Had someone else—another group—come down here? It was possible, since there were many diverging paths. But Eli felt something in his bones, a gut instinct, telling him that this sound didn't come from someone out of Infinite Innovation Solutions. As they turned and entered a building that looked like a large library from the outside, another scream rocked the silence, sharper this time.
“Help!”
After taking several twists and turns down similar-looking corridors, the group finally came upon the source of the commotion. There, a small group of cursed lizardmen. Two knights, specialized fighters, and a cursed lizardman mage had captured a human. The man, dressed in tattered rags, looked slightly older than Eli, with sun-darkened skin and red hair. No, Eli realized—the color wasn’t red. It was reddened by blood from a huge gash on the side of his skull.
His bare arms showed faint hints of scales, and his face looked wrong—elongated, with oversized teeth and murky eyes, as if he were going blind.
Cruella and Simon charged forward. Samantha’s spells caught the enemies first, applying debuffs and damage-over-time effects that steadily whittled away their health while her beam of light ate into one of the warriors. Eli buffed his small party. The mage held the human by the neck. It took the lizardman a moment to recognize the attack and another moment longer to begin chanting a spell. Eli silenced it, then cast Light's Seal on one of the knights, allowing Cruella to strike between the gaps in its armor.
The second cursed lizardman knight fixed its eyes on Eli, correctly identifying him as the healer. It charged, but Simon stepped in, planting himself firmly in its path. His shield absorbed the brunt of the charge, and the lizardman, despite its considerable weight and size, bounced off Simon like the Crusader was made of stone. Off-balance, the knight only managed to parry one thrust before Simon plunged his blade into its throat, killing it instantly.
Cruella turned her attention to the mage, but it did an admirable job keeping her at bay with its wooden staff, all while refusing to release the wounded human. The Silence effect timed out, but Eli reapplied it, advancing while trying to heal the injured man. Strangely, the healing didn’t work. Instead, it seemed to double the cursed affliction, adding another stack of it. The man’s health continued to drop.
Damage from Samantha's heal-bombing disrupted the mage's concentration, giving Cruella the opening she needed to finish it off with a flurry of attacks, her blades covered by raging fire that lashed out and around the lizardman mage's staff.
Eli knelt by the captured human, helping him sit up. The man’s eyes seemed dimmer than before the fight, and the scales on his neck were spreading.
“Are you with Infinite Innovation Solutions?” Eli asked gently.
The only reply was a wheezing cough.
Eli inspected the curse. “I can cleanse it,” he muttered, concentrating as he cast the spell.
The man’s breathing eased slightly, but then his breath caught as the curse reasserted itself. “It’s too late for me,” he said, his voice a strained hiss. “Please... you have to save my wife.”
“What happened to you?” Eli asked, his tone soft.
“They took us from our farm,” the man replied, his voice growing thick with emotion. “There were others too. They... they did things to us. Unspeakable things. Oh, mercy... such terrible things.” He groaned, his voice turning guttural. “My wife, Trina... please, you have to find her.”
The man’s voice dropped lower, his words slurring as though his tongue had grown too large for his mouth. “Please...” He collapsed as his health dropped to zero, life leaving his body. Predictably, a pop-up appeared:
New Quest: Find and release the human captives.
“That’s ominous,” Cruella muttered.
The man’s body began convulsing. His health spiked up as he underwent terrible changes. His arms and legs thickened, scales spread across his body, and his head grew long and misshapen. Worst of all, his eyes turned a milky white.
Cursed Hybrid. Level 26.
Without hesitation, Simon and Samantha stabbed the creature that was no longer human, killing it instantly.
“We should look around,” Eli said, getting to his feet with a grunt. "Complete the quest."
“You think?” Samantha asked sarcastically. “Did any of you recognize him?”
No one answered, which was answer enough.
“He said he was from a farm,” Samantha offered. “That means he wasn’t one of us.”
“I didn’t get his name when I inspected him,” Simon added. “I always get names with others.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“He probably didn’t come to Aryxia with us,” Eli agreed. “But we still have to find out what happened.”
“Then we’d better start looking,” Simon said.
From down the hallway, new sounds began drifting toward them. All four turned to face the approaching arrivals. James popped up first, with Dana following, and then an entire party of eight. They slowed when they noticed Eli and the others finally coming to a stop right in front of them.
“You decided to come too, huh?” Eli asked.
“We did,” Dana replied. “But there’s only four of you. Where’s Amy?”
“She decided to go back,” Eli said.
“What’s up with that thing?” an archer asked, pointing with his bow at the corpse of the cursed hybrid.
“We got a quest,” Eli explained. “Sounds like the lizardman are taking people and doing terrible things to them.”
“That's terrible,” James breathed, his expression darkening. He paused for a moment, his eyes going unfocused, then nodded. “We just got it too.”
“We should split up and search,” Eli suggested.
