With Bella finally able to rain hell upon our opponents, Seraphine being freed up to join the fight, and Nyx running constant interference, the battle doesn’t last too much longer.
Well, I say that, but Seraphine and Nyx often take rests near Bella, who herself has to take several breaks for her mana to refill.
All the while, I run wild.
I already know that I’m going to crash pretty hard after I disable Seeker’s Survival, but I’d done my research behind endurance Skills.
Rather, Cari forced me to do my research.
Often. And whilst glaring.
A blade slams through a gap in my Scarlet Barrier and skewers my arm. With a quick pivot, I pull the creature into the barrier, allowing it to be shredded by a flurry of powerful wind and crystallized blood.
What I learned was that I’m an idiot. At least, kinda.
Apparently, evolutions take a lot out of a person. And by ‘a lot’, I really mean it will knock a person comatose the instant it begins. So most people, rather smartly, put it off until they get somewhere safe.
Turns out the System will oh-so-sweetly tuck the option away until you’re good and ready if you think about it hard enough.
Gods damned System, not even showing the option. Not that I would have taken it, anyways… but still!
It’s the principle of the thing. You hear me System? Be nicer!
The System doesn’t respond.
I decide to take that as tacit agreement to my demands.
Regardless, after learning that, I understood why Cari was so upset with me. Hells, I’d wanted to throttle past-me for a while.
Just as the undead begin pushing my limits, I finally have enough mana for another Blood Burst.
Boom.
In retrospect, I’d had plenty of chances to learn. I just chose not to because they didn’t seem important at the time. But now, most—if not all—of the information I discarded has come back to bite my tail.
So with Cari’s endless… encouragement… I learned a great many things. Namely, that I could push Seeker’s Survival quite far without risk of death. I couldn’t go an entire week of nonstop fighting and expect to be fine… but a day? Two?
I’d be miserable for a bit afterwards, but I could do it.
So as my party recovers, I keep moving. Laughing. Fighting. Blurring from one explosion to the next, until the battlefield is a tripping hazard with all the bodies strewn about.
And at some point, around the last couple of minutes, the alarm stopped. Its silence feels wrong immediately, but there’s nothing I can do about it yet.
They never once bother retreating, despite the seeming intelligence they were operating with earlier. Instead they go fully berserk, showing no intelligent purpose other than slaughter.
Specifically mine, given I was most often in the thick of things, but that only gave me a better view of their mad scramble for my living flesh.
It takes what feels like hours to clear them out, but in reality only something like twenty or thirty minutes pass by the time the last is dealt with.
And then… silence.
Only the sound of our own gasping breaths break the quiet, but I don’t drop my guard while Nyx double checks the space for any stray Rogues.
As he moves, Seraphine steps up to me and asks for a quick healing. Most of the party had suffered injuries, but we all have simple healing potions in our storages. Each of them had downed one for their injuries near the beginning of the fight.
But with the fight over, I’m able to save us the potions it would take to heal everyone up.
She holds one hand to her side where a Fighter managed a decent swipe. The wound doesn’t look too deep, so I place my hand over hers and push all of my spare mana regen into Arcane Regulation.
It only takes a few seconds, and by the time I’m done I notice that her armor has also already begun repairing itself over the freshly healed area.
The entire time I’m healing her, she never takes her eyes off our surroundings. Then Nyx reappears before us, closer to the far side of the room. When he finally nods to each of us, I relax.
At the same time, Fae Ferocity fades away, leaving behind a mental weariness I’ve only experienced after the statue dungeon.
I feel like I could sleep for a week and still be tired…
But I already know that if I could see myself in a mirror, my smile would be blinding. Dark circles under my eyes be damned.
Quest Alert
You have discovered an ancient structure inhabited by intelligent undead.
Clear them out and see what you find.
Objectives:
Destroy at least 80% of the undead inhabiting this Dungeon.
(Optional) Discover what animates the undead.
(Optional) Discover the purpose of this ancient structure.
Rewards:
Level up x3
One enchanted item of epic rarity for each surviving party member.
Note: Rewards doubled if all optional objectives are completed.
I gawp at the quest, but my smile never wavers.
Because there’s still more to see.
You have leveled up! X3
Stats gained:
+6 Strength
+15 Constitution
+15 Dexterity
+12 Intelligence
+27 Wisdom
+6 Charisma
+30 free stat points
Congratulations!
