Sofia fished the glove out of the mess of entrails, and her first reflex was to wash it with a bit of summoned blood.
Hmm…
It’s alright, no one saw that…
A bit embarrassed, she fished out a waterstone from Bookie’s backpack and properly cleaned the glove. It was made of a rather durable, shiny black and elastic leather-like material, with white highlights around the cuffs. There were a few clean enchantments embroidered in gold thread on the inside under the palm.
Right hand. That’s getting a bit crowded. I could put it on but it does look somewhat small. Mr scribe?
[Everelle’s Ultra Cool Right Glove]: A cool glove with basic durability enchantments, by feeding extra mana into it, it can produce a magic ray of freezing cold from the palm of the hand.
Part of a two piece set.
“Ice magic?”
That caught Bookie’s attention, and Sofia immediately noticed that.
“You want it? Sure. It will fit your fighting style better than the Mithril dagger I gave you before. Do you even still have it?”
Bookie slightly nodded, pointing at his book form he was holding with his other hand.
“Ah, right. Can’t take it out because of the dungeon’s restrictions? It would be nice if Pareth could store equipment like you can…”
Pareth was on the ground, his body still only halfway through reforming but he shrugged anyway, and raised his right hand, summoning his weapon of light in the shape of Bookie’s mithril dagger.
Sofia giggled, “You know? Fair point.”
The matter of the glove closed, Sofia handed it to Bookie, who instantly put it on and started jumping in place like an excited kid, while Sofia absorbed the Mimic’s imprint. Since she hadn't been able to identify the Mimic before killing it, the imprint couldn’t go to Pareth or she would lose track of his current Imprint power.
[Destroyer’s Nascent mana heart of Aphenoreth]: /C tier/
9 months, 14 days, 9 hours
Imprint progress : 843.12/ 1200
Small Catalyser : 0/1
Keystone : 1/1
Effects (Stats will be doubled) :
* All stats + 45% (C rank base)
* All stats + 50%
* Health + 10 561
* Stamina + 10 000
* Mana + 43 751
* [Relocate Core]
* Destroyer Signature Skill Modifier
* Speed shard (1)
“Speed Shard? And it’s worth 100 Imprint power? That means the Mimics are comparable in power to the Sunless Amalgams. Now the question is, what does a speed shard do? It’s not 1 of 1, it’s just one… The All stats bonus from the Keystone imprint was added on the line below the regular all stats, so the list of effects isn’t in the order in which I acquired the imprints. Then, with this being below the Signature Skill Modifier, maybe it’s for the Signature Skill too? I should ask Everelle about signature skills in the next rest area…”
With that out of the way, it left the group with the best part of an encounter with a deadly foe for a necromancer, pilfering the bones. Sofia had to ask Bookie twice to get him to stop playing with the glove, as he was freezing the ground and sliding along the corridor, bringing the black fog dangerously close to Sofia and Pareth at times.
“I get that you like it but now isn’t really the time, Bookie.”
The small, dejected undead stopped playing and his skeleton stopped moving as he took to actively controlling his book half instead, consuming the unsightly remains of the Mimic in record time, before returning to Sofia. The new page could not appear because the book was already full, so she had to delete one.
Let’s get rid of the Soguva skeleton, it’s been pretty useless until now…
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The page of the big mammal’s skeleton disappeared to be replaced by the disturbing skeleton of the Mimic, which, on the drawing, looked like a bunch of bones clumped together inside of the outlines of a chest itself made of bones.
A hundred thousand for the Mimic skeleton. Not cheap. And it can’t even do its signature trick and act like a real chest. It should still be my fastest skeleton, though, nice find.
After that, the group took a small break, Sofia reformed her bone plates and let her mana go back up while also refreshing the [Bone dominus] blessings. Bookie also had to stop playing and rest because he had drained all his mist playing around with the glove, so much that the entire non-fogged section of the corridor was now covered in a thick layer of ice.
