Frank stood his ground in the dark corridor, calm as he watched three centipedes skittering towards him. He had seen enough of these grotesque creatures, to last him a lifetime.
His heartbeat remained steady as the centipedes closed in. Calmly, he extended his hand, gripping the hilt of his dagger with practiced ease. The blade glinted in the pale light, its edge glistening with dried centipede ichor from previous encounters.
The centipedes moved in a frenzy, their sharp legs scraping against the cold, stone floor. Frank could hear their chittering and hissing, but to him, it was merely background noise.
As the centipedes lunged forward, Frank's movements were fluid and precise. With a deft swipe of his dagger, he dispatched the first one. Its segmented body fell to the ground, twitching sporadically before falling still.
The second centipede met a similar fate, and its demise just as swift and methodical. Frank's actions were no longer the frantic reactions of a survivor but the measured strikes of a hunter.
Finally, the third centipede, driven by instinct and madness, rushed towards him. Frank sidestepped its charge with graceful agility, his dagger finding the monster’s throat once again, ending the creature's life.
With the last centipede lifeless on the ground, Frank took a moment to catch his breath. His calm, composed exterior belied the intensity of the fight. In a world of chaos and danger, he had found a way to center himself. Every centipede he faced was a step closer to becoming stronger.
"I guess they are finally as sharp as my wit." Frank said as he checked on his daggers.
Diana raised an eyebrow and responded in her usual cold tone, "Well half of that statement is definitely true." She turned to the next corridor. “Let’s go.”
"Or maybe just as sharp as your tongue," he said laughing to himself, which was enough to make even Diana smile as she walked away.
Over the past week he and Diana got kind of used to killing more and more centipedes. The increase to his base stats he got from getting to level four really made a difference. With his tooth daggers he could dispose of multiple centipedes at once. Diana also got a significant power up, and her Explosive Rune now a force to be reckoned with.
They tracked another group of Abominations soon afterwards.
“There are at least ten, think we can take that many?” said Frank, sounding doubtful.
“Yeah if we use that corridor you got the last three” Diana responded.
“The usual setup?” Frank asked, while twirling his dagger.
Diana nodded and they got to work. Well Diana got to work. Frank waited as she prepared her traps in the corridor. Once she was finished it would be up to Frank to lure the monsters.
Frank watched as Diana’s magic swirled around her while she cast the Explosive Runes along the length of the corridor. As her power grew so did the special effects. It looked like a swarm of blue red wisps circled her staff and gathered into the rune before she willed it onto the floor.
“That was the last one, we can begin” Diana said as she sat down next to the centipedes Frank killed and started Meditating.
Frank took his cue. Hemoved silently towards the monsters, his footsteps making no sound. Ahead, a group of ten centipedes skittered about in chaotic disarray. His dagger blades gleamed in the faint light, and as he drew nearer, his heart started beating faster.
Once he could no longer sneak any closer, he rushed the closest centipede. He got to it before any Abomination had a chance to react. He jumped on its back and with a swift motion buried his daggers in its brain. He knew it was instantly dead, he somersaulted back to the ground.
"Fancy a dance, my many-legged friends? Let's tango!" He said as he did a little bow towards the small swarm. The monsters rudely rushed him with a gurgling roar. Frank ran towards the trap corridor.
“I’m getting used to this,” He thought to himself.
Within a minute he reached Diana and sat down to enjoy the show. He was significantly faster than the centipedes now, so the first of the pursuing monsters was about to enter the corridor. Frank sat down next to Diana.
As they sat in the narrow corridor, watching as a swarm of nine centipedes rushed toward them. Diana's magic flared, and as each centipede reached a specific point, it triggered her Explosive Runes. In controlled, explosive bursts, the centipedes met their gruesome end, splattering the corridor with their chitinous remains.
“Hey I have an idea, how about we collapse most entrances to our building and clear out all the bugs?” Frank asked as he cleaned his nails with his dagger.
