Skittering back Dren put some distance between himself and the monsters. Mouth open and tongue flittering around the lizard made choking sounds as it went into a spin. Its rider was knocked off and started pushing itself up. A bit of that fine blue powder still trickled out of the wound. Looking closer at it, he could see white threads seeming to spread over connecting each side of the stab. As if the thing was trying to knit a cover over the wound. As it stood up he could see the cut in its neck doing something similar. Just at a much faster rate. In fact, the wound made only moments ago seemed almost fully restored.

With a growl he charged in, wanting to close before it could finish getting up. To his shock, the thing managed to thrust its spear out even as it was still seeming off balance. That odd jointless tube of an arm didn’t move like a human limb. But more like a striking serpent. Spinning to avoid taking the thrust to the face he lashed out with the short sword. It hacked into the arm and left a notch. Then he stabbed the dagger into it. The razor-sharp blade buried itself to the hilt in the tube arm as if he had stabbed a tree. Instead of drawing it back out he used it to keep them from retracting their arm and unleased a flurry of slashes from his short sword. Every hit landed in that notch from the first attack and his arm burned as his stamina rapidly drained. But in the span of a second, he landed half a dozen heavy slashes, severing the limb.

Dren didn’t go unscathed for his efforts. The monster's other limb lashed out almost like a whip to hit him with terrifying force across his back. The blow lifted him off the ground and smacked him right into the hallway wall. His forehead bounced off the stone and everything erupted in bright lights.

Stun resisted.

Landing on his feet he dived to the side before the thing punched the wall where he had been just an instant before. Skidding to a stop he reassessed the situation. That choking lizard actually seemed to be recovering. Meaning the current one-on-one fight would potentially become a two-on-one soon. As for the damage he had inflicted on the Muskin. The stump of its severed arm had a spiraling lactic of white threads already jutting from it and growing at a seemingly impossible rate. At this rate, it would need only a few minutes to regrow its entire limb.

Using his Assassin’s Eyes he again saw that the only critical spot was the same place that shot out those toxic spores before. Growling in annoyance he rushed forward toward the monster. It lashed out with its one complete arm and even swatted with its still-regrowing limb. This time with his attention on it and having seen the odd way its limbs moved he avoided them. Then rushed past the monster to the still-downed lizard. His gaze lit up the multiple critical spots on the beast and he fell on it. Both weapons follow the guiding lines of light on the body of the creature. Stabbing and slashing with almost wild abandon on the defenseless monster he delivered critical hit after critical hit.

The lizard’s hide was surprisingly tough. To the point that the short sword had difficulties cutting into it. But his Life Bane dagger had little issue piercing it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Muskin closing with its lumbering steps. But the surprisingly tough lizard wasn’t yet down. Its choking seemed to be over and it started spinning as he clung to its back. Dealing a bit of damage every time it rolled over him. Yet, he clung to it and continued stabbing. He even accepted a downward swing from the Muskin across his back rather than relinquishing his assault. It did another decent bit of damage. Delivering over forty points of damage but it was worth it when he got the system to chime for a kill notification. Rolling off the dead mount he avoided a second blow from the Muskin before scrambling back to his feet.

Between the hits from the Muskin and the damage the lizard managed to cause with its rolling, he was down a few hundred health. But the fight was again one on one. It seemed more than doable to him with one small exception. He got the feeling that the Muskin had barely taken any real damage even losing a limb. Dren really wished he had the healer's ability to see percentage health.

Breathing out a resigned sigh he closed in on the monster. In shot it's one good arm and Dren used his short sword to deflect it. While leaving a deep but most likely useless cut. Dipping low he dodged the thrust of the regenerating limb and slammed his dagger into the thing's critical point again. Again, it went wild as Dren jumped back trying to avoid another spray of toxic spores.

The cloud that came out this time was far smaller but despite his efforts, he was still exposed.

You have been poisoned by Toxic Spores (Blue).

Aphysixation resided

At the edge of his vision, a skull and crossbones icon appeared with the number thirty over it. A moment later his body spasmed as pain tore thru it. His health dropped by thirty and the icon changed to show twenty-nine. Panic flooded him at the thought he would need to take twenty-nine more ticks of damage like that. How much was that? He couldn’t do the math fast enough. But it would be a lot. Maybe too much? In a sudden burst of frenetic energy, he rushed back in on the still flailing monster. He dodged the wild swings of its arm and launched more attacks on its one weak spot. More spores emerged with each attack giving him a spam of resist messages. Another spasm of pain hit and the icon ticked down to twenty-eight. Then back to thirty when he failed a resist.

Stolen novel; please report.

