Forty rooms. I had been hopeful, but when the fortieth door was not a simple wooden thing fitting into the hallway, I almost squealed with excitement. This has to be the last room. With not just Cal now fighting like a demon, but Hassian, too, progress had been even faster than before. Larry, Morris and Rashid were doing well, at least as practised with their abilities as any member of The Ascent had been at level thirty, but Dao separated the novices from the journeymen.
Then there was myself, the expert. My own growth hadn’t been as vibrant as the others, but running through half an Elite dungeon had its perks. I hadn’t come away with many new items or even found a single Guidance Stone, let alone a third Aspect, but the growth was readily apparent on my character page at least.
Name - Grant Kaeron Race - Stormborn (Grade 1) Level - 60
Title - Dragon Slayer
Fortitude - 200 Speed - 200 Mental - 783 Will - 500
Free attribute points: 0
35 Per Level
Six levels over fourteen rooms or so wasn’t bad going. The amount of experience needed for each level was rising exponentially, though the scale was hard to pin. Some levels felt quicker than others, and some enemies gave a surprising amount of energy compared to their relative strength. A room of level fifty corpse beetles had pushed me a whole level, when the only effort had been my frantic explosions of “as much mana as possible to get them off me.”
I had placed these free attributes as I levelled instead of stockpiling. Overall, fifty points went to Fortitude, Speed and Will with sixty into the Mental attribute. With my percentage boosts further increasing the effect of those massive gains, the surge in power was more than noticeable. Of course, those same boosts were slowing my levelling speed compared to the newly Dao’d Cal and Hassian, but they received far fewer attribute points per level too. Cal had reached level forty three, and the difference between the man I met in the first safe room and now was shocking.
Each room had been easier than the last as we outscaled the rising challenge posed by the dungeon. There had been no more Dao revelations, but my own had settled massively. I had not yet used it, relying on my mana skills and overwhelming stats to clear the threats when they appeared, but I doubted the next room would give me that luxury. Nor did I think it would allow for me to look after the others.
Instead of a simple door like you might see on the side of a cosy house, the two black metal doors looked heavy and foreboding. The stink of death was coming off them heavily, leaving no question about who I would face inside. I placed a hand upon it, the magic inside pressing against me. “If anyone wants to wait here, I encourage it. We’re not a bad team but none of you can keep up if I need to go all out.”
“Didn’t you say you needed one of us so the quest was definitely completed?” Rashid asked, resignation in his voice.
I shrugged. It had always been a guess, and I had been confident that I could keep the group alive up to now. However, I had been humbled in this place and would not bandy about their lives if I could help it. “I’m hoping that either we go into a final reward room where that can activate or that it’ll just occur when the boss is defeated, honestly.”
“I’m not sure it’s worth risking.” Larry was the one who spoke, leaning on the butt of a spear which had broken in the last battle. Due to the amount he had been able to gather after the war game, Larry was quite careless in his use of the weapons. They were disposable enough, I supposed, but it rubbed me the wrong way. I still missed my Yo Staff. Larry rubbed his chin. “If it doesn’t save the people in town, then I might as well have stayed out there. I haven’t helped anyone but myself, yet.”
I didn’t have anything close to an argument against that point, which was met with nods by the other members of Londimin. “I cannot let these fresh, dry little things venture into waters that I will not tread.” Hassian folded his arms after saying his short part. There was clearly no argument to have. Feeling a little teamed up on, I could do nothing more but accept their resolve. This wasn’t only my dungeon, my problem or my life.
“Let’s get it done, then.” I pushed against the door of the room. The magic inside pushed back with a snarl, the door holding firm. I couldn’t stop my eyebrow from curling upward in surprise. It took quite a force to hold me back, even casually, so I pressed with increasing exertion. My strength was enough to fight peak Grade One creatures without Infusion now, and this door was around the same challenge.
Stolen story; please report.
It didn’t necessarily bode well.
I wasn’t willing to overstate the warning I had already given, however. Instead of suggesting the others rethink their choice, I took in the massive hall before us. The other rooms of the Elite dungeon had all had a feeling that they were transplanted into the area somehow. They weren’t quite natural, though the places felt real, they didn’t really exist. This room was the opposite. Every molecule of the boss chamber’s felt more real than the world I knew waited outside. It reminded me of the Storm Dragon’s vault, the walls positively singing with Dao.
Except, where the Storm Dragon’s Dao was overwhelming in its power, it was not necessarily cruel. The storm might promise destruction, but it was not a personal thing. All things fell before the might of the Storm Dragon. That was the feeling it’s power gave me, now I was able to look back and reflect. Even at the time, the dragon’s attention had never truly been on me. That was part arrogance, but a larger part was nature. It wasn’t that the Storm Dragon chose not to pay attention, it truly couldn’t notice my miniscule power.
