Bony fingers clawed at his back and bone teeth clicked together inches from his throat. Michael and the drowned one tumbled through the water as they both sought an advantage over the other. It was all Michael could do to use his right forearm to keep the things teeth away. The sound of several nearby ‘splshhs’ indicated that this might not be a 1v1 for too much longer.
Michael gave up on keeping the other arm at bay. Even as he brought his bracer around, he felt the hand claw at where his neck met his shoulder creating several more gashes. It only took one bolt to cause the drowned one clinging to him to go limp. Crowns appeared but were instantly absorbed inside of his body. More money was always welcome, but in this case the bright light was a dead give away to the other drowned ones in the water. Michael was able to make out one only a few feet away during the brief flash. Another bolt quickly solved the issue.
It took another couple seconds for Michael to rip himself free from the one clinging to him. Michael quickly found the floor and pushed off. His upper body exploded from the water allowing him to take in new air before he slammed back down like a breached whale. Michael quickly found the underwater floor again and pushed off, but this time to propel himself further downstream and away from the other drowned ones that he believed were trailing him.
He did not get away quite fast enough. A rusted blade cut across the backside of his calf. The pain was intense, but his desperation required him to continue. For what seemed like several minutes, Michael continued to push himself further downstream, only surfacing for air when he required it. After the cut to his calf, Michael did not actually know whether the drowned ones were still following him since he could not see anything in the murky water and he only heard the splashes made by his own movement. Just when he thought he was likely good enough to potentially make his way to the ledge and climb out did he notice it.
The current had increased several times over. Michael came back to the surface. He did not stop swimming forward for fear of getting attacked from behind, but he did want to see what was going on. There were only two more red lights ahead. Was there a turn in the tunnel up ahead? Michael could not tell. He glanced back. He had apparently just passed another intersection a few hundred feet ago.
Damn, he should have taken stock of his situation a half a minute ago. Michael looked back forward. He was passing right under the first of the two remaining red lights. The current was getting even stronger. Michael’s only prior experience with water was with city pools, but even he knew that an increase of the water current could not mean anything good for him.
Michael started to head toward the ledge. He made it with several hundred feet to spare. This close Michael could now see that the water was being forced into a far narrower culvert. An underwater pipe that would likely be a death trap if he got forced in. Michael started to climb out, when something exploded from his left. Once again he was tackled back under water.
It was another drowned one. It only took Michael a handful of seconds to bring his bracer to bear. One more bolt and there was another dead drowned one in the water. The green flash at his midsection did not bring the elation that it normally would have. The current had already tripled from where he had just tried to climb out. Michael did not even need to try to know he would not be able to escape it, despite every urge of his body pushing for him to do so.
Instead, Michael surfaced and did all he could to stabilize his breathing. He only got a few seconds, before he had to take one big breath and reorient his body. He pushed himself back down into the water so that he would not hit his head when he was pushed in, and he went into the pipe feet first. Finally he covered his head with his arms. Last thing he wanted was to smash into something face first. He could only hope there was not a grate or something that would prevent him from exiting out the other side. He could also only hope that his air supply would hold out.
His precautions were insufficient in the turbulent current. He felt himself repeatedly bash into the tunnel sides. Luckily, due to years of water flow the sides were fairly smooth, so he only got the impacts and more bruises to add to his injuries. The flow smoothed out over the course of a minute, but it did little to resolve the growing sense of panic threatening to take over.
He was out of air, and every second that passed brought him one step closer in being added to the drowned one’s number.
Michael had never been able to hold his breath for very long. During hold your breath games he had always been lucky to make it half a minute. Perhaps he had only held out this long thanks to his enhanced stats, but doubling the time seemed to be the extent of it. His lungs were aching and his head was feeling fuzzy. Was he really gonna die in a pipe, like a flushed turd? The comparison did not make him feel better.
Then his open eyes saw the light seconds coming from up ahead. Only seconds later he shot out of a pipe. Unable to wait, Michael took in a breath of air as he went airborne. His lungs welcomed the sweet, sweet air, and plenty of water. A second later he was back under water. He clawed his way back to the surface, and then spent a good while in a coughing fit. As his lungs worked to expend the irritating water and draw in more air.
Michael hardly paused as soon as the fit was over. He was bleeding from a half dozen different places and his lungs burnt from laborious coughing, but he was in a large body treading water. Last thing he wanted was to nearly escape death by drowning, only to have a tentacled creature pull him back under. A short swim away was a narrow ridge. He quickly swam over to it and pushed himself out of the water. One roll later made him feel much safer.
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Michael laid there for a minute thankful to be alive. Still his exuberance could not keep the rational part of his head at bay for long. He was lying on a ledge against a wall, but the wall only went up ten feet. The rest of his view made it clear that he was only seeing a small portion of a large cavern. The ceiling was a good thirty feet up. Based on his quick dip into the water below the pipe, he knew the water that stretched out a hundred feet in front of him was connected to the ocean. It was salty and a faint emerald green glow at the far side indicated an underwater connection to the ocean.
