Guinevere and I weren’t just headed to any dungeon. This wasn’t one of the prized dungeons of the nobility these were dungeons that were deemed to difficult to complete. The one we were going to was famous for having never been cleared; it was called by the very few survivors who had tried to clear it, the Swarm Dungeon.
Guinevere and I stood outside the dungeon entrance, it looked like an archway carved into the side of a cliff. It didn’t look to special or like it would lead to somewhere soaked in magic but I’d learned that Dungeons weren’t really “real”. They were like mini-worlds like the ones the System created for the Events, you passed into a place that didn’t exist in this world but was merely attached onto it.
“Ready?” I asked holding out my hand to Guinevere.
She took it and we stepped through the entrance/portal into the dungeon.
You have entered a never-completed dungeon: Tower of Norvis the Mad. Extra loot will be rewarded if you manage to be the first to complete this dungeon.
Dungeon Rank:
Exarch
Max Party Size:
50
Immediately we were beset on all side by the monsters of the dungeon, the Magi had given me reports on the dungeon, so I wasn’t surprised when I was attacked by dozens of copies of…. myself. The other name for this dungeon was the Mirror Realm, the name the Swarm Dungeon had stuck because of the endless waves of monsters. Unlike most dungeons which were cleared room by room the Swarm Dungeon never ran out of monsters to fight.
Mirror-man, Dungeon Creature- Mortal, Undead/Skeleton, Power Level: 1,200
I blocked a swing of a doppelgangers version of Clarent. They seemed to be able to make lesser copies of my abilities as well. Lightning scorched me and Guinevere but it was blue, they weren’t able to copy the effects of my abilities such as Clarent turning my own lightning effects scarlet.
They also didn’t seem to be able to copy my titles which meant they had none of my resistances to lightning. The mimic versions of myself and Guinevere put up a good fight there abilities synergizing just as mine and Guinevere’s did and there weapons managed to bite through my skin bypassing its hardness.
The disadvantage they had was that most of my abilities which they were copying relied on ME being the one to fight waves of endless enemies. I was ramping up in power and despite how powerful even these minor copies of myself and Guinevere were they just weren’t as good as the originals.
I activated Shadow Guard and blew on the horn summoning the Teeth in the Dark. Guinevere had Cursed Crown active and every kill she made created another specter under her control. We pushed down the tunnel as it spiraled upwards opening into rooms filled with books or workshops where even the books on the shelves came alive and attacked us.
“How big do you think this tower is?” Guinevere asked.
“No one’s ever returned past the seventh floor,” I said turning incorporeal with Phantom Form for a moment and ripping apart one of my doppelgangers with the spectral form of Clarent.
“You think that’s the boss room then or they just couldn’t make it farther?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” I said. “But I’m leaning towards boss room, someone would have made it at least one more floor unless they were stropped from retreating.”
We kept pushing up fighting the never-ending horde of doppelgangers and the lesser versions of our own abilities. The ones who did the best were actually Guinevere’s doppelgangers, I relied heavily on my titles I’d earned but she was more classically trained and her doppelgangers were better at fighting without needed to ramp up their power by killing hundreds of creatures.
The never-ending stream of enemies was perfect for me. I no longer had Kalesa’s Blood & Souls quest but honestly, I had more rank points now than I knew what to do with; they were more of an energy source I used when combining abilities than a currency for me to spend to rank them up. I wondered how long it would be before I didn’t need the System for any of this.
A book lifted is covers like wings teeth appearing along is pages and flung itself at me, I turned the Harry Potter pest into a cloud of confetti with a slash of my Gauntlet sword. Shadow of Judgement was increasing my Might more and more the endless horde of enemies sacrificing themselves to empower me.
The dungeon creatures at least seemed to have the stats to match an Exarch ranked creature, so I doubted they were copying my own attributes which was both good and bad for them. My actual stats were normal for someone in the beginning of Exarch rank which was belied by how low my rank was. However, due to Sacrificial Forest and the hundreds of sacrifices I’d already taken in all my stats were boosted up pushing me to what someone in mid Exarch rank would have. Unfortunately, that bonus I’d learned did not apply to helping me raise my attributes to God rank but they did give me the strength to eventually fight those at that rank.
We smashed through the doors breaking onto the second floor of the tower. Enemies continued to spawn in front and behind us. The Teeth in the Dark dragged the doppelgangers into the shadows and Guinevere left hundreds of specters behind as we just ploughed through the thickening ranks of enemies. They learned to stop trying to use lightning on me and instead used Force of Will to hurl objects at me made with their copied version of World Forge.
The much more irritating thing was when the doppelgangers used the abilities I hadn’t even worked on yet. Swarms of locusts crawled over my skin, they didn’t do damage, but they were so thick in the air I could barely see and frying them with lightning just replaced them with clouds of smoke. Javelins of light rained down us constantly, each of the doppelgangers had dozens of copies around them curtesy of their own Shadow Guards; it didn’t help them as much since I wasn’t bent on trying to kill any one single individual and instead intent on just killing all of them.
They tried my own trick of affecting the ground under my feet with World Forge and trying to trap me in the rock but I just broke the compressed earth with my ever increasing superhuman strength and strode forwards. We smashed through the door to the second floor picking up speed instead of slowing down.
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The hall behind us was left a ruin of destruction as we charged forwards through one level of the tower after the other. Level three passed, four, five, six, seven, we paused before the door to the eighth floor. Then I shoved the door open and we entered into a massive chamber the doppelgangers stopping at the threshold behind us stopped by some force beyond their control.
“It has been so long since I had visitors,” a humanoid figure said rising from where they were seated at a desk surrounded by books and beakers.
