Random Portals

Steven and Silvia talked for a long while, to the point Steven got bored. But he had things he wanted to know, so he stuck it out. He did learn a lot when he could keep the Wisp from going off topic. Silvia kept getting distracted by what Steven didn’t know and wanted to give him the entire origin story before moving on. Eventually he pulled out the water pipe, which seemed to please the Wisp as she believed it helped him concentrate. The most relevant thing was that once he had all seven shards he could form a core causing all his shard abilities to evolve, but she said it was unlikely he would get to that high of a level.

When he asked about where the Shards actually came from, all he got was a bunch of nonsense. Some thought it was the shattered remains of a God, others thought it was a God’s ability to enslave all of humanity. There were even religions formed around both these ideas. Steven just took it all with a grain of salt since the Wisp didn’t know what the actual origins of the Shards were. Or was keeping it from him. Eventually Steven was able to bring the subject back to the Dungeon.

After Silvia explained that the third floor was ghouls with a few skeletons. Steven began heading to the third floor. It confirmed what Sirus told him about the third floor. Based on what he could tell, he could trust the Wisp. As he walked, he thought of only one thing: he needed to gain more levels so he could get out of this damn dungeon. The third floor came out into a tunnel just like the second.

“I’m getting tired of these dark, damp tunnels.”

“The fifth floor is a mushroom forest.” Silvia said from within his inventory. “It’s my favorite floor!”

Steven just nodded. A mushroom forest would be a nice change of pace. It didn’t take him long to walk down the tunnel and get a glimpse of the ghouls. Steven just blinked at them. There were several Smeagol looking creatures eating on what he assumed was a zombie. He had no idea how a zombie got on this floor.

Slowly backing into the tunnel and away from the creatures, he pulled out the map. To his horror, the map was completely blank.

“Uh! Silvia, what happened to the map?”

“I told you to not call me by name. Sorin could be listening! And yea, sorry about that, Sorin found out I gave you the map and turned off all maps.”

Steven went to say something, but Silvia continued. “It also means he can’t see where you are or how many dungeon monsters he has on the floors unless he turns it back on, although he knows what floor you're on and can still use dungeon sight, but it’s limited.”

“Well, at least there’s that,” Steven sighed, “so is there any reasons for you to stay in my storage then?”

“If he employed that Beholder than he can track me, so it’s best I stay in here for now, besides its actually quite comfortable in here.”

“A Beholder? Never mind that you can tell me about it later.” Steven didn’t want her telling him the origin story of Beholders while he was trying to deal with these ghouls.

“Are you sure? I can give you a brief rundown on them.”

Steven sighed, then pulled out his short bow, doing his best to ignore the Wisp for the moment. He didn’t understand the purpose of the Wisp staying in his inventory, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

His plan was to stick with his tried-and-true method of taking out all the singles while getting a feel for the creatures before moving on to the groups. Now that he had a bow, he was feeling much better about this tactic.

Steven nocked an arrow and took aim.

“Don’t forget about the ring of summons.” Silvia said just as Steven was releasing the arrow, causing him to miss his shot by a wide margin. The arrow somehow managed to hit an entirely different ghoul in the shoulder. And that ghoul happened to be in the middle of a group.

Before he could even tell the Wisp to shut up, six ghouls turned towards him and began sprinting at him. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Steven turned and ran.

“Don’t run, they will catch you. Use the ring or something!”

Without turning around, he activated his ring with a thought.

Would you like to use Ring of summons Yes/No?

Note: Can only be used once per day.

Mentally selecting yes, he stopped running and tuned to face the ghouls. Before Steven even had the chance to pull out his bow and take pop shots, a black and red portal appeared and out stepped a large, bare chested, wrinkly old man with an enormous sword. Steven stopped gawking and aimed his bow at the ghouls. Before he could release his first arrow, the old man swung his sword, sending a flaming phantom of his blade at the ghouls.

+97

+102

+89

+107

+96

+103

“Holy shit, that was amazing!” Steven shouted.

The old man then turned to Steven and approached. “I am Kelly. My blade is at your service, my lord.”

Steven’s eyes widened. As the old man spoke, his voice was raspy and muffled.

