Falling to my death had long stopped being a concern for me, and the very first thing I did when the ground disappeared was activate Feather Foot. Instantly, my fast descent became slow and gentle.
Which, of course, didn’t really solve anything.
A few Jet Steps brought me right up against the black walls fencing me in, and with an overloaded blade of light, I attempted to slice my way back to freedom to little avail. The blade successfully cut through the darkness, but when I pulled it back, the wall reformed instantly. I tried a few more tricks, flying into the wall with my light armor fully overloaded and trying to use Spatial Step in mid air to bypass the wall entirely. After two failures, I was out of ideas, and my mana had taken a small but noticeable dip from my attempts.
Feel like this would have ended the same way if they gave me a set of stairs instead of just dropping me. With no real choice but to resign myself to whatever the dungeon had in store for me, I descended into the depths of the labyrinth.
Initially, the pit I’d been dropped into felt no different from the rest of the maze. Straight, flat, black walls everywhere the eye could see. Bit by bit, however, those straight edges morphed into a rough circle, and everything started to get… creepier. Considering that I’d just come from an endless dark labyrinth filled with rats and demonic pitcher plants, that was saying something, too.
The pit walls began to grow sticky-looking, though in all sorts of different ways, as if unable to decide exactly what horrific aesthetic to take on. One patch was covered in a creeping, black mold, while another oozed with a swampy sludge. In fact, those were some of the tamer sights I was forced to endure. After spotting a bulbous lump of partially hardened tar which pulsed with each passing second, I decided I’d seen enough and tried my best to tune out my new surroundings.
Thankfully, I didn’t have too long to wait, with the ground coming into view below. Even more thankfully, it looked to be far more tolerable than the walls, only sporting an unpleasant oily sheen. As I touched down, I immediately cast Friction Feet, not giving the dungeon a chance to mess with my footing.
A single corridor lay up ahead, its walls covered much like the pit’s. Thankfully, it was wide enough that I wouldn’t be right up against the disconcerting decorations, though that didn’t make it the most appealing option.
Or, I suppose it did make it the most appealing option given that it was the only option. Having spotted no other ways forward, begrudgingly, I started down the pathway.
Only a few paces in, the dungeon struck.
In a move almost perfectly reminiscent of my first foray into the labyrinth, a black tendril pinched itself off from the wall and flew towards me. With barely any time to move, I overloaded my armor with light mana to ward off the gunk.
SPLAT.
Unlike its counterpart up above, the subterranean variant pushed through the radiance surrounding me, a heavy, viscous substance swallowing my armored hand.
Understandably, this did not thrill me.
“Fuck! Fuck. Off. Get off!” I pulled my arm back with all my might, but the tendril had a shockingly tight grip on me. Only belatedly did I realize the tarry material was bubbling and slowly thinning where it made contact with my gauntlet. Perhaps the light mana was working, just not enough.
With more points invested into Overload Weapon than its armor counterpart, I rapidly summoned a blade and flooded it with as much mana as I could without waiting too long. A quick slice severed the tendril which recoiled in shock, and I used the blade to scrape off and dissolve the bit still on my armor. By the time I was done, I was left with the sight of a faded and battered gauntlet, the metal so thin in some spots that, if I didn’t enhance it, I could punch through it with my thumb.
I quickly dismissed and resummoned just my gauntlet, relief flooding me as it returned to its previous unblemished state. I’d found myself to be a lot better about handling pain and trauma since Sett had healed me. Even so, I didn’t want to discover what it would feel like to have that substance directly touch my skin.
Still, it was a manageable fight for me, all the more so now that I knew what was coming. I crept forth more slowly now, my blade of light at the ready. When the next tendril burst out from the wall, I moved with it, slicing through the tar before it could reach me. As if incensed that the first attack had failed, two more arms followed in its wake. Unable to intercept them both, I settled for chopping into one and accepting the second, repeating my earlier performance to sever and scrape it off.
What followed was, if perhaps a bit sharper, a full-body version of whack-a-mole, as I rushed to cut through each attack as soon as it appeared. Thankfully, I never had to deal with more than three at once, and it seemed that each spot on the wall only had one attack stored. Whenever I needed to catch my breath, I was free to retreat unaccosted.
Concerningly, not once did I receive a kill notification. What exactly that implied, I decided not to dwell on.