Through experience, you naturally gain the following Skills:
Ice Resistance
Necrotic Resistance
Ice Resistance
Passive, Body
You are more resistant to ice and its effects when used against you.
+3% ice resistance per level.
Necrotic Resistance
Passive, Body
You are more resistant to necrosis, miasma, and other forms of death-aligned magics and their effects when used against you.
+3% necrotic resistance per level.
I figure it’s about time that I gained the Ice Resistance Skill, given how much time I’ve been spending around Bella. The other is unsurprising, given the situation.
I continue looking through the notifications, tail lashing excitedly behind me.
Fire Resistance has leveled up!
Level 8 -> Level 13
Ice Resistance has leveled up!
Level 1 -> Level 4
Lightning Resistance has leveled up!
Level 1 -> Level 9
Necrotic Resistance has leveled up!
Level 1 -> Level 4
Poison Resistance has leveled up!
Level 19 -> Level 21
Curse Resistance has leveled up!
Level 1 -> Level 2
Gods, yes.
Surprisingly, I’ve had an exceptionally difficult time training any of my resistance Skills. Mainly because the System is a bastard and won’t let me train by inflicting the damage upon myself.
Hells, I even had Cari try to light me on fire off and on for an entire week and it did nothing for leveling the Skill.
Which is what she told me, but I didn’t want to believe it.
Because that's stupid.
After that, I considered proposing it as a System change, but tossed the idea quickly enough. It makes sense that the System wouldn’t allow for people to grow stronger through blatant masochism.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though…
Then I’m hit with even better news.
“Yes!” I squeal, leaping into the air.
Everyone gives me a curious look, but I ignore them.
All around us are the bodies of the undead.
Undead bodies… with gear.
Ancient gear.
Ancient, probably enchanted gear.
The Carrier inside me is screams ‘loot’ and I immediately cave.
I gingerly tip-toe my way through the corpses until I find a dead… deader Mage. Then I immediately rifle through its belongings.
Unfortunately, nothing it’s wearing is of any special interest to me. Mostly it’s just basic Self Repair and Self Clean enchanted items, and not even good quality ones either. Still, I don’t lose hope.
Even if that’s all I get, they’re worth decent coin to newbie Delvers. I leave them for now, though. I already have a limited amount of storage space, so I’ll come back for it if there’s nothing better.
“Emilia…” someone says, their voice distant.
I spot a sparkling silver necklace on one of the Rangers and pilfer it.
Amulet of Lesser Accuracy
Common
Enchantments:
Lesser Accuracy
Slightly increase the accuracy of the wearer of this item in a multitude of tasks.
I sigh, mildly disappointed, but still stash it in my Starlight Bangle. It weighs practically nothing, and I’m sure I could get some silvers for it.
“Emilia,” someone says again, firmer this time, and now so close it pulls me from my looting haze.
“Huh?” I ask, glancing up from the floor.
Only to be locked within Bella’s scarlet gaze. She watches me, eyes narrowed ever so slightly with the barest hint of dissatisfaction. For a moment, I just stare, completely enraptured.
Then her lips move, end my eyes are drawn to them instead.
“We should investigate the passage ahead before we get caught off guard,” she says.
It takes a second to get out of my own head, but when her words finally register, my entire body goes rigid.
“R-right! Sorry, I…”
I stop talking, at a loss. Even after months of access to the System and solo delving, I haven’t overwritten years of ingrained habits as a Carrier.
For years, my only job had been to gather the loot and stay out of the way. To hand out potions and ointments, set up tents and cook.
The leading was always handled by another.
I shake myself off, my voice firming.
“Right. Nyx, if you’re able, scout ahead. I need to know if we can expect any surprises,” I say.
Nyx picks himself off the ground with an audible groan, but doesn’t otherwise complain. After patting himself down, he nods and heads out, crossbow in one hand, dagger in another.
By the time he reaches the corridor opposite the one we came from, he vanishes to my sight completely, some Skill or another activating to hide him from view.
Gods, that must be useful.
“Bella,” I continue, “Can you guard that corridor and back him up if he comes running?”
Her gaze softens and she favors me with a pleased smile. “Certainly.”
With that, she follows in Nyx’s tracks, then sets up a small ice barricade with a narrow opening at its center just inside the corridor.
Seraphine moves to take her place at my side and gives me a curious look. “And me?”
