As the final leech fell lifeless to the floor, a surge of energy and vitality entered Nick’s body. Now, instead of being one step away from death, he merely felt severely weakened. I think I just leveled and increased my base stamina and health, he noted absently, then shuddered in delayed terror.
In that moment, Nick felt certain that he would never be able to fall asleep again, regardless of whatever the System was doing to blunt the impact of his trauma. He was deeply disturbed by the realization that he had been rendered helpless for hours, leeches feeding on his life’s blood, trapped within this den of horrors.
He sat down in the corner with his back against the wall, where he could watch both entrances to the chamber while he waited for the sedation to wear off. As promised, half an hour later, the fog in his head dissipated, leaving him clear and focused. While he still felt weak, his nap and the boost to his vital energy had restored his concentration enough that Nick could think and plan once more.
He began to carefully examine his body, afraid that he would barely be able to move without a gallon of adrenaline boosting his performance. But the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as Nick had feared. He was sluggish, and the dagger felt heavy in his hand, but he wasn’t in danger of collapsing on the spot. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but regardless of all other considerations, his next step was clear.
He needed to head back into the room where he had slain the sleeping ratmen, then drink his fill from the bucket to replenish his lost fluids. After that, he would loot the gear that he had stripped from their bodies before dumping them into the underground river. As he staggered back through the narrow tunnel leading to the chamber, Nick realized that he had likely spent two full days down in the dungeon by now.
This meant that the second phase of the tutorial should have begun. As such, even assuming that the searstorm had blown past, he had no guarantee that the conditions on the island were any safer than those in the sewer.
The only thing he knew for certain was that a reward awaited him if he could make it all the way to the end of the dungeon. Better yet, there was only one more rat that he needed to kill in order to complete his quest. Not that Nick wanted to fight anything ever again if he could avoid it, although he had resolved himself to the fact that battle would be a regular part of his life going forward.
When he made his way back to the ratmen’s den, several details jumped out at him that he had missed during his botched assassination attempt. Most notable were the rings of powder surrounding the rats’ pallets. The same substance he had found on the first rat at the level above. He took in the sight of a pair of desiccated leeches that appeared to have died trying to cross the ring of what seemed to be chemical-infused salt. The pile of half-eaten leeches sitting next to the hatch the rats used for waste disposal.
Now that he knew about the leeches, the pieces fell together in Nick’s mind to paint a complete picture. That powdery substance must be toxic to the leeches. The rats use it to protect themselves from being attacked while sleeping and to lure their meals to them. I missed an obvious clue, and it nearly cost me my life.
After drinking from the bucket, he walked over to the barrel in the corner and carefully opened the lid. As he had expected, it was filled with more of the chemical salts, which the rats must be extracting from one of the various substances floating down the sewage channels. The tins sitting on top were full of salt as well, and Nick clipped both of them onto his belt. While he didn’t plan to linger in the dungeon for much longer, the chemicals might be useful later, and the containers would certainly come in handy.
He then moved on to ransacking the rest of the room, starting with the belts that he had cut free from the rats before disposing of their remains. Unfortunately, except for a small blue gemstone that he slid into his pouch, their belts were empty of anything except for what appeared to be dried leech jerky—foul gray flesh that he had no intention of eating even if his Foraging skill hadn’t told him that it was toxic.
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However, the sight of meat reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in over a day. When he searched the rest of the room, Nick found another dagger beneath one of the cots, although this one wasn’t nearly as well preserved as the knife he had found on the first rat.
Feeling just a tiny bit better now that nothing had tried to kill him for a good half hour, he walked over to the opening in the grate to refill his canteen from the river below. Then he began scrubbing the accumulated grime off his body and clothing as best he could. Whatever level of cleanliness he managed to achieve was certain to be undone before long, but going through the motions made him feel better and gave him time to think. His next task was to inspect the state of his gear.
His spear was still in pristine condition, resting where he had set it before moving in to kill the rats. Nick was glad to have a weapon with a longer reach, despite its shoddy craftsmanship. It was annoying that his new shirt already had a gaping hole in it, but at least it was otherwise intact.
His bathrobe was in bad shape, and it wouldn’t last much longer. The soft fabric was torn and frayed, the pockets had begun to fall off, and there were so many stains that it was hard to find a swath of the original beige. His jeans were in marginally better condition. The thick denim had a few tears but was holding out for now, not that he expected his pants to survive past the end of the tutorial.
While he regretted the deterioration of the only keepsakes he had from the planet of his birth, Nick knew he needed to find a replacement soon, ideally before the tutorial ended. He was in desperate need of armor—a fact that his recent fights had driven home. With his inspection complete, he turned his attention to the matter that he had been avoiding while he recovered from a day filled with multiple traumatic experiences. It was time for him to decide whether he wanted to proceed or cut his losses and exit the dungeon from the entrance.
The fleeting moment of lucidity he had seen on the ratman’s face before it bit him horrified Nick. It implied that their minds were still intact, trapped by the parasite within this damp hell of the sewers for years on end. Although they weren’t his species, the rat had called out to its mother. They had once been people who could think and feel, and he wanted to free them from their bondage if he could. Even if he had to kill them in order to do it.
In addition, he had a hunch that he was nearing the end of the dungeon, and his internal loot finder was tingling. There was treasure somewhere not far ahead. He was certain of it. According to the System, there should only be one more ratman living down here. The foreman, who was likely more dangerous than the other three Nick had encountered. In addition to whatever else he found within the sewers, the System had promised a reward for completing its quest, which he had nearly accomplished.
While he wasn’t in great shape, his timely level had restored him enough to be able to function. Though he would have preferred to go back to the safest place he knew and recover fully from his blood loss, he was out of food and the dungeon would eject him in less than a day, rendering the progress that he had made so far meaningless.
At this point, Nick couldn’t afford to lose the time and energy it would take to go all the way back to the dungeon’s entrance just to recover. This is my final push, even if I have to give up and return from this run empty handed. His condition would only deteriorate the longer that he waited, and all signs pointed to him finding something significant before much longer.
It was around this time that he noticed the end of his wand was glowing brighter than before. When he took a closer look, he saw that two of the three gems along the base were now lit. He wasn’t sure why, and he needed to figure it out once he was back on the island, but he hoped that it meant the wand now had two charges stored.
In the end, he decided to explore just a bit further, then make his decision once he was able to see what he was dealing with. He pulled his mostly dried robe around him to preserve warmth, arranged one dagger on each side of his belt, then held his spear before him, ready to step foot into the dungeon’s heart.
Although Nick could only sense the changes occurring within the dungeon on the distant periphery of his awareness, his actions had awoken something far more deadly than the rats and the leeches combined. An entity that was, even now, using the traces of his blood that it had extracted from the rats’ corpses to adapt to human physiology, preparing to make a new home for itself inside Nick’s body.