“Did you see that?” Marcus was saying as they entered the dungeon tunnels. “They were all staring. All of them. Straight at you, Ray.”
“At us,” Ray insisted, though rather distractedly.
Distracted, because as soon as he had neared the dungeon, the notification for it had popped up.
[Primordial Gauge—Dungeon]
Obsidian Halls of Dark Reflection [Tier 26]
In the bowels of a shattered peak, where the old gods of Rhanom sought power through visions of darkness, lies a labyrinth of black stone that reveals more than it hides. Abandoned, it now festers with merely the darkness. A mirror that reflects no light. Few emerge unscathed, for the Halls demand honest sight—and only the worthy claim the secrets within their shadowed depths.
As ominous a warning as Ray had received yet. It wouldn’t really have worried him, save for the fact that this was a Tier 26 dungeon. He was not about to hesitate, especially when he had seen several other teams and individuals already make their way inside. Still. Best to be cautious.
“Oh, he saw it alright, Knight Guy,” Gritty said. “Wingman here is just trying to act cool. Pretend it doesn’t faze him. Believe me, when we’re not looking, he’s going to be fangirling over himself like an un-buff Gaston.”
That really pulled Ray out of his line of thought. “Un-buff Gaston? Really?”
Gritty just laughed. Marcus shook his head with a grin too. Assholes were having fun at his expense. Well, they were about to see just how much fun the dungeon was going to be.
That said, Ray did admit to himself that he’d felt a nice rush with everything outside the dungeon.
The way they had arrived thanks to the Eternal Guardian pushing their island and the panicky gawks from all the Sylvan guards. The way the registration had been so smooth all because Marcus had already done it. The way Ray had basically blown everybody’s socks off by using his Tower Node as a collateral for his upcoming bids at the auction.
All the reactions had been delightful. At the end, he had even shocked that reporter Sylvan.
Reporter Sylvan. Just even thinking about that concept was weird as hell. But he supposed with how advanced their civilization was, he shouldn’t let his very specific experiences cloud his assumptions about them
“It’s dark in here,” Gritty said. Now that they had entered the dungeon proper, her voice began to echo through the passageway. “Anybody got a light?”
Ray summoned up the Viledrake tail with Primal Spiritcraft. A little bit of Molten Mana made a ruddy glow bloom. “Wonder how long it’ll take before we see the ones who went ahead.”
They were late. All the other competitors had already entered the dungeon, and Ray’s team had taken the nearest entrance that had already been used by a different team.
“Woah…” Marcus murmured.
Ray turned at Marcus’s wonder-filled exclamation. When he saw what the armoured guy was looking at, he was tempted to exclaim much the same.
The walls were made of something like jet. Pure black, but glassy as well. Like volcanic obsidian. With new light, Ray didn’t even have to squint to see a smudged reflection of himself keeping pace with him.
“The tunnel is getting narrower,” Gritty said. She had taken the lead, walking a few feet ahead of Ray and Marcus. “We might have to turn single-file.”
She was proven right only a few seconds later. The obsidian walls closed like a funnel, even the ceiling sloping down as their path inclined slightly up. Gritty moved in right in front of Ray, while Marcus brought up the rear.
“Be careful,” Ray said. “This is a Tier 26 dungeon. Not sure what exactly we’re going to face, but you guys probably saw the description, so…”
Gritty grunted. Behind Ray, Marcus’s breathing grew a little shallower, like he didn’t want to make any more noise than his cantankerous armour was already making.
They kept walking for a while. Ray was starting to wonder when they’d see anything. There hadn’t been any real obstacles yet. More than that, they hadn’t seen a single sign of anyone else besides them either.
Sure, they’d entered a little late. But to see nobody else after this long was worrying.
Ray looked back. He couldn’t see the entrance. Their path had twisted and curved away a long time ago.
The motion made him catch sight of Marcus though. There was a dull, dogged look in his eye, like he was forcing himself to take one step in front of the other. Huh. Was he scared of something? Or worse, suffering from claustrophobia?
“Sense anything up ahead?” Ray asked after another while. His own Primordial Gauge had offered no insight.
Gritty hummed and said nothing more.
Ray turned his attention back to their new companion. “You okay back there, Marcus?”
Marcus just grunted. He was definitely not looking well. His expression was droopy with fear, the light making it look like his skin was sloughing off his face.
