Chapter 26: Terror in the World of Crimson

Two sights greeted Zach’s eyes at the exact same moment. The first was a metal door with a push bar and a sign above it labeled B2. The second was a tremendous, near hundred-foot drop that he doubted even Rian, with all of his constitution, could possibly survive unharmed. This, in Zach’s mind, was the quintessential example of the age-old phrase: “So close, but still so far away.”

He ran his hands through his hair as frustration mounted and disbelief threatened to rattle him to the point of insanity. Peering over the edge without getting too close, he was practically taunted by the sight of his goal. There it was, all the way down there and across from them. After an exhaustive, tiring, five-hour journey, it was finally in sight—and it was right freaking there. Now, the only things stopping him from reaching it were a pair of broken legs and maybe a few spinal injuries.

“This is like a cruel joke,” Lienne said. She sat on the ledge as if unafraid of potentially slipping off. Zach stayed a good few feet away. He didn’t even have a fear of heights or anything—he just didn’t want to take the chance of accidentally falling. So, on second thought, maybe he did have a fear of heights. But if so, then Rian did as well, because he was also hanging well back as though sharing the same concerns.

“There has to be…there has to be something we can do,” Zach said. He glanced over his shoulders and looked back in the direction they’d come.

This far down the so-called “stairwell,” the individual “steps” were basically indistinguishable from large, perfectly flat stone walls that couldn’t possibly be scaled. Not to mention the energy and time required to even consider retreating; even if there was some way of climbing back up, they would dehydrate to death long before they made it a quarter of the way back to B1.

Not like there’s any guarantee we’ll find water wherever it is we’re going, either.

Zach forced himself to end that train of thought. The problems they were currently facing were already enough without adding the potential for more to come their way later on down the line. Although it was certainly true that they might not be able to find water regardless of their actions, the fact of the matter was that they definitely wouldn’t find any if they didn’t think of a way to move on from here.

As though noticing him staring at the wall, Rian exhaled loudly and said, “There’s no way we can backtrack. It’s forward or nothing. Back just isn’t an option.”

“The problem,” Zach said, “is that forward probably isn’t an option, either.”

“We have to, Zach.”

“But how?” He once again turned around to face the ledge. Then he pointed at the door to B2. “Right now, it’s looking like the only real choice we have is staying here and dying a slow death or jumping—and then dying a slow death with broken legs. But hey, at least we’ll die closer to B2.”

“We’ll find a way,” Lienne said confidently. She scooted backwards on her rear and then slowly returned to her feet. “I just have no idea how yet.”

Zach shook his head. “This sucks. This really sucks. Hey, while we’re figuring it out, can I have my sword back, please?”

Rian shrugged. “Uh, yeah, sure. In fact, now’s as good a time as any to reequip.”

Zach watched with a sense of wonder as Rian reached up above his head and began pulling things out of thin air, one of them of course being the sword that Fluffles had crafted for Zach. It had been his very first piece of equipment, and Zach had already decided that, even when he eventually replaced it, he would never get rid of it. It would likely always be special to him.

“Do you have any rope in there?” Zach asked. “Or anything we can use to make rope?”

“Nope, nothing,” Rian said. As if the issue was settled, he “closed” his storage box—something Zach still needed to experience for himself to understand—and then turned to his sister. “What about you, Li? Do you have anything we can use to make rope?”

She shook her head no. “I wish I did.”

As Rian got back into his armor, Zach took a seat on the stone platform and folded his arms across his chest while his sword lay in the space next to him. There’s always a way, he thought. I just need to be smart. I just need to think.

Zach had always been clever when it came to solving puzzles. It was how he’d even found this place at all. He wondered if anyone had ever before thought to use Frog Snax in the way that he had. Actually, he kind of doubted it, but for reasons that had nothing to do with him being particularly smart; as he had come to understand, he had access to an ability that was truly unique in that no other person would ever have one that was exactly the same. Even still, he felt he deserved at least some credit for putting Frog Snax together with Boundless.

Too bad Boundless won’t get me out of this mess.

