“You'll be fine. There has to be an end to them, probably…” Calvin didn't sound very convinced when saying that Ambros noted. Not that he didn't have his own reservations.
“Nothing to worry about. Its shamblers. Just bite back. If you really want to, I got this powder from the auction house. I can mine the east road, and you lead them over. It's supposed to burn hotter than dragon fire.” Came from a grinning Harrum, a hill dwarf out of the Isle of Jordmat that lay in the far eastern part of the inner sea. He often bragged about being from the only clan that sailed the seas.
Ambros still had trouble reconciling how he had been put in charge of demolitions. The dwarf was quite possibly insane. He didn't trust the dwarf to wait to set off any pyrotechnics or explosions until Ambros was out of the area.
“Oh, he will be better than fine.” The half-orcess Mibra said. she was the glue of Calvin's team, as far as Ambros could tell.
She was the one everyone came to with issues they didn't want anyone to know about. Everyone knew about it. Feeling down or just out of sorts, go talk to Mibra, and you would be sitting with a blanket around your shoulders, drinking some sort of tea while learning about the migration habits of razor teeth squirrels or some similar animal in no time.
After Eku had declared that Ambros didn't need to sleep anymore. His life became training. Meals would be taken in the training hall. A bathroom and shower had been installed somehow while he was sparring with one of a constantly rotating group of adventurers he didn't know. Well, getting pummeled into a pulp may be a more accurate description.
He was forcefully familiarized with every type of weapon Eku could come up with spears the size of his arm and swords as long as himself. He got humiliated and punished with each weapon. The only place he had a chance at winning against these adventurers Eku kept sending at him was when they went hand to hand.
Ambros had also caught up to Eku in size, something he was more than happy to point out. When he found himself on the floor, belly down, with Eku's foot on his back moments later and Eku asked, “And how much good is that doing you?” If he did some soul-searching, he might admit there were times when saying nothing was the path to take.
After four weeks, Eku said he was a slow student but less likely to stab himself in the nose with a spear. They would continue the training when Ambros returned. Ambros considered not returning.
Looking at the other three adventurers, Ambros was grateful for the company. He had been getting a bit stir-crazy from not having a social life. He suspected Eku knew and had made the arrangements. Despite Ambros sometimes hating him, the dragon man was a master. He read his student like an open book, and Ambros was honestly thankful for it.
Took him a while to notice it, but on days he was feeling especially tired or wanted to give in, something extra would accompany dinner, an attendant would stick around to just talk for a bit, or Eku decided to tell a story about his life as an adventurer.
It had been difficult, and he knew that if he didn't have a set date for its end, he would probably have walked out, no matter how much he needed the training. Eku had been right. If he wasn't hurt, Ambros didn't need to sleep.
The four adventurers stood on a three-story building overlooking the tunnel leading underground.
The rest of Calvin's team was at the camp they had fortified and would stay at for Ambros to return, his badge declared him dead, or he crushed the emergency gem. They would come storming in if the last one happened.
“Well, what did they expect. The teams have been warned away from this tunnel for almost five weeks now.” Calvin said, looking at Ambros. He added, “Danos guide your arm, and may Eruna lead you true.” Ambros grunted in return. He didn't believe in any gods, and he doubted the beings that called themselves would bother noticing anyone as insignificant as him. No reason to keep postponing things. Ambros stepped off the roof as Mibra said, “Have fun.”
He managed to land on both feet and attract every zombie trying to squeeze out of the tunnel. The chainmail that had been commissioned for him certainly didn't make the landing quieter. There seemed to be a lot more of them this time around. Not in a line going in, though, or leaving. Just the masses trying to spread out. Suited him just fine.
Summoning the spear he had plundered of the vampires and a new shield, an aspis. He had found the relatively heavy round shield to suit him. Not that he was an expert. At best, he could be called a slightly trained amateur in spear and shield fighting, or with any weapon for that matter.
Raising his shield and holding the spear in an overarm grip, he stood ready to meet the first zombies rushing toward him.
The closest one hurled itself towards him, so he met it with his shield and stabbed the one behind it in the head simultaneously. Pulling his spear back out of the zombie, he took a step back and raised his shield and spear again, making sure he always kept both feet on the ground, and moving in sliding motions was still not something that came naturally to him.
He stepped forward again and decapitated the last one with the side of his shield just to confirm something.
Yeah, this was a bit easier than he had expected. Eku had already told him there wouldn't be many challenges for him until he was two or even three levels down, but he had assumed the zombies that previously moved so fast had now turned into snails made of porcelain would be some sort of obstacle. Now they just represented time and loot.
