“Raise Undead. Alright, was that the last of them? One, two, three, six, eight, ten, fourteen… Hey, we’re missing one, where did the last one go? We’re missing a body, find it.”
Sitting on the floor not too far from the waterway, still feeling stressed and tired after throwing up and everything else that has happened recently, Bug watches as her skeletons search around through the water. A bit further downstream, the insectile abomination of a skeleton comes skittering out of the water, holding a torn in half and bloodied corpse in its claws, like a crab that just found some scraps on the ocean floor.
It dumps the wet corpse in front of Bug and she just grimaces as she looks at the thing. Its lower half is just plain missing, probably floating away downstream by now, and what is left of it is spilling wet guts all over the floor.
“Gross… I can’t use this one. Not enough body left. Sell.”
Giving it a poke, Bug pulls it into her inventory and sells it as she is wiping her finger on her shorts.
Hm, four points for half a Kappa. Not too bad. Maybe I can finally start making some points down here. Oh! I can finally save up enough to buy that bed I want! No more sleeping on the floor in a bag, that would be nice~ Hmmm, maybe I should save up to buy some new clothes while I’m at it. I can clean these ones, but they are definitely going to be stained after all this…
“Mhm, I want points! New goal for while I’m down here. Now that I don’t have to worry about the others watching me, I can finally sell stuff again. Now then… Uhm, you, get up here and let me look at you.”
Bug points at one of the Undead Kappa floating in the water and it follows her orders, swimming over and climbing out of the waterway to stand before her, dripping with water and blood from where its throat had been ripped open.
“Geez, these things are ugly. And smelly…”
Green from head to toe, the Kappa stands about a foot or so taller than Bug herself, so a bit taller than your average Goblin, and has a soft turtle shell on its back that doesn’t wrap around to its front. Instead, the naked creature has a pot belly and even a bellybutton. Thankfully for Bug, so she is sparred the sight, Kappa apparently keep their business parts inside of them, the only indication of this thing being a male being the sheath between its legs. If only that could have been the same case for the Gremlins and Goblins up in the first layer. Unfortunately, the Dungeon doesn’t spawn its monsters wearing underwear…
Disregarding all of that, this creature doesn’t look particularly strong, with its limbs all being rather narrow and long. On its hands and feet, all the digits are connected by membrane and the fingers and toes end in sharp little claws that would deal some damage to unprotected flesh. Having the Kappa open its beak-mouth, Bug finds a line of sharp, needle-like teeth that would make it difficult for anything to escape its bite; most likely intended for eating fish and other slippery underwater prey.
Definitely a creature intended to live and fight in the water. And after looking over the thing, Bug isn’t surprised at all that the Kappa had refused to leave the water and engage her on land.
“Alright, back in the water with you. And you guys, get out of the water already, Skeletons aren’t built to swim.”
Watching the Undead climb out of the water, she sees how the Hoarfrost ones had been freezing the water, their bodies now covered in icicles, while the poisonous ones had left a trail of green fluid behind in the water that is slowly being washed away downstream. Bug is a bit curious if the poison will end up killing some unfortunate creature eventually, but she also honestly doesn’t care. What’s a little poison in the water supply when she has already released plagues up above after all?
Letting out a tired breath, Bug gets back up to her feet, taking it slow and easy so she doesn’t hurt her insides, and then gets back to walking. With a silent command to her Undead, they fall in line and follow. Her skeletons remain on land and cover every side, while her new Kappa are swimming along in the waterway, leaving behind a trail of blood and filth from their bodies in the water as they move.
I wonder, if I turn the Kappa into skeletons, will they still be able to swim? Actually, on that point, they were able to use magic. Can they still use it?
Deciding to experiment while she walks, just following the current and filling out her map as she goes, Bug starts with the magic question, a rather easy one to resolve.
“You, spit some water out of your mouth.”
The Undead Kappa proceeds to suck some water into its mouth and then spits it out.
“Ah… Uhhh…. No, no. Dumb Undead, I meant… Use magic to spit water out of your mouth, aim for the wall over there.”
It obeys, and Bug can feel as Water mana is gathered in the Kappa, a jet of water escaping its mouth a moment later and splashing against the indestructible walls of the Dungeon.
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“Cool. So, I can have Undead that use magic then. Do it again, aim for that light up there.” Bug orders as she points up at the ceiling.
The Kappa nails the target easily and Bug then has it shoot again and again, much to her amusement.
Taking a copper coin out of her inventory, she tosses it in the air, “Shoot that!”
The coin gets snipped out of the air and goes flying away, dinging off the ceiling before falling into the water a distance away.
“Hahahaha! Oh, this is cool! OK, now- Hm?”
The Kappa, growing slow and lethargic, sinks into the water and her connection to it fades away. The corpse floats back up and just bobs in the water as Bug stares at it in confusion…
“What…? Oh! Oh… I used up all its mana and killed its artificial soul…”
I forgot, I need to increase their mana draw on my reserves if I want them to be able to operate under higher mana usage. Just like my skeletons. All that frost and poison doesn’t just come from nowhere. If I don’t supply them with the needed mana to maintain it, they will drain themselves.
