The remains of old bodies lay on several little mobile beds, like the kind used in operating theatres. It was the nature of the remains that had Ray intrigued. They looked as though most of their flesh and organs and ripped free from their skeletons, leaving some rotten and dried pieces behind.
Maybe that was how the Flesh Elementals had formed. They had formed straight off these bodies. Human bodies, Ray noted.
At the distant end of the room was a table filled with tools. Ray recognized a lot of them as surgical implements. Scalpels, forceps, tweezers, and the like, though of a style he didn’t recognize. What was more interesting was the hornlike growth.
Ray fixated on it for a while. That had to have come from a Sylvan. So what in the world was it doing here?
Of course, it was the Sylvans that mostly used Growth Mana. The Flesh Elementals had been created via unrestrained use of Growth Mana, so it kind of made sense why the horn was present here. But what Ray was more curious about was how it had arrived inside this sprawling laboratory.
Curse. That’s what Adrian had said. That the Infected had been cursed by the original controller of the Floor, who had to be a Sylvan Floor Lord.
Were the people of Everstead experimenting with how to remove the influence of the curse from their victims here? Damn it. Now would have been a great time to have his guard around. Ray could have asked the fellow some pointed questions.
Of course, he probably wouldn’t have received any real answers. But it would have been worth it to see him squirm as Ray pieced things together.
Unable to find out more, Ray moved on.
Flesh Elementals tried to ambush him in the corridors and out of the little side rooms he passed. Ray was aware of them long before their encounters thanks to Primordial Gauge. He looked through several of those side chambers, trying to see if there was anything interesting in them. Most were either empty, or too filled with gore to get anything useful.
By the time he arrived at the next major room, Ray had killed a bunch more of the Flesh Elementals. The level up was quite appreciated.
[Enemy Defeated—Flesh Elemental]
Tier 7 Monster: Flesh Elemental [Level 18] x18
Essence: +22,680
Knowledge: +54
True Mana Restored: +3,240
[Level Up!]
Reward
* +5 Intellect, +5 Spirit, +2 Vitality +2 Agility, +10 allocatable free stats.
* 1 True Mana Tier Point
* 1 Empty Shard
Essence to Level 26: 17,160/41,300
Knowledge to next Threshold: 795/800
Ray plugged half the free stats into Intellect while the rest went into Vitality. He also put the True Mana Tier point into Lifeblood Graveyard.
The Empty Shard turned out to literally be a useless shard of—oh wait. He had received an empty crystal a while back. Either as a dungeon reward or something else, Ray wasn’t sure. But he had never used it before. How could he have forgotten about it for this long?
Ray quickly poked through his Bag of Holding and pulled the crystal out. It was exactly like the shard. Colourless, kind of cloudy inside. The shard’s description was exactly what it had been for the crystal. He could pour in Mana of any variety into both of them, then use them as a regular shard and crystal.
Deciding to keep them in mind for eventual use, Ray entered the next major area. Only to be faced with a pit of bubbling, disgusting liquid.
[Primordial Gauge—Dungeon Obstacle]
Switch in the Pool
At the bottom of the cesspit lies a switch that is the only way forward. The caretakers of this dungeon did not wish for anyone to discover the true secrets within, and as such, secreted away the means of opening the way forward in as gruesome a manner as they could. But beware sinking into the cesspool. One such caretaker yet remains within…
Well, wasn’t that ominous as fuck.
Ray looked around. No way this weirdly-placed switch was the only method of going forward.
True to the notification’s words, Ray couldn’t see any openings or anything of the sort. No windows, no doors, no secret hatches, not even any vents. Only the doorway he had entered through. Primordial Gauge wasn’t offering him anything either. The method to open the exit had to be entirely mechanical.
Ray supposed he could spend a while trying to see if he could locate the opening on his own. However, this wasn’t a fun little escape room. As proven by the rotten tentacle that slithered out of the bloodlike muck.
Gusting out a sigh, Ray blasted the tendril of bone and gristle with a Spiritsorb. It reared back into the pool.
