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Isla Culloden has succumbed to her wounds but cleared the test. Her Recall and Resurect to Elkins had been allowed.
“It’s OK, son… She’s alive,” Papa Allinder tried to console him.
"It's my fault," Rowan shook his head. "I should have stopped her before going through, to warn her about how dangerous that guy is. A total psycho."
Inside the Triumphal Arch, a portal had opened, but it had a warning: Solo Quest. Only one of the Champions can proceed. There was also a timer, an hour, counting down, the remaining minutes before the access shut down. Aside from the structure, another portal had appeared, marked: Dungeon’s Exit.
Precautions were always helping, so Rowan had a Bourbon flask in his inventory. He took a mouthful, then decided.
“I’ll go.”
“My challenge was about embracing my Class and becoming a true warrior. Let me do it,” Papa Allinder protested.
“Embrace it tomorrow, you're too new at this,” Rowan cut his father's pleas. “You’re too new at this. And that moron is on his honeymoon.” Ten feet farther, Hubert was arguing with the Goblidog, refusing to take the alien as a pet, jumping around to stop the monster hump his leg. “Hubert!" Rowan yelled. "Go home. I don’t like you. Don’t visit. If I ever see you near my house, in that weird black dress of yours, asking for a confession or shit, I’ll kill you.”
“Go fuck yourself…” Hubert snapped, then clenched his teeth. “Or better, take those dimes in the Swear Jar and shove them up your... Sorry, so sorry," the priest slapped his mouth… "Man, this monster gets on my nerves. I take it back. You’re not so bad after all. If we had new elections, I’d still vote for you.”
“GO AWAY!”
He pushed Papa Allinder through the portal by force, and fortunately, Hubert took the hint and left. Before passing through the portal, the Goblidog gave Rowan the middle finger. Rowan took another mouthful of Bourbon, then entered the portal giving to the Lair, spear in hand.
The portal closed behind him, and Rowan retched, an unbearable stench of death and decay clogging his nostrils. There were bodies on the floor of the… cave? Tunnel. It was a tunnel carved in stone, ten feet in diameter, slowly descending. The bodies were bloated, and cooked. Through the destroyed hazmat suits and military fatigues, puss oozed. Twisted guns lay around on the ground.
What could have done that?
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: That damage has been inflicted by the Boss.
Whoa… Rowan jerked back. A FAQ? And you can read my mind?
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: Affirmative. My current Mind Reading and Activity Tracking is set to Default: Ignore Intimate Moments, Cleaning Self, and Bodily Function moments; Activate on matters related to the Dungeon.
Why haven’t you talked before? I’m sure you could been of great help on the first floor.
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: The entity known as I, The Warlord blocked my access to the first eleven floors. That restriction is now lifted, should you survive the Lair and rerun the Dungeon later.
Never mind. FAQ, what kind of boss are we talking about?
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: That information is restricted. You are supposed to find out the Boss’s strengths and weaknesses on your own. I can, however, fill in the blanks if you discover enough relevant information.
The stench has diminished in intensity, because Rowan’s skill, Sensorial Filtering, was doing a good job. He proceeded onward with caution. Asking the FAQ who the dead people were was useless. Human military, or some mercenaries, maybe cartels, and with no True Class, or they would have disintegrated into Mana.
As he advanced, there were more remains but turned to charcoal. The last group was made of six empty armors, standing up, fused together, and to the stone floor, facing the downward end of the tunnel. The position told Rowan that they had tried to protect the other group’s retreat, and failed. He cast an Inspect, to be sure.
Intergalactic Mercenary’s Armor, Standard Issue, model MK2 x6
So, human and intergalactic mercs… Probably hired by those who wanted to buy the Swarthy Elves as slaves. All gone, now.
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: Correct. An unlawful attempt to claim the core and provoke a Dungeon Break was detected. Corrective measures have been implemented. The criminals have not survived.
And let me guess: I can't disable those measures without claiming the core through combat.
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: Correct again.
A hundred feet ahead, there was a faint light, the tunnel’s exit. Gluing himself to the wall, Rowan stepped on gingerly. The next room was in sight, and it was a vast cavern, lighted, as the tunnel, from a faint ambient light emanating from spots on the walls and ceiling. In its center was a dragon, curled on itself, and snoring.