Closing his eyes, Zach took a second to make a mental list of every tool he had at his disposal as well as everything in his environment that could potentially be used to his advantage. So, what did he have? He had his sword. Okay. What else? There was the shield and the axe, sure. The staff. Anything else? There was the ground he was sitting on and the granite walls to his left and right, and also the stone one behind him.

Is that it?

Sadly, it did seem to be the extent of his resources. But could he do anything with what he had? Zach stood up, turned around, and once more examined the stone wall behind him, above which was the platform he’d only jumped down from a few moments earlier with Rian and Lienne.

Backing away a few steps, he crouched down without taking his eyes off the wall, and he picked up his sword. Then he again approached the stone. For a few seconds, he switched between staring at the weapon in his hands and the polished grey stone.

“I’m going to try something,” he announced, causing both Rian and Lienne to turn their heads his way, regarding him hopefully.

“What?” they both asked.

“Something so damned stupid only an idiot would attempt it. But since our options are jumping to our deaths or dying of thirst and hunger while we stay right where we are, it’s at least worth a shot.”

Without bothering to explain, he bent his knees, turned his wrists, and pointed his blade towards the wall. Then he dashed forward, leapt into the air, and with all his strength, he thrust his sword forward. To both his amazement and satisfaction, the blade easily penetrated the stone, and with his arms gripped tightly around the hilt, he was able to reside there with ease, hanging in the air as though the weapon were a handhold.

“Rian, I need to see if you can catch me.”

“Of course I can.”

Not wanting to lose his blade, he kicked off the wall with both of his feet. He freed his sword and sent both him and it backwards and into a fall. A moment later, with a painful thud, he found himself in a bear hug. Then Rian released him.

“Wow, this could actually work,” Zach said, causing both Rian and Lienne to widen their eyes and begin pestering him with questions. Rather than answer a single one of them, he instead asked one of his own. “Rian, could you fall fifty feet and be okay if you absolutely had to?”

“I…that’s really tough, but if I take off my shield and throw it down ahead of me, and my axe, too, then yeah, I think so. It’ll hurt like all hell, but I don’t think I’ll sustain a major injury. Not unless I did it twice in the same day.”

“That’s what I needed to hear.”

He grinned. “You’re about to do something wild, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

Drawing a breath and holding it for a moment, Zach took one last moment to peer over the edge and at the hundred-foot drop. This was going to be so risky. There was every possibility this could fail and seriously injure—or kill—one or all three of them. Even still, if the only alternative was to do nothing and face certain death, then at least, if this failed, he’d know he tried. The plan he’d formed was absolutely crazy, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

I can’t believe I’m actually going to do this.

“Okay, I’ll tell you guys my plan,” Zach said, “but first, I need to know: does anyone have any gear with dex on it that I can borrow? I just need something to give me an extra point or two to increase our chances of actually pulling this off. What I’m planning to do is basically purely dexterous—or at least, the first part of it is.”

At this, Lienne raised her hand. “My steeple has 2 dex on it. I can hold your bandana for you, too.”

Zach rubbed his chin. “That would only net me 1, since my bandana has a point of dex on it, but with a total of 5, that’s probably good enough. If not, well…” He shrugged. “It’ll still have to do anyway.”

He took off his bandana, folded it, and then traded it for Lienne’s black, curved steeple hat. The moment he put it on his head, he could once more see the Will of the Favored buff that had apparently started the whole chain of events that would eventually lead him to where he was right now.

“What crazy scheme are you planning?” Rian asked him.

He couldn’t help but laugh at the question, because in total fairness, it really was a crazy scheme. “I’ll explain it to you guys, but as I do, just try to remember that there’s literally no other way. And I think you’d both agree that, if we’re headed to certain death anyway, we might as well try something no matter how risky, right?”

“You’re making me nervous,” Rian said.

“Not as nervous as you’re about to be.”

Rian grunted. “Just tell me, already. What’re you about to do?”

Zach sighed. “I’m going to jump off and stab my sword in the wall once I’ve fallen halfway. Then you’re going to jump off, and I’m going to catch you and drop you down the other half. Then Lienne is going to jump, I’m going to catch her, then drop her to you, where you’ll catch her before finally catching me. Simple, right?”

