She was surrounded by corpses of dead snakes, as she had not yet taken time to loot the corpses. At this moment, Aurelia couldn’t care less, and the intense migraine she was feeling made it difficult to focus on her surroundings. Aurelia took out her flask of water from her inventory and started drinking. She gulped it down until the flask was maybe a third full. Aurelia sighed deeply and put the flask back in her inventory.
Her migraine slowly started to fade and Aurelia rechecked her mana levels. The number was slowly but surely ticking upwards and she saw it was already at fifty points. Aurelia sighed in relief. She was still sitting in the shadows, and not wanting to sit among the snakes anymore, she got up to go sit under a pillar of light. Thankfully it was only a couple feet away.
Now that she felt a bit more comfortable, she decided to try and go through her notifications from the snakes. The first one she looked at was a notification for completing this portion of the dungeon.
Congratulations! The [Cavern of Shadows] completed!
[Cavern Ground Snake] Level 1 x72 defeated.
[Cavern Ground Snake] Level 2 x67 defeated.
[Cavern Ground Snake] Level 3 x62 defeated.
[Cavern Stone Snake] Level 12 defeated.
25,431 experience earned!
You have reached level 7!
Would you like to loot [Cavern Ground Snake] x201?
Would you like to loot [Cavern Stone Snake]?
Aurelia blinked at the notification. “Wow, that is a lot of dead snakes.”
She looked around at the cavern, noting how few lights still illuminated the shadows. She could still make out piles of dead snakes around her and shuttered. She wondered what she would have done if she didn’t have the teleportation spell. She might have had to just walk in the shadows to each light, or just fight all the snakes before being able to exit the cavern. Without the lightning chain spell, she probably would not have been able to kill all of the snakes before they swarmed her. Even with the mana potion she had, she was only one person.
Deciding to just move on, Aurelia activated the loot notifications for the large snake and all of the small ones.
[Cavern Ground Snake] meat x 201 received!
[Cavern Ground Snake] scale leather x 201 received!
[Cavern Ground Snake] poison glands x104 received!
[Cavern Ground Snake] snake fangs x198 received!
[Cavern Stone Snake] meat x 2 received!
[Cavern Stone Snake] scale leather x 1 received!
[Monster Core] level 12 received!
637 Copper coins received!
3 Silver coins received!
[Cavern Stone Snake] bracers: uncommon received!
[Cavern Stone Snake] poison vial: uncommon received!
All loot deposited in [Spatial Storage].
The excitement of receiving loot came over Aurelia, and she happily went through all of the items. She took out the vial of poison, surprised to see a small vial, the size of her pointer finger, appear in her hand. She wondered what kind of poison it was, and what it would do. Maybe she could ask someone about it once she got out of the dungeon.
Aurelia then took out the bracers. They seemed to be made of the black and gray scales of the stone snake. She took out her claw dagger and tried making a slice on one of the bracers. The dagger didn’t seem to do anything to the bracer. Satisfied, Aurelia awkwardly put on the bracers. It was a lot more difficult trying to lace up the bracers with only one hand.
The next notification mentioned the stat points she had received after leveling up. She had three levels of free stat points she had never gotten around to using, and saw that her health and mana levels had both gone up. Her health was now at 300 and her maximum mana was at almost 750 points. She considered what stats she really needed to raise. Aurelia already felt a lot healthier and could move a lot quicker than before. During her altercation with the stone snake her reaction time had been so much quicker than she could have done before coming to Eldria.
Her strength, endurance, charisma, and luck were her lowest stats, all around 10. Most of Aurelia’s fights had happened while she stood still and pointed her wand, or her teleporting around rather than running from fights. She also hadn’t felt the need to use her dagger to physically attack anything. That might change in the future, so Aurelia decided to use her 27 free stat points on her lowest four stats. She put six each into strength, endurance and charisma, then the last three into luck. Because, you know, just for luck.
Now that she was done going through the notifications, she decided to stand up. Her vision darkened for a moment and she paused, waiting for the moment of dizziness to pass. Aurelia began to think that maybe she should wait a bit longer before she moved on. Aurelia sat back down and checked how much mana she was at now. She saw that she was at 170 mana out of 744.