He liked the loot part, he thought as he unsummoned his shield and took a low guard position.
Waiting for the next four to come closer, he thrust twice, took a long step left, and thrust twice again. Four more zombies lay on the ground, unmoving. Next, a group of three came hurling towards Ambros, with a larger group of twelve following closely behind.
Well, he was barely competent with the spear, so he may as well take it as practice. Stepping up to meet the incoming undead, he moved the spear into a middle-staff stance. Both the spear tip and the spike would see use today.
Eku had been right, he realized. Spinning around doing twirls and fancy moves wasn't Ambros. Maybe he would eventually reach a point where his weapon skill made him look dashing and flashy, but now? No, he was learning, and he was learning a way to stay alive, as Eku had put it. He was learning to have a fallback options.
Ambros was, first and foremost, an Arcanist. Spells would become his main force multiplier, his way to power. Mana was his lifeblood.
For now, he was being taught these martial skills, and if he was being honest with himself, he enjoyed it. He wanted to learn them. He enjoyed how training made his body feel. Each time he came closer to beating an opponent in the training hall, he was elated.
Yes, he decided. When the time came that he could openly cast spells again without being dragged off and chained to minders that would follow him everywhere, he would continue to hone his martial skills and his body.
Ambros swatted the closest one in the head with the back spike before doing an overhand chop that crushed the skull of the next two zombies.
When he was almost on the group of twelve zombies, he would have been shocked to see his own face. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Calvin, Harrum, and Mibra still stood on the rooftop where there had been four people a short while ago.
Clearing his throat, Harrum said. “Yeah, so I think the boy will be fine... Head back to camp?”
“No, I want to watch some more. Look at him. Oh, did you see that one fly and hit the other one in the air?” Came from Mibra.
Calvin was forced to agree with Mibra. There was something mesmerizing about watching the slaughter. He wasn't particularly skilled. His technique was basic as if he had just come out of one of the Arms schools.
No, it was the economy of his movements. Ambros would take a step forward, and zombies were destroyed. He turned to the side, and more zombies were put down. He was like an unstoppable force of destruction.
He was constantly moving, and each move ended in one or more zombies getting taken out. He was fast and clearly strong with how effortlessly he would swat away zombies in mid-lounged.
Now, these were just low-tier zombies, but it took a certain amount of power to take them down. Ambros made it look effortless. He wouldn't have been too surprised if someone had told Calvin that Ambros was an early Adept.
“Look! He summoned a mace. Oh dear... Hes going to need some proper scrubbing when he gets back.” Mibra said.
Finally, Calvin said. “Come on, he is doing just fine, as Harrum had said. Let's not make him self-conscious by ogling too long.”
“Fine, but I get to scrub him down when he returns,” Mibra added before they made their way back to camp.
Ambros realized that switching to the mace, while fun and efficient, wasn't the best solution when the thing you were hitting had insides that smelled like rotten carcasses. Ah, well. Nothing to do but go forward at this point. He had cleared out the zombies in front of the underground entrance.
Looting the corpses without paying attention to the message. It would only be more grains and ears anyway. He stepped inside and continued putting zombies out of commission.
The tunnel was surprisingly wide, if not tall, but it did look to be carved out by some halfway intelligent species. Smooth floor and walls.
The zombies continued to come at him in groups of two or three, but he was using both the shield and the mace offensively now. One step forward, decapitate or crush a zombie with the shield, one upswing, and one downswing with the mace. It almost started to feel scripted.
Switching out the mace for his short sword, which seemed more like a good-sized knife in his hands now. He tried something new to keep his mind focused.
Check for stability. Move left foot slightly forward to improve stability., Kick forward, and watch the zombie cannonball into those behind it. It would have been funny if he just didn't double his work. He stopped kicking after the first try. You just needed to get the sword's tip far enough into the head for the zombie to stop working or decapitate it. No need to spend more energy than necessary.
Three stabs and three more zombies were out of commission. Ambros slowly made his way downwards. At one point, he started imagining that he was in some sort of purgatory where he was to spend eternity destroying zombies. The downward slope never changed direction. It just kept going down. He must be far below the surface by now.
Then it ended. The downward part that is. The tunnel suddenly leveled out. It took him a moment to get used to standing on something that wasn't sloped.
In the distance, past the shambling heads, he could see a light. It was unnaturally bright. Occasionally, something would blot it out, slightly dimming it. Taking a moment to get his mind back on track, he did a rough headcount. Just a few hundred more zombies between him and the end of the hallway now.
