The next few rooms after the trap room were much simpler. The problem was the shadevine. They weren’t numerous enough to kill, but the steady drain on any creature who came in contact with them caused serious problems for Skarm and for the centipedes who used parts of their bodies as weapons.
Eventually, Levi ordered the minions to stay back while he went ahead and stomped on the slippery little vines himself. With his boots and leggings, he was the best protected of any of them, and with the advantage of his lens, he could stab anything that got close enough to jump at him from the ceiling or walls.
The fifth room gave him a strong sense of place. There was only a single creature in it, sitting at the center like a miniboss, but he felt the slick texture of tiles beneath his foot as he stepped forward, and knew that this was the hiding place of the special treasure he'd come for.
The creature waiting for him was one he hadn't encountered before, but he recognized the shape. Thick, square, feline, and crouched down ready to pounce.
Level 1+
(Rift Cat)
Health 100%
Well, that was interesting. He'd never met a plus creature outside of a boss fight since his return to the past.
It was also disappointing. The moment he saw the rift cat, he wanted it. They were fast and sturdy and had a short-range teleportation ability that made them incredibly frustrating opponents.
“You're close to level 5, right, Gordon?” Levi called back.
“Maybe. Is there a progress bar somewhere I should check?”
“No, it's not anything so precise. Just a feeling.”
The rift cat waited, watching, but for the moment Levi was far enough away that it didn't want to give away its position. It obviously didn't realize that he could see it clearly.
“I really, really want this rift cat.”
“Then take it, I won't fight you for it.”
“It's a plus. We need Dismay if we're to have any chance of taking it.”
“Ahhh.” Gordon considered. “Can we tie it up and come back after beating the main boss? That should be enough to level me. Right?”
“It can teleport. Hard to pin down something that can teleport.”
“Will it follow us from room to room if we rush past it?”
“Up to a point.” They could hope there was a treasure room, or sprint past everything until they reached the boss room. “But if we rush into the boss fight, we'll have no time to prepare.”
“Worst-case scenario?”
Levi shook his head. “Very bad. We could rush into another trap room. We could rush into a room with more shadevine than the minions can survive contact with. We could find a Dark Essence. We could find another rift cat.”
“So, backtrack?”
Levi wasn't sure he could find the way back through the trap hall. His last jump had been enough to take them out of the room altogether, but repeating that feat and landing safely on the two tiles that wouldn't trigger whatever diabolical trap it had ready would be much more difficult.
“How badly do you want this rift cat?” Gordon asked when Levi didn't answer.
“Very much. I don't plan to spend any more time in Dark dungeons than necessary, and I believe it'd be more powerful than the centipedes even without the plus modifier.”
Gordon smacked himself on the forehead. “I'll send Flomper to scout. Can you give her your... hat thingy?”
Levi backed out of the rift cat's room—its eyes never leaving him, the creature not moving from its ready crouch—and very reluctantly handed over the lens to Flomper. “Do you know how to—”
Before he'd finished asking, the lens emitted the faint glow of mana and Flomper bared her big flat teeth at him, her furry face puffing in a smug grin. Once she was sure she'd made her point, she dove into the floor.
She returned after several minutes and Gordon picked her up. They seemed to be playing patty-cake for a while in some code they'd apparently devised for communication before Gordon spoke.
“The boss room is full of shadevine, but she didn't see any sign of an Essence. There are no more trap rooms. A lot of the shadow pixie things, though. They almost got her with their darkness blobs, but she managed to escape very heroically. And another group of shadevine in the second room, but off to the side. We could go around it.”
He handed the lens headband back to Levi. “Looks like we have a clear run to the boss room, if you want to try it.”
“How much shadevine is 'full of'?”
Flomper waved her paws in every direction wildly.
“A lot.” Levi considered. “I don't like it. An individual shadevine can be killed in one blow, maybe two if it's particularly sturdy, but it drains one or two of its enemy’s pools in the process, even assuming that the only contact is the killing blow. Judging by how much the smaller nests of shadevine hurt the minions, a boss room full of it might drain them all completely.”
“So… hazmat suits?” Gordon asked.
“They would slow us down and wouldn't hold up in normal combat. If you have a tear and a shadevine gets inside, it could kill you before you know what is happening.”
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Levi passed the lens back to Flomper, then took off his gloves and handed them to her. She looked confused, stuffing her paws into the thumbs of the gloves, and looked at Levi as though he'd lost his mind.
“I think it's time we found out exactly what we're up against. I need you to bring me back a shadevine.”
Flomper nodded in understanding and dove back into the floor. It took her several minutes longer this time, but she returned with a wriggling purple vine held tight between her paws. It was stretching and elongating, sprouting tendrils as it tried to grab onto anything to escape her grip.
“Go ahead and drop it.” Levi trapped it beneath his foot, then retrieved his lens and gloves from Flomper before picking it up.
Level 2
(Shadevine)
Health 40%
He carefully tore off one of the sprouting vine tendrils, watching its health as he did.
Level 2
(Shadevine)
Health 20%
Levi frowned. That tiny amount of damage had dropped it by 20 percent? How little health did it have?
He grabbed another flailing tendril, then began to tear it free very slowly, ready to stop the moment its health dropped again.
Level 2
(Shadevine)
Health 0%
He barely had time to register the change before it disintegrated in his hands.
“5 health? Shadevines have 5 health?” No wonder they were so easy to kill. But it would make taming one all but impossible. It would have to have at least 20 in order for him to successfully bring it below the 5 percent threshold. With these... 1 health left would still be 20 percent, and he couldn't tame that.
Not that he particularly wanted to keep one if they were so incredibly weak, but he did want to know their stat spread. They had a powerful draining ability; he wondered if there was a way to evolve them into something more dangerous, and somewhat relished the challenge.
“Can you find a stronger one, or are they all that easy to kill?” Levi asked Flomper.
She huffed, then held out her paws for the equipment and dove back into the floor yet again.
This time it took nearly twenty minutes for her to return, and she was looking much the worse for the wear. But she triumphantly held out a wriggling shadevine, which Levi trapped beneath his foot to examine.
Level 2
(Shadevine)
Health 12%
“That's progress.” He pressed down with his foot, watching.
Level 2
(Shadevine)
Health 8%
Promising! A little more...
Level 2
(Shadevine)
Health 4%
“Yes! Good job, Flomper!” Levi leaned down and activated Tame.
Tame: Success!
Would you like to name ‘Shadevine’ at this time?
“No, leave it unnamed.”
Then he brought up its stats.
Shadevine: Level 2
(Shadevine)
Strength: 1
Health: 25/25 (+3/min)
Psyche: 1
Mana: 110/110 (+3/min)
Spirit: 0
Stamina: 40/40 (+1/min)
And checked its leveling rates.
Strength Psyche Spirit Initial Health Initial Mana Initial Stamina
+20 Health
+2 H-Regen
+25 Mana
+2 M-Regen +1 Stamina
+0.5 S-Regen 5 85 40
Levi raised an eyebrow at that. So far, there had usually been a correlation between starting stats and stat gains. Gremlins had no mana; they gained very little mana per Psyche point. Stone centipedes had high starting health; they gained a lot of health per Strength point. The shadevine had higher gains for health than stamina while its initial stats for those two were reversed.
Whatever governed the stats of dungeon creatures, it was more complicated than Levi had at first assumed.
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