Ray edged closer to Gritty. “Hey, Gritty. Marcus isn’t doing so well. I think he’s claustrophobic. Could you—”
Gritty’s head turned as Ray was speaking to her. Only the head, which did basically a full one-eighty-degree rotation, even while the rest of her body continued facing and walking forward.
Now, Ray had seen Gritty do a lot of weird shit. Pulling out and crushing hearts, emerging from the bowels of sea monsters, and then even performing an insane blood ritual. But this… Ray felt his spine tingling with the first hints of fear. The way her neck twisted wasn’t human. Wasn’t alive. The way she stared at him, eyes unblinking, mouth dark…
On an impulse, Ray used Primordial Gauge.
[Presence of the Primordial]
Patricia “Gritty” Colmire [Darksign]
Path: Path of Broken Blood [Epic]
Class: Blood-serker [Epic] [Tier 4] at Level 42
Perk: Blood Boon, Rage
There was a lot more to that whole list, going down a bunch of abilities that Gritty supposedly possessed. But Ray didn’t pay attention, because he had found what he was looking for. Confirmation.
Darksign. Not Denizen.
The Soulstrike True Mana arm didn’t have much space to materialize. But Ray didn’t care. He let it burst free from his shoulder to slam into Gritty—or rather, this monstrous apparition of her—sending her flying back.
Ray didn’t waste a second. The warning words in the dungeon’s description rang loud and clear in his head.
The quickest of looks with Primordial Gauge confirmed that the issue was the same with Marcus behind him. It wasn’t claustrophobia or some other kind of fear. That was literally not Marcus anymore.
Which was why Ray had no qualms about casting yet another Soulstrike with his other Talisman. Where the first had leaped off his chest to attack his fake companion, his next True Mana arm erupted from his back to club Marcus away.
Both com—no, creatures—both creatures shrieked out. Like Ray had needed the auditory confirmation.
He was taking no chances, though. Primal Spiritcraft and Mana Imbuing created the Windbane maws at the ends of both of his True Mana arms. Huge draconic jaws sent out a geyser of dark flames through the tunnel on either side of Ray. He held them in position for a while, until the shrieking had died out.
[Enemy Defeated—Darksign]
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Tier 20 Monster: Darksign [Level 55] x2
Essence: +22,000
Knowledge: +6
True Mana Restored: +2,200
Essence to Level 47: 159,850/208,200
Knowledge to next Threshold: 2,497/2,500
The tunnel shook with the force of the impacts. Ray stayed still for a bit. Even though he knew that the notification confirmed that his two enemies had died, it all still felt a little too easy. Tier 20 monsters dying just like that? That couldn’t be right.
He supposed he had acted extremely quickly. A direct blast from a Windbane maw’s chaotic flames wasn’t something that could be shrugged off easily.
But those monsters had sneakily taken on the forms of his companions, to the point that most of their System status had indicated their imitations too. Wild. This was almost like the Imitators from the Second Floor. Ray was starting to get quite tired of them.
[Presence of the Primordial—Dungeon Obstacle]
Dark Reflections
The Darksign have become aware of your intrusion into the Halls of Dark Reflection. To delve into and reach the true depths of the dungeon, prove that you possess what it takes to overcome the darkness of yourself and those you know.
Alright. Sure. Why not. Recycling enemies from a previous Floor just to trip him up and make things even more annoying than they already were. Those old gods of Rhanom sounded like trolls.
He decided to make sure the others were alright, wherever they were. Ray and Gritty had already spoken through the System’s message function a lot. It was a simple matter to add Marcus there as well.
Ray: You guys okay?
Gritty: Why are you poking me in chat? You’re right behind me.
Ray: Uh… that’s probably not me.
There was a moment of silence. Then—
Gritty: FUCK!
Marcus: What’s going on? You guys are still walking in front of me. What the hell do you mean that’s not you?
Ray: Marcus, we somehow got separated when we were walking. This dungeon is tricky. I just had to kill you both because you’d been replaced by fakes. The Ray and Gritty you’re with are fake too. So I’m going to suggest you kill them both as quickly as possible.
Marcus: That’s impossible…
Ray: Just don’t die.
There was no more conversation to be had as both of Ray’s companions got busy trying to survive. Gritty was already fighting from what Ray could intuit. Now, Marcus was dealing with the same too.