“Raise Undead. Sorry about that, Kappa. That was dumb of me.”
The corpse comes back to un-life, a new artificial soul being placed in its body.
“Still, it’s good to know that I have these guys as a ranged option now, instead of just Bob and his arrows. Let’s just increase this by a point or two… There, should probably limit it to four shots each and then give time to recharge. Don’t want to risk losing them during a fight. Now then! Next experiment.”
Bug is back to walking again, not wanting to waist her time by not making any progress with exploring, basically just taking turns at random so long as she is still following the water’s current.
“Alright, you again. Take off all your meat and become a skeleton. The rest of you, help out.”
What follows is a disgusting display as the poor Kappa is stripped of its flesh and guts, all the while still somehow managing to swim along and follow Bug and the others. Behind them is a mess of meat, blood, and organs that is left to lazily float in water. Surprisingly to Bug, this also ends up being her first time seeing some fish. The scaled, colorful things going into a feeding frenzy as they nibble and swallow up any pieces of meat that they can fit in their mouths.
Bug manages to spot some pretty ones with orange scales and white spots, while others are all just one color and flat. Others are huge and fat with ugly faces and have equally huge mouths that can swallow up bites of food almost as big as their entire bodies. Bug quickly decides that she likes the pretty ones. Their scales remind her of gems, and she likes how they shine in the light. Now, if only she didn’t have to see them gorging themselves on the freshly shed flesh of a Kappa and basically bathing in blood… Still pretty though.
It takes a while for the Kappa to be reduced to a skeleton, but it is eventually done. And, low and behold, the thing can still swim. Despite literally being nothing but bones, the only remaining flesh being the skin that is tough to remove from the shell. The Undead thing apparently has no issues with defying the laws of physics and floating in the water. Though, honestly, if a skeleton can fly, then why can’t one swim?
Bug looks up and finds her one remaining flyer, the lonely (Not actually lonely since Undead can’t feel emotion.) thing is currently flying around in circles above the others, with not a scrap of flesh to be seen on its bone wings. Yet despite that, through the powers of magic and the System, it is staying aloft.
Raises questions… Like why can’t my other skeletons swim or fly? Do they have to have wings to fly? Do they have to be built with the intention of being a swimmer or a flyer? Humans can swim, but my skeletons can’t, they just sink. Which makes sense, but at the same time doesn’t… Weird.
Bug just shrugs. She isn’t a scholar. It isn’t her job to figure out the mysteries of magic and how it works. She just needs to be able to kill stuff with it. As long as it works, that is all that matters.
“Alright, this is going to be gross, but honestly, you Kappa really smell bad and being dead isn’t helping in the slightest. All of you, turn yourselves into skeletons.”
Bug tries not to watch what follows, not wanting to throw up again. So, she keeps her eyes on the path ahead of her and tries to ignore the sounds of splashing water and tearing skin, and even worse, the smell of bowls being accidentally pierced and filth being spilt into the water.
At least the fish are eating good today…
…
A few turns later, and her mini map slowly being filled in more and more, Bug finds herself at a waterfall, one of several. Her path has brought her to a large open room so full of water that it is practically an underground lake. Along the walls near her, she can see where other paths terminate at this place, the waterways flowing through them terminating at this place as water flows into this lake as waterfalls or even just from sloping paths like a river. Elsewhere, water pours in from pipes or even from the ceiling, falling endlessly into this expanse of water.
Bug squints, focusing on enhancing her vision as she looks off across the lake to the other side. In the distance, she can spot the distant wall, and what she assumes is the way forward.
“They told me that this layer had lots of water… Max wasn’t lying. Also said that it could be traversed by rafts, now where are… there!”
Looking around, down below, along what looks like a dock built along the side of this camber, Bug spots a place where a couple wooden rafts are moored, bobbing up and down in the water.
Quickly finding the ladder to get down, Bug descends, her skeletons following right behind or just jumping down in the case of the giant boar skeleton. The insect simply scuttles down the wall like a horrifying bug, while the flyer happily flaps its wings into this new place, the ceiling being much higher and giving it plenty of room to fly around over the water. The new Kappa skeletons, in a surprise to Bug, launch themselves out of the water at the waterfall in a surprising display of finesse and soar through the air for a good distance before diving into the lake.
Alighting to the dock, Bug and her minions make their way towards the rafts. Along the way, her Kappa get into a fight with some big spiky frogs in the water, about the size of a rottweiler. The frogs, fleeing from the Undead Kappa, jump up onto the dock, but that just puts them in killing range of Bug’s other Skeletons.
They are promptly slaughtered, and Bug puts the corpses into her inventory, not caring to turn them. Apparently, from what their description is telling her, they’re meat is supposed to be good for eating and tases like chicken. Bug has no idea what chicken is, but she decides to keep two of them to cook and eat and sells the rest for points.
Bug, tired after a long day, but happy at making some progress and a little more money, hums happily to herself as she heads for the rafts.
Now then… How does one operate a raft?