Both Rian and Lienne’s mouth fell open. “I don’t know about this,” she said. “That sounds really—”

Right away, Zach knew that if he listened to what she had to say, she would succeed in talking him out of this, and once she had, he would lose the courage to go through with it. He wouldn’t get it back, either. It was now or never. Thus, even as she continued to speak, he walked directly up to the ledge, turned around, and waved goodbye. Then, gripping his sword with both of his hands, he stepped backwards and off the platform, even as his heart pounded furiously as if in protest to his clearly suicidal actions.

Holy shit! What have I done? he thought as he began to fall. What in the name of the Gods have I just done?

He picked up speed fast—much faster than he’d been expecting. The wind beat against him, causing his tunic to flutter, and it was either by magic or miracle that the steeple hat remained firmly planted on his head. Despite the terror racing through him, he used all of his willpower to keep his wits about himself and to stay focused on what he was actually trying to accomplish.

Faster and faster he fell, but through it all, he kept his head and eyes angled slightly downwards so that he could gauge his position relative to the ground as well as his distance from the wall. Then, just when he was about to cross the point of being halfway, he let out a loud battle cry, and he slammed his sword forward into the stone.

He came to a stop immediately and with such force that his body felt like it would snap in two. His back, shoulders, and neck reeled in agony. It felt like someone had just dropped a boulder on top of his head. He was pretty sure he even lost consciousness for a brief second, and to his horror, he realized he was about to let go on his grip of the blade—even as Rian and Lienne screamed at him from the top of the platform.

Shaking his head like a dog after a bath, he roused himself back to full attention then glanced upwards while he continued to hang in place. “I can’t hold like this forever!” he shouted. “Rian, get your ass down here!”

Rian laughed. “You’re crazy, dude. All right, here goes nothing.”

Even though Zach was pretty sure Rian’s shield and axe weren’t going to strike him, he still reflexively tucked his head in as he spotted the two items plummeting down towards the ground below him, both landing with a much louder crash than he’d expected.

Then, calling to him one more time to ensure he was ready, Rian jumped off after him. Incredibly, this would now be the difficult part. Fear racing through him, he took his left hand off the blade and then gripped his right one so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white.

Here he comes, Zach thought, observing as the falling form of Rian began to grow larger and larger as it approached.

There was a very real possibility that, upon contact, he would lose his single-handed grip and then both of them would tumble down. If this happened, then in the best case, Rian would be fine, Zach would be seriously injured, and Lienne would be trapped; in the worst case, the two of them would be seriously injured and Lienne would still be trapped.

Rian picked up speed as he fell closer and closer to the midway point between the wall and the ground. Zach braced himself. He gritted his teeth. He squeezed his right fist even more tightly. And then, with an extreme determination to survive so that he could see Kalana again, he reached out and plucked Rian’s forearm the instant he came into range—and then screamed as an intense, white-hot agony exploded in his right shoulder and right bicep. Oh, Gods, it hurt. It hurt so fucking bad!

For a moment, he truly believed he was going to lose his grip. In fact, he was sure of it. He could actually feel himself slipping. But he fought against it. Even as he howled in pain—as the intense, aching, unbearable sensations in his arm and shoulders were so fierce that they made his stomach lurch, he somehow managed to hold on.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Are…a-a-are you r-r-ready?” he growled as the pain made him almost want to give up. “Rian!”

“Y-yeah!” Rian shouted. “Drop me. I’m good. Hurry!”

Zach let go of him, and to his dismay, dropping his new friend did not in any way alleviate the terrible throbbing that made him hiss in anguish. Glancing down while still hanging from a single arm, he saw Rian land into a crouch, then fall forward onto his face.

Oh, crap!

“Rian!” Zach shouted. “Please, Gods, don’t tell me after all that you’re—”

“I’m fine!” he snapped, his voice heated and seemingly enraged. Zach doubted it was genuine anger, however, and was likely just him shouting out in pain. Thankfully, however, Rian seemed more than capable of picking himself back up and getting to his feet, even as he grabbed his hips, which looked like they clearly were causing him a good degree of misery.

Turning his head to look upwards, Zach called out, “Come on, Lienne! Now or never!”

