image [https://i.imgur.com/FKL5iqY.jpg]

I nailed the mummy with a Restore, hoping it might release its hold on my legs, but the creature only flinched and tightened its grip enough to hurt. I considered resetting my Rejuvenate cooldown, but if Restore didn’t loosen its grip, a heal-over-time spell seemed a dubious solution.

Instead, I activated my Charm of Protection against dark magic, giving me ten minutes of resistance against dark magic.

Muffled gongs and clangs echoed in the tube from our struggle. As the anomalocaris pulled me downward, I jabbed at the creature, making critical hits, but in the big picture, they felt ineffectual. The fins running down the mummy’s length looked fleshy and soft. They curved, letting the creature fit and maneuver within the metal cylinder.

While the monster Grappled me, it cast spells. Blacken blinded me, and Frozen Blood slowed me, but resisting Fugue emboldened me.

I used Magnetize to see and Amphibious to move, and holding Gladius gave me a chance against its mind magic.

I kicked as we descended. Anticipate didn’t apply to the situation as the creature delivered no damage. With my healing spells gone, Moonburn seemed the best way to defeat its Grapple.

The mummy had pulled me halfway down the tube. It could recover from a Stun quick enough to cast another Dead Ice before I could reach the surface.

I saw no way of reaching the safety of dry ground. If being underwater caused the problem, perhaps a little earth could solve it. I channeled Dig in reverse, releasing the dirt I’d vacuumed from the ground in battles with the goblins. The dirt turned into mud, passing harmlessly down the tube, past the anomalocaris. The finlike appendages struggled as the murk caked around them. Instead of propelling us downward, they fought to shake away the collecting soil. As I poured dirt, the creature thrashed to free itself.

As Dig’s targeting reticule showered the mummy with soil, the creature shook, letting the mud fall past it and pile up beneath the tube. The progress bar representing the stored earth showed enough to fill the tube. Pouring mud onto the creature prevented it from attacking or casting spells, but its tentacles never released my ankles.

Even with Presence, the sediment in the water blinded Magnetize’s interface as the lake had done so in the lake by Hawkhurst. Eventually, Dig’s mud accumulated and settled, leaving me waist-deep in solid sludge. Subsequent kicks met with resistance from the monster and the soil encasing it. My legs could barely wiggle. I reversed Dig’s channel and sucked up the mud from the water above my waist, clearing the particulate so I could see. Dig efficiently cleaned the water, and what it didn’t consume settled soon enough.

If the mummy had released its grip, it could have easily withdrawn from the tube before the mud accumulated. Its determination to hold me had been its undoing. Now, it rested in a tomb of my making.

Judging from the water above me, I stood roughly halfway down the tube, buried in mud up to my ankles. I could feel the tentacles squeezing my legs—not enough to damage me, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I tried targeting the creature when my Rejuvenate cooldown ended but found it impossible through the mud.

This wasn’t so terrible. If I couldn’t target the monster, it couldn’t target me. It couldn’t control a targeting reticule while buried because Dead Ice worked only in water.

I pointed Moonburn downward and Stunned the mummy with it. I Stunned myself, but Amphibious didn’t require actions to work, and I lifted myself free from its grip and the mud.

To ensure the creature stayed put, I poured the rest of Dig’s inventory onto the fiend, nearly filling the tube to the surface. After emptying my reserves, I cast Mineral Mutation and punched a hole through the tube big enough to squeeze through. I turned a small section into cotton, pushed into the crypt, and regarded the scene.

Wisps of mud drifted through the space, but not enough to obscure visibility. A cone of spilled dirt covered the tube’s base.

I’d sealed the creature inside like a giant straw clogged with ice cream. The monster’s thrashing body and fleshy fins weren’t strong enough to break free.

Wasting no time, I aimed halfway up the tube, where I expected the mummy’s back to be, and cast Mineral Mutation again. The spell transformed a fist-sized section of the tube into a leaflike matter, strong enough to contain the mud but thin enough to pierce with my epic longsword.

Simultaneously juggling a pair of two-handed weapons wouldn’t have worked in normal combat conditions, but my four-month battle against the aquatic mummy had been anything but normal.

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Using Imbue Weapon and my robe’s cooldown to Refresh Mana twice, I poured mana into the blade. Gladius shined like a mirror, reflecting light from Presence, projecting glares onto the crypt’s pearly walls. I punctured the leafy spot I’d carved into the tube with repeated thrusts.

Because I attacked a helpless opponent, the game awarded critical hits with every attack. The creature’s inability to move made Imbue Weapon mana charges unnecessary, so I followed up with 160-point hits.

The Book of Dungeons offered no pity to helpless creatures. Like casting Rejuvenate on its predecessors, the anomalocaris could only thrash inside its tomb. After dozens of attacks, I dropped out of combat state.

I killed a relic bearer.

Congratulations!

You are level 30

You have gained a level. You have increased your stamina by 2 and willpower by 1. You have received 1 power point. You have 6,200/6,810 experience points toward level 31.

