Dren collapsed once he was within the safety of the dungeon. That thought always caused him to chuckle, he wondered if anyone else thought of dungeons as safe. Ren wasn’t in any better shape than himself. After fleeing from the Necropolis they had moved on foot at top speed until the duo made it to the lower level of the two dungeons the Purifier had shared with him. It had been a risk, what if Maria had an ambush for him there as well? But Dren felt he could sneak by or rush past to enter the dungeon. Once inside he would be safe.

All around him earthen walls were lined with roots that glowed a faint golden light. “Another cave dungeon.” He sighed and slumped against the wall. “I need to sleep now Ren. Keep watch please.” He yawned, it had been a three days straight run to the dungeon. Ren for her part just nodded as she started summoning various items. It looked like she was going to do some cooking this time. Dren nodded his approval. “Food sounds good right about now.” His voice was drowsy and he fell asleep without seeing Ren’s nod of agreement.

*****

Charles’s head snapped up to glare at the person that had just barged into his office. “Another wave? Has the wall been breached again?” That last monster surge had gone poorly. Their wooden walls were breached before the first wave even ended. It had been a long hard fight just to keep the little town from being overrun. The new level of the surge being based on the highest level person was the problem. Mostly because it seemed to count an evolved class's total levels. The person behind their headache was the one that just burst into the room, he used identify out of habit.

Human

Class: Inquisitor Level Six

Profession: Judicator level one

“We have a messenger from the Haven Necropolis.” Jen stated with an odd smirk on her face. Charles spat at the mention of that other town. Worse there was a second Haven he had heard of, someplace calling itself Little Garden.

“What do they want?” Charles asked annoyed. At least he had finally hit level twenty five and gotten his own class evolution. Defending walls wasn’t a great way to get experience as a melee fighter. But the breaches had given him more than enough combat. Still, he had barely gotten to level two. While Jen had already been level six when the surge started. Yet, despite not gaining any of her odd classes levels. She had raised and then evolved her profession somehow.

“An invader attacked the Haven Lord. Nearly killed him and almost captured the haven.” She paused her eyes almost feverish as she repeated. “An Invader.”

Charles eyed her then nodded while keeping his annoyance mostly off his face. “So, you found your assassin?”

“Yes.” She hissed the word, raw unrestrained excitement on her face.

“Then you are going to be leaving?” Charles both hoped she would and feared she might. As crazy as the woman had grown. Her strength helped him secure his rule over the little settlement. All while not having to fear her own designs on his spot as leader. Her obsession with the Invader was just too all consuming. Hell, even he had finally had to admit she might be right. News of the invader being real barely surprised him at this point.

“I will be.” Jen admitted. “The Haven Lord plans to hunt down that murderer and asked me to come share what I know about them as one that survived their attack.” Her eyes flashed with intense madness as she muttered. “Justice at last.”

Charles looked down at the map he had been studying and then sighed. “Fine. We all will accompany you. We can’t hold out forever at this rate. I hear these Havens have proper walls that can withstand the surges.” Charles loved the power he held, but he loved living even more. Even with his class evolution, they had lost too many others. If he lost the mad healer now then the next surge might be worse. Even if her leaving might lower the surges level. Besides, if this Haven Lord was so weak that a single assassin could almost snatch his Haven right from under his nose. Perhaps Charles could finally get his own Haven after all.

*****

Maria frowned as she read the message. It was written by the Purifier herself. “How dare she side with an invader? Doesn’t she know they are the enemy?” Her face was full of incredulity. That woman’s fate was hard to divine. As one recognized by the system, it seemed reluctant to allow her path to be meddled with. Maybe it was the same with that invader.

“Sorry, Seer. But the Haven Lord told me you might feel that way. She said she isn’t siding with the invader or against us. Just staying neutral. She says Little Garden owes them and if she acted against them the will of her Haven would likely turn against her.” The messenger seemed nervous to relay the Haven Lord of Little Garden’s message.