He didn’t bother them. Since he was the only one free, it would be up to him to find a proper way forward.
Ray tried to think as he kept walking. They had journeyed on, assuming that a fork in the passage would reveal some hint of the exact direction they ought to travel. Maybe the dungeon luckily had a singular path that would take them all the way to the main chamber where the treasure lay.
Unlikely. Very unlikely. Especially considering they were dealing with a Dungeon Obstacle that was meant to trick them from the get-go.
So there had to be some other way of getting through the dark passageways.
Ray thought back to the description he had read when entering the dungeon. He didn’t recall the exact wording, but certain key phrases were still fresh. Honest sight. Sight. Oh, yes. He had a way to make his sight more honest than it already was.
A little focus with Primordial Gauge allowed Ray’s eyes to see threads of Mana running through the tunnels. Streaks of bright, glimmering blue threaded along the walls, ceiling, and floor. They didn’t reveal anything that stood out to him. The threads all ran in a single pattern that was the same everywhere. Hmm. Maybe he just hadn’t arrived at the right point yet.
So, Ray kept walking. He intermittently asked Gritty and Marcus if they were alright. Gritty admitted that she had killed the fakes without trouble. She was trying to find her way through the halls now.
Marcus didn’t reply. Ray got a little worried. But then, he shouldn’t even be able to send a message through the chat if Marcus had died. So that was relieving.
Still. Even if their newest companion wasn’t dead yet, he could be in trouble. Marcus could be terribly wounded. Ray knew there was no point worrying, especially when he couldn’t do a thing to help. It still nagged at him, though.
Eventually, the tunnel opened up into a large chamber with no floor. Instead, the passages continued on like little bridges to connect to tunnel openings on the other side.
The threads of Mana were still running in straight lines, indicating locations on the chamber walls where more passages opened up. But there was one location higher up on the chamber wall where Ray spotted the first divergence in the Mana’s pattern.
At a spot near the ceiling, instead of running in parallel lines, the Mana formed a little pool. Its surface rippled like a lake with wind blowing on top.
[Warning!]
Primordial Gauge indicates your presence has been detected by Shiver Sense [Tier 4].
Ray twisted his head around. Far on his left, where the Mana threads were emerging from a different tunnel, stood a strange being over a corpse. A familiar body.
“Marcus!”
The words burst out of Ray before he could even properly react. No way. Was this why Marcus hadn’t been responding? Because he had already been ki—no, not killed, just terribly wounded and incapacitated—by whatever that thing was.
“Another newcomer?” said the creature in question. “Are you a late entrant? I don’t remember seeing you back at the entrance arena.”
The speaker’s vaguely male voice was a strange mix of slimy and sharp. Though, his whole form was even stranger.
If a scaly crocodile could strand on two, thick legs and sport six thick arms coming off its shoulders, all while holding a cocoon-like “backpack” on its back, then that was what this thing best resembled. Though of course, the dungeon’s lack of light wasn’t helping Ray get a proper impression of his adversary.
Ray ignored the question and used Primordial Gauge on purpose this time, focusing directly on the human body. It took a bit of effort not to react when he saw what his spell displayed.
That wasn’t Marcus. Not the real one, at least. That was another one of the Darksign monsters. How convenient.
“I suppose the death of your companion must have shocked you,” said the strange creature. “I hadn’t realized how emotionally susceptible you humans are. Eliza is nothing like that.”
Ray was trying to think fast. Eliza. This was obviously not a plain monster. This was a competitor, probably a race he hadn’t seen yet, and one who had likely teamed up with another human. Somebody called Eliza.
But he could think about those later. Right now, he had to get past this creature.
He tried to use Primordial Gauge on his opponent, but it didn’t work.
[Warning!]
Primordial Gauge has been blocked by Amulet of Blindness.
Drat. Marcus had warned him this was likely to happen. All the competitors within the tournament were wary of having their full statuses be seen by others. As such, one of the first things many of them had purchased through the auction was an Amulet of Blindness. An inexpensive little trinket that would stop any abilities akin to Primordial Gauge.
“How dare you,” Ray said, trying his best to hold on to that initial anger and surprise he had felt. “You’re going to pay for killing Marcus.”
The creature’s lizard-face grinned, his sharp little fangs glinting in the low light. “Oh? Want to exact revenge? I’d like to see you try. Just know that when you’re lying dead, it was Karkatrix of the Third Ryous who took your meagre life.”
