I stare hard at an entrance to what used to be the Derinkuyu underground city in Cappadocia. Unfortunately it doesn’t give up any of its secrets or any hint of why Omnipresent indicates this is the biggest current threat to humanity. The wind blasts me from all directions and swirls around in uneven patterns as if the atmosphere is churning around this localized spot.
I’ve triple checked this is the right spot and unless my Skill is glitching for the first time, I’m in the right place. Usually when I come through a Portal it’s really obvious and within seconds I’m battling a huge Monster or a swarm that’s about to overrun a Settlement, sometimes both. Today, it’s a bright, clear day in Turkey. Nobody and nothing else is around which is potentially a signal I should take seriously. The Mana levels sure are high, which would usually mean creatures and other ancient material warped into being with Mana. AMLs this high are unusual for this area of the world even after the last Influx, but not unheard of. My body is definitely feeling the pulses of Mana that flow through me every second.
Health: 10550/10550 Stamina: 15825/15825 Constitution: 1055
Skill Modifier: 5.32 Current Ambient Mana Level (AML): 25 +30 (Gift of Gaia)
Physical regeneration rate: 145928 /min --> 2432 /sec
The gray, moss covered stone opening looks like it’s been blown open from the small original entrance to now be something bigger. Big enough to fit me for at least as far as I can see, and I assume big enough for something that either lives down there now or has escaped.
I call up my minimap and stretch my Perception out. The tunnels, shafts, and passageways deep under the ground are filled with creatures that look like low to medium threats to me. The size of the tunnels looks to be mixed between small enough I might have a hard time getting through and much wider. I have no idea if that’s part of the original design or something that’s happened lately.
Occasionally I glimpse a red flash indicating something that might do me some harm, but those pass quickly and I wonder if all the layers of Monsters and whatever else is in these tunnels is obscuring my view of the most dangerous things near the bottom. A classic Dungeon dive if I’ve ever seen one.
So why am I being so cautious? Maybe the sight of Jon laying dead is hard to put out of my mind. When I realize that, I realize at the same time I have no choice but to get my ass into the tunnels and get over whatever’s bothering me. The last thing I can afford is some kind of hesitation; at the speed of combat I’m usually in, even a split second of hesitation is going to make me a lot less effective, and maybe dead.
Done with watching, with an Elemental Aegis in place and my Mana and Stamina at full, I call my two orange glowing Swords to my hands and reduce them down to the length of short swords. No room for big swings and technique down here, it’s probably going to be a dirty knife fight all the way.
I enter through the opening, about eight feet tall at this point but it looks already like that won’t last. The rock looks a bit soft which would make sense for creating something like this. I crack my knuckles into it with a half-hearted punch and am surprised to find that Mana reinforces the walls to be much stronger than I would have thought. I give it a good blow and a spider web of cracks forms without crumbing or chipping off. That’s useful to know, I won’t have to worry about collapsing the tunnels unless there are areas that aren’t reinforced or things get really angry.
The underground tunnel is cool and damp and the sound of my footsteps echoes softly off the stone walls, though I’m not sure anything without enhanced Perception could pick it up. I consider engaging the Cloaking ability of my Sentinel armor and then laugh at myself. By the time I encounter anything really dangerous there’s no way it will be by surprise. Light from the entryway flickers off rough-hewn walls, casting long shadows that will become the norm soon. A breeze flows through the passages still, making it feel as if the tunnels are full of air and Mana currents.
A few dozen steps in and the tunnel has shrunk noticably around my bulky frame. There’s still enough room for me to avoid feeling claustrophobic and my Danger Sense doesn’t even register it when the first attack hits me as a strangely silent wave of rodents surges up toward me. They’re small, agile creatures with patchy fur and glowing, Mana-infused eyes that scurry over the rocky ground and each other to get to me. Level 1 fodder for sure. I blast them all with a single shot of Fury of the Clan and they literally explode like popcorn all over the walls, none of it reaching me. I am left with a bloody, boney, slick walk further into Derinkuyu.
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Not much further along in the darkness I get to a large round stone door that sits across the tunnel on old, worn down tracks. Around it are gaps due to the altered size of the tunnel more than big enough for the rodents I just obliterated. The door is solid stone, but weighs less than a ton so I toss it aside. It skitters across the broken track and crashes into the space left open to roll it into. Powdery dust fills the air and I hope something else emerges to meet me because of the noise. All I can see on my minimap nearby are creatures that don’t pose a threat to me.
