Kahari gazed around the room, trying to see something, anything that could help him. If this was going to be harder than the last fight, he didn’t know if he could do it solo. There was nothing. Just the smell of blood, and ash. His heart pounded from the smell, sweat collecting on his brow as images, sounds rushed to him of the night his whole life had changed. The night he’d lost his home, and his family. His grip tightened on Heartseeker.
Once again there was only one door. He had to deal with whatever came next, for good or ill, before he could get back to his friends. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and forcing his heart rate down. Being afraid wouldn’t help him for the moment, and while he had the quiet, he should take it. Finally, he took a step, and the room pulsed with magical energy as something dragged it’s way free from the stone.
The thing was practically only bone, thin pale flesh stretched over it’s frame. It was already dripping black blood, oozing from wounds originating from barbed wire wrapped around it. It’s hands had gloves, on the ends were knives, chipped and rusty, but still more than capable of tearing him to ribbons. The creature lacked any apparent eyes, just a mouth full of sharp teeth, oozing the same black blood. It opened it’s mouth and laughed, grating against Kahari’s soul with the unnatural, spiteful sound it called laughter.
It didn’t attack as immediately as the Water Fiend had, instead it sway for a few moments, head twisting as it seemed to scan the room. Kahari didn’t have any time to waste in making a choice, instead he began chanting.
“Power of Water, Water Whip!”
The unfamiliar spell surged through him, and with a glowing blue circle, out came a tendril of water. It was the same spell Kalisse had used to help retrain the Soldier Wasp Queen, but while he suddenly knew it, he didn’t understand it the same way she did. All he could do was whip at the creature with it, striking once, twice, thrice before the water dissipated. Each strike landed with no resistance from the creature, the extra strikes taking extra mana, but Kahari was terrified to see that the whips had left only the lightest marks on the creature's skin.
The creature finished scanning the room even as the whip flailed uselessly against it’s skin. Then suddenly it moved. Kahari didn’t even have time to react before bladed fingers were in his stomach, digging around as the blades ripped apart his organs like he wasn’t wearing armor. That wasn’t the worst part though, even as Kahari screamed in pain, the blades on the creatures fingers started glowing red hot, burning and cutting him at the same time.
The creature leaned down, and opened it’s maw as it drove Kahari into the ground. And a voice full of malice and hate filled Kahari’s ears, driving through the pain through some magic Kahari was currently incapable of understanding.
“Not yet kid, you aren’t ready to face me yet. Go back to grandma.”
Before the jaws snapped shut on Kahari’s face.
_____________________________
Bedora grunted as the Shadowclaw cut her again before disappearing back into the numerous shadows created by the braziers scattered about the room. Her skin was marred by dozens of such cuts. None were deep, but Bedora was feeling them adding up. The worst of it though was the poison that coated the claws. Numbness creeped through her body from each wound, she could see her stamina steadily draining as the poison slowly but surely drained her body of it’s energy.
There was only a single door, and she couldn’t open it. It didn’t even rattle when she had tried hitting it with her hammer. The beast stalking here was the key, but she couldn’t quite catch it. She growled as the beast came out of the shadows again, a claw tearing into her calf, though most of it was deflected by her armor. This time she responded quickly enough to catch the thing with the pommel of her warhammer, but as it rolled into shadows, the cat disappeared once more.
She took the momentary reprieve to cast mend wound on the newest cut, experimenting to see if the spell would counteract the poison. The stamina drain slowed, but not by much. It could cleanse whatever was in the wound, but any damage done remained. Good to know. Her eyes scanned the room, knowing full well the creature always pounced from where she wasn’t looking.
That’s when it struck her, both the idea and the cat. The little stones scattered about, the braziers, this room was designed to let the cat fight at it’s full power. Clever little dungeon. She ignored the new ache coming from her shoulder and instead grabbed one of the nearby rocks, grunting before moving it until it was against the wall of the room, creating an area with less shadow and more light.