The smell of scorched chitin and a faint wisp of smoke hung in the air as Diana's runes continued their efficient work. Frank watched with moderate interest as one by one, the centipedes charged and were extinguished. They made it seem almost easy, the way Diana's magic seamlessly ended the threat.
“Sounds fine, additional security is always good and we’re walking around anyway” Diana said, watching if any of the centipedes made it though her minefield.
“Yeah and we’d have to climb to the top to block stuff there so we don’t have any Duskshiekers coming in that way.” Frank added as he watched the last centipede approach. With a subdued explosion, the final creature met its brutal end.
The corridor was now a grim tableau of smeared centipede remains, and the stench of burnt chitin filled the air. Diana's magic had shown its power again. It wasn’t the first time they set up a trap like this. For the past week they were systematically wiping out any monster that dared to come near their hideout. It became almost laughably easy after Diana’s Explosive rune reached level eight and started one shotting the bugs.
“You wonder why we didn’t level up yet?” Frank asked something that has been bothering him for a while. They killed dozens of the monsters in their extermination campaign but their levels stayed the same.
“Yeah, I think we were right before, if we’re in danger we get more experience. I got two levels for collapsing the building on that swarm but i think we killed more since then” She sighed “And still no level up”
“Well at least the skills keep growing” He twirled his dagged and caught it by the blade behind his back. His sleight of Hand was up to six. The fun part was that it also affected his throwing skill so he sometimes used his daggers as ranged weapons. The truth was that he needed that fun, it was hard to keep focus. The monsters stopped being a threat in his mind and he had to control himself to not play with them too much. One mistake could cost him a lot of pain.
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But there are so many safety nets now. His acrobatic hit seven the day before he could outrun the monsters no matter how many there were. Then he could use Shadow Dance and just hide from them, he had that at level five and could almost get close enough to touch the monsters before they even noticed him. With Precise Strikes at eight he basically hit any weak point he wanted.
He also kept a really close eye at the Cackling Madness Aspect, but to his great relief it didn’t move an inch for the past week. Just to be on the safe side he tried, and mostly failed, to keep his jokes tame. But he tried.
Frank sighed. Combat got easy but the atmosphere at home was shit. Hector was depressed and nothing seemed to cheer him up. Not that Frank was surprised by that, his friend was always physically strong and now he struggled with previously easy tasks. They provided as much support as possible given the circumstances but healing was a slow process. At least Mia seemed to be getting better, focusing on her crafting.
Frank sighed again, then he almost sighed at how much he was sighting. He really hoped Diana would get a more powerful healing rune when she hit level five.
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Diana stood up. “Got my mana back” she informed Frank. The new skill she learned on her own was amazing. Meditation gave her a 10% bonus to mana regen if she sat down and focused. By using it every possible moment, especially with centipedes rushing her, for added danger, she got it to level four within a week. It was growing much faster than other passives.
She cast a glance at the gore-splattered corridor. “Let's find a different way back home.”
It was a weird realization that a whole hall covered in monster blood and guts didn't faze her in the slightest. The only thing she felt was the rush of power as she watched her magic decimate the nightmarish bugs.
That made her look at her staff, or rather the lead pipe that served as one, she carried it everywhere with her now. There was no other way since with her Intelligence at 23 casting spells without the staff actually cost her HP now. Made her hands hurt too.
She could also say without a doubt that Intelligence stat didn’t affect her actual intelligence. With doubling her stat from the starting value of ten some effects would be visible by now. She shrugged mentally, apparently Strength and Dexterity stats were having an actual effect on the physical world while Intelligence and Wisdom didn’t. Maybe the Intelligence should have been named Spirit Power or something.
Her thoughts turned in the familiar direction afterwards. Now that they had their immediate survival and surroundings mostly under control they needed to look to the future more. There were a lot of unanswered questions.
“Frank, I need to talk to you about something.” maybe it was time to bounce her thoughts off someone, and Frank was the only one in any shape to be useful.