Steven realized this old man was no man at all. It looked more like someone had stitched together skin and wrapped it around a skeleton. In fact, Steven would bet money that’s exactly what happened. He decided then and there he did not want to offend this creature.

“Thanks Mr. Kelly, but no need for the lord stuff. Shall we keep going?” Steven asked. He really hoped this summon didn’t cut the skin off its summoners. Mr. Kelly was definitely sending off those sorts of vibes.

“Yes, let us continue,” Kelly said, “I, unfortunately, have little time left on this plane.”

“If you want, you can just go out and kill everything insight.” Steven said, hoping the summon would take him up on that.

The summons stitched up face twisted into a horrifying smile, that nearly made Steven take a step back.

“Thank you, my lord. I would love nothing more.” Suddenly the summon took off like a rocket down the tunnel and it wasn’t but a few seconds before Steven started gaining essence.

Steven pulled out his water pipe and shakily took a couple hits.

“That thing was terrifying!” Steven said.

“Wow! You were lucky to get an Eater Knight on your first attempt!” Silvia said.

“Eater knight?” Steven asked, ignoring the rain of essence coming in.

“Oh, yes, they are very powerful skeletal creatures!”

“I knew it! So what’s with all the stitched skin?”

“That is its trophies!”

“You say that like it is normal to wear the skin of your enemies.”

“Well, it is normal for Eater Knights. They have a strong desire to join the living, so they collect the skin of their enemies. Sorin doesn’t even have any of them in his dungeon. I bet he would be pissed right now if he knew one was helping you!” Silvia said, light flickering.

Steven almost asked how collecting the skin of its victims helped the creature join the living, but decided he would rather not know.

It didn’t take long for the five-minute timer to run out. Steven took in a deep breath and sighed. He had been worried that Eater Knight would come back to take his skin since there wasn’t any other living skin around, but it seems he would get to keep his skin this time. He was having mixed feelings towards Mr. Kelly. Part of him respected how great his work ethic was and hoped to summon him back, though another part of him was worried it would skin him if he did. When he asked Silvia about it, she just said that almost never happens. Which didn’t help him feel better in the slightest.

Steven went around and explored a bit. The dungeon itself opened up, much like the last floor, lots of boulders and places to hide. He was quite happy he hadn’t run into any sneaky creatures. As the terrain was perfect for it. As he snuck around, it was obvious which path Mr. Kelly took the knight left scorch marks and devastation in its wake.

Steven snuck around, sending ghouls to inventory, while the Wisp directed him where to go. They did this for what seemed like hours, till he heard what sounded like a muffled battle. It wasn’t long before they made it to a door that was the source of the noise. Silvia said it was the previous floor decoy boss. She also told him to go in. Since they were coming from the third floor, there wouldn’t be any reason he couldn’t enter. She also explained that the creature was just a big, fat zombie. He could use some more essence and he didn’t think Sirus would mind him joining. When he asked what a decoy boss was, she explained it was a trap. When the decoy boss was defeated, everyone in the room would be sent directly in front of the skeletal knight that nearly killed him and Eve.

Steven could only imagine how devastating of a trap that would be. After fighting one boss, you would have to face an even stronger one afterwards. Silvia said this was the only floor that had such a trap, making Steven feel slightly better, and very grateful that he now had this little ball of knowledge. Even though she could be a bit talkative at times.

The door slowly screeched open, and the entire fight came to a halt. Even the boss paused to look at Steven. The boss or decoy boss was indeed a big fat zombie, though Silvia hadn’t mentioned all the disgusting-looking boils oozing some sort of green liquid that sizzled as it dripped to the dungeon floor.

Steven glanced down at the daggers in his hand and back up to the Zombie. He turned to go back out the door, but it was now a fog wall. “Shit!”

That’s when Steven realized it wasn’t Naga but humans and a single Spider-kin fighting the boss.

“Uh, hey what’s up?” Steven said sheepishly.

Suddenly, the room broke out into chaos, little zombies started crawling out from the ground and the boss monster let out a horrifying roar as it charged the humans and Spider-kin. Steven pulled out his bow and shot the big zombie, but its health bar didn’t even drop. Several blue arrows blasted into the boss at once and Steven seen its health bar drop to ninety-seven percent. Meaning he had done at least some damage or maybe boss fights always showed the health bars.