He was not entering that thing. That was fine. He had other option to exhaust. With a little flick of his wrist, Ray called up his Imitator construct. Together, they waited until another tentacle pushed out of the cesspool.
“That’s what you need to be,” Ray said, ordering the construct to transform.
As it began doing so, he smacked the rotten tendril with another Spiritsorb until the offending tentacle was gone as well. Oh, yes. No getting into the muck with those things there.
His Imitator turned into a slithering tendril that seeped into the disgusting liquid. Ray made sure to attach an eyeball to the thing, just so he could see and guide it. He could have directly ordered it to get to the bottom and press whatever switch was there, but he was curious.
Ray blinked as his third eyesight opened up. It was convenient that his eyeball’s vision wasn’t too impeded even in the red murk it had descended into.
But holy crap, there were a lot of those tendrils under the surface. What was worse was that they immediately went into a frenzy as soon as the Imitator tendril with the eye sank under the surface.
Ray actually jolted a little where he stood. The reaction was viscerally drawn from him. It was just because of how ridiculously vicious the tentacles had turned on the fake one.
Almost as if they knew it was fake and were incensed by the copy.
As it was, Ray’s constructed mimic tendril didn’t last long. Ah, well. It was a good experiment. Next up, he created a bunch of the mimic tendrils. Well, when it got more than three, he started to get that stinging sensation right in his head, so it grew quite difficult to focus. But he didn’t need to. Not when his constructs had enough intelligence to carry out his order.
The handful of fake tentacles dived in. Ray constructed one of them to only be the eye, flapping with its wings in an effort to swim, just to test the actual tendrils’ reactions.
His assumption that the tentacles had something against the Imitator construct was verified soon after. The only damage the eyeball suffered was as a side-effect of the tentacles trying to attack their fake brethren.
In fact, it so happened that while the tendrils were busy with the fakes, his eyeball managed to swim all the way to the bottom of the murk. Ray cheered it on as it pressed on the switch.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
A heavy rumble ground out through the whole structure. Ray shook along everything else.
Above him, the ceiling was splitting apart. It was retracting to either side, slowly pulling away to reveal a passageway that went farther in a floor above Ray. So that was where it had been hiding all this while.
His Imitator constructs didn’t make it out. Ray wondered if he could get more Essence by trying to kill those tendrils. But then, it was pretty obvious that it would be a pain in the ass.
Ah, whatever. He had more of the dungeon to explore.
There were more of the Flesh Elementals everywhere. Ray was forced to use Spiritsorb more often than not, killing one monster after another. They just didn’t seem to end. He even had to crush another True Mana shard to refill his Mana capacity.
What was worse was that he wasn’t really learning anything from the rooms and corridors he went through. Too grimy, too dirty, everything covered in blood and rot.
Immune to disease though he might be, Ray was not touching any more of the infected-looking things than necessary.
By the time he arrived at his next obstacle, he had killed over a dozen more of the Flesh Elementals again. He had to admit that they were a really good source of Essence. In fact, he was now even eyeing yet another level up in this dungeon.
[Enemy Defeated—Flesh Elemental]
Tier 7 Monster: Flesh Elemental [Level 18] x14
Essence: +17,640
Knowledge: +42
True Mana Restored: +2,520
Essence to Level 26: 34,800/41,300
[Reputation Threshold Crossed]
For reaching the 800-point threshold, your Knowledge has raised your Intellect by 60.
Knowledge to next Threshold: 837/1,000
The Dungeon Obstacle was a sight to behold too. Ray was equal parts disgusted and fascinated.
It was quite literally a giant blob of flesh that seemed to be pulling all the other Flesh Elementals towards it and grafting them to its body. Fleshy tendrils and meaty appendages trailed off its main body.
[Primordial Gauge—Dungeon Obstacle]
Flesh Guardian
A corridor that leads to the greatest secret of all must be guarded by all beings. But to do so alone would be inefficient. As such, the Flesh Elementals of the dungeon have gathered together to form one angry mass. Get past the guardian by any means necessary.