Ray wasted no time calling up a Windbane head at the end of his arm and firing off a blast of chaotic flames. His opponent was faster. A lot faster than Ray had given him credit for.
With one of his six arms, Karkatrix flung fake Marcus’s corpse off to one side. At the same time, Karkatrix himself dived to the very opposite side. In that split second Ray appreciate just how devious his opponent was.
Neither of them was aware just how much the other knew about the dungeon’s little tricks with the fakes and the Darksigns. As such, it was best to pretend that the other knew nothing. But Karkatrix had purposefully flung away fake Marcus to judge Ray’s reaction.
So, to keep selling the image that he didn’t know about the Darksign, Ray ignored his opponent and rushed after Marcus’s body. He couldn’t let his friend’s body get lost in the depthless bottom.
Karkatrix uttered a triumphant cry. He thought he had Ray right where he wanted him.
Thankfully, Ray had already summoned up the Scouring Eyeball, disguising it with a bit of Mimic Mana. It let him see how the cocoon on the six-armed lizard’s back unwrapped, like bandages unwinding off a limb. From within that cocoon, he drew three swords on three arms, and for whatever reason, a giant stick. Or a staff, Ray supposed.
As if spellblades weren’t annoying enough, this guy had six arms to boot.
Soaring Wings took Ray to fake Marcus’s corpse just as a lightning bolt crackled out of Karkatrix’s staff.
Ray was already casting Mottling Spiritguard. More bolts rained down after the first was foiled, but none of them landed. His sparking orbs of chaos did well to block everything that Karkatrix threw.
The sheer number of bolts had depleted Ray’s defence, however. With the majority of Spiritguard orbs gone, Karkatrix himself rushed Ray with blinding, lightning-fuelled speed.
Ray held himself back from reacting, other than sending the three remaining orbs shooting at his opponent. Karkatrix took them out with more bolts as he reached Ray in mere seconds. Only to be met with a giant, dark shell materializing in an instant before him.
The clang of the large swords bouncing off the shell reminded Ray of one thing clearly. He wasn’t here to fight, defeat, and kill other competitors. Ideal as that would likely be, it might end up taking too long. His real target was getting the treasure. The more time he wasted on fighting, the more some other team had the chance to get the treasure before him.
So, he summoned up his Imitator construct, letting it take his own form. In less than a heartbeat, it pushed out from behind the summoned shell of the Duskshell and flew off.
Ray’s heart clenched. Would Karkatrix fall for it? In the midst of battle, surely he had—
Karkatrix growled and rushed after the mimic, swords raised to swing down and staff ready to blast more bolts from behind. Ray grinned. There was his chance.
Letting the fake’s body drop, Ray called up the Windbane head again, this time with Lifeblood Soulform to let it stand—or fly, rather—on its own. Its jaws yawned wide as a compressed beam of black-and-red flames burned through the air towards Karkatrix.
The Ryous turned in mid-air, whips of crackling lightning blistering out of the end of his staff. They lashed out at the Windbane breath, causing an explosion well away from the intended target. But Ray had foreseen something like that happening, which was why he wasn’t even behind the shell any longer.
With Spectral Step, he reappeared next to his Scouring Eyeball, which had flown all the way near to the strange pool of Mana on the ceiling. Floating with his wings, Ray fired off another laser breath from the Windbane maw grafted to his arm using Primal Spiritcraft. This time, his attack connected.
Busy countering the blast from the Windbane construct, Karkatrix was unable to erect any defences against Ray’s other attack before it was too late. He managed to bring his swords together to shield himself, courtesy of his multiple arms.
That did next to nothing. The compressed blast of chaotic fire crashed into Karkatrix and sent him flying.
Ray grinned as his opponent struck the wall of the chamber before beginning to plummet. If he was lucky, the fall might just kill the bastard. Although, considering Karkatrix was still alive—as evidenced by how much he was cussing Ray out in an unintelligible language—that was unlikely. He’d probably find a way to survive.
For the moment, though, Ray was satisfied. The pesky guy was dealt with. If he found more of them along the way, he’d deal with them the same.
He stared at the near-upside-down pool of Mana for a second. Somehow, it gave him the sense of… a portal. A doorway or sorts. Taking a deep breath, he went in.