The vicious, sinister energy pressed against my Dao barrier. I covered the group fully, as we had already planned for a Grade Two battle. I would slowly remove my Dao and focus while Cal and Hassian covered the others. They would be able to help each other weather this pressure, but I needed to act as umbrella first. The force of the assault upon my Dao was surprising in intensity, as I recognised the lack of intent. This Dao was not too dissimilar to the Storm Dragon’s, the difference lay in direction. The Storm Dragon’s Dao was made to destroy anything and everything that the Storm Dragon wished. The Dao currently beating down on me had a different purpose.
The complete dissolution of life. If the other mini-bosses and creatures we had fought in this dungeon had tangential Daos from the big one itself, this was the main event. The Dao of Death in all of its uncaring glory. It wasn’t necessarily evil, but it felt antithetical all the same. Incompatible. There was something in Cavarix’ Dao of Rot that I could understand, from rot came further growth. Rot was just another name for how bacteria worked, but the Dao of Death was heavy and ominous. The finality of it was inarguable and my whole being shied away from it instinctively.
A rhythmic clack sounded, again and again, as we walked the huge hall. There were tables and chairs around, all of them looking well made and valuable. The packrat in me told me to take them but there were more pressing matters. There would be time for looting once I defeated the boss. We continued to proceed towards the noise carefully, my Dao sliding away from the others step by step. Both Cal and Hassian had fantastic Aspects to work from when it came to controlling the Dao against them. Balance and Pressure were a brilliant team, surprising no one.
The room was illuminated sparsely by large hanging candelabras. The flames in the candles were a ghastly pale yellow that made me uncomfortable to look at. The sickly light did little to help my vision. In fact, it contained some type of mana that made it harder to see compared to my impressive night vision most of the time. Despite the haze they caused, it did make it easy to know where to go. The room truly was massive, and I saw Hassian eyeing the dark shadows with specific intensity.
I wanted to assuage the worry that there was a boogeyman waiting in the dark, but I realised I couldn’t say for sure there wasn’t. The main seat in the room, a throne atop a podium, was impossible to miss. Bathed in that vile yellow light, an awful monstrosity of bone, strange white metal and an unknown form of leather, a throne was filled with a large body. That body was clapping its boney hands together, the sound causing ripples in the deathly Dao of the room.
The being on the chair was huge for a mortal. Any mortality had been long cast away, the skeletal hands clicking on the arms of its throne as it pushed itself to full height. I recalculated. The thing was gigantic, and if it had muscle and flesh on top, I doubted it would be able to move. Instead, to my dismay, the giant moved with surprising grace considering its size. The light caught its skull more clearly and I saw that there was a face there, even some scraps of skin covering some bones. Stretched and gruesome, I tried to ignore the skin. I would have definitely preferred a full skeleton. The thick armour it wore was dark black, contrasting with the colour of its throne and the visible bones of its form. Once it disappeared into the shadows, would I be able to follow it?
Unwilling to show that I was in any way intimidated, I unleashed my Dao for the first time in full. No more protection for the others, the scream of power burst through the room. Candles were snuffed as the dueling forces collided around the large hall. “Mortesax, I presume.” I gestured for the others to stay back and I was thankful they listened. The giant could be no one else. I would honestly feel cheated, but no such worry.
A laugh came from the dungeon boss. It was the sound of frigid wind blowing across a grave. “It is good to know my name can still proceed me, even long after a true death.” Mortesax’ voice was black ice over a deep lake. It rose from its throne, a sceptre appearing in one hand and a long shafted warhammer in the other. Now that it was standing, the huge skeleton’s ornate apparel was on full display, and the amount of magic coming off of its items was comparable to the bones themselves.
“I don’t suppose this could be settled over a game of chess, or something?” I asked. As Mortesax rose, a wave of morbid power billowed out along with its long tailed robes. My words were intentionally betrayed by the huge swing of Dao I took, a dragon’s tail of energy blasting away the miasma of death that was clinging all over. The horrid mask of skin on Mortesax’s actually split into a wide smile as its chilling laugh echoed in the halls again.
“I welcome any challenge, of course. Such is my role. However,” Mortesax’s massive head tilted towards my frozen allies. I tensed, ready to throw up Mana Barriers everywhere. “These few have done well to make it this far. Their deaths are no service here. Let us converse somewhere more private.”
“Wait-” There was no waiting. The movement was not hurried, yet my eyes could barely follow as Mortesax waved its sceptre. Every pitch black wall of the hall began to burn with an even darker flame, at its centre a spark of putrid yellow light. The world shattered around me, reality falling away like shards of glass. This was not a case of illusion, this was a demolition of reality. My feet slipped, some transient gravity sucking me from the world I knew into a completely new arena.
I had just enough time to cocoon myself in the power of my Dao Constellation before the eternal void slammed against my mind and cast me into an astral abyss.