Curiosity overtook Caesar. He lit a torch and handed it over to his mage, then inched forward, spear primed to lash out. The air smelled of dust, metal, and blood, causing him to choke. Wooden steps sounded down the tunnel as they moved. He focused on his feet, trying to make less noise, and strained to hear the murmurs further down. Almost…

Suddenly, a spray of blood gushed towards his shoulder, melting his armor. Caesar looked around wildly for an enemy, but none appeared. Bewildered, he continued onward but put more effort into trying to see abnormalities in the woodwork. When another patch of red entered his sight, his spear impaled it first, rewarding him with black energy. He looked closer at the spot and discovered some tiny differences in the wood.

Using his newfound experience, Caesar slowed down his pace and scanned the ceiling for distorted areas. He found one further down, then another, and another. They seemed to be growing in number and becoming denser. He took the time to Identify a patch of blood.

Blood Carpet – Rank 0

[Rarity]: Common

He studied the aberrations. Each could spray a fountain of blood before disappearing. A single spear strike would also kill it. Caesar noted an interesting aspect of his ability to only absorb essence from things he or his essence cores had attacked. While he didn’t know exactly how his marks interacted with this, he could guess. A finishing blow should allow absorption of an essence core. Would dealing the majority of damage also allow it?

Caesar continued to practice his spear skills as he spotted each carpet of blood. Each strike became swifter and surer as he walked. The feeling of success lifted his mood.

He rounded a corner teeming with blood carpets, leading to a moldy room darker than the tunnel. The voices spoke once again, louder this time. He took this chance to rest and eavesdrop. A man spoke for a lengthy amount of time and a woman’s voice rose to replace it. This woman sounded a little rushed. Caesar furrowed his brows and realized she sounded a little like the adventurer he had met earlier outside the dungeon. He scanned the room. A dark green cloak lay in the corner.

If the team from earlier entered the hidden dungeon first, then his hippo might have to remain out of commission. Caesar continued to head in the direction of the voices and killed off more bloody carpets. Strangely, the two voices were never audible enough for him to make out the words. He stopped at the entranceway into a spherical room. A face floated there in the dark, muttering to itself as it stood near a pillar of wood and stone.

Caesar stared, debating on his approach. He moved a little closer, stopped, and raised his foot forward again when the face shifted. Wrinkles disappeared, and a smoother face took its place. The nose moved a little higher and its mouth wider. Feminine features replaced masculine ones and the voice sounded higher-pitched. It screamed. Then it shifted again, back to a younger man’s face.

Caesar watched this scene occur and materialized his tomb hippo. It was clearly not human.

When the torch shone on the monster, it revealed a floating head. Three faces jutted out from the front and sides, changing constantly as the thing flew toward the behemoth. A quick Identify revealed…nothing. The shock unnerved Caesar – he was unprepared for the skill. A ringing scream echoed in his mind and forced him to stumble. His two summons fared even worse. With such low Willpower, the Mind Scream directly caused them to collapse.

The floor rumbled. Caesar lunged at the monster and struck its front face. Slime oozed out of the wound and melted away in the air. He kept attacking. The three faces yelled out a cacophony as their injuries accumulated. It flew around, trying to bite him. Sharp lance-like pains struck Caesar’s mind as he hacked away. In his haze, after each bout of pain, he noticed more injuries accumulate in places he hadn’t attacked. The two traded blows. As he gradually gained the advantage, he marked the monster with his ability and gored his spear through the head.

Ever-Shifting Faces: Rare

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Level 16: 32 Free Stat Points

Ability: Hallucination (E)

Talents: Variance, Divination Resistance, Levitation

Skills: Psionics (Offensive) – Mind Spike, Mind Scream

Strength: 5

Agility: 10

Vitality: 7

Magic: 3

Willpower: 16

Presence: 16

Mind Spike

[Rarity]: Common

[Memorization Cost]: 1

[Cooldown]: 3 seconds

Mind Scream

[Rarity]: Uncommon

[Memorization Cost]: 2

[Cooldown]: 30 seconds

With this new addition to his roster, all five slots were filled. In addition to specialized Psionics useful to pierce armor or Magic resistance, he had Max the wolf scout, a skeleton to carry backpacks, a skeleton artillery mage, and a tomb hippo with a great barrier ability. Caesar felt pleased with his progress but wanted to speed up. He stared at the exit to the room. Something else was coming.