I glance her way and nod. “Have you noticed anything since the alarm stopped?”
She’d been on the edge of the battlefield most of the time, with the clearest view of the shift. In the thick of it as I was, I wasn’t able to notice anything significant beyond what blade to dodge next and where to cast my next Blood Burst.
She looks away, watching Bella work for a moment before inhaling deeply through her nose.
“Before, they were planning. Organized,” she starts, nodding slowly. “Then when it stopped, they seemed to lose any sense of cohesion. Almost like they went feral.”
I frown at that. I’d thought they lost their cohesion earlier, but that could have simply been because I was in the middle of the chaos from the very beginning.
“You’re sure?” I ask.
She nods. “Yes. The shield wall completely collapsed after Bella got involved, but they continued trying to reform it afterwards. The moment the alarm went quiet, they stopped, instead turning inwards.”
She gives me a serious look then. “Towards you, the closest source of life.”
I grunt, my eyes leaving Bella to scan the undead bodies for anything that stands out.
“So the alarm controls them?”
She shrugs, and I let out a sigh.
“Well, it’s something. Why in the name of the gods was an entire army here in the first place?” I ask, momentarily frustrated.
This was far more than I’d expected from our first delve.
She shakes her head with a laugh. “An army? No, that was just a battalion, at most.”
I give her my most potent side-eye. “And the difference is…?”
She raises a brow at me, confused. Then realization dawns on her face.
“Oh, you’re serious. Right, apologies. Uh… an army would mean somewhere between twenty and one-hundred thousand combatants. Or more,” she says.
My ears lay flat atop my head as a feeling of dread washes through me.
Would we have survived—
No. Just no.
At the look on my face, she nods. “Right, so you see this was most definitely not an army. That would have been… very bad. Given the number of undead we faced—and if I had to guess, I’d say that was somewhere around three or four hundred—that’d make them closer to a battalion than anything.”
For a moment, I just look around at all of the bodies. When I speak next, my voice is hushed.
“So… what’s after a battalion?”
She folds her arms under her chest and chews on her lip. “I see where you’re going with this, and I’m not liking it.”
She stands there for a moment, contemplating, worry clear in her eyes as she takes a fresh look at the ice barricade Bella has put up.
When she finally looks back to me, her gaze is deadly serious.
“Regiments, Brigades, Divisions, and then Armies. If we’re speaking in our modern allocations of troops,” she says. “But I’m not sure how that would hold up to such an ancient place. Is it even big enough in the first place?”
She shakes her head, and looks around once more, then hesitates. “Actually I find it odd that there's an organized force at all. If we’re meant to discover the purpose of this place, then it must mean that it was once important enough for such a significant military presence to inhabit it.”
I nod along, my gaze drifting to the walls once more and flickering over their mysterious… engravings…
My breath catches at the sight before me.
What I’d first taken for nothing more than decorative engravings now stand revealed in the flickering torchlight.
The ancient script that once filled the stone has eroded with age, worn smooth in long, deliberate strokes—not by time alone, but as though someone had scraped it away.
In its place remain carvings.
Not random symbols.
Scenes.
Entire stretches of wall depict figures in flowing robes standing beneath towering spires. Armies marching beneath banners I don’t recognize. Strange beasts coiled around pillars of stone and crystal.
The carvings are not crude. Far, far from it.
I see every fold of fabric. Every strand of hair. Every brick in distant structures etched with obsessive care.
Some panels are small, no larger than a shield, while others stretch from floor to ceiling, dominating the chamber like monuments.
Each flows into the next seamlessly, like chapters in a story.
I step closer without realizing it and see something that sets off my Dungeoneer’s Insight once more, a bubbling, roiling gut instinct nagging at the back of my skull.
One section draws my eye.
In it lies a collection of floating islands. Tall towers rise toward the sky from their surfaces, bridges of light arcing between them like chains holding them together.
Except one of the islands hangs inverted, its towers pointing downward like spears aimed at the ground.
I hear Taruq’s voice as I recall the moment Cari and I saw an identical structure while riding our first ever floating platform.
Taruq chuckles. “I see you’ve both noticed our Spacial Studies building. It’s quite the eye catcher when the professors decide to show off a little.”
My heart races in my chest, equal parts confused and excited by the discovery.
“Uh…” I murmur, lifting a hand toward the carving. “Isn’t that the Academy?”
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