Michael pulled up his interface to get a better idea on where he had ended up. His eyes widened. The whole underground had been tinged in a light shade of red, however where he was at right now, was illuminated in a dark red. He did not have to guess at what that indicated. He had been thrown out of one bad situation right onto the bosses doorstep.
Michael continued to just lie there as he tried to listen for any indication of danger, but all he could hear other than the waterfall coming from the pipe was a faint hum. He was not even sure whether he heard it or he was just feeling it through the rock on his back. Luckily, it did not seem that his entrance into the chamber had drawn whatever was within’ s attention. On another positive note, the dark red hugged the wall he was lying against and not the water before him, indicating that the boss was likely not in the water.
It would at least give him a chance. If it was in the water, he would most likely not attempt to get it. However, the fact that it was on land meant the opposite was true. He would not be leaving here without it. Already he could feel his inner greed yearning for whatever a red drop would give. His greed of not leaving a green drop behind had gotten him in this situation. Only time would tell whether it was for his good or would lead to his death.
Thinking of the green drops, Michael could not help but anticipate opening them, but first he would take stock on his situation. If he did not count the excitement from the drops or from having survived, in truth he felt like crap. He would honestly be able to fall asleep right here. Michael quickly saw why he felt so down. He was sitting at only 26 HP, and he still had a bleeding status that would cause it to drop by 1 HP every 40 seconds.
Michael only hesitated for a second before he took the one potion that he had out of his inventory. The bleeding status would likely stop on its own, but that would leave him with a longer recovery. After the potion and a meal he might recover most of his HP. That point was even further likely since he would recover 76 of his HP from his two health offerings. Any minute now he would get the 20% back from the first offering. He would have to wait 50 minutes for the second one.
One lesson he had learned from the battle was that he would be able to use his health offering as much as he wanted. Well… up to four times. A fifth time would cause him to lose a hundred percent of his HP. That would likely either leave him in a comatose-like state or outright kill him. However, the second lesson was that he was far closer to having died due to using the skill twice. During the battle he had only gotten the boost from one offering since the other was still on its hour to cool down from his first use he had done above ground.
On the other hand the boost before battle might have prevented him from being killed because he was too slow. Even with it, he had difficulty keeping up, but still he was only beginning to realize how slippery the slope using the skill could be. He would always be tempted to boost himself a bit more.
The average quality potion did the trick. He immediately regained his current maximum HP of 114. The bleeding status ended and his cuts closed. He immediately felt much better although still somewhat weakened from blood loss.
Michael quickly set about eating an early lunch. In between bites he removed the green vest that somehow still hung loosely on his right arm. He then removed his black long sleeve shirt, pants, and the under clothes. He pulled fresh clothes from his inventory. He set out the pants to dry but allowed the black long sleeve to remain in a clump with the vest and wet underclothes. It was hardly much better than the vest at this point. Several strips of it would hang down if he tried to wear it at this point. Instead he donned a red hoodie that he had found amidst the many other clothes.
Out of his wet clothes, Michael immediately got to opening his drops. He started with the white drops. He pushed his vitality up to 20. It had been his last attribute that had still been in its teens, so he could not help but dwell for a moment in the sense of accomplishment. He was literally at least twice as strong in every category than he had been when the survival battle had commenced, and it had only been 12 days. How strong would it be after 400..?
The pull of the green drops pushed him to continue. He threw the second stat point into dexterity. Higher tier enemies were getting pretty quick. It was a bit of an understatement since they were also getting stronger and tougher as well, but if there was one thing that he could not afford it was to have slower reactions than an opponent. This point brought his dexterity up to 26. It also brought him up to 48 of the 75 stat points he would need to max out tier 1. He was really coming along.
With that settled, Michael moved onto his green drops. The first was a set of 3 energy shots. It brought his current inventory of the injections up to five in total, although these three shots were of below average quality versus the 2 of the 3 poor quality shots he still had from the downtown outpost. Comparatively they would restore twice the amount of energy, up to 50 points. Not something game changing right now since he already had a couple that restored 25 points, but he would most definitely use them at some point. The second green drop was far more exciting.
[Overdrive (tier 2 method): This method offers 20 attribute points, to be added to any attribute, and increases the SP recovery rate by 10%. When the contender has only 10% or less of their total SP left they will automatically go into overdrive. Where physical exertions will tax the user at half of the normal rate for a period of up to 10 minutes. SP recovery rate and Overdrive ability can be increased further through other means.]
The tier up method was certainly better than the tier up method he had gotten previously. The overdrive ability would effectively increase his SP by 10%, on top of the increased SP recovery he would be able to fight quite a bit longer. Perhaps it was not the best method out there since it still only offered 20 attribute points, but it would definitely help mitigate his SP thirsty skill, quickened step. He had only used it a couple of times in the last skirmish, but at 8 to 12 SP a use, he had to be conservative using it in a protracted battle. Regardless, he was certain it would sell for more than the last method he had sold.