They had definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere back there.
For starters, the pair had only encountered two more wights since Yuk had leveled. The battles had been equally as one-sided as the two previous solo-undead encounters. The only difference was, while Yuk’s [Big Bug] form inflicted more damage, it also attracted more of the enemy’s attention than his formless swarm shape. On the second ghoul skirmish, Joe ended up having to heal a pretty nasty wound on Yuk after the wight bit them with enough force to crack through the thick beetle carapace.
The next clue was the temperature. The area was by no means warm, which was not surprising since they were in a subterranean cave. Even so, it lacked the biting chill that had suffused the ziggurat. That deep bitter cold was gone. Joe had even found himself opening sections of the heavy hide covering over his blue gambeson to prevent himself from sweating.
The last, and biggest, indicator was the terrain. Instead of finding anything familiar, Joe and Yuk were climbing along a tiny ledge with nothing but blackness below them. Joe’s claws and [Hunter’s Pursuit] meant he had no trouble traversing a nearly sheer, rock face that would have challenged world-class climbers on Earth. As empowering as it was to effortlessly scale the cleft, it clearly was not something they had fled past in their mad-dash flight from the ghouls.
Joe was just about to tell Yuk they should turn back when his collective companion spoke in his head.
“Hey, Joe. Someone is down there.” announced the disjointed swarm flowing around the wall with him.
“Someone?” Joe whispered out loud, mostly for the reassurance of hearing a voice in the silent cavern. He also made sure to project the thoughts through the mental connection they shared. “Not something?”
“Yeah. The bugs kind of remember him talking. I say ‘him’ because they remember a deep voice.”
“What did he say?” Joe asked, hooking his claw solidly into a crack so he could look downward.
“Joe! Bugs! You keep asking us questions we can’t answer. They’re just bugs. They recall sounds and the kind of sounds. They have no idea what was said.”
“Sorry. I keep forgetting.” Looking into the pitch-black darkness, Joe couldn’t see anything, even with [Night Eyes]. “How did you hear them? Do they speak to you?”
“Not actively. It’s more of a collective murmuration. They think, and I hear them.”
“Fair enough,” Joe retorted, waggling and stretching the fingers of his free hand to loosen them up. “What’d ya think? Wanna go check it out? It’s not like we have any idea where we are anyway.”
“Sure. It could be an intelligent monster, but I’m pretty sure it’s not an undead.”
“Alright. Down it is.” Down was a bit tougher than across, but still not much of a challenge. One glowing gauntlet hung in the air next to him, providing him light to see by. Joe had another one hovering twenty feet below them, so they were sure nothing was coming up the crevasse. Yuk’s vibration-sense was pretty good, but better safe than sorry.
Joe considered morphing himself into something that could fly down, but he eventually decided it probably wasn’t worth it. The crevasse was about five feet across, meaning Joe could have easily switched to the wall at his back. As tight as it was across, it was very long from side to side. Five feet across and long enough that he couldn’t see both ends at the same time was plenty of room for an airborne creature to make the dive down.
The problem was Joe would need a stable enough ledge to change shape on. Looking around, no such outcropping was in sight. While it would be fun to break the boredom and tension of being lost with some flying, Joe guessed that in the time it would take to find a suitable perch, he would probably be able to finish the descent with his claws.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, they reached the bottom. As he stepped off the wall, he found the surface under his feet made up of loose smooth pebbles and sand. Joe dug a claw into the grit and felt moisture just under the surface. This deep crack must let water in. It probably was more than just an underground seep, too. It likely flooded occasionally for the stones to be so rounded. Maybe during storms or the wet season.
“Do you know which way the voice came from, and can they tell how long ago?” Joe asked, straightening back up.
“Time not so much. It’s just a general memory the bugs down here have,” Yuk stated telepathically. “Direction,” he continued. “The opposite one from the way you are facing.”
Joe was looking upstream at that moment. He had been just about to suggest trying to go up the slight incline the ground possessed, in case the opening that let the water down here was large enough for them to pass through. Joe could become a snake or a mole, and Yuk was Yuk. The crack would not have to be big. If there was a way out, they’d probably pop up in the dense wight-filled jungle, but at least they would be on the surface. If they switch to flight, they could rendezvous with the others back at the base camp pretty quickly.
On the other hand, it might be better to talk to whoever lives down here first. They needed information about the Erlking and the pyramid. It was pretty likely someone living underneath the structure would know something useful.
“Ok. Let’s go see if we can find him,” Joe uttered a little ruefully as he turned around.
He scrabbled down the wash as Yuk skittered across the wall. At first, Joe thought it was his eyes playing tricks on him, but when he extinguished the fists, he saw a tiny glow of light filling an open space ahead of them. Joe decided to follow Yuk’s example and become something quieter. Using the quick-change item he had bought from Puqmup, he auto-stashed his gear in his new dimensional ring.
Your skill [Beast Shape] has increased to rank 6
Joe’s form flowed into that of a small owl, about two-thirds the size of his typical seahawk. He had considered a bat, he was afraid of overloading his brain with echo-location, one, by having never experienced the sonic sensory effect before, and two, by being in such an enclosed irregular space. The walls were easily wide enough for his smaller owl wingspan, so it wasn’t worth attempting the naturally cave-flying bat. Joe effortlessly, and silently, glided forward. His [Night Eyes] skill worked in the animal form, but by using eyes designed to see in dark conditions, even the faint light from the space ahead seemed to illuminate the whole area as if it were daytime.
