The Multiverse – Made up of countless loosely connected worlds, the multiverse is our true reality. The council of this world has discovered a way of moving living beings between the worlds. It used this newfound ability to restore balance to the worlds that have lost it.
* The Adventurer’s Guild
Nash had less than five minutes with a nixie pocket healer to take down a twenty-five-person boss by himself. He knew it was an extreme long shot but he didn’t have a choice. His party abandoned him and there would be no resurrections if he died here. He took a moment to leave the guild that he had started. He was the guild leader, so he could have disbanded it but he wanted them to believe he had died. He didn’t trust that they wouldn’t try to kill him again.
Now that he was truly on his own, the dungeon tried to compensate for the new party size. It wasn’t much, but it gave him a chance. After all, he didn’t have a choice. Leaving combat would allow the boss to regenerate its lost health while dozens of minions chased him around the sealed chamber. More to the point, the exit door would only open if he or the boss was defeated. With no other options presenting themselves, it was win or die.
Nash decided it was time to try another gamble, with the stakes even higher than his dive into the pool. He continued to fight off the boss’s minions using the boss’s attacks to finish them off. Once the third wave was down, he returned his armor and shield to inventory and enacted “Retaliation”, this time pairing it with “Stand Your Ground”. It was time for the boss’s main attack, a chomping bite that it did after each set of the three waves of minions. Tanks always hunkered down with their most powerful abilities during these points in the boss fight. Nash had another plan.
Walking to stand before the boss, Nash opened himself up for the attack. He was completely vulnerable when the skull lunged forward and tried biting him in half. With no armor, defense, dodging, or parrying; Nash took the full power of the attack. There was no damage mitigation. Nash felt his health drop down to a single point, a point that he still had thanks to “Stand Your Ground”. inside the boss’s mouth, Nash could see tendrils attaching the boss’s heart to its body.
Before he could decide if this was useful information, a flash of light erupted from Nash’s entire body. It was the primary indication that “Vengeance” had activated. Several of the skull’s teeth blew apart as the boss violently spit him out. The skull now had a gaping hole in the center of its mouth and its health had dropped over ten percent. Nash smiled as an idea came to him.
While the nixie worked to heal him back up, a new wave of minions appeared. Nash backed away from the boss and recalled his armor and shield. This time, the boss started sending out waves of fire along the floor as well. Nash frowned at that. The boss had moved to the final phase. He knew these waves wouldn’t stop until the boss or he was defeated.
“Time to do the safety dance,” he muttered under his breath, leaping the first line of fire.
“What was that?” asked the nixie healer, making Nash give her an odd look.
“Just a saying,” answered Nash, wondering at the nixie’s circumstances. If she was enslaved to the stone, he’d find a way to free her. He detested slavery in all its forms. For now, he had to focus on the skeletal minions that he had allowed to surround him.
Working his way through the waves of minions, Nash was formulating a plan of action should he emerge triumphantly. After what his former comrades did to him, they would probably try to make sure that he had died. They’d be waiting for him the moment he exited the dungeon. He needed a way to get past them.
The last of the minions fell but the rings of fire keep coming, forcing Nash to jump every couple of seconds. He only had seconds left on his pocket healer and the boss started its main attack again. Nash decided to try something a little different this time. Activating “Vengeance” and “Stand Your Ground” once again, Nash waited for the boss to lunge forward.
The moment the skull opened its mouth and swooped forward, Nash focused just behind the heart gem and charged. The boss bit down again predictably, and Nash directed the pain and damage he was taking into his sword as it cut through the sinewy cords holding the gem in place. Again at one health, Nash dropped his sword and grabbed the gem with both hands. His pocket healer’s time was up. He had to finish this now.
Swinging his body around, he used his legs to push off of the bony wall that was the back of the skull’s mouth. With several hard tugs, the damaged cords gave way and Nash launched himself out from the boss’s broken mouth and landed hard on his back, sliding along the floor a good ten feet.
Figuring the boss was about to die, he changed classes to soldier. This would keep the experience from being automatically applied to his current class. It was an exploit, of sorts... but not one in which the Last Judge had ruled against.
Now that he had a moment to think, Nash realized that he had scraped his back in the fall and had only a single point of health remaining. He should be dead. The answer came when he felt the warm sensation of healing flowing through his body. His nixie pocket healer had stuck around after all. Nash blew out a sigh of relief.
“Well, I couldn’t just let you die now, could I?” she harumphed, looking up and away from him while he got back on his feet.
