Hal descended the stairs nervously, with Áithne right behind him. The rugged cave-like wall curved around and around, and pale torchlight flickered from the occasional rusty sconches on the walls.
The closer they got to the 15th floor, the more nervous Hal became. He had at least expected to hear something, but it was dead silent except for the tap tap of their footsteps. Clenching his hand around the hilt of his sword, he advanced down, down down.
The staircase opened upon a very creepy room. The first thing that caught his attention was the lack of flames. The stench of rot and death was overwhelming though and there were old, yellowed piles of bones everywhere. The ceiling pulsed with a strange green light that seemed to want to grip his heart and stop it. Heartstop aura... how frightening. And this was just the floor entrance.
Hal made his way through the dead room. Occasionally a bone would snap underfoot and send a shiver up his spine. Áithne was right beside him, so he couldn't afford to be afraid. Besides, there had been no sign of monsters so far.
Entering the next room, all that changed. Hal froze and Áithne let out a sharp gasp. Before them lay hundreds of dead monsters. Small groups of Ivory draughr, a level 120 rare monster, were scattered about. Mixed in with those squads of ivory draugh were a few chaos ogres, or what was left of them anyway... Chaos ogres... level 150 rare mobs. Then of course there was the ridiculous amounts of dead goblins and zombies.
Some looked burned, others looked like they had simply exploded, guts and murky black blood staining the walls, the floor and even the ceiling far above. But most mysteriously, a large part of the undead monsters looked like they had simply fallen apart, like the death energy that bound them together had just been ripped from them. But that was impossible.
Shivering, Hal made his way through the battlefield of strong rare monsters, leading Áithne along. However, once they got to the center of the room they once more paused.
“What... the hell... is this dungeon...” Hal remarked. On the floor there was a giant rock cockatrice. It should be at least level 180 and rare. Around the cockatrice lay a few relatively unassuming piles of clothing, but upon further inspection Hal learned that what was hidden inside those clothes were grave hags... or at least their remains. Grave hags were over level 150 and very troublesome magic users known to be able to take down an entire adventurers party by themselves.
Hal had no idea that a grave hag's face could display an expression of fear, but you learned something new every day.
“A little girl, you said?” Hal asked, his voice dry as they moved past the corpses of countless monsters piled high.
Áithne swallowed audibly, but did not reply.
They continued in silence through room after room. Each room was the same, dead monsters everywhere, most killed in gruesome ways, quite often with their eyes missing as though they'd been hacked out by a bird.
Up ahead, a gigantic pair of double doors were open. Hal was sure this was the boss room. The dungeon core was in there. They were so close to escaping, finally... after months of suffering.
But it wasn't over yet.
Side by side, he and Áithne approached the massive double doors. When they got close, the sounds of battle drifted to them from inside the room. “It sounds like a crazy magic fight!” Áithne said and Hal sped up, drawing his sword and charging through the open doors.
What he saw inside sent a shiver down his spine. It was total chaos and he couldn't make head and tails of it. The last chamber was a huge throne room with a large space in front of an elevated throne.
To the left of the throne, there was an oversized, mean looking imp that smelled far too much of sulfur holding off a labyrinth reaper by itself.
Labyrinth reapers were level 200 rares... and would sometimes act as dungeon bosses in their own right. And yet this imp was fighting such an existence by itself. What the hell was this imp...
To the right of the throne was even more strange. A fire elemental and a large raven was pushing back a huge 4 meter tall minotaur with an enormous sword and shield and flaming horns.
Hal didn't know how strong that minotaur was, but... it was undoubtedly a lot stronger than the current him.
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Hal shook himself from admiring the strange combatants. He had to do something, he had to help. He took a few steps forward, intending to join the imp creature against the labyrinth reaper, but before he could do so there was a large flash and something knocked him off his feet along with Áithne.
He looked to the throne and froze. Some... creature... covered with bandages, it's head a glowing red orb, had crashed into the throne and destroyed it. The bandaged creature quickly got up and turned around, backing away from the throne with its back towards Hal. That... that creature's head, that orb... that was the dungeon core. As expected of a corrupted dungeon. It wasn't normal.
Hal narrowed his eyes, realizing that there was a door behind the destroyed throne. Out of that door walked a young girl, smokey energy drifting from her angry, narrowed eyes. In her hand, she held a wand, which she pointed at the bandaged creature. “Sssss, whooo aree youu!” the core screamed, jumping back and erecting a red barrier.
The girl moved her wand from side to side with her wrist, and with each movement, violent sizzling flames snaked out of the wand like nothing he'd ever seen before, raining hell onto the orb creature.
The red barrier flickered under the crazy magical assault. Hal realized it would soon break and that they were directly behind the bandaged creature. “Shit! We gotta go!” Hal shouted, quickly grabbing Áithne by the arm and dragging her off to the side.
