the previous room, the only difference was that this room was the same smooth obsidian that was in the hall. The height of the doorway eliminated the ability to simply fly into the room, so I would again have to run in and take flight ASAP.
With this slightly reckless plan, I yanked the door open, ducked my head, and sprinted into the room. I could feel the grasping hands of the basic creatures as I swung my shotgun around, creating just enough space for me to take off. I had to fire into the swarm to get them off of where they were grasping at my feet and ankles, trying to pull me down. I could feel the muscle strain from trying to avoid being dragged back to the ground. The first creature I killed caused a level up notification for the shotgun.
Level 6 Shotgun
Abilities: infinite basic ammo
Rate of fire: 1 per 0.5 seconds
Damage range: 1-16
Critical hit rate: 16%
Critical hit Damage: 32
“Fuck!”
The distraction caused by the level up notification allowed the creatures to pull me farther down, which may have saved my life. I felt the breeze from bullets passing overhead, narrowly missing me. ‘There is no way in hell I will let this kill me.’ I redoubled my efforts to escape from the creatures. It seemed that a shot to the center of the face was considered critical. At such close range, there was no way to miss, and I was able to start taking the creatures out with a single shot. After killing a few, I was able to rise back to my original position.
I killed several more of the creatures holding me and narrowly avoided being hit with a shot from the area bosses. ‘That was too fucking close. I need to get out of here.’ When there was only a single hand grasping one foot, I swung the other and kicked it off. The sudden lack of resistance sent me shooting towards the ceiling. It took mere moments to stop my ascent, but I could feel my wings scraping the ceiling.
I was made aware of the dangers of being stationary, even if only for moments, when bullets whizzed past where I had been not two seconds previously. I began flying in a similar zig-zag pattern while I focused on taking out one of the area bosses. They were the biggest threat to me at the moment. I aimed for the head, since I had seen that headshots more often got a critical hit than center mass. The tradeoff was the smaller area to target. I have a high accuracy stat which helped in getting crit hits more often. Still, it took almost 15 shots to take down the first area boss.
With one area boss killed, the remaining area boss changed its attack pattern. It began firing faster, which forced me to dodge faster or get hit. ‘Why can’t the damn room be bigger, its getting really hard to dodge with limited room.’ In addition to the rapid fire, the area boss let out a low growling sound that had the basic creatures swarming around it, providing cover against me.
I scowled at that, annoyed that my task was now that much more difficult. ‘Fuck you too… stupid dungeon, I’m going to relish ripping your fucking core out.’ The only benefit I could see was that it was impossible not to hit a creature.
I swooped low around the creatures, forcing the area boss to aim at me through the other creatures. I was not restricted by this, and fired into the horde of creatures. I paid no attention to if the shots hit, and continued my circling the group.
With another growl, the basic creatures dispersed and swarmed towards me. To avoid being held in place again, I changed my course and rose towards the ceiling again. The area boss was smart and continually fired at me. I must have had lady luck on my side since none of the shots hit me. As soon as I began firing at the area boss, it let out the growl that called back the basic creatures to shield it.
This dungeon was feeling more and more like an old school video game with only a few types of creatures, predictable boss movements, and my shotgun leveling up. ‘Don’t fucking fall for it, if you start to expect it, that’s when the dungeon will flip everything on its damn head.’ Despite waiting for something to change, the area boss kept to the predictable movements. I continued changing my flight pattern and adjusting when the basic creatures swarmed towards me or around the area boss. While it took longer than I would like, I eventually killed the area boss. By this time, there were only eight basic creatures left. I targeted each of them in the head and was able to kill five of them with one shot. The other three took two shots each.
I landed and collected the dropped acid shots from the two area bosses. Another 45-ish emerald tick marks appeared on my buttstock. It was starting to look a little crowded. ‘I wonder if there is a maximum to the number of shots I can store?’
I checked my status and saw that even though I had not taken any injury, my health was down another percent, leaving me with 88% health. ‘Why the fuck is my health going down? I need to either figure it out and stop it or get through the dungeon before it can drain my health.’ In addition to my decreased health, the overheat stat had gone up again. It was now at 72%. I must have fired too quickly while trying to get the creatures to let go of my foot.
An examination of the room revealed a door set into the wall that had not previously been there. I opened the door and found a pitch black hallway with what looked like phosphorescent threads of blue running throughout it. ‘Is that electricity?’ When I looked more closely at it, I found that the walls were a black marble with blue veins that glowed, providing dim light. ‘This has a fantasy feel… is the dungeon changing things on me?’
I entered the hallway, and the door closed behind me, eliminating the light from the room. In the darkness, the blue veins began to glow brighter until there was enough light to navigate by, but not enough to see clearly with. If asked, I would compare it to a clear night in the middle of nowhere where you can see the silhouettes of everything around you, but you can’t make out any of the details.
With the lack of light, I slid my feet along the floor rather than pick them up to prevent falling into any holes and breaking an ankle. The floor was extremely smooth, similar to a linoleum floor with no discernable cracks or crevices. It took a few minutes to make my way to the door at the other end of the hall.