Ray tried to focus on the fact that he was supposed to get past that thing. Primordial Gauge simply called it a Greater Felsh Elemental, sporting mostly the same abilities as its normal kind, just at higher Tiers.
Problem was that it literally filled up the entire corridor. Ray wasn’t getting past it easily.
Especially because attacking it with one of his spells only seemed to make it grow bigger. That wasn’t strictly true. His chaos attacks did cause it to rupture and take damage, but it also made new flesh, bone, and blood grow chaotically on the huge monster’s body. That just made the problem of it filling up the corridor worse.
It was approaching him too. Slowly getting closer and closer. Since Ray was pretty sure getting in physical contact with that thing would be bad news, he had to retreat as well.
At this rate, he would be pushed back to the dungeon floor he had risen from.
“No way,” Ray said.
He called up two flying Greater Windbane Maw constructs. At the same time, he crafted one on his arm with Primal Spiritcraft too. Together, the three of them fired an enormous blast of their compressed laser breaths.
Of course, the Greater Flesh Elemental couldn’t stand up to that attack. What did take Ray a little aback was the sheer time he and his constructs needed to continuously keep firing.
That thing was big.
The chaotic fires combined and exploded, tearing apart the Elemental and sending its fleshy and bloody chunks flying everywhere. But the fires had to keep digging and digging and digging. There was simply no end to the monster.
Ray was almost starting to consider if it was like that Imitator wall back at his first dungeon on the Second Floor. The one that would have cost way too much Mana to get past.
Then, thankfully, the monster died as his laser breaths broke through.
[Enemy Defeated—Greater Flesh Elemental]
Tier 8 Monster: Greater Flesh Elemental [Level 20] x1
Essence: +1,600
Knowledge: +3
True Mana Restored: +200
Essence to Level 26: 36,400/41,300
Knowledge to next Threshold: 840/1,000
Hopefully, the greater variants of the Elementals still counted towards his Objectives.
Ray made his way through the muck of corrupted, twisted flesh. He decided to fly through with Soaring Wings. The chances of slipping and falling were too high. Oh, and tripping too. Bone, blood, and meat lay everywhere with no order. Ray did his best to ignore the toothy mouths opening and closing and the entrails moving on their own.
That was when he saw his next Greater Flesh Elemental. Oh, please no. He had already used up too much True Mana trying to take just one of them out. More of them really was going to deplete his reserves.
He spotted something potentially helpful. A room to the side. The door to it had already been reached by the front end of the monster, but it was moving slow. If he got there in time—
Ray got a better idea. He quickly summoned his Imitator construct, sending it shooting to the room.
It performed its job with admirable efficiency. Just before the Flesh Elemental covered up the entire doorway, the mimic finished copying it to memory before returning to Ray in quick order.
“Great,” he said, the black-red blob bouncing like a reflection of his own excitement. “Now it’s your turn to become a room.”
By the time the Greater Flesh Elemental reached him, Ray was safely ensconced in his own little fake room.
Even better, he made his handy little construct turn the door into a stretch of wall. It managed to fool the monster. The Greater Flesh Elemental squished and squelched past, the noise sort of reminding Ray of someone vomiting. Controlling his own queasiness was a lot of work. Visual was one thing, but an auditory assault wasn’t something he was prepared for.
Ray had to remain within the room a little too long, but it was better than using up another huge chunk of his True Mana. Although… maybe there was another way.
He tried to get his plan across to his construct to see if it could obey the more complex set of instructions. It wasn’t really working. Kind of annoying, actually. But maybe the issue was that his construct simply wasn’t smart enough. Which was why he decided to put his first Vitality Tier break to proper use.
The sensation of splitting his mind was very odd. All he tried to do was direct enough thinking power, enough intelligence to his construct for it to do what he needed.
In turn, that made it difficult for him to think. It was as though a buzz filled his head. He could only focus on one thing before the buzz grew incredibly uncomfortable. Getting past the Greater Flesh Elementals. That was all he had to focus on now. Simple and direct. He could do that.