Norvis the Mad, Master of Illusions, Gifted- Dungeon Boss/human. Exarch. Rank: 1,850
I rolled my eyes not particularly interested in watching this cutscene and moved forwards to attack. I slashed down and Clarent sliced right through the man and he collapsed to the ground in heap.
Laughter filled the room as hundreds of copies of the man appeared us.
“Did you think it would be that easy?” the dungeon boss asked. “Hundreds of your kind have come in greater numbers and higher rank than you to this place, not one has left. Why should you be different?”
“Because I have something they didn’t,” I said blasting every single one of the illusory copies around us with scarlet lightning. Most just died immediately but when they did I felt myself taking damage as some sort of retaliatory effect hit me.
I grunted as blood ran down my body. It was similar to the effect Cruel Vengeance from my Shadow of Judgement ability, the illusions raced forwards the man might have been named a mage, but he didn’t seem averse to physical violence. Swords and spears cut into me, whenever they did Cruel Vengeance did a third of the damage dealt to me back to them but then I also received my own backlash from that damage. Luckily it stopped there and didn’t go into some weird infinite half-life where we kept constantly dishing out retributive damage, probably because they popped as soon as they took any damage.
More and more illusions just kept appearing, they were illusions not doppelgangers because no specters rose from them whenever Guinevere killed them. Luckily, she wasn’t as killing as many of them as I was otherwise the retributive damage, she took might have overwhelmed her. I couldn’t make out which one was the real Norvis, even Omniscience wasn’t working correctly showing me attacks that never came and missing attacks.
There was some sort of time effect going on from Norvis to distort my ability to see the future, only my ring I had created was letting me predict anything at all. I dodged to the side randomly throwing off some attacks but I couldn’t even feel the dungeon boss moving through the air or ground as he just appeared wherever he needed to be.
Norvis did share the ability of the doppelgangers to copy mine and Guinevere’s abilities. With every attack it was making the boss’s Might already higher than mine was going up, it didn’t go up as much but I could still tell it was hitting harder with each attack and gaining more stacks every time its illusions exploded and dealt retributive damage to me.
The nature of my Void abilities did to seem to hamper the dungeon boss’s ability to copy them, whatever it was it didn’t have access to ethereal energy and so couldn’t properly do what I could do. Guinevere and I were back to back the Teeth in the Dark had been destroyed and my Shadow Guard’s kept getting whipped out. We killed every illusion there was but that just made us take more damage and new copies just kept appearing so we could never locate the boss.
The System didn’t balance its dungeons if you weren’t up to the challenge then you shouldn’t try them. I wasn’t about to die to some dungeon boss and be forgotten in this dungeon. I kept taking damage triggering my Mark of vengeance. Just like Norvis seemed to benefit from Shadow of Judgement increasing his might even though he wasn’t the ones doing the damage to me I was also graining hundreds of stacks of Mark of Vengeance on the real him, and like a string they were pulling me towards the real Norvis.
Got him, I said to Guinevere telepathically. On my signal we hit him together.
I didn’t change anything I was doing to alert the dungeon boss to the fact I’d found him among his illusions. I waited to strike, continuing to kill the illusions as I had been my health continuing to drop even as my regeneration spiked.
Now! I said.
Guinevere and I struck.
I managed to hit the boss one time but it was a good hit, I went nova unleashing all the damage I’d stored from his attacks he’d been hitting me with. Guinevere hit him too freezing him in place as she lifted her veil the boss frozen for a second by her beauty.
Wham! Blood misted out as he was pasted on the ground every single illusion vanishing with him.
462 rank points gained split between surviving contributors
Death Denial (Rank 1): When you are struck with a blow that would deal lethal damage to you, you instantly regain a Severe amount of health preventing instant death.
Passive:
5000 mana upon activation
Casting Time:
Instantaneous
Rank up this ability to increase the amount healed and the condition you will be restored too. Each rank increases your Power and Might by 1.
This had to be the most expensive ability I had ever seen but it could be life saving. It reminded me of the ability Cha’xecal had that let him survive what should have instantly killed him. It also reminded me that in the end that ability hadn’t saved him. This was a hail marry ability and not one I should get used to depending on.
Congratulations! You are the first to clear the Dungeon ‘Tower of Norvis the Mad.’ and will receive extra loot.
Dragon Adamantine, Type: Magical Metal. Rarity: Legendary. Hardness: 25. Petrified scales of the first dragons who grew so large their bodies became mountains in the death and were plundered. These ingots were formed from the fossilized fangs of them.
Ingots:
10
Weight Each:
100lbs
The ingots were each about a foot in length and three inches thick, I didn’t notice the weight but no one below Hero rank would be able to wear armor made from this without massive penalties. Luckily I would be using it in Guinevere’s armor so she would have no problems with its weight.
Mirroring Earrings. Type: Jewelry. Rarity: Epic. Allows the wearer to use some of Norvis the Mad’s power by copying their passive abilities passing them onto their summons.
Weight:
<1lbs
Durability:
1000/1000
This might be good for me with the Teeth in the Dark but I actually thought Guinevere with her specters might benefit more from it.
Staff of Norvis, Type: Weapon (quarterstaff) Rarity: Legendary. Doubles the range and duration of all illusion abilities. When destroyed your illusions will explode dealing Moderate retributive damage to the target.
Weight:
15 lbs
Durability:
1000/1000
I didn’t know why this was called the staff of Norvis, the entire time I’d fought him he had never once used a staff but I supposed now was not the time to complain to the System about its naming conventions. Despite being Legendary the staff just wasn’t useful to me, it might help my Shadow Guard but a staff just wasn’t my type of weapon to use.
That was all the loot we’d gotten but the System had made sure it was all super rare stuff.