Then she raised her hand, pointing above her towards the domed ceiling, and cast Torchlight. A small ball of fire appeared above her hand, moving slowly upward till it was hovering about ten feet in the air. It wasn’t a lot of light compared to all the braziers around the room, but it did reduce the number of shadows, especially in the area she was in. This time when the Shadowclaw emerged from the shadows, it had to to take multiple steps to get to her, rather than simply cutting her as it moved from one shadow to another.
This also meant she had time to twist, and fire a firebolt at it. The burst of flame caught it unprepared. It seemed to care more about the light that came from the spell than it did the actual fire, either way though it flinched. Bedora raised her hammer and brought down the spike into the creature's skull, using the split second she had to finish it off. Shadowclaws weren’t very tough, but they were fast and stealthy. She panted as she fell to her knees, the fires in the room dying down as she gets drawn into a pool of thick, black ink.
__________
Nissa shrieked as the whip tore through her wing, a wing she shouldn’t even have. Not yet. Sun Fairies didn’t get their wings until they were seventy or eighty, and couldn’t fly with them till they hit twice that. Usually. But here it was, and now it was torn. It was hard to describe the pain coming from something she wasn’t even supposed to have. What was worse though was the creature she was facing.
Some kind of creature like a Ghast, but it couldn’t talk. Instead it wielded whips in each hand, each dripping molten metal after it landed a hit. She was covered in marks from them, but she could keep healing for awhile. For some reason, her Dryad’s Soul was at full strength in this room, when it should be hampered by being underground. She couldn’t make any sense of it, but she wasn’t going to argue with it.
She pointed a finger at the creature, and shouted.
“POWER OF BEASTS, SILK COCOON.”
It wasn’t a very strong spell, but the creature lacked any blades, and needed space to get the whips working. Unfortunately for her, the cocoon didn’t form quickly enough. It slowed the creature down for sure, but it tore free before it could be entirely bound. Instead it’s legs were just hampered, and that wouldn’t last forever, the magic would fade. She didn’t waste any time, dashing in close with her daggers, driving them into the creature's gut.
The magic from the blades helped restore some of her wounds, but more importantly, she used this chance to keep stabbing, where the creature couldn’t use it’s whips. It abandoned them, slamming it’s fists down onto her back again and again. She could feel bones cracking, but she ignored them. Each stab restored some of the damage, and once she was certain she had done enough damage, twisted so her palm was against one of the wounds instead.
“POWER OF NATURE, STORM OF THORNS.”
And watched as the flurry of thorns, usually used to try and deal with multiple foes, was focused purely into the gut of a single creature. It kept pounding against her back, screaming in impotent rage as it was eventually torn in half, before fading into mist as it finally died. Nissa didn’t get a chance to breathe before whips emerged from the ground, dragging her into the floor, passing through it like it wasn’t made of stone.
___________________________
Kahari never thought he’d wake up again, instead he found himself flying through the air and slamming into the ground, skidding a few feet before coming to a rest, groaning as he pain hit him.
“Kahari!”
He heard vaguely as he was still trying to get his bearings, trying to sit up only to find himself slammed back into the dirt as Chara tackled him, Kalisse hot on her heels.
“What happened? Where are Bedora and Nissa?”
Chara’s voice was unusually loud, for Chara that was. She also had a stronger grip than Kahari thought possible she squeezed him. Only for the pressure to suddenly disappear as Kalisse pulled Chara from him, giving him a second to breathe. Once he had a chance to gather his bearings, and recover from having been gutted and eaten a second ago, he finally answered.
“I…don’t know. I was alone inside, couldn’t even see the status of any of you. I can see you now Chara, but nothing from Bedora or Nissa. Not yet.”
Kalisse sat Chara down as Kahari spoke, turning to look back at the dungeon door. There were marks on the stone around the door, but the door itself was unmarred. It looked like they’d been trying to break down the door. He looked down at his stomach, his armor and clothes were still torn, but the wounds were gone. The only injuries he had was from apparently getting shot out of the-
He didn’t get a chance to finish the thought before Bedora got flung out. Considering he hadn’t moved, she skidded into him, and that hurt. A lot. He rolled out of the way as Bedora’s status suddenly got added back to the party. She shot up, yanking at her face as if something was still attached to it.