Fuck… that’s big…
The story was now complete. The previous group had awakened the beast, who unleashed some fire attack at the tunnel, killing everyone. Stopping at the door, Rowan took time to think. What were the ways to kill such a beast? Sneaking on it was out of the question. That was a construct, and constructs don’t really sleep. The floor of the cavern had some form of trigger. Did the tunnel have it too? Preparing to enter The Space, if needed, Rowan tapped the tunnel’s floor with the end of his spear’s shaft. There was no reaction from the dragon.
Let’s assess my abilities a little.
Returning to his tracks, he passed the melted Mercenaries and stopped. Keeping his attention to the cavern below, he willed his spear to divide into metal threads, as The Warlord had exemplified. At first, he got just a bent spear shaft, but he kept trying. On the third attempt, he obtained two filaments. After fifteen minutes, he could reliably summon six, and their length was considerable: thirty feet or so, like the Warlord’s.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Next, he tried to push the filaments in the armors' openings. It went bad, at first, either all aiming at the same space, or hitting the armor with clunking sounds. His heart skipped a beat, but the dragon was still asleep.
Some idiot must’ve stepped in the cavern before they thoroughly figured out things… Too bad for them, and lucky me.
Another fifteen minutes later, his skill had improved. It was not fast, by any means, but fast enough for what he had in mind. He returned to the cavern’s entrance and rushed in after activating Joint Trip. Ten seconds later, he was at the dragon’s head’s height, and preparing to introduce the filaments inside the dragon’s body. At the last moment, he changed his mind, not so keen on parting with his weapon, and decided to go for the rebars instead. He picked two, went deeper inside the dragon’s head, where the brain was supposed to be, and let the bars go.
Instantly, the dragon turned toward the tunnel, releasing a torrent of flames so hot the stones turned red, smoldering. Panicking, Rowan plunged all his rebars in the monster’s head, kept his Joint Trip active, and ran toward the opposite end of the cavern, hiding behind a large rock formation. The tunnel itself was now closed, covered in a molten lava plug.
Joint Trip has consumed two stacks. 6/10 remaining.
It was bad. The heat could be felt even where he was, and the dragon kept going. He tried to make himself as little as possible, and not make any noise.
Sonar and Insight have made a successful check against Dragon Construct, Level 80. Strengths: no vitals, its body is acting as one item. Weaknesses: Lack of sentience. Absence of a true dragon's perks: Oppressive Presence, Sensorial Detection (Hearing, Smell).
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: You have unlocked enough data to allow me to fill in the blanks. A Dungeon can not reproduce a true dragon’s perks. For instance, Oppressive Presence can kill anyone with a WIL under fifty and stabilizes dimensions around the Dragon, forbidding attacks from the Space. As a replacement for that ability, this construct has only one big pool of HP and no specific vitals.
The dragon finally returned to its snoring. There was now a tag above its head, a generic: Dragon Construct level eighty, but Rowan could also see the health bar, hovering around eighty percent. He had scored one percent damage with each of his iron rods, it seemed. Soon, however, the rebar bits were ejected from the monster’s body, and the health bar started to slowly grow back.
Fuck this. I want to ask you a question, FAQ, If I kill myself, will I be Rezzed in Elkins?
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: Unknown Location: Elkins. Under emergency procedures, The Lair prevents Rezzez and/or Recalls and also has a forcefield forbidding escaping it through The Space.
Another thought grasped his mind. If they had continued normally, without the Gate challenge, the entire army would now be dead…
Back to Plan A. No. Modified plan A. Those rebars did twenty percent damage, all of them… and it’s back to eight-five… If I don’t kill it in one go, I’ll be weaponless and screwed. I don’t know if I can grab back the weapon when in The Space… You should use your brain more, Rowan. Test things. Fuck… Here we go.
Rowan activated Joint Trip and moved up, stopping at the neck this time. Extending his weapon in threads, deep inside the Dragon, he prepared to project the Snowstorm through them and exited The Space.