She stood just on the edge and now she was gripping the sides of her face. “This is absolutely mad,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Neither can I!” Zach shouted. “Yet here I am. I can’t hold much longer. Hurry!”

She jumped down, and this time, when Zach caught her, the resulting ache was nowhere near as bad as when it had been Rian, who shouted out to Zach that he was ready for him to drop her. With a fierce, awful throbbing that ran from his fingers, down his arm, into his shoulders and back, and somehow even into his stomach, Zach forgave himself for resorting to his usual coping mechanisms.

“If she dies, it’s your fault not mine, since I did my part correctly!” he called down to Rian.

“Yeah, true!” Rian called back up to him. “Still would have to kill you for it, though. Sorry, bud!”

With a laugh, Zach abruptly dropped Lienne, and she yelped in surprise and fear as she plummeted down another fifty feet towards her brother, who actually jumped into the air and grabbed her which, given her low constitution stat, was probably a very good move.

“Gods be damned,” she grunted, limping away a few steps when he released her. “That hurt like a bitch.”

Rian laughed. “Well, that’s what you get for—”

Just then, Zach’s fingers slipped. He hadn’t even felt them slipping, either. It was a surprise even to himself. “Rian!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as the wind once again picked up and he felt himself hurtling downwards.

I’m going to land on my back! he thought, horrified. I’m going to be paralyzed!

He closed his eyes, ready for the end. Then he coughed up what he hoped was just spit as an incredible pain even worse than those he’d already suffered soared through his back and, from there, radiated to every other part of his body.

“Got you,” Rian said.

He felt himself being gently lowered down onto the stone. Nervously, he attempted to wiggle first his fingers and then his toes, and he sighed with relief as he confirmed to himself that he still had feeling in both.

“That…was beyond awful,” he whispered.

Rian nodded, and so did Lienne. “I think we all hurt like hell,” she said. “Take five?”

“Make it ten,” Rian said.

“Screw that,” Zach said. “Twenty.”

In actuality, close to an hour passed before the three of them were ready to continue onwards, and during a good deal of it, all three of them seemed to spend varying amounts of time staring up at the top of the hundred-foot stone wall they’d somehow actually managed to navigate their way down. It was simply incredible. Would anyone even believe Zach if he ever tried to tell someone this had happened?

“Hey, guys?” he asked. Both Rian and Lienne turned their heads his way. “So, I know we just met today, but after what we just went through together? I’m going to skip ahead a few years of friendship and declare you both as best friends.”

Rian laughed. “Dude, after what you just did, I’d marry you if I swung that way.”

Staring up yet again, Zach marveled at the height that they had just come down from—and lived! It was just simply unbelievable. The fact that that had actually worked…it was like cheating death. He supposed the various aches and pains that were all over his body were a small price to pay for survival. Looking over at Lienne, he called out to her.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Can you do anything for the pain?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. Not unless you’ve been sliced or cut by something. For the kind of muscle-based injuries you’ve sustained, you’d need at least a healing mist.”

My cat has that, Zach thought with a chuckle. Lienne looked at him curiously, but he waved her off and said he’d explain it later.

“Honestly, Lienne?” he said. “You should start carrying pain medicine with you and throw that at us since your heals are so terrible.”

He regretted speaking the words even as he was speaking them, but much like with Kalana, Zach had a terrible, terrible habit of picking on girls he thought were cute. Sometimes, he just couldn’t resist picking on them even though he knew it made him into kind of a dick. Amazingly, however, Lienne didn’t get upset with him. Instead, she placed her hands on her hips, narrowed her eyes, and fired right back at him.

“Is that so, huh?” she asked. “I think I’ll take your advice. And if we’re fighting and your belly gets sliced open, I’ll pass you a nice glass of water and two pills. How’s that sound?”

From the way her mouth was twitching, Zach could tell she was trying to keep a straight face and not laugh. This made it difficult for him to keep a straight face, too. He held out his hands in surrender. “All right, you win.”

“Yeah I do.”

Stretching his back, and shaking his arms and legs, Zach thought he was just about ready to get a move on. Though he was hungry, incredibly thirsty, and he hurt all over, he reasoned he felt just about as good as he was going to feel given the circumstances.