Once she realized she was free, she sighed and collapsed back into the dirt, chest heaving as she caught her breath. Kalisse for her part grabbed Bedora and pulled her to the side, so that if the same thing happened with Nissa, she wouldn’t get hit like Kahari did. Then she said.
“I think I know what’s happening, but we’re going to wait for Nissa, then we’ll get this mess sorted out. As is, I can say with confidence that it’ll be safe for us to camp here. This kind of dungeon it…repels monsters.”
It was only a few seconds after she finished speaking that the door flung itself open again and out came Nissa, who hit the dirt just as hard as Kahari and Bedora had. She stayed there for a moment, before sitting up. Everyone was quick to notice that she had wings now, but the more concerning thing was the panicked look in her eye that faded only after her eyes found Bedora. Her sister brought her back from whatever she had experienced.
Kalisse shook her head.
“Memory dungeon. Makes you confront your past lives, no wonder me and Chara couldn’t get in. Only Awakened can get in.”
She gestured for everyone to set up camp, once they got some food cooking she got into explaining more detail.
“Memory dungeons are rare, and have a bunch of different sub-types. Some make you navigate the memories directly, others create monsters based on how your last life died, others do a bit of both, and others still put you into the last situation that life was in, forcing you to find a way to survive what killed them. There is an advantage to them though. Every life you successfully confront will give you a bunch of free stuff, and fully integrate their memories. How far you three get?”
Bedora stared into the fire as she spoke.
“Beat one. Shadowclaw, second one…”
She paused, and shuddered.
“It bested me.”
Nissa put a hand on Bedora’s arm.
“Same for me, except I fought this Ghast-thing with whips. Second thing got in my head. I’m not sure I ever saw what it really was.”
Kahari poked at the fire a little.
“First one I got was a Water Fiend, but the second one…I don’t know what it was, but it gutted me, set me on fire, and finally ate my face to finish me off.”
He shivered as he remembered the pain. The wounds were gone, but that memory would never quite fade.
Kalisse nodded.
“Makes sense. Older lives tend to be harder to integrate, so the dungeon makes them harder. You’ll probably need to get up into the twenties before you can face them, and it’ll be a lunar cycle before you can try again anyway.”
Bedora shook her head.
“No, we have to get back to Ixul before that. If it’s still here when we’re done in Fota we can worry about it, but until then…it can stay here.”
Nissa patted her arm.
“We should do a status update, see what it gave us first. Then get some sleep and start moving again tomorrow.”
Bedora paused, and then nodded.
“Agreed, I’ll go first.”
Personal Name: Bedora
Family Name: Caldice
Primary Job: Mauler
Secondary Job(s): —
Race: Amazon (Continental)
Level: 14*
Height: 7’2” (218 cm)*
Weight: 220 lbs (100 kg)
Age: 20
Status: No Active Effects
Literate: Intermediate?
Reincarnation Skill: Indestructible
Stats
Strength - Level 8 (23)
Vitality - Level 8 (26)
Dexterity - Level 7 (2)
Magic - Level 5 (21)
Wisdom - Level 5 (11)
Perception - Level 6 (17)
Skills
1H Hammers - Level 6 (22)
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Foraging - Level 5 (51)
Stealth - Level 8* (65)
First Aid - Level 4 (21)
Spears - Level 4 (25)
Shields - Level 2 (8)
Heavy Armor - Level 8 (32)
Woodcutting - Level 2 (31)
2H Double-Edge Swords - Level 6 (18)
Fire Magic - Level 5 (12)
Water Magic - Level 3 (28)
Shadow Magic - Level 7 (55)
2H Hammers - Level 9 (21)
2H Axes - Level 5 (33)
Traps - Level 4 (29)
Intimidation - Level 7 (15)