Aurelia didn’t want to waste a mana potion, even if it meant she could get out of the snake cavern sooner. She sat back down in the light to wait a bit longer. That’s when Aurelia heard the growl.
“What was that!” Aurelia jumped back up again.
Vision slightly hazy, she looked around trying to see what had made the growl. Some sort of cave wolf? Something that would tear her apart with its teeth? Or even worse, something undead? Aurelia had unfortunately watched too many horror, thriller, and zombie movies for her liking. Those were the films her older brother liked to watch. And she did not. Like. Zombies.
She heard the growl again, and Aurelia paused then sighed, looking down at her stomach. She patted the empty stomach, finally understanding that she was merely just hungry. She may have overreacted, but she was also in a dungeon, so Aurelia felt a hyper reaction was better than being dead.
Unfortunately, Aurelia did not have any food with her. Well, she guessed she did have a bunch of mole and snake meat, but she didn’t have anything to start a fire with or even cook with. From her cooking skill, she knew instinctively that she could not eat either meat raw without getting sick. She would need to either wait until she was out of the dungeon, or until she had a way to cook the meat. She really hoped this dungeon wouldn’t take her too long. She had already been here a couple of hours, and she had no idea how long the dungeon would take to complete.
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Aurelia stayed in the snake cavern for a half an hour, waiting for her mana to recharge. She ended up walking around, picking up the few glow crystals she had left around the cavern. When she was ready, Aurelia moved back towards the exit door, going through pillars of light until the door was illuminated again.
She approached the door and realized the stone door wasn’t smooth like the other doors had been, but had been carved to depict images of snakes. Aurelia shuddered, hoping she wouldn’t have to fight another snake anytime soon. She laid a hand on the door, and Aurelia received a new notification in her vision.
Congratulations, User [Aurelia]!
For completing the [Cavern of Shadows] solo, you have received an [Iron Chest]!
Aurelia blinked and suddenly there was a treasure chest made of Iron sitting beside her. She had another chest! Admittedly, she realized it was the most common chest you could get, but she would take anything she was given.
She got down on the ground and scooted near to the chest. She reached over and opened up the chest. Inside, she found a pile of sapphire blue fabric. Confused, she picked it up out of the chest and unfolded the heavy fabric.
“Oh! It's a cloak!” Aurelia exclaimed.
She swung the cloak onto her shoulders and closed the intricate silver cloak clasp in place. The thick cloak felt soft and comforting around her. To her surprise, she found that there were armholes in the cloak. Aurelia thought it would be nice to be able to cast spells without having to move the cloak out of the way. Another detail caught her eye.
“It has pockets!” Aurelia exclaimed.
Indeed, the cloak had two deep pockets on the inside of the cloak. Aurelia guessed that would make it less likely people could rob her if the pockets were on the inside. She looked back towards the chest, hoping to find another item inside. To her dismay, the chest was gone, meaning the cloak was the only item she would get.
Aurelia stood back up and touched the door again, this time it swung open, allowing her the option to step through.
Aurelia found herself no longer in a cave or cavern, but in an actual room. The room was small, maybe a ten by ten foot room. The floor, ceiling and walls were all made of smooth dark gray stone. There was no visible light source, it simply was just dimly lit in the room. She jumped when she heard the door slam shut behind her and pressed a hand to her heart.
“Ugh, this place sucks.” she complained.
In front of her she found two new stone doors. On one door were the words “Way of the Claw” and the other had “Way of the Fang”, written in the common language of Eldria. Aurelia frowned, not sure what she was supposed to do. Was she supposed to choose a door? Would it lead her somewhere or would something enter for her to fight.
Reflecting on the last two types of monsters she had to fight, the moles and the snakes, she honestly preferred the moles. The moles had ended up doing more damage to her, but she had a new spell and was more practiced with her teleportation skill. She also thought snakes were creepy, and a bit scary.
Before touching either of the doors, Aurelia made sure to redo her shield spell and made sure her sapphire wand was pointing the right way. She definitely didn’t want to electrocute herself or slice an arm off from her own spell. Aurelia shuddered.
Aurelia stepped forward and put a hand on the claw door. A new prompt appeared in her vision.
Would you like to enter the [Way of the Claw]?