The zombies had stopped giving Ambros more than one experience for each kill before he came here, so a quick check of his status page told him he had destroyed two thousand two hundred and nineteen zombies so far, which brought him up to level seventeen. At a rough estimate, it had taken him almost half a day to reach where he was now. To slow, he needed to level up faster than this.
Starting to make his way forward again, he felt his footwork was improving. That was nice. Reaching the end of the halfway, he spent a few minutes baiting the remaining zombies to him before he unsummoned his sword and shield. He didn't cross the threshold, but he had a very good view of the room.
The room was rectangular, the shortest distance from where he stood to the opposite wall, and almost empty. The only thing he could see was a pillar of light coming up from the floor and hitting a large opaque crystal in the roof.
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Summoning a hand mirror he bought before leaving the settlement, much to the amusement of Calvin & Co. He had picked it for its long handle. They claimed it was so he could see his own backside. Mibra offered to give him a detailed description, no mirror needed.
He carefully slid a corner of the mirror to see if the room was clear along his sides. To his relief, nothing but more room.
Taking a step into the room without anything attacking him, he looked down at himself, wondering if he should use Control Earth to crush a piece of the wall into sand so he could clean off the worst of the blood, bone, intestines, and quite possibly part of the unmentionables. He wowed to do so when he set up camp.
Taking his time, seeing if anything jumped out at him, he slowly walked over to the pillar of light. If he squinted, he could see it came from a floor below.
Turing on his Arcane Sight almost blinded him. The pillar was pure mana, so dense he didn't want to come in contact with it. It would fry his mana channels in seconds. Nothing else stood out to his Arcane sight, so he quickly turned it off before he got a headache.
Slowly walking around it, looking for any script, runes, or even pictograms, he saw a lever when he was on the other side of the pillar. It practically screamed pull me. It couldn't have been more tempting if they put a red button there that said, Don't push.
Ambros carefully inspected the lever from where it was attached to a metal plate on the floor to the rounded and quite comfortable-looking handle. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary about the actual lever.
Giving himself a moment, he stood up and did a full circuit of the room. Tapping stones and listening to walls. Nothing. Nothing but the lever.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he walked up to it and pulled. Nothing happened. Well, the lever had changed position, but nothing else.
Standing there looking at the lever in confusion, there suddenly was a loud grinding noise like flat slabs of granite being dragged against each other. A moment later, he nearly missed the sight of a lid slamming on top of where the light pillar on the floor emerged from.
Standing there in complete darkness, Ambros was reconsidering his life choices. He almost jumped out of his skin when a grinding noise came from the wall behind him. Then everything became silent. No sight, no sound, no feeling of the air moving, and sadly the smell of zombie bitts splattered across him.
For a minute, he stood in the dark, listening. He could hear nothing by his own heartbeat.
Then there was light. From behind him, a gentle light. Gradually, it was becoming brighter. Turning around, he could see a passage like the one he had come from had opened in the wall. To his relief, he saw the passage he had come from also remained open.
He started walking towards the new passage. Summoning his shield and mace, he stood ready to decimate a new horde of undead. Nothing happened.
Standing at the entrance, he saw the light coming from stones glowing along a hallway. They seemed to be placed at a set distance between each light, so nothing would remain in shadow.
The hallway was big enough for two of him to walk side by side, but not much else. There were wooden doors spaced evenly on each side. The doors stood facing each other, about fifty steps apart for each set.
Walking to the first set of doors, he decided to try the right side first. The handle was in serious need of oiling. Turning, it sounded like a pig's squeal. Quickly looking to the left and behind him, he let out a relieved sigh and started to push the door open.
The black spike nearly entered his eye as he threw himself backward. If he hadn't had his hand on the handle, ready to push, he would go under the name spiky eye or scrambled brain now.
Getting to his feet, he put his back towards the nearest exit and readied his shield and the mace. There was a loud thud against the door. He could hear it start to splinter. Then it was hit again, and it almost broke it in half. The next one threw the door off its hinges and into the hallway, crashing into its twin on the other side.
A creature that looked like bone and skin scrambled out on all four. Shadows seemed to cling to it, making it difficult to discern. It had no trouble locating Ambros, however.
Hurling itself toward him. Ambros stood ready and braced himself for the headlong rush, but at the last second creature changed direction, jumping against the wall and hitting Ambros from a new angle. Barely getting his shield in place, he was thrown to his knee by the creature's blow.
Starting to bring his leg up again, the creature was on him before he could fully stand. A spike in each arm stabbing and slashing faster than he could follow. It was all he could do to keep it from impaling him. It was too fast.