At least the Imitator construct had finally grown smart enough to enact Ray’s plan. While keeping the “wall” of the room facing the corridor, he made it open its door on the actual right wall.
Normally, that would probably not have even opened because of the stones making up the wall, but Ray had also commanded it to move its space. As he passed through the doorway, the room he had been in moved its space along with him, so that it was now taking up the space opposite the doorway in the wall.
Essentially, the Imitator was moving itself through the wall by shifting the space its room occupied. Ray just kept up with it.
The buzzing sensation in his head was a constant companion. Ray couldn’t focus on what he was supposed to be doing in the dungeon. It was fine. Hopefully. Essence. It was always about gaining Essence, wasn’t it? The buzzing grew stronger, so he stopped thinking.
He could get started on his real objectives once he was done with this bit. That was fine.
At some point, his Imitator construct opened up to a large room. Larger than the one it formed after copying the side room. Was Ray in a new, actual room? It was hard to tell.
But he retained enough consciousness to know that his foggy brain was making it difficult. As such, he dismissed his construct. Ray blinked as consciousness slammed back with full force. Holy shit. He was definitely not trying that again unless really, really necessary.
Good thing he had pulled his full intellect back in. He got the feeling he was definitely going to need it in this room.
It was cleaner here than all the rooms and corridors he had seen on the dungeon’s second floor so far. He browsed around. Letting his guard down a little since Primordial Gauge didn’t alert him to any other presences.
There were cabinets filled with files in a language Ray couldn’t read. Nevertheless, he was certain there would be someone who could, so he searched around until he found one that looked important, resting inside the drawer of the table at the very front. There was so much here that he needed to tell Mary about.
He made sure to take some extra. Caleb wanted a bunch of them, as the guard had reminded Ray before entering the dungeon, but he wanted some for his own inspection.
Ray found more operating tables and surgical tools. In another locked cabinet that he broke open, he located a bunch of Growth Mana crystals.
So intriguing.
He had found a lot of evidence of Growth Mana everywhere, yet the main origin of that variant of Mana was missing. Apart from that one guy on the Spire. So, unless—
A door opened and closed somewhere farther off. At the same time, Ray’s Primordial Gauge went off. Someone had arrived. Someone close enough for his spell to detect.
Speak of the devil. Just as he had been wondering, a Sylvan had appeared.
Ray hurried forward to the only other door of the chamber. He pushed it open, heart beating fast, and entered the largest room he had come across yet inside the dungeon.
It was like an archive. The sort that were filled with rows upon rows of shelves, all stuffed to the brim with documents and folders. But the shelves and cabinets had all been thrown to the floor. They were lying on the ground, a large number of them broken and shattered, but all stacked against each other to basically form a second floor on top of the real floor.
A squishy, squelching noise drew Ray’s attention to the centre of the room. The Sylvan had moved out of Primordial Gauge’s range, but the alien was aware Ray had arrived.
“Come in closer,” he said, voice horribly warped.
As Ray approached, he saw why. The Sylvan was mutated and afflicted, just like the Infected he had seen. There was an alertness to him, though. A gleaming, mad intensity to his eyes.
Ray crushed a True Mana shard because he was pretty sure he knew what was coming. As it was confirmed by the Dungeon Obstacle notification a moment later.
[Primordial Gauge—Dungeon Obstacle]
Hidden Originator
A remnant of the past has materialized in your presence. Secure your victory and earn your freedom from the confines of the dungeon and the murky past it locks within.
It was probably pointless, but Ray decided to voice his question anyway. “Who are you?”
“I am one who awaits,” the Sylvan said in that mangled voice. “And you are my entertainment till the fated day arrives.”
“Yeah, well this entertainment is going to cost you.”
Ray tensed as the Sylvan started ambling towards him. But then, a Tower Node flashed to life to his left. The Fleshcrafter had appeared, and it was heading straight towards the Sylvan.