The expected mayhem followed. The dragon roared, shooting again his fire at the tunnel, following its programming. It took it two long seconds to realize where the damage came from. And despite the pulsing damage from the Snowstorm and the metal spikes, it was still alive.
I’m toast.
For another three seconds, the Dragon tried to turn its head and burn Rowan, but failed, the neck too short and unwieldy. It did find a replacement solution, jumping up, and hitting Rowan against the cavern’s ceiling. It hurt and made him release his weapon.
Delayed Truth activated. You have 0% HP. You have 10 seconds to heal yourself.
Rowan hung on, like on a rodeo bull, keeping up Räsvelg even without the weapon. Six seconds later, he cast a Combat Heal and entered The Space, activating a Health Potion, and running away as far as possible.
He was down to three Joint Trips and intended to keep them, so he hid again and returned to the normal dimension. To his surprise, the heat was not so intense anymore. The dragon was encased in a thin sheet of ice and struggled to take it off, hitting itself against the walls, fortunately far enough from Rowan. The HP bar was low, and descending. There were DOTs on the dragon, the equivalent of a Cold and Bleed damage, Rowan guessed.
Anticlimactically, for the fierceness of the short fight, the Boss disappeared. Rowan's weapon fell, in the form of a metal ball now, hitting the rocks below and bouncing off a few times before stopping.
You have destroyed Dragon Construct, defensive protocol, level 80. You have cleared the Shore dungeon and can claim its core. +10 free APs. You have leveled x4, and are now Lvl. 78
Additional rewards:
He dismissed the notification because there was something more important to do.
“FAQ, are you still here?”
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: Positive.
“Question. I have a Perk that is supposed to reduce Mana Consumption by a quarter, yet my Snowstorm had the same cost, forty Mana per second. Is the first perk applied only to spells?”
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: I’m not familiar with that Perk, but I can, however, hypothesize. Not all Perks, Spells, or Skills start at maximum efficiency, they have to be trained. My supposition is that the reduction of cost is applying to the value of the perfectly trained perk, and you haven’t reached that threshold yet. If you open your Menu, under Perks, you’ll see a downward arrow. Press it, select the type of perk, and expand the detailed description.
Yeah, of course, I didn’t check that… that arrow is so tiny. But Cora did tell me about skills and spells having to be trained… Ok, so…What? The real cost is twenty Mana per second, and it does say the cost is reduced to fifteen through my Second Charisma Perk. So… I have to train.
“Second question. It’s a little… suspicious that on several occasions, I got exactly the perk I needed. I needed a cold AoE, I got a Cold AoE. I wanted a Mana cost reduction, and I got a Mana cost reduction. Is it possible that weird entities, let’s say, someone whose name starts with War and finishes with Lord, could influence what perks I gain?”
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: I am not aware of that entity’s capability, but I have a vast database about how gaining Perks works. The System has a proven tendency to unlock Perks that the Awakened needs if they have not rushed to invest their free APs into the next threshold and gained more experience first. It helps the System properly identify your needs and possibilities.
Thanks, Cora, you were right. Last question. I don’t intend to keep this dungeon but to consume it. Is it possible to transfer you to my Town’s core? Like an app or something? You were quite helpful.”
[Dungeon’s FAQ]: It is possible if you’re willing to spend the required energy.
“Good. OK, time to claim the fucking Dungeon core.”
A pedestal had appeared in the place where the Dragon had slept, and also an Exit portal. He selected the Yes option when asked if he wanted to claim the core. Before going into the portal, he checked his reward.
Additional Rewards: Shared Insight and Changing Class Opportunity for Isla Culloden.
This is a bonus reward for standing toe-to-toe with me, I, The Warlord, in a sparing match. Before and during her test, I have detected the following feelings from your wife Isla Culloden: She’s upset with you because she thinks you look down on her, and consider her stupid, brutal, and uncultured. Suggested solution: make her feel like a princess, beautiful and admired. You will find enclosed in an attachment a box of the best chocolate in the Galaxy. As a part of your reward, The Warlord took the liberty to fiddle a little with your wife's Class, to increase the quality of her self-esteem. The System agreed that its initial estimation of her potential was below her true parameters.
I, The Warlord remind you that everything is allowed in love because love is a battle.