‘So, what’s its deal?’ he asked, observing the ethereal cloud of tooth-filled mouths.

‘Ethereal Haunts prey upon psionic creatures made of ectoplasm,’ she said, glancing back at him as she raised an eyebrow. ‘They will also hunt any psionic being, as those are their next favoured meal. Their aura of cold is especially difficult to deal with for anything made of ectoplasm, as it will actually start freezing ectoplasm solid,’ she said, motioning to his constructs before continuing.

‘So, [Shaper]s are especially disadvantaged when fighting them. They’re also ethereal in nature, which makes them especially difficult to deal with physically, while being highly resistant to the elements. They’re also faster than you’d think, while enjoying a deflection field that makes them harder to target in general.’

‘Well, aren’t they fun,’ Joram said more than asked, wondering what the best way to deal with it would be.

‘That said, with how you’ve chosen to develop, you’re especially deadly to it,’ Avi said, now smirking; likely having enjoyed riling him up.

‘Ah,’ he sent after a moment of thought. ‘I affect incorporeal and ethereal beings the same way Altaea does,’ he said, especially pleased.

‘Yes, but you could also just configure your mindbolt with [Ghost Touch] and be fine,’ she sent with a shrug.

‘So, why all the dire warnings?’ he asked, curious about her motives there.

‘One should always be prepared when going into a fight,’ she sniffed at him, sounding offended.

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ he sent blandly, heavily suspecting that she’d mostly been messing with him.

He then waited for the Haunt to float/scuttle away from the bottom of the stairs, then crept to the second-to-last step before watching it some more. When it finally reached the other side of the cavernlike room, he reformed his mindbolt into the N7-90 for that little bit more damage, then focussed on [Block the Sun] as he used his [Psychic Strike] for the attack.

Because the Haunt was so large, he nearly completely obliterated it when he opened fire, causing an unearthly series of shrieks that set his nerves on edge before it vanished into bits of mist that soon dissipated into nothing.

“Welp, that wasn’t so bad,” he said, feeling good about the encounter.

‘Literally anyone else would have probably died,’ Avi said, shaking her head.

“Good thing it was me then,” he said, grinning as he made his way across the floor to the next stairwell.

As he got closer, he noticed a patch of frost that hadn’t started melting yet, then paused when he got next to it. For all the world, it looked like one of those “bodies” left behind by a ghost in Skyrim when you killed it.

“Is that a pile of ghostly ectoplasm?” he asked, wanting to be very sure about it before he touched it.

‘Looks like it,’ Avi replied with another shrug.

Then, with a shrug of his own, he reached out a foot and touched it with a toe as he concentrated on looting the thing. It worked, causing the remains to vanish into motes and particles of light before fading out of view.

He then checked his inventory and was astonished at what had accumulated.

One inventory slot was dedicated to Skill Books, and he’d gotten many. He really wondered about that. Both in how the Inventory System classified and stacked things, and also how it came to be that he accumulated so many of the things.

Shaking his head, he put those thoughts away for later as he quickly looked through his other gains. There were a few weapons that had shown up, confusing him a bit since he hadn’t looted an actual weapon yet, but also a… an organ. Organs. [Troll Adrenal Gland]s.

“Yuck,” he said, skipping over that one and checking his coins & cores. “OK, so I won’t have to worry about money for a long time,” he muttered when he saw the numbers.

‘That’s always a good thing,’ Avi agreed, then turned back to the stairs down. ‘We should go.’

Nodding, Joram swiped away his inventory screen and reformed the shoulder canon for Avi, then formed his daggers. Geeves then hopped onto his other shoulder to catch a ride. As he walked, he instructed his tentacle models to precede him, just in case.

This stairwell was much narrower than the last one, making it hard for his constructs to make their way through. Fortunately he hadn’t brought his dragons along, as they wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through nearly as well as his tentacle models. Yay for tentacles!

*Shudder*

He wasn’t sure if he was in love with how well the tentacle models performed, or ridiculously weirded out by them. There was just something… primal in them that caused one to, at the very least, be wary of them. Probably due to various forms of media using them for their horror factor in a myriad of unpleasant ways.

The tentacle models then flowed out of the stairwell and into a protective arc in front of it. When he got to the base of the stairs he paused, taking a good look around.

This floor was completely different compared to the ones above it. Where those floors had looked like ancient rooms that had fallen into disrepair, this one was an outright cavern. Stalactites hung from the high ceiling, a good fifteen or so metres up, while much shorter stalagmites rose from the floor that was randomly covered in small pools of water.

It was also much darker here, only illuminated by some phosphorescent moss and mushrooms that gave everything an eery blue glow. At the far end of the cavern, he thought he saw some sort of raised area, but it was hard to make out so far away.

