[Cave of Undead – Floor 3]

Tisha was stunned as she glanced into the next…floor?

They were outside. The sun was shining brightly onto the forest they found themselves in. She could feel its heat and could hear the typical chirping of birds, even smelling the leafy aroma.

Yeah this whole “Cave of Undead” thing seemed like a straight up lie at this point.

Tisha glanced behind herself looking at the opening they just came through as the others did so in amazement. The door was shutting itself behind them and sure enough they could all see the previous hallway through it.

“Impossible. T-This… doesn’t make any sense.” Damon stammered. “We should be inside a large castle of a sort shouldn’t we?”

“Look ahead chicks.” Olga said staring at a slight upwards angle in front of them.

Tisha followed her line of sight and near the horizon in the distance she could see a large set of stairs moving up into the sky and ending at a double door just like all the previous ones. Except it looked like it was hanging in the sky.

“So this is all fake?” Damon asked in confusion.

“I am not so sure about that.” Tisha answered. It all felt too real to an extent, but she was not sure how she could tell.

Discernment? She thought back to the System description of the Perception attribute.

“Might as well head towards it, be on the look out for any monsters.” Olga, ever moving forwards was the first to recover from the illogical situation they found themselves in.

They could see mountains beyond the range suggested by the distance of the stairway. Was the sun real as well? That could not be. It all felt real to Tisha but while that is how she felt, there was something that told her that it was not entirely the case.

They walked for a few minutes having not come across any enemies yet. They had in fact seen a few creatures, however. Like alternate versions of typical Earth forest creatures. Squirrels with oddities such as multiple tails, deer at least three times the sizes of those on Earth and another pair of legs. Birds far bigger than they had any right being and with multiple pairs of eyes.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Nothing they saw was hostile however, Tisha suspected that Olga’s presence was part of the reason anything carnivorous saw them at a distance and did not engage. She had in fact stared down a bear the size of a double decker.

The thing was a light shade of brown with crystal-like claws the size of smaller trees and was one of those with multiple pairs of eyes. So many in fact that Tisha could not count them clearly enough. The thing had multiple large and crystal looking spikes in its back. There were strange white coloured patterns on its coat ending in swirls. Its multiple red eyes tracked them all a hint of malevolence behind them.

Analyze

[Crystalline Gigant Bear]

Tisha would be lying if she said she was not unnerved. She could feel its Varos just below the surface of its skin. Wrung tightly and ready to spring out and fuel its attack at any point. But she could feel the Bear was far above the strength of a Death Knight, of course just Varos did not tell everything about all the strengths of a creature. Not with all the attributes in the Soul Map. But she was able to gauge just about where the Bear could lie in strength. Yet again she assumed this was her Perception attribute at work. Fighting this creature would be tough even with Olga here.

Olga had not made a move at all but simply looked up straight at the eye covered face of the creature a slightly slanted smile on her face. The bear stayed a moment longer…before moving on.

Unlike the skeletons and knights the other creatures here did not seem to be compelled to attack them. The bear had gauged them just like they did it and decided it was not worth the trouble.

Everyone, Olga excluded, sighed in relief as it moved out of sight.

The group continued on, past small lakes and even a large river. The entire place was vibrant with colour extremely out of place compared to their previous location.

A while longer and they found themselves at the bottom of a cliff, in front of them were gigantic bones half buried in the ground. It looked almost like the rib cage of a dinosaur, stretched across the landscape into the forest.

Strewn around the forest here were what looked like ruins, made of the same stone of the other floors below them. It was like a meteor had hit the middle of a settlement. The purple stones stood out in the forest giving the place a somber atmosphere.

“Shouldn’t be too far from the staircase.” Olga stated a curious look on her face. “Doubt we’ll get to it without a fight though.”

And as she finished her sentence, the ground began to rumble. In fact, it felt like the entire forest around them was shaking as the bones started to rise into the air coalescing to form a gigantic skeleton at least forty meters in height. Its red eyes stared down at them as its mouth opened before letting out a roar that caused the air to reverberate with its power.

Analyze

[Skeleton Giant]

Yeah, pretty apt name.