A few blows from the flailing arms hit but they seemed less directed than the previous ones. They were doing less damage but combined with the poison they whittled his health down slowly. But his frenzy of attacks had resulted in no spores left to bleed out. Cutting open the wound he found a pulsing blue colored fleshy looking organ suspended in the thing's body by a web of pale threads. Stabbing it caused the Muskin to go into a wild frenzy each time but the cuts, even from his Life Bane dagger, seemed to seal up almost instantly. Finally, with the poison still ticking down. He dropped his sword and just grabbed the thing in his fist intent on crushing it. This caused the Muskin to go into a rage wilder than anything else. The previously slow-moving creature was suddenly spinning and leaping around while both its arms rained blows down on Dren. Squeezing with all his might the thing felt like a water balloon he just couldn’t pop. With the damaged mounting, he changed tactics. Using his other arm for support and even bracing one foot on the leg of the creature he pulled with all his strength. Those fine delicate-looking threads were stronger than they looked. But not strong enough. With a sudden jerk, he yanked the thing out. He shot back from the Muskin’s body and almost fell over, but managed to keep his footing. In front of him, the Muskin body slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. The cheery chime of a kill notification greeted him.

For a moment Dren basked in the glory of his victory. Until a spasm of pain reminded him he was still poisoned. Dropping the squishy thing in his hand he scrambled to get a health potion and gulped down the surprisingly tasteless liquid. With his health restored he looked to see what the actual damage had been.

He had only been at half health as the potion fully restored him and then some. Dren cursed himself for not checking properly before wasting the consumable. But couldn’t do anything about that now. Another spasm of pain wracked his body, slightly less than the previous one. Now that he wasn’t locked in a battle to the death he could tell the difference. Checking his logs he realized that the amount of damage he took each “tick” was equal to the number on the debuff icon. It decreased by one each tick. Muttering to himself as he worked out the math starting from thirty he finally calculated that the poison would do just four hundred and sixty-five over the duration. The ticks seemed to come every two seconds or so, so a duration of one minute. New failed resists had reset the poison back to thirty. So it seemed he didn’t have to worry about getting huge stacked-up amounts of poison.

Still, a single poison was just over half his health. It would definitely be lethal to someone without a lot of vitality. Of course, the dungeon was for a higher level. But he still thought anyone without a source and multiplier of vitality would be in danger here. A healer could easily heal thru it tho. Even on a low-vitality person. But it would make this place a pain.

Dren was sad that he hadn’t gotten a level-up. He had been sure he would have gotten one. But he did at least feel he was close. Coming out of his musing he retrieved the squishy thing he had ripped out of the monster.

Muskin Nucleus (Blue)

Enchanter: Catalyst

Dren’s eyebrows went up at that. He had forgotten that enchanting mentioned catalysts. Now he just wondered how he could use the thing. There was also the sense that it was useful for more than just enchanting but was only showing him that tiny tidbit of information because he was, well an enchanter.

Squeezing it in his hand he found the thing was still just as durable as before. So without fear of it being damaged in his backpack, it went. Approaching the lizard he eyed it. While he didn’t exactly have a need for it. He had gotten into the habit of skinning monsters in the spider dungeon. There wasn’t a reason to stop doing so and he was even curious if it was possible to gain a skill by doing so. But before he started he hesitated then drew his dagger and focused on it. A bit later and with several hundred mana spent on refining, he put it back away. There was no reason not to have his mana regenerating while he worked. It was just more efficient that way.

Skinning the lizard turned out to be a lot harder than he expected. Prying carapace sections from giant spiders wasn’t actually that hard. It just involved following the natural creases in the thing's body and popping the separated sections apart. It was a bit messy with their gooey insides. But not hard.

Skinning the tough leathery hide was hard, far harder than he expected. The thing didn’t have much of a fat layer to speak of and the hide seemed almost attached to the thick muscles of the beast. So despite his experience with the spiders he mostly ruined the hide. Getting only a piece about the size of his chest from its back in any potentially useable condition. How did he know it was potentially useable? Once separated the bloody piece of hide had cleaned itself up. As in the blood on the messy side had suddenly slid off to splatter on the ground leaving a rather neat piece of rawhide. Also, identify now showed it as a crafting material. Rolling it up he shoved it into the backpack and lamented that it was already getting pretty full.

Still, the fact that it had undergone such a drastic change and was now identifiable gave him further confidence that gaining skills thru actions was possible. Eyeing the dark red meat of the now skinned lizard while remembering the disgusting mouthful of slime the biscuits turned into. He hoped cooking was something one could learn too.

But for now, he had work to do. Grabbing the Muskin’s spear he retreated back towards the dungeon entrance.