A humanoid figure appeared in the doorway. Caesar waited until he saw the redness of the thing before he could identify it.

Flesh Elemental – Rank 2

[Rarity]: Rare

His joy plummeted, replaced with dread. He turned to run, dragging his skeleton mage with his hand, and left his hippo to hold it off for as long as possible. But a red mass of flesh blocked his retreat, forcing him to stumble over it. Dark red muscle stalked toward the hippo, striding through a Dark Wave with no problems. The flesh elemental began pummeling the behemoth, crushing its shield within moments.

The tumor burst into pieces, revealing three minor flesh elementals that began to attack the skeleton mage. Caesar retreated into the room behind them and unsummoned it. The ground shook: his hippo must have run away, deeper into the hidden dungeon. He turned and continued to flee.

Outside the dark tunnel, Caesar immediately unsummoned the hippo. Relief flooded his body after he succeeded. He continued to escape and headed out of the dungeon.

Near the vicinity of the portal, beside a tree, he materialized from thin air and strode back to the stronghold. He’d come back later, if possible. For now, Caesar wanted to return home and find some other way to level up. He hoped Mary could provide good news about Arnold.

He summoned Max to scout the area and his Ever-Shifting Faces along with it to test its combat potential.

[Hallucination (E)]: An ability that allows the user to produce minor hallucinations, affecting everyone in the area for very long durations. This can end at will, and the ability will go on cooldown for a minute. The effect reduces based on Willpower differences.

[Variance]: A talent that grants some ability to change form but inflicts the consequence of feeling the constant need to change its form in some way. Self-control may be harder and the urge to take more random actions may arise often.

[Divination Resistance]: A talent that grants resistance against divination spells and abilities.

[Levitation]: A talent that grants the ability to levitate below a height limit and glide above that height limit.

32 Free Stat Points -> 15 Free Stat Points

Strength: 5 -> 6

Agility: 10 -> 16

Vitality: 7 -> 11

Magic: 3

Willpower: 16 -> 19

Presence: 16 -> 19

The new stat, Presence, was an unknown concern. He suspected it worked like Spirit. But he also observed those skills damage the monster itself while still managing to withstand his heavy strikes. Thus, Presence had the possibility to improve health like Vitality as well, but traded health to cast skills. Though, he’d likely need more monsters like this for more data to reach a conclusion. Caesar called this subtype of monster, “Horrors.”

The horror flew at a wolf pack feasting on a deer. It flitted behind trees, taking care to skirt around the edges of the pack’s vision. Even as it hid in cover, ready to attack, some wolves began to get skittish and stopped eating. Caesar didn’t know if Hallucination would help it hide. As the monster drew closer, the wolves grew nervous and fled. It caught up and screamed, immediately causing the collapse of the entire group and their subsequent deaths.

He inspected the three faces. The head they occupied was similar to an average human head. All three protrusions shifted to different forms and faces even during combat. Too horrific to be deployed normally, Caesar called them back. He went back to the tavern and inn for rest and left with a carriage going back home at dawn.

After the journey back, with a final day to spare before Mary returned, he went to the market to restock his rations. To test a hypothesis about awakening, he scoured the place for any materials to feed Max to try and maximize the wolf’s rank zero stats but couldn’t buy any. He also snuck around to search for artifact artisans and potion brewers, but none had established shops here. Disappointed, Caesar went back to the forest where Undead Swamp lay before and tried to find the awakened wolf pack. No results appeared either. With a heavy heart, he went to bed to await Mary’s news.