If there was one silver lining, the corridor didn’t stretch on for too long. After dismissing and resummoning my armor a dozen times and burning through an entire quarter of my mana on overcharged light attacks, the narrow passage widened out into a large circular chamber, even bigger than the original pit.
If the nature of what I was up against wasn’t clear, the location at least was. Only one thing stood out amidst the nightmare-inducing environment, and it was at the very center of the room. A gently bubbling lake sat there, its foul black liquid more like oil than water. Hoping against hope, I scanned the rest of the room for another exit, knowing even as I began that I wouldn’t find one.
“I’m not going into the lake,” I stated to no one in particular. “I get that there’s something going on with the lake, but I’m not going anywhere near there.” Already, I’d sworn against fighting in water, and that had been the normal, clear variety.
Still, I had to do something, didn’t I?
“Maybe I can clear it away with magic?” If it was actually oil, then fire might work, and if it was anything like the rest of the dungeon, light magic should do something to it as well. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of slowly draining an entire lake with my magic, but it beat the alternatives by leagues.
Before fully committing to my plan, I looped around the room a single time, fighting off more tendrils as I did so. Not finding any secret “press me and escape without doing anything” buttons, I returned to where I’d started and steeled myself.
Summoning my bow, I began to charge it up, the first time I’d ever fully overloaded one of my attacks with two types of mana at once. Unwilling to be contained, the flames licking at my arrow began to quest out, scorching my fingers even through my armor and Heat Resistance. At the same time, the light coming off of my bow began to fill the entire room, far brighter than anything I’d conjured before.
For the briefest instant, I had the unsettling sense that the entire room had taken notice of me, a singular, bitter malice hoping to snuff both me and my light out. Hopefully, nothing would have the chance. Freeing the raging mana within my hands, I fired, unable to even watch the arrow’s flight until I summoned my Light Vision. On it soared, until, with the grace of a perfectly fired shot, it sank directly into the center of the lake.
The effects were awe-inspiring, as a massive patch of the lake went up in a blaze. From within that inferno came a flash of light which expanded in a sphere, entirely obliterating the dark liquid it came in contact with.
It was a promising start, and, given time to empty and recharge my mana pool as I pleased, I was feeling good about my plan to drain the lake.
As it so happened, however, the feeling wasn’t mutual.
All at once, a great, scratchy, shrieking hiss resonated through the room, causing the entire world around me to quake and rumble. Rudely shaken, much of the various gunks on the walls and ceiling started to slough off, forming sludgy puddles which dotted the floor.
Those were the least of my worries, though, as something began to rise from the depths of the lake. As if fleeing the sheer ire of whatever creature I’d managed to piss off, the flames went out all at once, the room returning to utter darkness.
As the thick, mucky lake parted to reveal what I was up against, for once, I wished that I could turn off my darkvision.
If life were remotely fair, I would have been prepared for whatever monster emerged from the liquid. It was supposed to be a lake monster, right? That meant I’d be facing some sort of hydra or leviathan or some form of reptile, at least. None of those options would make me happy, per se, but I would have understood them.
Instead, what rose was a creature pulled straight from a nightmare. Eschewing any standard form of life, the creature was a singular, round, fleshy mass. If it were a perfect, smooth sphere, that would have been one thing, but each and every inch of it was covered in unsightly, creased lumps. As the lake water streamed down off its body, I couldn’t help but think those bumps looked concerningly like eyelids, but whether I was wrong, or the tar had simply glued them all shut, I was spared from that particular horror.
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When it filled a solid half the lake, still half-submerged with only a fleshy semisphere poking out, it stopped. Despite lacking anything I could call a mouth or even an orifice, its loud cries never stopped.
Though not looking forward to what I might find, I hit the beast with God’s Eye.
The Forsaken Seer, Level 28, 8110/8300hp
A seer of a long forgotten race, twisted beyond recognition by dark arcane rituals. Shunned by the light and having lost all of its once-powerful scrying magics, the forsaken is an enemy of all that enjoy the sight it has since lost. Now fueled by nothing more than base instinct, it lashes out at the smallest mote of light, taking particular offense to any who would dare gaze upon its hideous form.
I blanched, more at its level and health than anything else. I still wasn’t sure how much of this dungeon’s backstory was fabricated on the spot, so I tried not to put much stock in the description. Either way, it didn’t paint a pretty picture.