Joe landed on a lip of a stone at the top of a four-foot drop into the open space. The edge was wet with seepage. Looking down, Joe saw a body sprawled across the floor, face down, wearing just scraps of a pair of trousers. The corpse’s skin was blackened and cracked with sores. It had one arm extended to a crack in the floor. Its hand was shoved down into that split in the stone. Without his new eyes, Joe might have missed it, but there was something in the crack, something metallic-looking.
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“Looks like we missed him,” Joe muttered quietly to the swarm forming up around him.
“Nope. There is a pulse coming from that body,” Yuk thought back.
Joe looked with his wound-sight and was appalled. The body was riddled with rot and cancers, but under all that putrecense was a spark of life. Faint, ever so faint, but it was there.
“Holy … You’re right.” Joe launched himself near the body. He quickly reverted back to his normal human shape and then placed a quickly-summoned gauntlet on the body. There were so many things wrong inside that festering mass that he did not want to touch it directly with his skin. Joe started with straight healing.
You have restored 0.6% of Margen's lost health. His current health is at 2.4%. He has severe underlying systemic damage. The underlying cause is preventing any additional healing of this type.
Joe stopped and stared at the window.
‘Holy SHIT! Margen!’
How could this be Margen? The man had been lost centuries ago. He should be dead of old age, let alone whatever was ravaging his body. Joe shook his head and tried to focus on his job. First, he needed to know what he was dealing with.
Name
Level
Health
(Current/Max - %)
Stamina
(Current/Max - %)
Mana
(Current/Max - %)
Conditions
Margen
96
244 / 15,415 - 2%
343 / 18,277- 2%
0 / 3,858 - 0%
Mythic Mummy Rot
• Mana Desiccation
• Enervation
• Putrification
- Organ failure (x12)
Joe didn’t even know where to start. The feeling of severity lurking behind those conditions made him shudder just reading the names. His [Eyes of the Healer] ability told him exactly how bad they actually were. Mana desiccation was devouring his mana and preventing him from recovering any more, while putrefaction and enervation were doing the same to his health and stamina pools. Joe guessed the last two had not finished because the man’s Vigor must be so much higher than his Spirit.
Mythic Mummy Rot sounded way beyond his skill to affect. They needed Mercy Suku, but all the dying founder had at the moment was just him.
He had upgraded his spell with Mortalius earlier today, so he might as well give it a try. He cast [Exorcise] without much hope. As he suspected, the spell hit an immovable fortress of deep-seated illness and tinked off of it.
“GRREEEAAATT LOOOOORRRDSSS!” a reverberating voice exclaimed in echoing shock behind Joe. “THAT’S MARGEN!” it shouted mentally a second later.
“I know. And he is in REALLY bad shape,” Joe stammered back.
“Joe! You have to save him. That’s Margen!”
Joe spun his head to glare at the semi-formed humanish shape of Yuk. “I know! I just don’t know how!”
He considered [Dispel Rot], but he was afraid that since the man had more rotten flesh than healthy flesh, it might tear him apart. Maybe if he worked on one tiny spot at a time, he could restore some vitality to the founder. Joe had no idea if it would work, but he wanted Margen to have as much health as he could. Even though he had just healed and hit a health wall, he cast [Healing Touch] again anyway, pretty much as a reflex.
You have restored 0.1% of Margen's lost health. His current health is at 2.5%. He has severe underlying systemic damage. The underlying cause is preventing any additional healing of this type.
“That shouldn’t have worked,” Joe thought to himself. He assessed the man again and Margen’s health had gone up by 22 points. It was an infinitesimal amount but it was something. Stumped, Joe repeated his last couple actions. [Exorcise]. [Healing Touch]. Assess. 22 more points.
[Exorcise] was working. Just barely, but it was working.
Joe decided to try and ramp up the spell. Instead of just casting the purging spell from close range, he’d cast one straight through the radiant gauntlet and dual cast a second from himself.
You have restored 0.2% of Margen's lost health. His current health is at 3.0%. He has severe underlying systemic damage. The underlying cause is preventing any additional healing of this type.
“Ok, Yuk. I think I have something. It’s not much, but I think I can make him a little better. This is going to take a while.”
“We’ll stay on lookout. Do whatever you have to,” the guilder replied, falling apart again and spreading around the room.
Joe dropped a [Heart Fire] for good measure. The extra twenty-six health a minute really didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt either. When Joe got Margen to 4.7% his progress stopped. He tried and tried again, but he could not get any further.
He wondered if he had finally reached the point where he would have to try to remove some of the undead rot that was woven through the warrior’s infected form.
“Say a prayer, Yuk,” Joe muttered and very carefully cast [Dispel Rot] on the healthiest spot he could find, which was on the man’s left calf, right below the knee.
Black and green puss burst from the skin, making a stink so vile Joe immediately vomited. He thought he had a stomach that could take anything after all the years in hospitals, but the reek that ensued, along with his heightened sense of smell, completely overwhelmed him. Thankfully, the [Heart Fire] continued to heal in the several minutes it took Joe to recover.
“That was the worst thing I ever smelt,” Yuk chimed in, “and I have had to gather bugs from middens and sewers.”
Joe wiped the tears from his eyes and looked. To his amazement, there on the calf was a small patch of gray skin that had a tiny tint of pink to it.
“Oh. This is going to be awful,” Joe groaned.
----------------------------------------
An hour later, Joe had to stop again. This time it was not because his healing had hit another wall, though he wished to all the gods in Illuminaria that was the reason. That would mean he would not have to expel any more of that vile stinking rot, which had turned the small hollow into a torture chamber of nausea.
No, this time, it was because the founder had cracked open one eye, and was staring at Joe.