Nothing.
I stride forward down the hall that begins to twist and turn as it descends down gradually. I can imagine an invading army or force having a tough time clearing out these tunnels, especially against a prepared set of defenders. In this case, I need to be my own one man army which is probably no different - there’s only room for one person to charge ahead, fight, or retreat. As I continue on, more tunnels appear to my left and right at irregular intervals. My Perception, Danger Sense, and minimap all say there’s nothing of interest, just some low Level creatures scurrying around.
Soon enough through the damp air I detect a lot of movement in the tunnel ahead. My sight, bolstered by my insane Perception and combining the ability to see all types of wavelengths including infra red, shows me small insectoid creatures with sleek, black carapaces. They cling to the walls and ceilings like a living skin. I feel an ability of theirs pulling on me, trying to drain my Mana, but their Level is too low to affect me in any way and I drop a Fury of the Clan on them, then another and another as I march down the tunnel.
The sheer number of them has me wading through knee-deep broken carapaces and insect guts, every step pushing the slimy mass further down the tunnel. My Perception manages to filter out the smell without significantly reducing my ability to smell other things. Still, no danger on my minimap or according to my Danger Sense.
After another minute of progress the tunnel opens up into the first cavern I’ve seen. It’s no larger than the inside of a four car garage but feels positively spacious. I haven’t had to crouch or shimmy sideways yet, but it’s been a close thing. Four other openings, all similar to the one I came through, are unevenly placed around the room.
Ugly slurps, growls, and barking sounds begin to emerge from all the other openings at nearly the same time. My Danger Sense is still silent and it’s not for another hundred yards or more through some twists and turns that I can see anything on my minimap worth paying attention to. A pack of some kind of cavern ghoul pours out of the openings. They have elongated limbs and hollow, glowing eyes that light up the room, lighting up their twisted, melted faces. Skin that looks like it’s been sewed up with sinew stretches across their bloated torsos and limbs that end in long, sharp claws.
No doubt a long time ago in a different world this would have been scary as shit, but right now it’s just pissing me off. I sweep one of my Swords across them and their bodies part without effort, but then give me a nasty surprise as they explode in clouds of toxic fumes that can’t hurt me with my regeneration, but do smell terrible for an instant before my Perception dials it out.
I decide to pick things up a little and lay Fury of the Clan down in front of me while I pick the most promising direction based on the increased Levels of the creatures here and surge forward. The tunnel is only the size of a doorway but I keep a good pre-Influx jogging pace up.
Rubble shatters everywhere when stone serpents as thick as my thigh detach themselves from the rock and I blast them apart with more Furies. I chain Furies together ahead of me and use my Strength to wade through the waist-high remnants. I descend quickly, moving through the tunnels and impatient to solve the mystery. Why is this the place I should be right now?
The threats turn more ethereal as beings made of smoke and air stir in the next cavern I enter. I can feel that Fury of the Clan doesn’t do as much damage to them as I’m expecting; it slides off them and has trouble grasping its targets, but my Stamina is bottomless with the regeneration I’m experiencing and I simply trigger it over and over while brushing them aside or passing through their unraveling beings.
The floor levels out and I’m no longer descending as I blow away what I can only assume are a swarm of Djinn. They’re not weak, but they can’t stand up to how quickly I can pour on damage in this high AML environment. The Mana levels are so strong that it’s almost a relief to trigger my Skills rapid fire rather than keep my Stamina at the full level with nowhere to go. My minimap still shows creatures near me that are more dangerous and my Danger Sense is confirming that they are roaming around underneath these tunnels.
It takes me a couple of minutes of searching, but eventually I find it. A deep pit, potentially the bottom of one of the air shafts, has now opened up into something completely different, and much more dangerous. As I approach and peer over the edge, I feel an intense increase in the ambient Mana hit me. The pit is over a dozen feet wide and the air around it shimmers with a soft, pulsing blue glow that casts flickering shdows on the surrounding stone. I stare down into the pit and see a rugged, uneven floor about thirty feet down and then realize the diameter of the rim is slowly increasing as it shifts under my toes, and that it’s the entrance to a proper Dungeon.
Rather than step back, nudge myself forward to fall down into the pit. Finally we’re getting somewhere.