Soloing a level 45 mummy earned me 345 experience points and revealed that the level cap wasn’t 30. I’d become significantly more potent than in my days in Belden. How many players had stayed in civilized areas and tried to eke out an existence on low-level monsters and scrounging for overpriced magic items in capital cities? Even if I didn’t win the contest, my progress filled me with a sense of accomplishment. It felt like I had reached the chewy center of the continent, sucking up all the high-level goodies for myself. I savored the victory, knowing I would soon return to town management and putting out fires.

After confirming the kill with the event log, I vacuumed the dirt spilling from the tube’s bottom until the mummy tumbled to the floor of the flooded chamber. I used Dig to empty everything inside the tube, for I needed it to backtrack through the dungeon. The process took longer than I wanted—which seemed in keeping with this dungeon crawl. But there seemed little sense in taking chances, so I tidied up my mess. Gladius had advised me of the danger of destroying a relic underwater. It would wreak more havoc than on dry land.

I shot up the tube and leaped onto the dungeon level above. I unwrapped the magic rope from my waist and pulled off my wet gear. Though my time inside the ice hadn’t chilled me, I yearned to make a fire. After tossing up the Dark Room rope, I spent a night in bed and put the problem out of my mind.

My hands pruned to where I could shed skin off my fingertips if I rubbed them together.

Sleep didn’t come easy, but I rested for hours and considered ways to destroy the relic. Ultimately, toppling the temple caused the most concern. Amphibious was so slow I couldn’t escape through the water, even If I used my trident to knock out the grill.

After a nourishing breakfast, I put away the Dark Room. I sat in the organ room and stared into the tube at the water’s surface. A cursed relic awaited at the well’s bottom, one I could never possess.

If the game considered control over cursed items as possession, moving with it might render me to its influence, and I didn’t need to take the risk. I dismissed notions of tying ropes to it and pulling it out of the water with the canoe. I’d played enough RPGs to know not to monkey around with cursed items.

Using the Switching Gloves to communicate with Hawkhurst seemed like a good idea. I wrote a brief message updating Captain Jourdain on my progress. He replied a half hour later that things were good. Caravan traffic remained healthy, and no monsters plagued the settlement.

Knowing that Hawkhurst thrived in my absence allowed me to focus on destroying the relic with a clear head. Using Inscribe Rune and my titanium stylus, I inked the name to the relic killer rune—Cursed Band of Dark Ascendence. Instilling it with 425 mana seemed so trivial to someone with a 47 intelligence. Not so long ago, I had to jump through hoops to reach the number.

I unsheathed my sword. “I’m worried destroying the relic underwater might destroy the temple.”

“You’re quite right to be concerned. Creating an instantaneous vacuum in a medium as dense as water will create a cavitation event.”

“You mentioned that before. What is that?”

“It’s a brief yet powerful shockwave of astronomical proportions. For a nanosecond, it radiates heat comparable to temperatures on Phaos.”

“It’ll get hot as the sun?”

“Nearly as hot as the surface, but only for an instant.”

“Will it bring down the temple or create tidal waves?”

“The shockwaves won’t be strong enough to reach shore, but I doubt the structural integrity of this place will remain intact. Cavitation should deliver a minute-long Stun to anyone in the surrounding water.”

I remembered the runes in the room where I’d first encountered the ogre and dinosaur skeletons. They used delaying functions. If I could rig together a timer, it would be perfect for giving me time to leave the water.

But doing so meant I couldn’t retrieve its unique purple core, the Necrolith. Would I be able even to use such a core? If the Artilith’s bonus traits included Creative, Communicative, Inscribed, and Intelligent, what would the Necrolith be—evil, destructive, nasty, and rude? If Gladius and Fabulosa’s cape spoke, did I need a devil on my shoulder?

The answer was probably yes if it gave me another celestial core, but it would lie buried beneath hundreds of tons of stone.

I wrote a second rune, modifying it to include a one-hour delay. “Here you go, Gladius. The honor is all yours.”

“Why thank you, Wielder Apache! I shall enjoy destroying such a pernicious item. The time delay is quite a practical solution. It should give you plenty of time to reach a safe distance.”

My rest in the Dark Room reset my cooldowns, so I had no reason to procrastinate. The mummy dropped no other magic items, and I readied myself to bury its most valuable prize—the Necrolith.

After jumping into the tube for the last time, I brandished my sword toward the relic resting below me on the crypt’s floor. “What do you say, Gladdy? Can you trigger the rune from here? Is there enough room inside the tube to write the rune?”

“I have a line of sight and enough space to articulate an item’s destruction—it’s a modest function. You may command me at your leisure.”

“There’s nothing leisurely about it. Light the fuse.”

My hand whipped back and forth in the water as Gladius Cognitus carved lines of light, forming the arcane configuration of the rune. Seconds after he started, he hummed to announce its completion. “The rune is operational.”