Still holding the boss’s heart gem, he watched as the boss sunk into the pool, the water bubbling and hissing as the skull boss melted away. Finally having a moment to breathe, Nash noticed his notification icon flashing madly in the lower corner of his vision. Before he addressed what promised to be a heap of messages, he turned towards the nixie.
He hadn’t really gotten a good look at her before. Her black dress, little more than a shift, clung to her lithe body. She was more than a little attractive… for someone who was no more than ten inches tall. Two long pointed ears stuck up and out of her fiery mane and her dusky skin seemed to glitter with the faerie dust they were all so famous for. Nash knew that she’d make some faerie guy very happy someday and he had an idea of just what to do to help make that happen.
“Thank you for saving me,” he said. “Is there anything I can do to repay you?”
The nixie looked at him like he was mad. Narrowing her eyes, she replied suspiciously, “No one’s ever asked me that before. What are you suggesting?”
“Well, it’s obvious to me that you’re sentient,” Nash began. “And it also seems clear that you are somehow tied to the stone and must serve its bearer. Am I correct?”
“Yes, but...” said the nixie.
“Then that’s it then,” cut in Nash. “What’s your name?”
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“Tamsyn,” replied the nixie. “But, I...”
“Then Tamsyn,” Nash cut in again. “I would like to free you. Is such a thing possible?”
“Yes, but...” answered Tamsyn, the enormity of his proposal causing her voice to trail off.
“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t free you?” asked Nash.
“Of course,” she replied sadly. “You’d lose your pocket healer.”
“So be it,” said Nash. “If that is all, then what do I need to do?”
“To do?” asked Tamsyn, suddenly confused.
“To free you,” answered Nash. “I abhor slavery.”
Tamsyn’s eyes grew wide and her mouth hung slightly agape at the realization that her long-lost freedom was to be restored. Her body tingled in anticipation. She looked directly at her savior.
“It’s quite simple, really,” she said. “You just have to say, ‘Tamsyn of the Nettlefolk... I, ... say your name... keeper of the stone... free you,’ and that’s it!”
“Tamsyn of the Nettlefolk, I... Nash the summoned... keeper of the stone... free you,” he instantly replied, feeling the stone in his inventory fade away.
He also noticed tiny shackles on her arms and legs shatter into sparling dust, not unlike fireworks. With a squeal of uninhibited glee, Tamsyn spun in circles in celebration.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said. “You’re not so bad for a sun lover.”
Giving Nash a quick salute, she bolted from the dungeon, leaving a fading trail of glittering pixie dust in her wake. Nash was all smiles as he watched her go.
Those smiles didn’t last long. The crushing weight of betrayal, multiple betrayals from all of his former comrades... former students, brought him to his knees. Nash had managed to suppress his emotions during the intense battle but now he was alone and felt lost. He didn’t sob, he just wasn’t a cryer. He just sat on the cold dungeon floor and stared towards the pool, not really seeing anything.
The constant blinking of the notification indicator finally pulled Nash from his stupor.
“What?” he growled, acknowledging the yellow glowing triangle at the edge of his vision.
After scrolling through numerous warnings, alerts, and notifications about the battle, Nash reached the end where there were several interesting messages.
“Discovered: Dank Pool”
“Fey Stone has been added to your inventory!”
“Discovered: Maw of Xorfax”
“Class Changed to Soldier”
“Congratulations! You have defeated Xorfax.”
“2,450,515 experience has been added to your pool. Add to Paladin or Soldier?”
“Heart of Xorfax has been added to your inventory!”
“255,784 experience has been added to your pool. Add to Paladin or Soldier?”
“New loot has been added to the loot table. View Loot? Y/N”
“Deep Dungeon: Dank Necropolis Complete!”
“315,452 experience has been added to your pool. Add to Paladin or Soldier?”
“Challenge Mode: Dank Necropolis – Solo Complete!”
“1,000,000 bonus experience has been added to your pool. Add to Paladin or Soldier?”
“You have freed an enslaved night pixie.”
“500,000 bonus experience has been added to your pool. Add to Paladin or Soldier?”
“Fey Stone has been removed from your inventory.”
Nash let out a long whistle while looking over the messages. He had a heap of experience to dump somewhere, more than he could have ever believed. Divided twenty-five ways, the experience from this deep dungeon was good. Claiming it all for himself was game-changing. Still, he didn’t want to go off half-cocked. Nash needed to explore his options before he made any big decisions.