Steven glanced at the source of the blue glowing arrows and seen one of the humans holding up a staff and blasting blue arrows from it. He was a bit jealous of the staff and annoyed he couldn’t use spells yet.

The boss’s back was facing Steven, so he wasn’t in any danger at the moment. But the hostile looks the humans were giving him were not something he was enjoying. One with a spear and shield was yelling something at him, but he couldn’t hear a thing at this distance.

Before Steven could think of a good plan, the Spider-kin appeared next to him. “You must be Sirus’s human. We were told to tell you he wouldn’t be able to make it today there was some complications with the Elders.” Suddenly, the Spider-kin was gone.

Did that spider just call him Sirus’s human? He had a lot of questions, but now didn’t seem like a good time to talk. The human adventures were struggling with the boss. The zombie boss kept spawning smaller zombies that were overrunning them. Steven just sent the ones that came towards him to inventory. The big Zombie seemed more interested in dealing with the damage dealer and wasn’t paying Steven any attention.

“Why don’t you send it to inventory and kill it later? You could gain a couple levels from that thing.”

“Silvia, you’re a genius.” Steven ran directly at the boss. As he approached, he realized he didn’t even come up to the waste of the giant zombie and he had forgotten about the boils, but it was too late to turn back now. Placing his hand on the back of the boss’s leg, he prayed it wasn’t too large to fit.

The boss room went silent as all the smaller zombies fell lifelessly to the floor. All eyes turned to Steven. “Hey, I need to talk to you about Sirus,” Steven said. “when is he coming back? And what’s going on with the Elders?”

The Spider-kin appeared next to Steven with wide eyes, slowly walking around him. “what did you do to the boss? You just defeated it with a single touch!” The Spider-kin said wide eyed.

“I just thought it best to just deal with it real fast. So we could talk.” Steven said, as he glanced over at the humans who were huddled up talking. He hoped they didn’t notice the lack of essence. The Spider-kin simply blinked at him while tilting his head from side to side.

“So about Sirus. When is he coming back?”

It took the Spider-kin a long moment, but he finally spoke. “Sorry. I’m unsure. I haven’t spoken with him directly. My party and I were just investigating the lack of undead in the dungeon before the war broke out. The princess ordered me to tell the human that Sirus couldn’t make It. Something to do with the Elders is all I know. I’m sorry I don’t have more information for you.” Steven glanced at the rest of the Spider-kin’s party that was now walking towards him. Getting a better look at them, it was obvious they were elves, not humans.

“Is it true you are staying in the dungeon till you defeat the Dungeon Lord?” The Spiker-kin asked excitedly.

“Pardon me,” the mage said,” but I must ask what happened to the boss? According to our artifact, we didn’t gain any essence from that fight.”

“What she is trying to say is you owe us some essence, human. We nearly had that boss dead before you came in and reset the boss’s health!” The spear wielding elf said.

Steven was just about to say he was sorry and would pull back out the boss, but the Spider-kin broke in. “I do apologize for my party members, but you owe us nothing! I am very sorry for the disturbance we weren’t actually supposed to engage the boss and…”

“Why would you tell him that?” The spear welding elf hissed.

“Well, this wasn’t actually the boss.” Another elf said.

“Shush!” The Spider-kin said, “this is Sirus’s disciple.”

“Captain Sirus!”

“Are you serious? But he is human!” The spear wielding elf asked.

“Oh! We do apologize. We shall be on our way!” The elf mage said as they turned to leave.

“Wait!” Steven said.

“I did ruin your fight. Maybe we could work together and clear the next floor.”

The mage looked interested, but the spear wilder shut down the idea. “No, we should be going.”

“Hold up Clinton, we could really use the essence! The lack of dungeon monsters so far…”

“No. We must go!”

“Maybe next time, I would love to learn what sort of magic you used to deal with that boss.” The mage said.

“Stop flirting!”

“I’m not flirting! I’m just interested in his magic is all.”

"Sure."

"The both of you shut up!" The spear elf hissed as he walked away.