“I guess we can move on then, right?” he asked. Both Rian and his sister nodded.

Despite wanting to get going, it ultimately ended up taking another fifteen minutes before they were actually able to proceed, because Rian’s Axe Throw didn’t do enough damage to the wall to free his sword on its own, and thus it had taken five uses of Axe Throw and two uses of Flamestrike before it finally fell down and landed just in front of Zach’s feet.

Picking it up, he blew on it to get some of the dust off, and then, after a brief re-buffing from Lienne, he nodded his head in the direction of the door leading to B2. It was finally time to go. As they crossed the short distance, Zach snickered and said, “You have to admit, the fact that our single-greatest challenge so far has been walking down a flight of stairs, we’re probably going to die here.”

“Yeah, probably,” Rian said, placing both of his palms on the push bar.

Lienne bowed her head. “You boys may be right, but can we at least try not to? Thanks?”

Grinning, both he and Rian nodded, and then Rian shoved open the door. Even before stepping inside, he wrinkled his nose and said, “Gods-dammit, it stinks in here.” Then he entered, followed by his sister. Not wanting to be left behind, Zach hurried in behind them.

Immediately, the stench of burning and sulfur made him want to vomit. Zach looked around at his surroundings—or at least, he intended to. Before he had the chance, an atrociously loud bang from behind him made him flinch and recoil. He, along with Rian and Lienne, all spun around to see that the door behind them had now been slammed shut. Even worse, it was falling over.

The hell?

Alarmed and perplexed, Zach stepped out of the way as the metal door simply collapsed with another loud, but nowhere near as deafening bang. With a stunned gasp, he noticed that there was now nothing in its stead but a dense, burnt-looking brick wall. Knocking on it, the wall felt totally, completely solid to the touch, and it reeked of smoke. Zach placed his hand on it and searched for anything that could be taken for an indentation or a hinge. But there was nothing: not a single sign to indicate that the place they’d only been mere seconds ago actually resided on the other side of these badly charred bricks.

“Impossible,” Rian whispered, disbelief in his voice.

Zach swallowed nervously. “You said it yourself: dungeons are weird.”

“Yeah, but this…?”

All three of them took a moment to stare at what should have been a door-sized opening that would lead them back to where they’d literally just come from. Yet there was nothing. Just this impossibly dense brick wall.

“Well, we wanted to come here anyway,” Zach said as a growing unease made him clutch his sword more tightly.

As he once again turned around to take in his surroundings, he realized that it was much, much darker here than it’d been up until this point. He could still see, of course, but his eyes now had to adjust to the much scanter light. It seemed that the lighting in B2 now matched the actual level of physical light present; this, as opposed to containing the mysterious ambient brightness that had allowed Zach, at least until now, to see perfectly clearly in places lacking a single visible light source.

“I…don’t think I like this floor,” Lienne muttered.

“Same vibe here,” Rian replied.

Zach agreed with both of them; right away, he knew he didn’t care for this place either—like, at all. Immediately, he was faced with a powerful urge to be gone from here as soon as possible. There was an oppressive feeling that he couldn’t quite shake, and a sense of wrongness abounded from every corner around him.

The three of them appeared to be in some kind of dark corridor that continued on for a few-dozen feet before opening up and becoming wider just a bit farther down. To his left and right were more of the totally burnt walls, and the floor was made up of a filthy, muddy, and dark grey concrete. Unlike B1, which Zach felt reminded him of a sort of cave area, this new place felt more like a cross between an abandoned warehouse and a hotel that’d been set on fire—or at least those were his first impressions, anyway; things changed dramatically as the three of them began to wade their way deeper inside.

All around them, a sort of very thin fog seemed to rise from the floor and reach up to their ankles before dissipating. There were picture frames attached to various points along the brick wall on both sides, but they were empty, and many were badly damaged. A few were on the floor itself, and they looked as though something had smashed them into smaller pieces.

“This place is creepy,” Zach said, walking slowly behind Rian. “So glad I’m not the tank who has to stay up front.”

“It’s a man’s job, what can I say.” Though Rian spoke the words confidently, Zach could clearly pick up on the shakiness in his voice.

