“Let’s speedrun this bitch.”
As soon as he opened the door he dashed forwards and down the stairs.
“Let’s go turds.”
He called his golems to follow him as he ran into the third floor. It had the same look like the second floor.
It seemed that this floor was going to be the same thing as the one above.
“Ow.”
Something had impacted his neck. He ran his hand down his neck and dislodged what he thought looked like a dart. He picked it up and did the most obvious thing he could do, lick it.
When would he learn that licking strange things was potentially dangerous? Never.
He kept on running, smashing skeletons aside with his new weapon, while occasionally being hit by more darts.
When he made it to the boss room, he was feeling pumped. After running for what he thought was about three hours, he was not feeling that tired.
“Endurance is the best stat. Alright, let’s go.”
Opening the door, he ran in with his golems, ready to get going.
“You are walking so confidently to your doom?”
Looking around the room, he spotted a sickly green glow descending from the roof of the room.
“Prepare to die human scum!... Or maybe not human? You look like a monster with those claws and veins. Whatever, you’ll die either way.”
A humanoid figure with rotted features and glowing eyes fired off a spell at him. It was a lich
He dodged the first spell that looked like a ball of energy, then cut his hand on his glaive and gave his big hat a smattering of his blood. While he was waving his hand around, a drop fell onto one of his wooden golems circles. It fell to the ground.
“Fuck.”
He was not expecting his blood to affect his golem circles like that. As the lich fired another ball of energy towards him, he leaned down and put his head forwards as he tensed his legs to rush forwards.
The spell hit his hat head-on and disintegrated.
“What!”
The lich seemed surprised. He rushed forwards while swinging his glaive in a wide arc towards the lich. It jumped backward to avoid the swing.
His metal golem raised its fist in the air and struck downwards towards the lich. It tried to dodge but got clipped on the shoulder, sending it crashing sideways to the ground. He took the opportunity to order all of his golems to hold it down.
“Now, what do you know about people who have been in here before?”
There was one wooden golem each, holding down both arms while scroll held the legs. The lich thrashed and tried to get away, firing a bolt of lightning through the golem on its right.
“Seriously? The golems wood. Wood is an insulator, you big dummy.”
“What are you talking about!”
“Oh, right. No modern science here. Whatever, now tell me about other people who have been here? Have any of them left alive?”
“No, they all died, just like you will! Hahaha!”
“Hahaha.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“You think I want people to know about this place? You do know how valuable a dungeon co-... never mind.”
He swung his Glaive downwards, decapitating the lich. He checked his hat for blood and found it all gone.
He reapplied more blood to the top of his hat then told his golems to search for the chest while he rested.
He rested for half an hour then headed over to where the golems were waiting all in one spot.
“Step aside.”
The chest seemed to be in the wall this time. He searched the wall for the classic pressure plate and low and behold, he found one. When it was pressed, part of the wall opened to expose a shelf with a chest on it. Opening it, he was excited for what could be inside.
“What’s this?”
He opened it and out came a purple cloud of gas. Taking a deep breath, he sucked the gas into his lungs.
“Smells like candy.”
It was a disappointing chest. Nothing in it besides the gas.
He had no time to build another golem to replace the destroyed one. So he walked over to the lich’s destroyed body to see if he could loot one of those crystals off it to make up for the lack of treasure. He slashed its decaying neck open and stuck his hand in its skull, rummaging around for a crystal. What he pulled out was a crystal a bit bigger than the last with the same sickly green glow.
Dungeon cores were unable to completely cut themselves off from the world outside for some reason, nobody knew. But when they feel threatened, the dungeon core will gather all the mobs near the core. It will also try its hardest to grow bigger and faster to avoid being captured.
He distributed his free points into endurance and agility then ran towards the door and opened it. Ran down the steps and onto the next floor. The fourth floor looked similar to the temple style so far, but this floor looked like a ruin in the middle of a jungle. It had open space with roots in-between stones, dislodging them and the roof obscured by a blanket of leaves.
Not wanting to waste much time sightseeing he dashed forwards, trying to find the door for the boss room in the confusing jungle setting.
While he was running, a vine dropped in front of his neck and he ducked under it then looked up into the canopy. What he saw was a four-eyed monkey looking down at him and holding the vine that almost caught him.
“You little trickster, come here!”
He found a stick on the ground and threw it upwards, aiming for the monkey. It hit, but the monkey just kept staring at him then started making a weird howling-like noise. Another howl joined in and another until the whole canopy was filled with noise.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Fuck me!”
He began running while more monkeys gathered, honing in on his location. He looked up and found many brown four-eyed monkeys and a few black ones that seemed a bit larger.
Soon enough, a monkey came barreling towards him from the treetops. He swiped at it with his glaive while running, decapitating it and throwing off its trajectory to land away from him.
This chase continued while the occasional monkey head or extremity would fall to the ground followed by a body. Finally, a black monkey launched itself at him. He swiped at it but was blocked by its muscular arm. The blade went part of the way into the arm but was stopped. The monkey landed on him and threw him to the ground with its weight. It was too close to use the glaive and it was out of his reach anyways. But he had a very good close-range weapon already on him, his claws. He dropped his weapon then reached for the primate’s neck and grabbed it, digging his claws into it and ripping out the windpipe. Using his legs to kick the monkey off of him, he went for his glaive and continued to run in search of the boss room door. While on his travels only one golem was broken, leaving him with a wooden golem and Scroll.
After many dead monkeys, he finally found it. He went through it and the door closed behind him, cutting off the monkeys still chasing him.
He was interrupted from his thoughts by a right hook to the face by a huge gorilla. Crashing into the wall, he tried to get a grasp of the situation.