“We are sorry to have disturbed you.” The Spider-kin said before he jogged to catch up.

“He has to be powerful. Did you see how he dealt with that boss?” Steven heard the mage say.

“What else do you expect from Captain Sirus’s pupil?”

Steven sighed. He could’ve really used the help to clear the floor.

“Well, I guess it’s just back to the two of us.” Steven paused before he went back to the third floor. “Is there no loot for clearing the room?”

After a moment, Silvia spoke up. “Why would there be loot?”

“Its just we defeated a boss isn’t there loot, like a chest or something?”

“Do you think Sorin would just leave treasure for adventures?”

Steven couldn’t see the Wisp, but he got the sense she was rolling her eyes at him. Wait, she didn’t even have eyes. How was he getting these impressions?

Steven shook his head. “Never mind, let’s get back to grinding. Any ideas how to kill this boss? It still had over eighty percent of its health when I sent it to inventory.”

“Maybe, just pull it out and stab it over and over.”

“You’re no help!” Steven said, making his way back to the third floor. “This isn’t going to send me somewhere else, is it?”

“No, the trap is disarmed, since the actual boss was defeated.”

“Okay, just making sure. Also, that Spider-kin mention something about a war?”

“Yea, that may have something to do with Sorin. He was trying to stop the half Naga from helping you so you wouldn’t be able to reach him.”

“But how, I thought he was trapped in here?”

“While he is trapped, he is still a Dungeon Lord and can communicate with others. Though I’m sure he had to pay dearly to start something like a war. Then again, it wouldn’t take much for the humans to wage war. They have been wanting access to this dungeon for decades and hate the half Naga with a passion.”

“Great! Just more complications. Looks like I will just have to deal with this dungeon alone.” Steven said as he sent a lone ghoul to inventory.

The next two days went by quickly as Steven sent ghoul after ghoul to inventory. As for the boss zombie, he couldn’t think of a way to kill it. He had pulled it out and stabbed it a few times but quickly decided against that approach as it went berserk and nearly got away once. The last thing he needed was a berserk boss monster running around on the floor, not to mention the boils.

Stealth was key in this Dungeon and Steven had been using it non stop on the ghouls. They were fast, but they didn’t pack up like the zombies, making it easy for him to sneak up on. He was hoping stealth would level up soon, but he had no idea how to go about doing it again. He was still at such a low level, which was likely why it wasn’t leveling. Silvia just told him it was hard to raise the rank of talents once you reached basic.

She also told him that he should be at least level twenty before he tried for the fourth floor. And recommended to stay clear of the boss rooms for now. He had already located the hidden path on this floor. It only took a bit more effort now that he didn’t have a map, and having to rely on Silvia to guide him.

The tunnel leading to the hidden path was full of ghouls that he still needed to clear. Other than the ghouls wide aggro range and being really fast, they were easy enough to deal with, from what he could tell they depended completely on sight.

He could probably scream and shout right behind one without it noticing him, though one look at their claws kept him from testing that theory. Though he did have a few close calls when he was trying to deal with the ones that were clustered together. Luckily, there were never many of them together and he was able to deal with them without much issue.

As he worked, he wondered what he was going to do if he faced something that wasn’t undead. He relied on his inventory ability way too much. And he couldn’t send anything living to inventory. But that was a problem for another time. Right now, he needed to just survive this dungeon. He still had seven more floors to go and his food supplies were rapidly depleting along with his smoke supply and he only had a few dark vision potions left. Even with the supplies Sirus brought and the extra potions Eve gave him, he would not nearly have enough. Though he had the shared vision with the Wisp, he could try out.

Silvia had been trying to convince him to use the undead Shard now that he was level ten, saying that Shards were extraordinarily rare and he should use any he could find, but he continued to refuse.

Each day he used the ring of summons, but he got nothing nearly as powerful as Mr. Kelly. Which was a bit disappointing. But the summons did try. Well, other than the fire turtle, it basically just laid in a single spot and smoldered. But when Steven realized how incredibly hot it was, he started dropping ghouls on it and watched as they burst into flames and died. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize this till the timer was nearly gone on the summon and could only dispose of a handful of ghouls, but every bit of essence added up.