Ambros was gradually being pushed back towards the exit, and he did not want this thing to have more room to move around in. He tried hitting it with his mace, but it deflected his mace with a spike, and he almost got impaled in the shoulder as his arm was out of position.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed with his shield, and it had some success, but the creature managed to get around and scratch his left shoulder. The chainmail screeched as it was ripped apart, and he felt the spike touching his skin. It was just a scratch, but Ambros could already feel the burning spreading from the wound. Gritting his teeth, he bashed his shield against the creature, sending it sprawling down the hallway.
Back and forth they went, him trying to get the thing in a position where he could pummel it and the creature trying to get to his sides or any exposed part of him. It took almost all of his concentration to try and keep up with the horror, but it still managed to inflict several wounds on his legs and arms.
Taking a step forward to try and regain some of his lost ground, he was just steps away from the light pillar room, he overextended, and the creature was on him. He did the only thing he could think of and cast Arcane Shield.
The creature flew into the sealing before crashing back down. That was all Ambros needed. Staggering to his feet, his wounds on fire and body weakened, he cast Arcane Bolt after Arcan Bolt on it. The creature didn't make a sound, but it seemed to be locked up from the spell. Wasting no more time, he went caveman on the thing.
A short minute later, Ambros slid along the wall, exhausted and burning from fever. There was a lethargy in him he had never felt before. Unwillingly he looked at the system message.
Battle Award
300 Exp
1000 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpse?
Now, this was more like it. If there were more of the shadow bone monsters around, that would be great, maybe after a little nap. In his fever-ridden head, he managed to choose yes.
Before checking his inventory, he tried remembering the rune for Cure, but all he could come up with was Heal, and he had plenty of those rune stones still. Summoning one, he activated the rune with a grain of condensed mana while he sat there holding it in his left hand.
It took a while, but he was starting to feel better, so it was nice to know his body could handle whatever the thing had infected him with.
A few minutes later and he held the loot in his hands, a finger that had shadows dancing off it like smoke and a vial of black stuff. The finger was more than likely the same thing as the zombie ears, some sort of reagent that he could trade in for merit points.
The vial intrigued him. Analyze gave him nothing. He was starting to think the skill was useless, but he knew it was just a matter of ranking it up.
Taking out one of the twenty crystals he had bought, he held it up and inserted a sliver of his mana in the crystal. As the crystal crumbled, he got the item description.
Item: Mordechai`s Essence ( C )
Effect: Drinking the vial will open the path of shadows for the user. No matter how small a shadow is, it can be hidden in or traversed for a short time.
The essence is highly addictive and will eventually give the user Mordechai`s curse, turning them into a creature of malice and shadows.
It is highly sought after by alchemists and potion makers for its use as a reagent in high-grade potions.
If Ambros was a gambler, he would put money on this being more valuable than the twenty silver the Identify crystal had cost. It also infuriated him that he couldn't see its spell construct or engraving. Clever artificers.
Getting up, he walked down to the ruined door, picked it up, and looked into the room without a door. Now that he knew what its weaknesses were, he was on a mission to turn these things into an endangered species. Just the clicking noise they made moving over the stone surface was enough to make him shudder.
Ambros was almost positive the room was empty of any creepy crawlers at this point, after the ruckus he had made earlier, but he brought out his mirror and scanned the room anyway.
Walking, the first thing he noticed was the corner of bones. They look old and gnawed on. Some had been cracked open along their length, possibly to get to the marrow. Did this thing eat undead, or was there an even worse story here?
Turing in a full circle, he was happy to note there weren't any connecting rooms. He didn't think his heart could take it just yet. Walking past what had once been a bed, he stopped in front of a desk that had been ripped in two. Using his short sword, he opened everything and poked around in the debris.
A piece of the desk rattled when the sword knocked against it. Being extra cautious, he used the sword's tip to split the wood open. It may have been a hidden room in the desk at one point. He saw a small rusty key and a silver coin about twice the size of the ones in his dimensional bag. The coin almost had its own glow and looked shiny. Could possibly be worth a bit more than a regular silver coin, he would ask Eku, dropping it in his dimensional bag.
The key was just a regular singular bit key, but the size to fit a jewelry box or something similar. Looking around the room with a thoughtful expression.
Ten minutes later, Ambros, spear in hand, could confirm there was nothing that looked like a jewelry box in the room or even something the key would fit in, so it went into his dimensional bag for now.
He stood in front of the door parallel to where the bone creature had been. Having cleared the debris. He prepared himself, summoning his shield and mace. Careful not to make too much noise, he opened the door and cast Arcane Shield, bracing himself behind his shield.
Peering above the rim of his shield, he didn't know if his sigh was in relief or disappointment. It was an empty room.