“O M G. Is this where you confess to me Diana-chan?” or maybe not.
“Stop acting like a madman and listen” That made Frank turn serious instantly. Diana noticed that ever since the fight next to the collapsed building any mention of madness or insanity immediately made Frank drop his usual shenanigans. She didn’t really care why it was. It was just a useful thing to know to keep him a bit more under control and a bit more useful by extension.
“Yeah, sure, what did you want to talk about?” Frank asked.
“I was thinking about our whole situation. We need to start trying to figure out how this place works. We’re either in a different world or a simulation, doesn’t really matter which. The stuff around us is real enough.” Diana started.
“Yeah, I agree. I also thought that we’re in an artificially cut-out part of a world. The edge of the city is too abrupt. Some of the buildings are split right down the middle so it's not probable there is some sort of an archipelago. We’re on an island.”
Diana noted that Frank said ‘a’ world not ‘the’ world. That sent a shiver down her spine. On the other hand she was glad she didn’t have to convince him.
“Mhm, if you’re correct and its artificial it means it has to have a purpose” Diana continued.
“I hope you’re right.” Frank said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Diana said, furrowing her brow.
“It could all be a cosmic coincidence. Random quantum fart of the universe. That would mean there is no purpose for us being here and that we’re stuck in this city forever.”
Diana shivered. She did not consider that. Her inner engineer saw something that was definitely artificial and assumed it had a purpose. However Frank could be right, this could be anything. A result of a magic war or some even more outlandish explanation. She was silent for a while.
“I didn’t think of that. Doesn’t matter for now anyway. We have to work under the assumption that there is a way home.” Diana herself was enjoying the power she had, but the conditions they were living in were certainly … sub- optimal. If she could go back to the real world and keep her magic… The possibilities would be endless.
“So what do you think we should focus on next?” Frank asked.
“We need that level for me and in the meantime we could secure our building more. Collapse some entrances and clear out any bugs still inside.” It would at least give some purpose to their extermination of the centipedes.
“We would have to block the way down and the top floors. That's doable, so we keep doing more or less the same thing but add some demolitions to the mix?”
“Basically yeah” Diana was silent for a moment again “ Remember the marks on our building? I'd like to take a closer look at them. And when we’re done with adding some safety to our home we could look around for more of those.”
“Sounds like a plan to me” Frank said with a firm nod of his head. “Maybe after we heal Hector and Mia gets better, we should check out the infected buildings?”
Diana sighed, there was a lot of that going around recently “Yeah i’m not sure about that, we would need to get both of them to our levels or they would be a liability. It could be dangerous with an uncertain reward.”
“Yeah I get it. It's not a game with treasure in every wolf den. We could just find more monsters inside.” Diana saw Frank in a new light, she always knew that beneath the moronic behavior was a smart man. This whole situation just underscored his more serious side.
“I just don’t see anything else we could do. If we want to get to the pyramid alive we need to be able to clear a tower like that, there are a bunch of them on the way to the city center.”
“Let’s just keep it at the bottom of our list” Diana sent Frank one of her rare smiles and he nodded and smiled back at her. She took in the way he looked and compared it to the past Frank still living in her head. The uncertainty and clumsiness of his movements was long gone. The new Frank was way more competent and dangerous than the old one. She liked the change.
“You know, Mia told me about something when we were on the rooftop, and I kept thinking about it for the past week,” Frank said slowly.
“What was it?” Diana said, a bit irritated for reasons unknown.
“It was about a book with a little girl in a dark forest surrounded by monsters. Mia felt like that little girl. I could empathize with that. But now, after what we just did to the monsters in that corridor? I don’t think I'm so helpless anymore. The Abominations don’t scare me any more.
“He twirled his dagger ” Now the monsters should be afraid of us.”
“I get that feeling.” She made an Explosive Rune manifest at the end of her staff. Oh she understood it very well, the feeling of control over her environment, and the rush of power it gave her.
The rest of the trip to their hideout passed in a very companionable silence.