The gorilla towered over him, standing on four limbs with its two front arms as thick as tree trunks. Silver fur covered its whole body except the face, which housed six eyes all looking at him.
He attacked with the glaive, but it bounced off its fur and the gorilla got another hit in.
Ordering his golems forward, he went for the face. The wooden golem was thrown aways and shattered against the wall while Scroll managed to hold its ground but got dented in the process. Meanwhile, he managed to take out three of the six eyes, scoring a nasty slash across its face. It responded by roaring at him and charging. He managed to dodge to the side as it swept past.
The gorilla charged once again and he managed to dodge again, but it got quite close to hitting him that time. Meanwhile, Scroll was chasing after it, not able to catch up.
He grabbed a dart out of his bag and waited for the gorilla to charge again. Soon it came thundering his way and when it got close enough, he jumped up to put himself right in front of its face. The gorilla looked surprised as he inserted multiple darts into its eyes. With the deed done, he was headbutted into the wall.
He was stunned by the pain as he felt himself losing consciousness.
He willed himself to get up and spotted the gorilla having what he assumed was a seizure. It was thrashing on the ground while he pulled himself out of the slight divet in the wall he had made.
Hp: 40/125 Mp:84/84 Str:110 Ag:118 End:160 Dex:125 Int:76
Free points:45
Class: Golemnist Lv: 35 Affinity: Perpetual/ Blight Lv:37/ Lv:37
Skills: Identify Entity Engraving Carving Sense Material
Circles: Flex Command Lite sense
“Wow, how many levels is that. Wait, I just remembered, I don’t care! But I do care about skills. Sense material, hmm? I’ll check it out after I make it to the core.”
Looking at the gorilla boss, he walked up to it and sat down. Then distributed his free points. All of them went into endurance this time, bringing the total to 205.
Taking out some food, he had a light snack, then continued with Scroll as his only companion left.
The Fifth floor dropped the stone temple theme and was completely different. It was an open space with no visible walls and an overcast sky that seemed very real. The ground was littered with dark pools of water and grey plants, creating a dark bog.
Taking a step forwards, he began his trek, weaving in between the pools of water on whatever strip of land he found. It was a maze of paths to avoid the water, but he certainly didn’t want to find out what would happen to him if he fell in.
...
He had been on his travels for about 12 hours without encountering a single monster.
Another hour later and he arrived in front of the door, still not seeing anything.
“Where are you Fuckers!”
Screaming for them seemed to have worked because they appeared. But not from where he expected. Monsters came falling on him from above. There were many different semi-aquatic creatures like snakes, giant crabs, giant salamanders, and fish. They all had one thing in common.
“Fuck! It Burns!”
All of them had bodies made of acid. It seeped out of the many jagged cracks in their bodies and covered him. He was pushed to the ground by the wave of bodies and slowly dissolved He tried to crawl out but was unable due to the amount of weight on him.
It was looking hopeless. He could feel the acid making its way through his skin and dropping slowly onto his internal organs. Holding his breath, he went into a fury.
The acid began to seep into his body at a faster pace. His lungs could not hold on much longer. He was fading. The pain began to fade and he felt at peace- Not.
He rejected the peaceful embrace of death and continued to rage at the thought of himself dying. But he couldn’t last much longer. He could feel his insides burning.
The weight suddenly increased, pushing him into the ground, creating a hole.
He was scared. His death was not supposed to happen. He still had things to do, he wanted to live.
Unique title obtained: Endurer
The pain slowly faded, his wounds healing slowly.
He was unable to tell how much time passed after the interface message, but finally, the acid stopped burning. Still being crushed under a massive weight he felt pumped.
He had endured the acid and was rewarded. There was now a different color to his skin, it was slightly red like he got a sunburn. This enhanced skin was able to keep the acid at bay.
Trying to move his hand to reach into the bag at his side was a monumental effort. It slowly wriggled towards its destination. Finally, he was able to pull out what he wanted. A poison dart.
He stuck it in whatever was nearest to his hand and went to grab another one. After repeating this many times, he gained some levels from the darts, poisoning and killing the monster lying on top of him.
Gaining more stats, he tried moving again. He was able to slowly wriggle forwards, deploying the slither method of movement.
The load on top of him grew lighter and lighter as he made it to the other edge and finally pushed out of the pile. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, he declared his intent.
“I am going to kill all of you.”
He knew it was a fact. Bringing his glaive out of his bag, he began slashing away at the monster’s, not caring for acid being spilled on him. Tissue flying, organs littering the ground, along with buckets of acidic green blood everywhere. He didn’t care about the hits he took but just kept on killing them, one by one.
By the end, he was bloody and battered. Only one more foe remained, a huge slug that had been right on the top of the pile. It seemed the entire floor was the boss room because this slug definitely seemed like the boss. It was covered in a glowing acid secreted by its pores and had a crown made up of its many eyestalks, all carrying an eye each, shining like the jewels set in a crown.
He rushed it and stabbed into it, being splashed with its acid while near it.
“Fuck me!”
So he resolved himself to “slug” it out.
“Hehe.”
The slug did not have many ways to attack and just used its acid to try and dissolve him. But the longer the fight went on, the less the acid burned. Until finally, he was done with it. He charged it with the Glaive and pierced its skin deep, continuing to push the weapon further into its body. It finally died.
“Thank Squirrel that that is over. Fuck the Gods.”
He willed his last golem to rise but did not get a response.
After fixing himself up and having a meal, he was ready for the next floor.
“Going it alone now, I guess that’s fine. Hope the core has not managed to make it harder after all that time this battle took.”
He pushed the door open and walked through. What he found was not the usual stairs downwards, but a blood-red gem sandwiched between two stalactites.
“Oh. You are fucked.”