Following closely behind Rian, the three of them crept their way down the corridor. Zach kept his eyes peeled for any sign of movement. Something told him that he wouldn’t be making his way through a place like this without encountering a few enemies.

Reaching the end of the corridor without incident, the three of them entered into a much wider—and far more horrific—area that caused Zach’s entire body to seize up with shock and terror. With just a few glances at the area around him, he realized straight away that, right now, they appeared to be in some kind of dungeon—only in the very literal sense of the word “dungeon.”

To their immediate left were a row of cages that extended as far as Zach could currently see amid the poor lighting. To his right, spread evenly apart, were a number of faded, moldy support columns that led up to a relatively low ceiling. On all four sides of these columns were a lit torch, which provided the majority of the light around them. Beyond the columns, and all the way across from the three of them, were yet another row of cages. Many of these cages were filled with what appeared to be dead, bloodied human forms in various states of distress. There were torture instruments, too, and from the looks of things, who—or what—ever had been confined in these cages had been brutalized. In one of these cages in particular, a bloodied saw lay on the floor next to a body that appeared to have been cut in half. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what’d happened there.

But most shocking of all—more than the cages, the stench of smoke, or the hideously disturbing corpses of those who’d been horrifically tortured, was what Zach saw as he peered into the cage to his right and glanced up at the tiny, four-inch-tall window towards the top of the cell.

Zach pointed. “Is that…real?”

“Is what real?” Rian asked. He’d already been groaning intermittently as he took in the sights, but now, as he looked to where Zach pointed, his voice seemed to get caught in his throat.

“This place is terrible,” Lienne said. “Hey, what’re you two looking at? What are you—?”

She too fell silent as she traced Zach’s finger with her eyes to the small window in the cell, beyond which resided a dark, viciously red sky and equally ominous red clouds. The sight of it caused Zach’s knees to weaken.

“That’s not real, is it?” he asked again. “Like, if we went outside, that wouldn’t be…I mean because we’re underground right now. And the sky isn’t red. So…”

He felt Lienne place first one, then both hands on his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if this was more to comfort him or herself. Either way, he hoped she couldn’t feel how bad he was trembling. “This has to be an illusion,” he insisted. “It can’t be real. This place can’t be real.”

“It is,” Rian said with a horrified-sounding gasp. “But it’s also not our…we came here to level and to clear the floors. Let’s just get through this one as fast as we possibly can. I don’t want to be here a moment longer than we have to be.”

Zach nodded. On this point, he was in total agreement. The sense of wrongness about this place was just so downright pervasive that it actually required a great deal of willpower for him to not just take off and flee in some other direction.

Finding his backbone, he walked side by side with Rian, who clearly was no longer comfortable walking up front by himself. Lienne, on the other hand, stayed very close behind Zach with her chin practically buried into the spot between his shoulder blades. He was nearly certain that she was not doing this to be flirtatious. No, she was terrified. How could something like this exist beneath the Galterran soil? And if it didn’t, then where in the name of the Gods were they, and how had they gotten here?

Through some miracle, the three of them managed to keep their composure and continue their forward momentum at a calm, deliberate pace. Zach darted his eyes every which way, constantly searching for any sign of something that might aggro. So far, however, he hadn’t seen a single mob. And when he finally did, it was well into the distance.

A distorted chirp came from the complete opposite end of the dungeon in the direction they were headed. In the air, resting on what appeared to be the destroyed bulb of a round, low-hanging ceiling lamp, was a purple, bat-like creature with bright red eyes, sharp, pointed wings, and razor-sharp fangs.

[??/??]

Eep

Level 3

“What’s with the question marks?” Zach asked in a whisper as they slowly proceeded towards it.

“It means you’ve never killed one of them yet,” Lienne answered, “so you don’t know how much HP it has.”

“How much what? The hell is ‘HP’?”

“Oh, sorry. Forgot you don’t know. It’s uh, it’s basically the amount of damage the creature can take before it dies. The number on the right is its total HP, and the number on the left is its current HP.”

“What does it even stand for, though?”

“HP stands for…” Lienne hummed as if in thought, and her chin tickled Zach’s right shoulder. “I can’t remember.”

