Wheezing and with hatchlings on his heel, literally. One had bit the heel of his foot and was flopping behind him with every step he took. Dren was a scant meter from the exit when it happened. System messages chimed in his mind and the pain from the bites of several hatchlings hanging off him lessened. Mentally glancing he realized the boss had died. Actually glancing back he saw the hundreds of hatchlings curling up before crumbling away to nothing. Dren’s grin almost swallowed his face. Until the next spasm of Breath of Decay hit him. Instantly sitting down he activated Calm Respite. With his potion timer already ticking down. He had to buy as much time as possible.

Time dragged on as the debuffs from the hatchling bites fell off one at a time. Leaving only the Breath of Decay. It seemed to tick every five seconds. Meaning he could also get a few points of health regenerated between each tick. But it was a strain to keep the skill active thru the spasms of pain. Slowly his health drained lower and lower. His potion wasn’t going to come off cooldown in time to take another before his health depleted. Sweat rolled down his brow as he worked for every tiny bit of health he could regen until then. In his chest his heart thudded as the next spasm brought him to zero, activating his Life Surge. A little over half his health was refilled. Doing the math he realized it wasn’t going to be enough. But, it would be enough to get another potion down. It was close. Far too close, but he would live.

Taking a bit to allow his heart to stop pounding he replayed the fight in his mind. There weren’t many things he felt he could have done differently with the tools he had. Smashing the eggs before they could hatch might have been an option. In fact, if he was part of a team like in the last dungeon that would have been a great tactic. Let Mike hold its attention while he smashed up the eggs. It probably would have pissed off the lizard but with the whole team working together. It would have been doable. The Breath of Decay would have been a pain if it hit a full team but the slower damage ticks would have allowed a healer to handle it even if a full team got exposed. It would have been a tight call sure, but solo if his build didn’t have life for his affinity he would have died for sure.

Dren was again really glad he had opted to diversify. During the fight with the natives that forced him to flee. He had been annoyed at the seeming higher agility of the archer. But without his other plethora of attributes he wouldn’t have lived to escape. In the end, he decided he had made the right choice. As soon as it was time he downed a health potion and with the immediate fear away he checked his system messages.

First, he found that he had leveled up from killing the Clutch Mother. Even without checking, he had known that from the increase in his resource pool maximums. Still, it was nice to confirm. “Hello, Lucky thirteen.”

Ruin Lizard Clutch Mother Slain. Dungeon Boss was slain on the first run. Bonus rewarded.

Dungeon Compentcy increased by ten percent.

Solo Dungeon Compentcy increased by ten percent.

Dren grinned. That was a nice surprise. It seemed he got it per boss in a multi-boss dungeon. That stat was going to go up fast! On top of that, there seemed to be a version for soloing dungeons. Checking it worked just like the other but seemed additive. Still, he was up to a thirty percent increase in experience and loot in dungeons.

With a shudder, the last tick of Breath of Decay occurred. His health pool was still terrifyingly low but for the moment there were no enemies. Dren wasn’t sure if the numbness or the horrible burning cold phase was worse. But just hoped to never have to experience that again. “Not even a poison resistance rank up either. Blegh.” Dusting himself off he moved towards the treasure chest that had appeared.

Touching it there was a somewhat familiar pop-up.

Profane Ruins Dungeon (15) Boss Cleared One of Two. Party Size One. Solo bonus to loot quality applied.

Prime Kill reward received for a first recorded boss kill.

Calculating Rewards

Loot Pools Selected.

Assassin

Enchanter

…

…

…

No other loot pools were allocated.

With that final message over. The chest opened.

“Prime Kill? So the first person to kill a dungeon boss gets an extra reward? Extra nice.”

Dren looked into the chest. There was a leather mask, not a full face mask but the type that covered the nose and mouth. It was made of a shiny dark scale-covered leather. When he picked it up, the material was as soft as silk. Identifying it his eyes went a bit wide.

Profane Leather Mask.

Provides the wear with breathable air. Renders them immune to all airborne toxins, pollutants, and other inhaled effects. Made from a Poison Drake’s hide that was fully imbued with multiple profane ruins. Unique feature. Can hold three profane runes. No other runes may be enchanted to them. Mana networking is not required.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Opening his enchanting menu he saw that the entire thing was filled with shimmering mana veins. Only three spaces left open for runes remained.

“Ugh, the system sure does like giving you things that would have been useful against the boss you just killed.” Dren grumbled but really liked the item. Not only would it work against things like spores or toxic gas. He thought it might even allow breathing underwater. As the wording didn’t say it filtered or purified air. But made it. That would be pretty neat. Seeing the empty rune slots he was tempted to go ahead and fit the profane rune of durability into it. But resisted that urge, there were still four more of them to find. That and a second piece of loot.

Inside there was what looked like a statue of the Clutchmother. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Picking it up he used identity.

“Ruin Lizard Mount. This is a prime reward for the first to kill the Ruin Lizard Clutchmother of the Profane Ruin’s dungeon.”