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Sofia backtracked all the way to the previous intersection and started exploring there. As they were exploring a new part of the dungeon, groups of Sunless drones started appearing again. This time, instead of a straight line, the dungeon became a bit of a maze, and Sofia had to start mapping the place out. The group advanced at a slow pace, being very careful no to trigger another trap. Sofia had switched to feeding the drones’ imprints to Pareth for a bit, since he needed the extra mana as well.
Everything went rather well until three groups of Sunless drones appeared at the same time at an intersection. One group was quickly disposed of, but the other two eventually collided and merged, leaving Pareth, Sofia and Bookie face to face with an Amalgam in the Dungeons’ narrow corridors.
Sofia was ready. Encountering an Amalgam was a possibility she had been expecting from the start.
Before the monster could do anything, it was already covered in black rot. Bookie dismissed the paladins and fused himself with the high priest skeleton to be able to give Sofia magical shields. Pareth dismissed his weapon to get ready, while Sofia activated the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord].
Since she could not afford to get hit even once by the Amalgam's black lances, the plan was to kill it before it could use it. The way to do that was relatively simple, she just needed to break its main core, a clump of all the drones’ ‘small debris’.
Pareth went all out from the start. Sanctified grounds, chains of light, shields of light, Gravity well, he used everything to pin down the creature. He used his hand to grab the chains trying to make them last even a second longer. It would not last long, but just long enough for Sofia to reach the creature. She opened its body up with a slice of the admin dagger, and viciously plunged her Dragon-scale arm in.Thanks to her very keen mana senses, she knew exactly where the amalgam’s core was.
The core started moving as her arm reached into the black insides, but she managed to grab it either way. She could feel her arm being assaulted from all sides, Bookie’s mana shield had not held up for long. Her arm was beaten and battered by the shifting insides of the Amalgam, but between the unbreakable armguard and the title preventing chip damage, Sofia’s health was intact.
A black lance was starting to form over her head like a giant sword about to impale her.
She crushed the core.
The Amalgam exploded into a cloud of mana, which instantly brought Sofia back to full with [Heat Death].
‘You have defeated [Sunless Amalgam - Lv. 270 - Imprint intact]’
Sofia fell to her knees as she handed Pareth his mana heart. This had been too close for comfort. Despite the fight being an expedited and clean victory, it had been a huge gamble. She was used to brushing against death already, but, perhaps because of the oppressive atmosphere of the dungeon, it hit her harder than usual.
“If the black lance came down I was dead.”
Pareth shook his skull and gave Sofia a head pat.
“Huh? What, do you not want the imprint?”
Pareth grabbed his mana heart and absorbed the imprint, looking up at the ceiling while lightly shaking his skull again.
“What is it? Don’t think you can go on acting all exasperated and not explain yourself. If the black lance came down I was dead? Is that the issue?”
Finally Pareth approved, pointing at Sofia and nodding.
“If the black lance… Would it kill me? Right, no, it wouldn’t…”
Again, Pareth nodded, he couldn’t grin but Sofia was pretty convinced that this was what he would be doing right then if he could.
“Well, it still would make the trial impossible, pretty much. But I would have lived… And still managed to kill the Amalgam too, it was over the instant I managed to get my hand inside. Are you really comfortable with me getting maimed like that?”
Now Pareth looked offended.
“Alright, alright. You win. I don’t know what, but you win. Good job with holding the Amalgam anyway. Let’s do it like this again next time we encounter one. We still need six more to get you the skill. If it’s a double amalgam, we go back to the defensive strategy and we do a Mimic. The trap is far away but we should be able to make it…”
Pareth gave Sofia a head pat again.
“Let me update your Mana heart sheet and we go again…”
[Nascent mana heart of Knowledge]:
Rank : C Tier
Imprint power until next rank : 889.62/ 1200
Small Catalyser : 0/1
Effects (on use) :
All stats +45% (C rank base)
* +8500 Health
* +462 Mana
* ??? Skill shard (4/10) (Sunless Amalgam Skill)
* [Relocate Core]
* [Arclight]
As Sofia updated the system sheet, and before she could even stand back up, she heard a sinister sound from beyond the black fog.
A laugh.
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