He needed more information. He opened his inventory and examined the Heart of Xorfax first. Its tooltip was cryptic, “Peer into my depth and discover who you were truly meant to be!” The item had a Use action tied to it and nothing else.
“Here goes nothing,” sighed Nash, using the heart.
Instantly, a pop-up with several choices appeared. He had activated a wish, one which would allow him to manipulate one of several different types of metadata.
Wish
Choose wisely
1. Change Name
2. Change Allegiance
3. Change Race
4. Change Sex
5. Change Appearance
A big smile grew across Nash’s face as he realized exactly what he needed to do. Picking a number, everything changed. The dark recesses of the cavern filled with light. His class icons, Soldier and Paladin disappeared. A new pop-up appeared. “Please choose your base class.” Nash chose Soul Crusher from the list. The moment he did, some of his experience was applied to the new base class.
While a member of the Light faction, he had leveled up Soldier to ten before unlocking the epic class, Paladin. The Dark faction class, Soul Crusher, was much the same. However, it unlocked Dark Paladin at level ten. The rest of his experience flowed into the new epic class, bumping it up to level sixteen. He was only four levels shy of his now-retired Paladin class level.
He spent the next fifteen minutes going over his six new unlocked abilities. Nash found some of them to be similar to his Paladin abilities, much to his relief. They would do while he worked to unlock the class’s hidden abilities.
The reason for the class change was simple. When he changed his allegiance from Light to Dark, his previous classes were no longer an option. The only remedy was to choose newly available classes. Another couple of benefits of choosing the Dark faction was that his name would no longer appear to his former comrades and the exit to the Deep Dungeon was on the other side of a massive chasm.
But first, there was the matter of loot. Nash had his fingers crossed when he opened the table. Most of his armor and gear were no longer useable to his new allegiance and class. When he saw the table, his eyebrows shot up in pleasant surprise.
Moonglow – Mainhand – 1 of 2 of the Twin Crescents
Darkward – Offhand – 2 of 2 of the Twin Crescents
Necrotic Plate – Torso – Heavy Armor
Eye of Galosh – Ornament – 2 of 3 of the Dark Seer Set
Sinburner Cloak – Back – Light Armor
Blackened Wyrmsteel Legguards – Legs – Heavy Armor
Boots of Entrenchment – Feet – Medium Armor
Flaming Feather – Trinket - ???
Panther Golem: Black marble – Mount
Miniature Skeleton – Cosmetic Minion
Material Harvesting: Golem Bonescythe – Elite(x6)
War paint – Face – 20 Uses
Healing Elixer – 25
Iron Marks – 50,000
The rest of the items were unuseable and showed up grey but that didn’t stop Nash from grinning like an imp. Other than basic clothing, the only equipment he could still utilize from his previous classes was a set of Wolf Bracers due to their neutral affinity.
However, the new gear was some of the best ever found. It made some sense. This was the first time that this boss had ever been defeated. Nash found it odd that he didn’t get credit for the first kill. He figured that maybe only one challenge mode could be completed at a time. Regardless, he now had some powerful gear, especially for a member of the Dark faction. They lagged notoriously behind the much more populous Light faction in both dungeon and overall progression.
Donning his new gear and looking at himself in the Dank Pool, he smiled with the knowledge that no one would recognize him now. His brown hair was now black which made him realize he needed to shave. His once brown eyes were now a burning red. He gave himself a dark grin before returning his attention to his inventory.
He used the war paint which indicated a one-hour duration. Black, white, and red, the oily substance enhanced all of his combat abilities and gave him the look of some mid-century barbarian. Nash was just glad for anything that increased his chances of leaving this dungeon alive.
Nash also inspected the feather, but couldn’t make anything of it but it had a Use option. So, he used it. Other than the feather bursting into a puff of flame and smoke, leaving him with nothing, he noticed no effect. Shrugging, he decided it was time to get moving.
He still wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to accomplish in this life, other than survival, but he felt that vengeance against the masterminds of his betrayal would be on the shortlist. He’d figure out the rest later. The first thing he needed to do was to leave the dungeon.
Nash also knew that he would need some weapons practice. He’d been using a sword and shield combo ever since ending up in this world with his entire Paleontology class. He had just acquired the most powerful weapons set that the deep dungeon had to offer. Now he needed to learn dual fighting axes and their myriad defensive katas if he was to progress any further.