Haggling - Level 9* (22)
Teaching - Level 3 (11)
Brewing - Level 3 (15)
Butchering - Level 3 (33)
Cooking - Level 4 (12)
Javelins - Level 6 (31)
Dancing - Level 2 (8)
Tactics - Level 1 (7)
Animal Handling - Level 6* (21)
Disguise - Level 7* (21)
Lockpicking - Level 5* (22)
Stealth* - Level 8 (45)
Techniques
Slam - Level 6 (41)
Crush - Level 6 (1)
Backswing - Level 4 (33)
Shatter - Level 8 (1)
Shield Break - Level 6 (44)
Leap - Level 5 (12)
Raging Bull - Level 5 (45)
Bronze Skin - Level 3 (11)
Iron Skin - Level 1 (1)
Shoulder Charge - Level 1 (1)
Chop - Level 1 (1)
Stab - Level 1 (1)
Exploit Weakness* - Level 7 (33)
Blind* - Level 7 (33)
Daze* - Level 7 (33)
Umbral Cloak* - Level 7 (33)
Spells
Fire
Firebolt - Level 5 (21)
Torchlight - Level 4 (11)
Ignite - Level 3 (22)
Extinguish - Level 3 (17)
Mend Wound - Level 4 (11)
Water
Water Shot - Level 2 (11)
Soothe Wound - Level 3 (9)
Shadow
Umbral Slam* - Level 7 (65)
Blackwave* - Level 7 (65)
Shadow Cloak* - Level 7 (65)
Night’s Eye* - Level 7 (65)
Shadow Orb* - Level 7 (65)
Natural Statuses - Shadow Resistance* 25% - Lightfoot* - Remembrance** 1
* Abnormal Entry, system error.
** Hidden Status Revealed, system error.
They all stared for a minute, relaying the changes to Bedora. It was a fairly similar spread to Kahari, but focused on thief skills and Shadow magic instead. It also meant Bedora now had a lot more magic variety to spread around. Most of the skills were self explanatory, but they did select Umbral Cloak for details.
After a moment, it made sense. It was effectively a shadow magic version of Bronze Skin, which had been upgraded to Iron Skin. Except it was focused on absorbing magic. Not a bad pick up. It would definitely improve her ability to close with mages that could stun or restrain her.
Next they did Kahari, who had already looked at it all. He got fewer skills and stat bumps than Bedora, but like her he’d gained a few levels, and more importantly, picked up a fair amount of magic in the process. There was a question of what an automobile was, but when he explained it was a type of vehicle from another world, they moved on. Nissa would be the last one.
Personal Name: Nissa
Family Name: Caldice
Primary Job: Druid/Wizard Hybrid
Secondary Job: None
Race: Winged Sun Fairy (Fae)
Level: 15*
Height: 5’4” (162 cm)
Weight: 92 lbs (42 kg)
Age: 45
Status: No Active Effects
Literate: Advanced, Basic (Draconic), Basic (Grave Speech)
Reincarnation Skill: Dryad’s Soul
Stats
Strength - Level 5 (15)
Vitality - Level 8 (31)
Dexterity - Level 9 (33)
Magic - Level 10 (12)
Wisdom - Level 9 (21)
Perception - Level 7 (2)
Skills
Daggers - Level 9 (21)
Foraging - Level 6 (2)
Stealth - Level 11 (1)
First Aid - Level 5 (45)
Light Armor - Level 8 (45)
Nature Magic - Level 12 (44)
Air Magic - Level 6 (12)
Herbalism - Level 7 (21)
Beast Magic - Level 6 (27)
Dual Wielding - Level 6 (12)
Seduction - Level 4 (8)
Persuasion - Level 5 (9)
Haggling - Level 4 (22)
Observation - Level 7 (36)
Tactics - Level 3 (17)
Hand Crossbows - Level 5 (15)
Light Armor - Level 4 (12)
Death Magic* - Level 9 (33)
Whips* - Level 9 (33)
Necromancy* - Level 9 (33)
Techniques
Stutter Step - Level 7 (21)
Stuttering Jump - Level 1 (1)
Piercing Thrust - Level 9 (12)
Double Swipe - Level 7 (11)
Double Stab - Level 2 (12)
Precise Shot - Level 5 (30)
Snipe - Level 6 (12)
Flurry of Blades - Level 5 (12)
Backstab - Level 4 (21)
Petal Pirouette - Level 2 (21)
Gale Cloak - Level 1 (1)
Thorn Skin - Level 1 (1)
Entangle* - Level 7 (33)
Choke* - Level 7 (33)
Cripple* - Level 7 (33)
Spells
Air
Wind Blade - Level 8 (17)
Gust - Level 6 (12)
Air Piercer - Level 5 (13)
Whirlwind - Level 6 (11)
Suffocation - Level 5 (21)
Updraft - Level 4 (33)
Speed Boost - Level 9 (55)