Taking the same precautions, however, he brought out his mirror. Left clear, right had an altar? Nothing else in the room. Making his way inside, he took another look to be sure, but no, there was just the altar. The sight of it made the hair on his neck stand up.
Switching his mace out for the spear, poked at it a few times before getting nearer. Since nothing happened, he got closer.
The thing was vile, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt anger building. Not anger. Rage.
There were drains at the bottom going down into the floor. A sacrificial stone with straps. What had him boiling was that those straps were not meant to hold an adult.
Taking a step closer, he could see the motif. It was the head of a dragon in gold with red eyes against the white stone. The lines were supposed to carry the blood to the drains. The more he looked at it, the more unstable he felt. He wanted to destroy that thing with his fists, claw it to pieces and rip it apart with his teeth.
Ambros wasn't so far gone he didn't understand that something was affecting his reasoning, though, but he was in full agreement. That thing should never be.
He didn't want his mana near it. So he took out one of his better rocks and the stylus. Sat himself down, and for half an hour, he scribbled a run sequence he seldom used. He created destruction.
Inserting one of the bigger condensed mana pieces in the rune stone, the ones Whisper had called chips. He carefully placed the rune stone on top of the altar so the sequence was set to go downwards. He wanted to see this thing destroyed with his own eyes.
Setting off the run sequence, he calmly walked over to the opposite corner of the room and cast Arcane Shield as he hunkered down behind his other shield.
The ten-second timer he had set went off, and he watched as the rune stone started turning whatever was around it into dust, then into atmos, and so it continued. The alter tried
resisting being destroyed, however. He had not expected that. Luckily it seemed it didn't retain enough power after all this time of disuse, and the rune stone was winning.
When only the pedestal remained, a horrible keening sound started. Ambros held his hands over his ears to stop them from bleeding.
A malevolent presence entered the room. It scrutinized the altar and then took in Ambros. He could feel it was holding his life in its hands. Something seemed to confuse the being, however. He could almost feel it asking a question, but it was like a human asking a question to an ant. He felt its anger flaring, and he almost lost his reason with fear. This was not something he was meant to deal with.
As he felt himself spiraling and about to lose consciousness, he instinctively knew that if he fell into darkness now, it was the last thing he would do, so he did the only thing he could. He stayed awake. He let his mind turn to happier times when unknown cosmos-sized beings didn't want to gobble up his soul as an amuse-bouche. It almost made him giggle. Picturing himself on a spoon, being served up as a treat to this being.
Ambros didn't know how long he lay there. He remembered that he was counting stars and had spent far too long deliberating on what bust size Talia had. At one point, he was trying to remember every type of dessert he had eaten during his life. Then it came.
Another one. A new presence. This one was so wast it made the malevolent feel insignificant. The malevolent presence quivered merely by existing in the same space as it. Oh, how the tables have turned.
Afterward, Ambros would remember taunting the malevolent presence, and it raged, but ultimately it was made impotent in the face of the new presence in the room. It was like a balm to his soul. Another being had taken over this reality for now.
The new one lets its senses run over the scene, and Ambros felt like Gramps was wrapping him in a blanket like he used to when he was a child. He would hold him as they would sit in front of the fireplace, and Gramps read him stories. The love he felt from those memories brought his sanity back.
Lifting his shaking head, Ambros looked around, and all of his body parts were still there. That was a very, very good sign.
Getting up, he limped over to the altar. His body was a mess. Merely being in that thing's gaze was enough to pull your very being apart.
The altar was no longer there. Ambros nodded in satisfaction. This was right. He felt the nice presence again, nodding along with him. It seemed to give him a cosmic-sized hug and a pat on the head before it disappeared.
System reward for freeing bound souls
One point of merit has been added to the system title
12 000 000 sp
Now that is the sort of reward he could get behind. Smiling in satisfaction, Ambros staggered his way out of the room and followed the hallway to the next door. If one of those ugly things lurked inside, he was between Ambros and a nap. Standing between Ambros and a nap was not a good idea at the moment.
Kicking the door in, there actually was one, and it jumped right into an Arcane Bolt. Did the bolt some damage to it this time? Figure it out later. Ambros ambled over, sending out bolt after bolt until he stood over the frozen beast and proceeded to stomp it to death. It was surprisingly efficient.
Battle Award
300 Exp
1000 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpse?
Yes, and he got the same drop as last time. He was okay with that since the beast now had disappeared.
Looking around, he noticed more debris, maybe something that had been a bookshelf at one point, a desk, and another possible bookshelf. Making sure to have poked everything with his spear at least one time. You never know.
He then sealed off the door with Control Earth, summoned a mattress, and was snoring like a sawmill the moment his head hit the bed.