“Hit points,” Rian said. “It’s basically a term that makes it so you don’t have to use like ten words to say, ‘That monster has 14 damage left before it dies’ each time you’re in a fight. You can just say, ‘The monster has 14HP.’”

The “Eep,” as it was called, seemed content to do nothing more than sit on top of the ceiling lamp as though waiting for someone—likely them to enter within its aggro range. Gesturing with his palm behind him, Rian signaled for a halt. Then, taking just a few steps in front of the two of them, he drew his axe and shield, and with a grunt, he hurled his axe at the Eep. In this incredibly, disturbingly quiet nightmare of a floor, Zach was actually glad to hear the whooshing sound the axe made as it spun through the air and struck this “Eep” thing for 19 damage.

Even before the axe had flown halfway back towards Rian’s waiting hand, the creature was already in the air, flapping its sharp-looking wings, and heading directly for them. “Eep!” it screeched, earning its name. “Eep!”

The moment Rian caught his axe, he threw it a second time, dealing another 16 damage. And…that seemed to be it for the flying monstrosity. It simply made one final, somewhat sad-sounding “Eep” and fell lifelessly to the mud- and soot-stained concrete floor before vanishing.

+3xp

In fairness, Zach really couldn’t have expected all that much more from a level-3 thing that had died so quickly. With a chuckle, he said, “Maybe this place isn’t as scary as it looks.”

Rian grinned. “Maybe indeed. Hey, look, there’s another one ahead right there.” He pointed.

Due to the overall darker lighting, it had been easy for Zach to miss, but as they drew just a few steps nearer, he could spot another one of the creatures on a separate ceiling lamp that was just off behind and to the side of the first.

[25/25]

Eep

Level 3

“Should we kill that one next?” Rian asked.

Zach nodded. “Yeah, I think we might as well. It’s only 3xp, but at least we’ll get—wait, wait, don’t pull it, Rian. Hold!”

Rian, who had been a mere instant from throwing his axe, asked, “Why? What’s wrong?”

Zach pointed. “Its name changed. Look!”

[25/25]

Eep C

Level 3

Lienne made a quick, but frustrated-sounding grunt. “Eep C? Where are the other two, then.”

Zach looked around—then realized at least one of the two was much nearer than any of them would’ve expected due to the fact that it shouldn’t have been there yet. “It’s the one we just killed,” he said. “It respawned already.”

“B-but that was like twenty seconds ago,” Lienne said.

Zach shrugged. “Well, it’s back.”

“All right, I’ll pull it again.”

Rian stepped forward, raised his axe as if to use his Axe Throw ability, and then a mere instant before he the weapon left his hands, Zach heard a sound off behind him and to his right. He spun around to inspect the source of the noise even as he heard the fluttering of Rian’s axe traveling through the air.

Is something heading towards us? Or am I just imagining things?

Trying his best to focus in on what could very easily have just been a shadow, Zach took out his phone and activated its flashlight. It was just too damn dark to see anything. Alarmed, he saw that another Eep was, in fact, heading their way. This, as a glance over his shoulder told him he’d just received another 3xp for the one Rian had again just downed.

“Looks like there’s one coming straight for us,” Zach said with a nervous sigh. “I guess I’ll handle this one so you can focus on—oh, shit! OH SHIT!”

“What is it?” Rian asked, spinning around to face him. Zach pointed, his finger trembling. Rian twisted his lips skeptically. “I don’t understand,” he said, “it’s just one Eep.”

“N-no!” Zach cried. “Its name. Look at its Gods-cursed name!”

[25/25]

Eep 2R

Level 3

“Oh, damn,” Rian croaked. “That’s not good!”

“What does that even mean?” Zach asked anxiously. “What does 2R mean?”

Lienne took a fearful step backwards. “It means there’s 44 of them. 26 plus 18.”

“That can’t be right. Right? Surely there can’t be—”

“EEEEEEEEEEP!” screeched dozens of enraged creatures, all coming from somewhere in the distance that was too dark too see. “EEEEEEEEEEP!” they screeched again, this time sounding a little bit closer.

Rian raised his axe in the air and swung it towards the area in front of them. With terror in his voice, he shouted a single word: “RUN!”