I gently placed the tenth and final trap around the doorway. I’d tried the handle earlier and found it locked but seeing as I was trapped in this realm with hundreds of other rogues I wasn’t going to trust a simple lock. Satisfied that I’d protected myself just a little I turned back to the alchemy room.

It really was an impressive space. The dream of every young boy and girl who ever wanted to be a sorcerer. I clapped my hands and got to work, navigating to my alchemy crafting window and adding the ingredients to the boxes displayed there.

Creating the Bleeding Poison for the first time taught me two valuable lessons. Number one, It wasn’t as simple as placing ingredients in the waiting boxes, and number two, potions came with a success rate percentage that was not in the crafter's favor. It felt a little like I was playing blackjack at a casino; the house always had the advantage.

Potion failed

New Skill Unlocked: Alchemy (I)

Nothing brings an Alchemist greater pleasure than mixing together herbs, flowers, minerals, vitriols, and spirits to create valuable potions or deadly poisons. Unfortunately, you are but a beginner in the craft. Potions are more likely to blow up in your face than they are to become the potion you want.

30% potion crafting success rate.

It took next to no time for me to run through the ingredients I had gathered. I’d created ten potions from my large collection of goods all with varying degrees of potency from poor to basic. My resources depleted I opened my notifications menu and read through the updates, beaming when I saw what was displayed there.

Level 15!

Skill Upgraded: Alchemy (II)

35% potion crafting success rate.

Ten potions were all it took to increase both my player level and my crafting skill. I was sure that kind of increase would become harder and harder the further along I managed to get but for now it was incredible. The thrill coursing through me was potent and fuelled my desire to do more.

I left the room through the trapdoor, thrilled to see the baneberry bush was already beginning to replenish itself. I plucked the scant amount of berries before slinking out into the purple-hued darkness to hunt down more ingredients. I used my Identify skill to find every nightshade flower and every berry in the elaborate gardens surrounding the spire.

Three times I had a close call with a player that had abandoned the spire. Thankfully, only one tried to murder me. The Nox Warrior lay dead now with her throat cut right by the boundary line. The dog-like monsters growled and rumbled at our closeness to them but for now, it was all they could do.

My bum bag filled to bursting with berries and flowers I returned to the potion room and began crafting at length. Without the need for sleep or nourishment, and with the fast regeneration of the plants outside the sheer amount of potions I managed to craft was astounding. I discovered the potions stacked by potency in my inventory until the count reached ninety-nine. After that, a new stack was created. With my limited inventory space, I was forced to abandon my weakest brews. The crates and cabinets in the tight room had a limited supply of flasks to hold the brew so I was forced to dump out the poor-quality potions just to reuse the flasks.

None of that mattered though. The more I crafted the better I got at it. My success rate climbed with every level I gained and after only three levels I was making potions of good potency or better.

I didn’t know what was happening in the rest of the spire but every time I checked the player count it had dropped significantly. More and more players were beginning to filter out into the gardens making my foraging trips that much more difficult.

I had become ruthless in my search for ingredients, however. If a player stood in my way a swift and deadly backstab removed them. I no longer cared how much blood was on my hands. I’d come to terms with the fact that it was the only way to ensure my survival. The success of my backstab strikes was aided by the coating of poison on my blade.

Applying the poison to my weapons and the traps I had made was a simple feat, all I had to do was dump a bottle of the green-tinged liquid over the equipment. I had learned quickly that once something was dosed it couldn’t be dosed again until the poison had been depleted by use. That was simple enough for my blade as every time I stabbed someone the poison was used. My traps, however, sat with their mediocre poison, waiting as dust collected over them.

No one had found my hidden potion room yet which was an odd but pleasant thing. I had noticed that every time I adventured out of my hobbit hole the lights on a higher level of the spire were lit, slowly lighting the towering spire from the base upward, inching ever closer to the peak hidden in the clouds. It was slow progress though and made me wonder what was slowing the players down.

I would find out sooner or later. My level gains had slowed down immensely and I was slowly running out of flasks. Without the increase in my levels, I couldn’t make stronger potency poisons and my reason for hiding and crafting was coming to an end. It was an oddly disappointing feeling. There was satisfaction in making something yourself. The poisons made me stronger even without throwing points into my strength ability.

I filled the final flask with a great potency Bleeding Poion then stood back, pondering my next move. I had hundreds of poisons now. Enough to last me a very long time.

I opened the quest menu to see the status of the legendary dungeon.