“Yes,” James agreed. He looked formidable in slick metal armor, the shield at his side almost as large as Simon’s. He radiated strength and solidness, the kind of qualities you wanted in a tank.
“Be careful,” Eli warned. “There are some powerful bosses down here.”
“We ran into some cursed lizardman,” Dana said. “They’re a pain to kill, and their healers really mess things up.”
“Good thing you have a healer of your own,” Eli said, gesturing toward Agnes, who stood at the back of their group. “We wouldn’t have made it far without her.”
“These cursed lizardmen are far more clever than their counterparts,” James added, gesturing over his shoulder. “Back there, they tried to go around me and target our casters.”
“You had some difficulty fighting in these corridors too, didn’t you? They’re like a maze,” Dana said.
Cruella pointed with her short sword back to where they had come, then gestured left. “If you go out that way, you can leave the building.”
“Thanks,” James said. “We went down a set of stairs, not to the fifth floor, mind you, but to a basement that connects buildings, I think. We walked up another set of stairs and ended up right here.”
“There are many buildings,” Eli confirmed. “Head outside. It might suit your larger group better for fighting. Just check some buildings and see if you can find anything regarding the quest.”
James stepped forward and shook Eli’s hand. “We’ll keep our eyes open and message you the moment we find anything. You do the same. Let’s make sure we’re all together for the end of the quest.”
“Agreed,” Eli said, squeezing James’ hand.
With that, the other party was off.
“I wouldn’t mind some more people in this party,” Cruella said. “I wonder if we should be recruiting. With Zack and Irene leaving, we're down a couple."
"I’m getting the sense that Amy and Sasha will go off on their own, too. I hope I’m mistaken,” Eli said.
“More people means less experience, though,” Cruella mused.
“No, it doesn’t,” Samantha interjected. “More people means killing faster and not getting injured as much. We could keep going longer and kill things faster. In the end, that gives us more experience.”
Cruella tilted her head from side to side, considering, and finally nodded. “Perhaps we should fill up the slots and boot the druid and her girlfriend if they’re not going to partake.”
“She’s a Shepherd,” Eli corrected her. “And we’re not going to kick her out unless she wants to leave. We still have two more slots we can fill, even with them in the party. Six people should be a good middle ground for now.”
Simon nodded in agreement. “Do you want to go find more people now?”
“No,” Eli said. “The quest text doesn’t say anything about time, but maybe there is an actual time limit."
"Captured people and sick experiments do give me a sense of urgency," Simon agreed. "Even if they're maybe not real."
“Even if they’re not with us, they’re still people,” Eli said. “And they’ll have information about this world.”
“So it’s information you want, not just altruism in saving these poor little humans?” Samantha teased, her gentle smile softening the edge of her words.
Eli responded without heat in his words. “I don’t see why both can’t be important. We’ll save them, and we’ll get the information.”
“Agreed,” Samantha said with a nod.
Simon leveled up quickly. Usually at least once every fight. Even with Eli's many talents and other ways of gaining bonus experience, the gap was closing. That wasn't a bad thing, though. Their tank needed the added strength to fight against these increasingly difficult lizardmen. Still, Eli wished he could gain a few more levels himself. That ding sound always made him feel a little better. At the same time, he had to acknowledge his own high level and the advantage he’d been given with the undead creatures placed there in the church for his convenience by the being calling herself Light.
After they’d put down a particularly large group of cursed lizardmen, including several mages, that lovely chime returned.
Ding! You have reached level 42.
He quickly allocated levels to his Commander class and poured all available attribute points into Constitution, boosting his maximum health to a total of 4377. He paused over the four still unassigned skill points and the single remaining talent point. Not now. The fighting was growing more intense. He’d have to wait to distribute them.
Groups of roaming cursed lizardmen often found their ragged band of Ravenous Barbarians before they’d had a chance to fully recover from the previous fight. Eli discovered that Light's Seal worked on only one target at a time, but his Silence spell could be cast on multiple monsters, cutting off their ability to cast spells by silencing them. Without that one crucial spell from his Priest of the Dying Light arsenal, Eli knew they never would have made it this far, this quickly.
Effectively disabling any heals, debuffs, or magical attacks from the enemy meant they could dismantle the fighters with relative ease. Melee attacks infused with light, elemental magic, or sheer force tore through the opposition. The combined damage from Eli's and Samantha's spells added the finishing touches to their victories.
Moving on, they too found stairs leading down, with tunnels letting them emerge into other houses. All the houses were built with the same sort of yellowish bricks, and many rooms were furnished with chairs, tables, and even couches. The recurring theme of horrible paintings showing the demise of humans continued throughout the different buildings. Each painting was slightly different from the last, but all contained depictions of humans dying, screaming, or being conquered. A few showed what Eli suspected they were searching for—rooms that looked eerily like laboratories, with humans strapped to tables. Some had tails like lizardmen, while others were clearly painted to look like their skin was scaled.
A group of four cursed lizardmen approached. This was not the time to consider art.