Wary of the pools of water, he instructed his unit to move out ahead of him. As he stepped into the room, a wall of wind, snow, and ice suddenly bore down on him, pinging his Spellcraft skill as he tried to jump out of the way, instinctively fueling his body with psionic power.

He wound up rolling behind a larger stalagmite as frostbite dug it claws deeply into his flesh. He pushed [Natural Healing]A as much as he could, healing away the damage that managed to get through his [Energy Adaptation] and [Elan Resilience].

‘That was [Cone of Cold]. Well, “those”, anyways. I counted five,’ Avi said from the side as he risked peeking around his cover when the cold stopped flowing. What he saw sent chills down his spine.

‘Ogre mages,’ he sent to Avi as he watched them flying a good three metres above the ground, turning [Invisible] one by one. ‘Damn, this is going to be dangerous,’ he sent, then frowned when he noticed that the spells had destroyed his tentacle constructs.

He quickly got up into a crouch, reforming his daggers as he did. Knowing that the ogre mages would prefer to fly while sneaking up on their prey, he activated [Ectoplasmic Protection] to give him a bit of concealment, and possibly added survivability. He had no illusions that he would last long if he was hit by one of their great swords given how strong ogres were.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Even with his [Inertial Armour], [Force Screen], and [Biofeedback], he didn’t fancy his odds when pitted against five ogre mages at the same time. They were cunning, could turn [Invisible] at will, and had a habit of casting-

The world around him darkened, though due to his darkvision, he could still see just fine. Ogre mages loved to use [Darkness] as well, as it would hamper most species out there. But what was more annoying was that they would use guerilla tactics to take down their prey. Hit and run while liberally using [Invisibility].

Then he got an idea.

He waited for another few seconds before targeting every space around him with [Block the Sun], then expended his [Psychic Strike] to use [Telekinetic Edge], then let loose.

He watched as the bolts landed all around him, shattering the ground in sprays of sharp shrapnel. But four shots veered slightly thanks to the [Seeking] ability on his mindbolt before hitting, and exposing, four ogre mages who’d been getting ready to attack him, now flinching in pain.

He quickly rolled to the side as they rushed in, still bleeding, and started swinging at him.

The first ogre mage swung at his neck, so he ducked under it and threw his daggers at it. One glanced off its ornate armour that resembled ancient Japanese samurai armour, while the other one took it in the leg, causing it to stumble.

While Avi took a shot at its head, vaporizing it, he threw himself to the side to avoid being bisected by the next ogre mage, and continued to roll, avoiding another ogre mage as he went.

Joram then reformed his daggers and began throwing as Avi lined up another [Block the Sun]. When the ogre mages dashed forward again, he activated [Block the Sun] for her and she shot. This time, it was much easier to hit them, not having to just carpet bomb the place. They staggered back, incredulous expressions marring their diabolically handsome faces.

Then he drew on [Pyrokinesis] and let out a wave of fire that rolled over them, causing them to yell out in pain. One notification pinged, making him hope that he’d killed at least one. He then let the fire drop as he reformed his daggers and looked around.

Four ogre mages were on the ground in various states of charred. Though, as he watched, three of them were already healing, making him curse under his breath and reach for [Pyrokinesis] again.

Then he stumbled forward, a searing pain lancing through his chest from back to front. He looked down and saw an arms’ length of bloody steel sticking out of his chest, idly noting that it had at least missed his heart. Then a boot connected with his back, both sending him flying forward and tearing the sword out of his chest.

He landed with a grunt, then rolled to try to reduce the impact as his lungs filled with blood and his vision swam, ending up on his back when he stopped rolling, [Ectoplasmic Protection] winking out. He blearily watched as the last standing ogre mage sauntered up to him, his expression gloating.

* * *

Myra crept down the narrow stairwell behind Theril and Reldan and beside Asami, hoping that they’d catch up to Joram soon.

The previous floors had been almost empty of enemies, but not quite. It had taken them a while to dispatch the few hobs that had either hidden from Joram or hadn’t been close enough to notice his passage at the time. Either way, those fights had slowed them down tremendously. But had been very rewarding.

Even though she hadn’t contributed much in the fights, mostly worried that she would accidentally hit someone with friendly fire. But she’d finally hit level ten! If she hadn’t been in a dungeon and scared for both her life and the lives of her friends, she would have been dancing.

A sudden burst of heat washed up the stairwell, blowing their hair back.

“We should hurry,” Asami said, practically pushing Theril and Reldan down the stairs.

But they, too, felt the urgency of the situation and began taking the stairs two at a time.

When they emerged from the stairwell, they saw a giant blue ogre in armour raising its massive sword high. High above a bleeding Joram who didn’t seem to be able to move very well.

Asami stepped forward, hand raised. A white fireball streaked with crimson lines formed, then shot out and struck the blue ogre in the back, enveloping it in white fire as it yelled out in pain.