Maria’s frown deepened. Just what had that invader boy done while at Little Garden? While her main plan was mostly on track still. Too many things weren’t going as they were supposed to. She took a deep breath and sighed. She had too many other issues to deal with. The troublemaker coming from that arrogantly named Charleston would be here soon enough. She should have expanded her gaze beyond the healer victim before sending a messenger there. Now she had an over-ambitious fool to deal with. One of them had been enough for her plans. Now she needed to find out what to do with this one.

“Return to the Purifier and let her know I am not pleased. I will remember this.” She paused to let her words sink in, the man looked pale. “But, let her know I will not make any moves against her. She is too important to Earth’s future. But she should remember who the real enemies are. They all should.”

*****

Dren sat up after several long hours of rest to find Ren hammering away without a sound. As soon as he moved she paused and greeted him with a skewer of roasted food. “Thank you.” He took it and bit into the skewer of meat with some sort of fleshy fruit paired with it. “I see the tree made something else you could use.” She nodded and pointed to the little tree. He had given it to her to keep once she had her own storage space. “Oh, is it making fruit here?” He glanced around at the glowing roots. Did these count as sunlight somehow? Ren just nodded and stood there eagerly watching him eat.

“It is good.” He said after swallowing. “The buff is the best yet too. Three stats this time even?” He opened his menus and was reminded of all the messages still waiting to be read. Continuing to ignore them he checked Ren’s stats and found she had leveled up a lot during the fighting. Plus her skills were making incredible progress thanks to the bonuses within a dungeon. Her cooking had hit level seven in the advanced skill. While her weapon smithing had gone up to four as well. She must have made more silk products as her mana was near empty, but no rank ups yet on those skills.

Ren smiled at his praise and returned to her work. Dren wolfed down the meal as he started checking his own messages. He had earned two whole levels for himself from killing the Haven Lord and then the various other natives on the way out. It also completed his oldest quest.

“Quest Complete. Invasion Conquest (Head Start) Part One.”

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Reward: Unique Skill Reaper

Reaper: This attack skill can only be used on integrated natives. Deals an additional one hundred damage. This damage amount is increased by ten for each native killed by this skill. The mana cost of the skill is equal to the bonus damage dealt. When a native is successfully slain with this ability you gain one point in their highest attribute as a permanent bonus.

Reaper Bonuses:

Agility: None

Dexterity: None

Endurance: None

Intelligence: None

Spirit: None

Strength: None

Toughness: None

Vitality: None

Note: If you are slain by a native, all bonuses earned will transfer to your killer.

“What the hell?” Dren eyed the skill with his mouth slightly opened. This ability was ridiculously powerful. “Hmm actually.” He considered the skill more. The flat damage was high enough at the start to easily kill a level one without any bonuses to vitality straight out. Meaning it would have been very effective early on. Even later on it would have scaled well. But, the cost would grow so exponentially larger only someone with high intelligence could have continued using it for long. But for Dren, he could gain a ton of bonus attributes before he had to worry about it being too much of a cost. Especially if he could guarantee a kill with it, why not blow all his mana at once? If it would give him an extra permanent bonus. This combined with his Profane Blade might be enough to even kill that Scourge.

For a moment he debated on if he should even use this ability. It seemed to promote slaughtering weaker natives. Should he go that route again after all? His moral quandary stumped him for a moment before remembering the recent betrayal. “Fuck the traitorous natives. I should have just kept killing them all from the start.” Dren really regretted not finishing his quest earlier.

“Quest Received. Invasion Conquest (Head Start) Part Two.”

Slay ten natives with a rare class or profession: 0/10

Dren’s lips twitched into a slight smile. He had two such people already on his kill list. As he thought that he remembered the stubborn defender with the rare class. “Make that three.”

Pushing away that quest he found the messages from when he had attempted to and then failed to capture the Haven. It was annoying to lose out on all those rewards but it seemed his efforts hadn’t been without gains.

“Although you failed to capture the Haven as the first Invader to initiate the capture of a native Haven you have been awarded the choice of one of the following quests.”

“Upgraded Affinity or Upgraded Perk. Please select one.”