Air Shield - Level 7 (21)
Message - Level 5 (12)
Nature
Throw Thorn - Level 7 (11)
Storm of Thorns - Level 8 (21)
Root Spear - Level 7 (27)
Petal Storm - Level 8 (34)
Talk with Plants - Level 4 (19)
Barkskin - Level 5 (59)
Mend Wound - Level 7 (63)
Minor Regeneration - Level 5 (17)
Moderate Regeneration - Level 4 (2)
Reform Flesh - Level 6 (46)
Vine Whip - Level 6 (12)
Entangle - Level 9 (67)
Restoration Bud - Level 2 (12)
Beast
Call Lesser Beasts - Level 4 (21)
Silk Cocoon - Level 7 (12)
Death
Grave Bolt* - Level 7 (45)
Withering Grasp* - Level 7 (45)
Steal Breath (Area)* - Level 7 (45)
Rotting Gaze* - Level 7 (45)
Raise Shade* - Level 7 (45)
Natural Statuses - Death Resistance* 25% - Spirit Sight* - Remembrance** 1
* Abnormal Entry, system error.
** Hidden Status Revealed, system error.
“Wait…how is Death Magic different from Necromancy? And if you have Necromancy, why didn’t you get any spells?”
Kahari asked as he stared at the status screen for a moment, Nissa reading her own readout. After a moment it was Chara that answered.
“One is the study of all magic that deals in death and undeath, it’s like studying anatomy or metallurgy. It probably makes her Death Magic spells more effective though.”
Since they had all returned well, Chara’s voice had returned back to normal, though she was sitting closer to Kahari than she had before, almost like she was scared he was going to vanish again. It was kinda cute, but the moment was lost in everything else going on. Kalisse spooned scooped stew into bowls for all of them, shrugging.
“Well, you all got some upgrades, mostly expanding magic options. When we get back to town, we can report the dungeon for a reward too. They never last long, but if it’s still here when they get out here, a good number of Association members will get similar upgrades.”
She paused before looking pointedly at Kahari.
“Almost like it’s appearance here and now was divine providence. Gods can’t interfere most of the time, but spawning a dungeon that specifically gives Awakened a power boost? That’s something I’d see Detia doing, especially since Awakened aren’t as bound by the threads of fate. Getting you stronger means changing the future is easier.”
Kahari shook his head.
“But why me? She even said she had other messengers, just to make the point clear. Why in front of us?”
Kalisse paused, but it was Chara that answered.
“The region. The forest here already spawns dungeons on occasion, she may have co opted one that was about to spawn anyway, shifted things without having to create. Right place, right time. Altering things from what they were going to be. Makes perfect sense for a chaos goddess like her.”
That…made some sense. Kahari wasn’t sure he believed it, but it did make sense. Not that they could answer it any time soon. Instead Kalisee stood up, pointing at the three of them. This time, Kahari understood what she was saying.
“Power of Water, Restful Mind!”
And suddenly the three of them were very, very tired.
“Sleep now, the three of you. I’ll take watch, then Chara. We’ll pick one of you to wake up when it comes time.”
Kahari wasn’t sure how a restful mind made them so tired, but then, as he laid down on his bedroll, he realized that his stamina bar had been empty before she cast the spell. She’d removed their anxiety and adrenaline so they could rest.
“T-thanks Kalisse.”
And as exhaustion took him, he noticed that Chara had moved her bedroll between him and Nissa, as if she was trying to keep both of them close so she could watch over them. While Kahari found sleep, he didn’t notice that Bedora, giant teddy bear that she was, had moved her bedroll closer to her sister on the other side, looking for the comfort of family after whatever she had gone through.