Not caring about the burning ogre, Myra sprinted as fast as she could to where Joram lay, preparing [Heal 1] as she went. She quickly dodged around the flailing ogre and knelt beside Joram as his eyes fluttered to her, already looking glassy, and used her Skill as she pressed her hands over the large wound in his chest.

A bit of colour returned to his face before he blinked, then really looked at her. A small smile tugged at his bloodstained lips before she felt movement under her hands. More than a little bit freaked out, she quickly withdrew her hands and watched as his chest finished closing.

Joram then rolled over to the side and coughed out a lot of blood before turning to look at her again. If she hadn’t been so glad to see him again, she might have been put off by his ghastly appearance. As it was, she leaned forward and hugged him as tightly as she could.

“Hi to you, too,” he said, his voice a bit raw from the coughing.

Then she felt him hugging her back and felt her chest fill with warmth as she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Duck!” he suddenly called, extending one arm out behind her.

* * *

Joram was unusually happy with the hug, probably due to his near-death experience. That Myra was also gorgeous probably contributed in no small way to that feeling.

He looked over and saw Asami, Theril, and Reldan of all people, approaching him past the burning body just a metre or so away from him. Then he noticed the stirring forms of the three ogre mages he’d knocked down earlier.

“Duck!” he yelled, reforming his shoulder cannon as his friends dropped to the ground, then activated [Block the Sun] to barrage the three monsters.

They looked back to see three bloody bodies laying on the ground, then turned back to him in confusion.

“They [Regenerate],” he said, then called upon his [Pyrokinesis] again and fried the lot of them, giving him another notification in the process.

Asami nodded at him, then walked over to help the two of them up. Once standing, she glomped onto him on his other side.

“Don’t do that again,” she said, confusing him as to what she was referring to. He’d done quite a lot recently.

“Idiot,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“So, this happened,” Reldan said, making a broad sweeping gesture that seemed to include everything.

“Yeah, it did,” he agreed, then remembered his dilemma. “So, how to do you go about destroying a dungeon, anyways?”

Theril looked at him incredulously while Reldan burst out laughing. Myra gaped at him a bit, but then Asami spoke.

“You break its core,” she said, sounding like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And considering that dungeon monsters had cores, it wasn’t all that much of a logical leap to then suppose that the dungeon itself would also have a core.

Shaking his head, and dragging the pair of women along for the ride, he stepped over to the ogre mages that he’d killed and looted the lot of them.

“So, I think that this is the last floor,” he said once Myra and Asami let go of him again. “Wanna come along and see what it looks like?” he asked the four of them, who all responded positively to that suggestion.

As the five of them walked, Joram watched everything around him, ready to use [Block the Sun] or [Quick Volley] on anything that reared its ugly head. At the same time, he couldn’t help but appreciate his surroundings. At any other time, he would have been over the moon at finding such a beautiful cavern filled with fantastical moss and mushrooms.

As he passed the pools, he saw that they were crystal clear and filled with cave pearls. He idly wondered if they’d be useful or valuable, but let them be for now. He’d have plenty of time to explore and investigate once his task was complete.

It took them a few minutes to get to the other side of the cavern where the raised section was. It looked like a stage, so he climbed up and noticed a large altar on it, the kind on which you’d perform live sacrifices. In fact, he found almost a dozen bodies that looked to have been forcibly desiccated, considering the cave they were in was fairly humid. That, and any corpses left laying about would first rot, not dry out.

That said, they were starting to grow mold in patches.

“Those are probably the Hall members who had been sent to deal with this dungeon,” Asami said as she stopped at his side, frowning.

Myra came over next, also frowning at what she saw. Theril and Reldan came next, repeating the pattern.

“Do you want to bring the bodies back?” he asked, more inclined to [Cleanse] them all away.

“I think there’s a standard reward for doing so,” Theril replied, though he didn’t look like he wanted to cash in that particular reward.

“Let’s focus on finding the dungeon core first,” Asami said, dismissing the corpses as she began looking around.

The other agreed, and soon they were all looking about for it. After ten minutes of searching, they all came up with nothing.

“Where could it be?” Reldan asked, looking more frustrated than anyone else.

Joram shrugged, not really having any good ideas.

‘Why don’t you see if the altar can move?’ Avi suggested, crouched down beside it and pointing at its base.

Asami looked over at the same time he did, then frowned again when she took in the size of the stone altar.

Shrugging again, he manifested [Astral Construct]A to get a 9th Level construct and pumped everything into its strength. This one came out looking like a six-metre-tall Mr Universe made out of silvery ectoplasm. Everyone stepped back, more than a little startled at its sudden appearance.

“Warn me next time,” Myra said, breathing hard as she clung to his arm.

He made no promises, but instead instructed his Olympian model to push the altar aside.

With what looked like titanic effort, the alter slowly slide to the side.