“A mount? Like a horse but a lizard?” Dren tilted his head. That was an odd thing to get. Activating the item it crumbled away into light shards and in front of him a ruin lizard appeared. It was bigger than the ones on the Muskin Riders road but not nearly as big as the Clutch Mother had been. It also was a bit sleeker looking than the bit pudgy Clutchmother. Its dark green scales glistened in the pale moss light. “Awesome. I wonder if I can get it to fight for me.” Even as he said that a bit of knowledge tricked into his mind. His expression soured. The mount wouldn’t fight. If he tried to make it fight it would just return to its statue state. But he was kinda glad to find he could return it to that state at will. “Well, at least I don’t have to feed you.” Dren grumbled and put his hand on it before willing it back into a statue.

Stuffing it into his backpack he turned his attention back to the boss room. The profane mask reminded him that he needed to be looking for profane runes still. If there was one place he expected to find one. It was in the boss's room. Pausing to put the mask on he took a few deep breaths and was surprised at how fresh the air tasted. There was absolutely no issue with breathing and it tasted almost sweet compared to the dungeon’s stale air. Also, while he wasn’t getting resist checks still. The air had tasted pretty foul still.

That said he started his search.

*****

Two and a half hours later he finally found it. Literally buried in a mound of muck one of the clutches had been in. It was a rune stone similar to the one he had gotten for completing the forest lair dungeon.

Profane Rune of Decay Acquired.

“Nice?” Dren said unsure. Making his armor decay wouldn’t be that great. But by accessing his enchanting menu he got a better feel for how it would work. It would allow a weapon enchanted with it to inflict decay damage. Not only would it cause a bit of extra damage but also leave a decay debuff. Just like the breath of decay, it was a slow-acting poison. Like the bites of the hatchlings, it would stack instead of refreshing the duration. Its base damage over time started at five damage. But between the extra damage at the start, the fact it could be stacked, and it also being a heal inhibitor. He just wished he could put it on his Life Bane dagger.

“Oh please let me get a dagger from the second boss.” Dren still preferred daggers over swords. Sure swords had a bit more reach but he just felt the daggers served his purpose better. Even the short sword was just a little too long to dual-wield properly. It almost got in the way at times and limited his attack patterns compared to two daggers.

Thinking about enchanting he now realized he might have messed up picking disenchant over the multi-rune imbuement. If the mask was the result of a multi-rune material being used. It might be worth it. Runes got more expensive with each rank. Just putting three basic profane runes on it would normally consume nine hundred of its capacity. His magic dagger was the highest thing he had seen capacity wise and that was four hundred. Even refining it, he couldn’t put a second rune on it.

The mask also didn’t have any cost limit on the runes. Just that they had to be profane ones. Did that mean if he got his profane runes to rank up, he could slot them in no matter their costs?

Dren thought this and many other things over the five hours he sat resting. Then another five hours beyond that to make sure his Life Surge was at least partially filled for the next fight. But by then he was starting to feel tired. Near-death fights seemed to take more out of him. So back to his little hideout he went for another nap.

*****

Blood splattered on the ancient crumbling stone as Dren swore viciously. But at last, it was done. Scrambling down from the bloody corpse he sighed. After his rest, he realized he needed to skin the clutch mother. Unlike the hatchlings, the corpse hadn’t gone anywhere. Skinning the giant lizard hadn’t been easy. It was also messy as he couldn’t just move around the corpse easily. Having to climb on it or use his full body to roll it over at times. All this had almost gotten him to forego the exercise. Except for the first piece he had successfully gathered, after many failed attempts had been slightly different when identifying it. Unlike the other ruin lizard hides that are more or less just identified as a piece of rawhide. This noted it was hide taken from a level twenty-five dungeon boss.

Dren assumed that meant it was better than the basic leather and he wanted it all. So, many hours later he found himself covered in blood but with a dozen pieces of hide. As an afterthought, he even pried several teeth out of the lizard's mouth. They were almost the size of his dagger. If many times thinner. He didn’t think it was possible to use them for weapons as is. But maybe he could unlock primitive weapon-making or something. Fully infusing those once-envenomed teeth with the decay rune might make something very nice in the future.

Cleaning up as best he could. Dren was left sighing. There weren’t any sources of water in the dungeon he had found to clean up with. So, cleaning mostly meant wiping blood on his own cloak. Doing this he took a good look at his gear as a whole. His armor had holes all over it. Was so filthy he couldn’t even tell what color it had been. The cloak wasn’t much better as it often got used as a towel. It was also getting worn and tattered. Though the cowl and shoulder region was holding together much better. In fact, the only clean part of him was the sleek leather mask. Grime and filth seemed to just slide right off of it.

Not long after he stood in front of the entrance to the final boss’s lair. His dagger in his right hand and a fist full of explosive daggers in the left. He was getting rather low on them. With the ones he currently gripped and eight more in his bandolier being the last. Even more concerning the short sword he had left impaled in the clutch mother was damaged. Not broken and unusable. Still, the blade had slightly bent just past the hilt. Dren had managed to more or less straighten it out. But the metal was showing signs of fatigue. “Just last one more fight. I’m sure the system. The very kind and fair system will give me a dagger.” Dren spoke out loud and glanced around as if expecting the system to be watching. He was sure it was. So even if he doubted his words would work. But, it wouldn’t hurt. Right?

“Ok. Time to finish this dungeon.” Dren activated stealth and moved forward.