Three months, twenty days, and 12 minutes.

Disciples remaining: 176

I swallowed at the huge drop in player count. We were a few short weeks away from the midway point and already eight hundred and twenty-nine players had perished. My math wasn’t the greatest but that had to be less than twenty percent of the original player count.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

It was hard to believe I’d been stuck in this unholy realm for almost two and a half months. I wondered again what my teammates were doing back in the real world. If you could call it real with hundred of toilet Crocs roaming the streets. They had to have long since moved on from my death and that in itself was a bitter pill to swallow. I considered the lot of them, well, except for Theo, my family and now they were lost to me. Even if I made it back there was no way I would be able to find them. They weren’t just sitting around waiting for a dead man to return.

Losing Stella was the most painful blow. She’d been my girl since long before this ridiculous apocalyptic hellhole Melumek had thrown us into. My heart had blackened along with my soul but losing her had taken a chunk of it clean off.

Shaking away the gloom that had descended on me I steeled myself against what was to come. I could no longer procrastinate. It was time to climb the spire and see what the Goddess of Shadow had in store for me.

Before I left I opened my notification menu and looked at the final skill levels I had managed to achieve.

Level 18!

Skill Upgraded: Alchemy (VII)

60% potion crafting success rate.

I tried not to grin manically as I opened my player stats and allocated the free point I’d been gifted.

Health:

25/25 (3)

Magicka:

17/17

Fatigue:

24/24

Level:

18

Ability

Score

Agility:

13 (1)

Charisma:

8

Constitution:

13

Endurance:

8

Intelligence:

5

Perception:

14

Magic:

1

Strength:

6

Allocating my points was still a gamble at this point. I hoped I was making a decent build with the abilities I was lifting but I really couldn’t be sure. I had given a few points to my intelligence not just because having such a low score infuriated me, but because I needed the extra magicka for some of my skills. I hadn’t bothered with the magic ability though, I didn’t need the magic I cast to be stronger, I just needed to be able to cast more. I wasn’t a mage after all.

Agility and perception were still my favored abilities with a little boost for my constitution to help me not die. Strength was almost as unnecessary as the magic ability. My attacks didn’t rely on pure brute force like a warriors would have but on stealth and speed.

I knew I was procrastinating again but the sense of doom that materialized in me when I thought about entering the spire was hard to ignore.

Time to move my ample caboose though.

I tiptoed through my own traps and focused on lockpicking the door so I could enter the spire. Going around to the main entrance was also an option but sneaking in the back way was more in line with my character.

Danger. Run. Bad. Scared.

The voices rang out inside my head like alarm bells going off. The wave of fear that came with them was almost paralyzing. It didn’t matter much though. Unless I wanted to hole up here for the next three months and hope the others killed each other off, this was what I had to do.

I had to admit, hiding and waiting was very tempting. No doubt the supposedly patient Goddess of Shadow would send another wave of beasts to push the players higher if we took too long. I had been at the front lines when the dog beasts came, I didn’t want to put myself in that position again. Besides, I had leveled more than I thought possible and that gave me an overinflated sense of power. No point wasting a burst of confidence like that on hiding.

I slunk through the curved halls, my poisoned sword drawn, and my ear working overtime to pick out any noise that spoke of danger. The halls were lit, surprisingly, by evenly spaced sconces that gave off little flares of purple light. If I ever made it out of this place I would be avoiding purple like the plague. The hall led to a stairwell that curved upward to a higher floor.

I stepped carefully to keep my footsteps from ringing out ahead of me. Overhead the noises of battle met my ears; bellows, screams, the thunk of arrows, and the clash of steel on steel. I crouched as I came to a doorway and looked out on the main hall. From my position on the stairs behind a raised platform I could see a golden glowing podium with a spread open book atop it.

I had expected to see other players here but the hall was empty, the sounds I was hearing coming from even higher above.

I crept from the shadows and approached the podium, reading the small string of words written in an overly decorative script.

The path ahead is strewn with dangers but for the Chosen One, they are but stepping stones of their path to glory. Climb ever higher, face the danger, and earn the blessing of the Shadow Goddess.

That was great and all, but I had no interest in being the ‘Chosen One’. I just wanted to get the fuck out of here. I didn’t belong in this realm with all the others. They could have the title and the blessing so long as I could go home.

Danger!

The phantom voice was slow in its warning. I heard the twang of a crossbow behind me. Diving to the side I howled as a bolt tore through the soft flesh of my belly.