Dren blinked shocked. He hadn’t even known that upgrading his Life Affinity or his Essense of the Dragon was a possibility. “Which one should I choose?” He muttered and saw Ren glance up a moment before realizing he wasn’t talking to her. That was the question. His Life Affinity had literally saved his life several times before he gained enough power he wasn’t constantly almost dying. It also had originally been the primary reason his health pools were so large. That said, his Profane Blade class actually gave more vitality than it did his offenses stats. Same with his endurance.

While his Essence of the Dragon was the primary source of his strength and toughness stats. If he was to assume it would give more of these attributes if upgraded. He would definitely want his essence upgraded over his life. But the Life Affinity came with an ability while the Essence didn’t. Would the Life Surge ability get upgraded as well?

Dren blew out a breath while glaring at the system message demanding it give him more information to work with. When nothing came he grunted before selecting the quest to upgrade his Essence of the Dragon.

“Slay one dragon and consume its essence: 0/1”

Dren groaned. “Really. Where the hell am I supposed to find a dragon?”

Annoyed he stood up and flipped his cowl over his head before activating his stealth. Ren looked up before moving to stand. “No stay here. I am just going to take a peek to see what we are going to be facing. I’ll be back. I want to grind out my enchanting before we finish this dungeon while we have the bonus experience first anyways.” Ren hesitated then sat back down to continue working.

Moving into the earthen tunnel he noticed the glowing roots didn’t light up over him while his stealth was active. In a way that was for the better. It wasn’t so dark he couldn’t move anyways. Onward the tunnel stretched until the light from the entrance completely faded. But just as it did a golden glow from ahead provided enough light for him to continue. Eventually, he found himself creeping toward the source of the glow. It was a lit cavern. Easing up to the edge of the entrance he eyed the scene before him confused. Golden glowing roots lined the ceiling of the chamber giving it a warm appearance. Within the massive cavern were dozens of small oases of golden liquid surrounded by a handful of giant flowers. Each of the flowers looked like an enormous pure white lotus growing from the edge of the golden pools. All of them tilted slightly towards the center of their pools and as he watched a golden liquid gently trickled down from their center to fill the pool. It seemed they weren’t just growing around the pools, but were their source.

As interesting as the flowers and their pools of nectar were. The monsters inhabiting this room were what he focused on. They moved on five limbs with an extremely odd gait. One leg in front was a massive thick trunk of a leg that looked like it belonged to an elephant. It swung forward to stomp down with a heavy thud. While the four legs in the back were slender multijointed scaled limbs with nearly a third of their length being a long bone spike at the bottom. Their gait consisted of the front leg swinging out to thump down. Then a rapid staccato of the four boney spine limbs clattering forward to catch up. These legs supported a body that looked like it belonged to a rhino. Heavy grey leather hide looked as tough as any leather armor sagged off its body to form thick leathery plates.

But their oddness didn’t stop there. Instead of a head, an almost humanoid torso rose out of the body just above that thick trunklike leg. Two small almost skeletal arms projected from the pecks tipped with four fingers. While from the balls of its shoulder two long arms supporting metallic scythe blades like those of a mantis. Where its head should have been was a featureless scaled oblong shape. Like a giant scaled egg resting on its side with the narrow part pointing forward.

As Dren watched one moved to a pool and that egg shaped head split open to pull back three fleshy flaps revealing a grotesque maw of undulating barbed teeth and a long proboscis jutting from the center. It knelt down and seemed to dip that proboscis into the nectar to drink before raising to close its face again. Its skeletal arms moved out to gently tend to the nearest flower with loving tenderness. Shaking his head at the odd sight he used identify.

Urnik Gardener Level Thirty Two

*****

Character Status

Name: Dren Race: Human (I) Class: Profane Blade (7) Profession: Enchanter (23) Health: 3725/3725 Stamina: 3725/3725 Mana: 3125/3125 Credits: 6,970 Agility 119 Dexterity 119 Endurance 149 Intelligence 125 Spirit 90 Strength 114 Toughness 114 Vitality 149 Dungeon Competency 60% Solo Dungeon Competency 50%