I should probably retreat for no-
Faster than I would have thought possible, five sludgy limbs shot out from the monster, honing in on me. Only the great distance gave me time to react, but the very moment I started to move, my danger sense flared up from behind.
Trusting the instinct, I immediately threw myself to the side, but it wasn’t enough. Something grabbed hold of my ankle, and spinning about, I was horrified to find that a sixth tendril had formed from one of the myriad puddles now covering the room. By now, I was well practiced in dealing with such attacks, trading out my bow for a light sword even as I was halfway through swinging down. In a single second, I was free.
It was rather unfortunate, then, that the seer had only needed one second.
Right before I could teleport away, all five attacks hit me at once, covering every inch of my armor. With my head largely exposed courtesy of my helm being designed after a hardhat, only the mana defense from Arcane Armory kept the tar from latching onto my face. It did nothing for the smell, however, a dank, moldy smell that I struggled to breathe through.
Even before I’d been struck, I was channeling as much light mana into my armor as it could take, but it was like trying to boil an ocean with a pocket lighter. With each passing second, the forsaken funneled more and more of the corrosive tar through its tendrils, threatening to drown me. I frantically tried to cut my way free, but my armor was gunked up, my arm barely budging even as I strained with all my might.
Think. Breathe. Wait. Don’t breathe. I had little desire to discover what magically empowered black mold could do to my lungs. No breathing. But think.
My sword. I needed to use my sword. If my armor wasn’t enough on its own, I didn’t have any spells or skills that would do real damage besides Overload Weapon.
I could stab it. Even without moving, I could summon a long enough spear that I could poke into the sludge by my feet. Somehow, though, I didn’t think that would be enough to free me, regardless of how much mana I used.
So I need to move.
A rough plan began to form, relying more on wishful thinking than anything else. To start, I began to feed my blade every drop of fire and light mana it would accept, bemoaning the fact that the skill wasn’t instantaneous. It was just as impressive a sight as charging the bow had been, but I had no time to appreciate it. When at last the blade was so overloaded that I struggled to keep it in check, I switched to phase two of my slapdash plan.
For a single instant — no more — I switched the mana I was supplying to my armor, packing it full of spatial and frost mana. Space expanded, offering me the briefest respite as the darkness was pushed back, the frost slowing its return, if ever so slightly.
Advanced Internal Mana Manipulation has reached level 15!
My core groaned from the exertion, not used to supplying four different types of mana at once. Thankfully, I didn’t need to abuse it for long.
Shoving down the many voices in my head that were strongly advising me against my next action, I dismissed the armor on my arm.
With the tiny bit of space I’d managed to empty with the spatial effect and dismissing my armor, I could just barely move my arm.
With every ounce of Strength, every point of Dexterity, and no shortage of extra stamina to fuel me, I threw my arm into a wide horizontal chop. Almost instantly, my arm butted into the darkness, but my momentum, coupled with the deluge of mana in my sword, allowed me to slice through, cleaving the tar in two.
The entire middle third of the darkness was obliterated, while the top and bottom sections quickly went up in flames. Whether in pain or rage, the creature’s wild shrieking grew all the louder.
While exactly what I’d been going for, this was, of course, not entirely ideal. My arm, now covered in sludge, burned as the substance ate into my flesh, and the flames started to cook me alive in my armor. Knowing I wouldn’t get a second chance, I leaned heavily on my Pain Resistance, doing my best to ignore the damage I was taking.
While my stunt hadn’t entirely freed me, I once again had full range of motion in my arms. I summoned a second sword in my other hand and began to wildly hack and slash at my feet, even as I resummoned the armor on my arm and flooded it all with light magic.
Bit by bit, my skin burned, with flecks of darkness beginning to cut through my armor and mana, biting directly into me. A mindless machine, I cut and I cut and I cut until-
A step and a line of sight. That was all I needed. Just barely enough of the tar at my feet had dissipated, and with a great labor and a swipe at my eyes to clear my vision, I channeled spatial mana into my feet and moved.
Space warped around me as I appeared back in the corridor leading back to the pit. Not daring to stop, I charged down it until I was all the way back where I’d started, only then dismissing my red-hot armor and scraping off the remainder of the tar that had teleported with me.