Without another second to reconsider, Aurelia said, “Yes.”
The door swung open, and a fresh breeze rushed into the small room. Bright sunlight shone into the room and Aurelia could feel the warmth of the golden rays. Aurelia stepped forward into the green underbrush of the forest. She was in an actual forest! Underground! She barely noticed the door shut as she walked a couple more steps into the next section of the dungeon. Aurelia stopped when a new notification popped into her vision.
Welcome to the [Forest of the Claw].
Dungeon Objectives:
One: Find and kill 30 monsters in the forest 0/30
Two: Locate the entrance to the final boss room
Bonus Objective: Find and kill all monsters in the forest 0/?
Aurelia stared at the notification. So for this part of the dungeon, she would need to play hide and seek? She guessed she probably wouldn’t be doing all of the seeking. In this place, the monsters might be seeking her, too. Aurelia had one big problem, though. How was she supposed to locate the monsters?
She dismissed the notification and looked around her. In every direction, all she could see was forest. Sunlight streamed down through the leaves and branches, illuminating the world around her. She sighed, deciding there was no time like the present. Aurelia began to move forward.
She kept her wand out and ready, head swiveling back and forth around her, watching for monsters. Aurelia trekked through the forest for ten minutes, not seeing anything. No rabbits, no birds chirping in the trees, no squirrels scampering up trees. It was eerie how quiet the forest was. The only sound she could hear was the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves. The more time that was spent without hearing a sound, made Aurelia more and more paranoid. In fact, it was almost a relief when the giant black bear came barreling towards her from the side. Almost.
Aurelia yelped at the sight of the giant, ten foot tall bear coming at her on all fours. It quickly approached her, but she still had time to let loose a couple of spells. One mana bolt hit the bear in the shoulder, another hitting the bear on the chest. The spatial slash she sent out grazed the top of the bear’s head, cutting off an ear. The large bear let loose a roar that seemed to shake the trees. And Aurelia’s bones.
To use her most effective attack, Aurelia would need to let the bear come closer to her. She shifted back and forth on her feet, hoping her shield would be enough to protect her. The bear entered the lightning chain’s range and Aurelia jumped to the side out of the path of the bear, letting loose the spell at the same time. Her leaping boots allowed her to easily leap to the side, the spell connecting with the bear’s skull. Aurelia watched the lightning pulse through the bear for a second before the bear crashed to the ground.
She waited for the kill notification, but it didn’t come. It was still alive! Quickly, Aurelia casted two spatial slashes in a row, one aimed at the bear’s head, the other at the bear’s neck. Both spells connected, causing the fur to slice open, blood pouring out. The bear twitched and then went still, dead. The kill notification confirmed it.
[Black Claw Bear] Level 11 defeated.
2,451 experience earned!
Would you like to loot [Black Claw Bear]?
Aurelia blinked at the high level of the bear. If all the monsters were going to be around this level, it might be really tough. Hopefully she would only have to fight one at a time, or it might be too difficult to do alone. She sighed, but accepted the loot notification, watching as the large bear disappeared.
[Black Claw Bear] meat x 6 received!
[Black Claw Bear] pelt x 1 received!
[Black Claw Bear] claws x 10 received!
[Monster Core] level 11 received!
12 Copper coins received!
1 Silver coins received!
All loot deposited in [Spatial Storage].
Satisfied at her haul, Aurelia began to move forwards. Five minutes later, a larger brown bear came out of the forest towards her. She decided to try a new tactic. This time she let loose a couple of spells and then teleported right behind the bear as it moved forward. She let loose the lightning chain attack as soon as she reappeared and it hit the bear from behind. The brown bear roared in pain as it somersaulted forward, crashing to the ground. This bear didn’t pause on the ground like the black bear had. This bear rolled to its four clawed feet and turned towards her.
Aurelia let loose a barrage of mana bolts and spatial slashes. Most spells hit their mark as the bear started running at her again. Aurelia leaped to the side as the bear leaped at her and sent a spatial slash at the belly of the bear. The resulting injury made Aurelia feel a little queasy, but sighed in relief as she saw the notification of the killed bear.
Two down, twenty-nine more to go. This was going to be a long day.