Not a second too soon, because the barrier broke.
The orb creature hissed, and a sickening energy filled the room. Everything shook, and Hal was fighting just to stay conscious. Out the corner of his eyes, he saw dark and red flashes exploding with a boom from the creature towards the little girl with the wand. She had no barrier up, but this girl was so strong. Surely she would----
No... Her arm with the wand got blown off by a blast of angry red energy and the black energy got her in the stomach, clinging to her and eroding her clothes although it didn't seem to deal any real damage to her body.
Another crimson light flashed, slamming into the girls stomach. She doubled over, falling to her knees.
It was over.
Her arm had been blasted off and she'd taken one of those red blasts directly to her stomach without any spell protection. Why? Why the hell wasn't she casting defensive magic? Could it be she didn't know any barriers?
Ridiculous. Why would someone so strong not know basic barrier magic? Surely she had at least one barrier spell...
But... she was dead meat. Hal prepared himself to grab Áithne and run, but inside he felt deep dispair. This last boss was simply too strong. He would die here in this damn dungeon along with Áithne...
Unbelievably, the girl got to her feet despite her missing arm and the gaping hope in her chest.
When Hal saw the expression on the girls face, he shivered. It was pure madness. Wide, crazy mad eyes, an insane smile showing fangs, and that sinister smokey mana-light leaking from her eyes.
Then she let out a scream. All hell broke loose.
From the girl, all sorts of crazy magic exploded.
Two lines of red energy extended from the girls hand, connecting to the red orb with a loud buzzing sound even as fire exploded in a circle from her body. Dark projectiles, fire balls and those sizzling snakes of fire also manifested in front of the girl and sped towards the bandaged orb creature. It fell to its knees with a scream of pain and the whole dungeon shook. Projectiles of darkness tore into it, ripping the bandages even as fire burned it. A wall of fire that reached the ceiling, appeared right on top of the creature, splitting the room in half with roaring flames.
Then the bandaged creature floated up off of the ground as if lifted by a giant hand, all the while still burning inside the fire wall.
It was still screaming in pain as the two red rays connected to it buzzed louder and louder. A dark grey mist appeared around the creature and it started to just disappear. Hal could tell with the naked eye that the creature was regenerating itself extremely fast, unnaturally fast... but the dark grey mist ate away at it even faster.
Suddenly, the wall of fire disappeared and the bandaged orb creature floating in the air was flung to the left into one of the supporting pillars, two more of those angry red energy beams connected to it. Hal looked up to see the girl swipe her hand to the side. The bandaged creature tore through the air and smashed into the other pillar.
A series of black bolt-like projectiles flew from the girls outstretched hand and struck the pillar and the orb creature with an explosive boom.
Something cracked and a loud ping resounded in his ears.
Attention: The B- ranked dungeon of red corruption, Almutramys, has been defeated.
There was another even louder crack and Hal looked up just in time to see the gigantic support pillar snap in two. Áithne tackled him to the side just as he saw that and everything went white all around him as everything came crashing down.
Coughing, Hal reached over and wrapped a hand around Áithne, pulling her up. Her eyes flickered and she opened them, confused for a moment. “We're... alive?” she asked, then a smile. Oh gods, that smile. Hal couldn't help it. He hugged Áithne close, both of them crying as their hell was finally over.
After awhile, they both felt recovered enough to try and make their way out of the rubble. “Hal... that girl...” Áithne said and he immediately understood.
She had lost her arm and taken a gruesome wound to her chest. Even though it was most likely meaningless, he had to at least go check on her, but it was a certaintly that that girl died.
Gritting his teeth, he and Áithne struggled to their feet. With arms around each other, she supported him just as much as he was supporting her, and the two of them made their way through the now ruined throne room, across the rubble and up towards the broken throne. They wobbled and nearly fell down a number of times, but coughing, they struggled forward and made it.
Hal looked down sadly at the little girl lying near the throne. Her chest had exploded and her ribcage was all messed up. Her internal organs was a soup of red, with broken ribs... It was a gruesome mess, but he had seen much death in this dungeon these past few months. Still, to see such a beautiful girl so destroyed.. it made him think of Áithne and he almost threw up despite himself.
Just to be sure, he gently reached out a hand and touched the girls neck, but of course there was no pulse. He leant down to listen for her breath, but she wasn't breathing either. It was all as expected, but that didn't make it any less tough for him.
Although He, Halidon Whiterock and Áithne were finally free, he didn't feel elated. He felt sad and tired, so tired. Unclipping his cloak, he lay it over the girl to hide her gruesome injuries. Now it just looked like a beautiful little girl sleeping.
He picked her up and made his way towards the back room behind the throne and the freedom that lay beyond.