My body was a mess, and had I the clarity of mind to check, I would have found the status conditions and battle notifications to prove it. When I was certain the seer wasn’t able to follow me — despite its cries feeling like they should count as a sonic attack — I collapsed, summoning my armor just to charge it with life mana. Slowly, the worst of my injuries disappeared until I came to my senses enough to engage with what I’d just gone through.
Fuck. It had been a while since I’d genuinely fought something that could hurt me like that, and as the pessimistic side of myself was quick to remind me, I would have to do it again if I wanted to get out of here.
Is this it? Do I even have anything I can do to something like that? My original arrow seemed to have hurt it, but now that it was aware of me, I didn’t have much hope of repeating that feat enough times to win. After all, if I was close enough to the forsaken to fire at it, I was pretty sure it was close enough to fire at me.
The real problem was those tar attacks. Much like the tendrils up top, they were weak to light, but the strength of my armor just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Maybe if my Intelligence were higher, or if I could push more mana into my defenses, then-
With a start, I realized that wasn’t remotely as impossible as I was making it out to be. The very second the last of the darkness left my skin, I threw myself into my class space, rushing through the armory until I found the skill I wanted.
Overload Armor - 1/5
After all this time, I’d never sunk more than a single point into the skill, my basic armor almost always enough to protect me. In other circumstances, I would have bemoaned my lack of foresight but had nothing to do about it. For once, though, I had a large reserve of class points I hadn’t used. It would hurt to spend them now after I’d saved up for Arcane Choker for so long, but there was no choice.
Four points went directly into Overload Armor, negating everything I’d earned from my last Light Magic and Spatial Magic milestones. That left me with the three I’d gained from reaching the Initiate rank in Heavy Armor and Axes along with my most recent level up. Hoping to have a bit more firepower, I decided to max out Overload Weapon as well, sinking two more points into it.
Not enough, I realized. Hopefully, my armor would protect me now, but at the cost of a horrendous amount of mana. For the first time that I could recall, I needed more regeneration.
With my final point, I went to one of the very first class skills I’d been offered, having turned it down time and time again. This time, I bought it.
You have learned a new class skill: Mana Sink - 1/5
Absorb a portion of mana from enemy attacks. Whenever your enhanced armor is struck by a magic attack, convert 1/25th the damage mitigated by Resist Magic into mana.
Fully emptied out, I returned to the pit where I still lay on the unpleasantly sticky ground.
I would have liked to say that, fully outfitted for war, I charged back into the monster’s lair the moment I was fully healed, eager to show it who was boss. In many ways, though, the opposite was true. Well after the holes in my flesh had knit themselves back together, after the burns had faded away, I lay there, unmoving. Already, I’d exhausted my energy reserves thrice over, and if not for the fear of what would happen to me if I fell asleep here, I would have crashed for a day or two.
Unfortunately, there was nothing for it. I dredged up whatever vestiges of willpower I still had, and when that wasn’t enough, I retreated inwards, shutting off my brain until I rose like a machine.
Test the armor. Complying, I started pushing light mana into my armor once more, with just enough presence of mind to activate Light Vision in tandem.
The area around me brightened.
And brightened.
And brightened some more.
Far past the maximum amount of mana I’d ever been able to feed to armor or weapon alike, it continued to accept the feast I was providing it. In the lightless pit of a darkened labyrinth, it was as if a dawn had risen, a blazing sun banishing every vestige of darkness. A sizzling sound caught my attention, and with whatever dull surprise my body was still capable of, I noted as the muck, the sludge, and the blackened tumors on the walls around me started to burn away.
Good. Enough.
Afraid of crashing if I allowed myself another break, I moved as soon as my mana was topped off once more, pushing myself back into the monster’s den. Knowing my arrows wouldn’t cut it, I left the relative safety of the corridor, forcing myself towards the last place I wanted to be.
As expected, my approach did not go unnoticed. Hoping to conserve mana, I’d yet to activate the full extent of my light armor again, but even so, the forsaken had been waiting for me. Another five attacks came bursting from its bulbous body once more, and I prepared to fend them off.
Only, they never arrived. All five tendrils rushed towards the corridor behind me, crashing down and quickly flooding the room’s only exit with darkness. In no time at all, the way behind me was sealed shut. Having let me escape once before, the beast had no desire to repeat its mistake.
And perhaps with my new class skills, I could potentially clear away that barrier. Maybe I could escape if I truly needed to.
But in truth, its actions suited me just fine.
After all, this time, I had no intention of running.