Underworld - Sanctuary: A LitRPG Series, page 6
Two restrooms stood to either side of the entrance of the hall we had chosen. These would also be restored to working order by Khun. We had taken the time to clean them first.
There was a sink, which was more like a large trough, near the entrance and each stall was blocked off by a wall but had no door to give complete privacy. After three weeks in the Underworld, though, we had worse things to worry about.
I slid the lever on the wall. It immediately slid back to its starting position as I watched ice mana release from the toilet bowl’s rim and liquify. Water ran around, then down the bowl just like a real toilet. Perhaps I should have felt ridiculous finding so much joy in the sight, but the Head Mistress’s restroom had resembled an outhouse more than a place with proper plumbing.
Victory!
I sat down and took care of business, then secretly thanked the Head Mistress, for she had provided one thing that I now considered priceless.
Mage’s Toilet Paper
Never run out of this household essential again! For anywhere you find yourself you will never be without! As the spell levels up lotion can be added to the effects of the spell!
Getting up from the new stone throne, I manipulated Skeletal Armor to cover my shame. Just as I made it to my feet, I found myself almost jumping back into the wall with fright.
“Elorion!” Chris cried, now standing a few feet away.
“Dude! You don’t jump out at someone in the bathroom!” I rebuked. Doors to the bathroom stalls suddenly seemed a lot more important.
He had been about to say something but stopped short. His mouth hung open. He was all geared up in a green leather jacket that hugged his chest and waist tightly. Instead of the skull cap I last saw him use in battle, he had donned a black hood that currently rested on his shoulders and around the back of his neck.
“Sorry,” he said quickly but wasn’t swayed from his reason for seeking me out. “You have to take me with you.”
I made a show of looking around. He literally had me cornered in a restroom stall.
Stepping back, he let me out.
“Why do you want to go so badly?” I asked as I went over to the sink and washed my hands.
“Because I know what the herb Lydia needs looks like,” he insisted. He spoke faster with each word.
“She already showed us and is drawing up a list.”
“But I have them memorized.”
“The list?”
“No. All of them. Lydia was only going to give you the herbs needed for the Were-cure and a few others. About fifteen of them. But I know every ingredient that she has listed her books. Over three hundred of them.”
I stared at him for a long moment. He didn’t strike me as lying. Maybe a bit desperate.
“You want to impress her,” I said bluntly, calling him out.
He nodded, not bothering to hide it. “There’s more to it than that. She feels like she’s the most worthless person here. Anytime she goes out to level against mobs, all she can do is stand there and leech off of everyone else. I’ve read through her books though. Alchemy is capable of amazing things.”
“And if you get her the ingredients she needs, you think she’ll start to see her worth,” I said, finished his thought.
“Yes.”
Shaking my head, I had to admit I could understand how he felt. Everyone’s emotional well-being was more Aeris’s wheelhouse, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to help. Perhaps Aeris wouldn’t have to do all the work in taking care of the others after all. From day one Chris had been extremely generous to me, and everyone else for that matter. I feared he had fallen behind in level because he had spent so much time helping Lydia, but that might not be such a bad thing in the long run if it built her up.
It also worried me that Lydia felt as she did. Her poison had been a big help with Travis’s traps, and if we could get her the ingredients, she would be able to save him from turning into a werewolf, if he didn’t decide to become one. I had to admit though, I wasn’t making use of any of the potions she was capable of making now. I’d have to stop by her crafting station and make a point of taking advantage of what she had.
I decided to be as honest as possible with him. “The problem is, you might slow us down and possibly put the mission in jeopardy… What level are you, Chris?”
“Level 296,” he replied, straightening up to his full height. “And I reached 1,000 Dexterity, so I should be able to keep up.”
I had to admit that if he’d had any other primary stat than Dexterity, I’d have immediately turned him down. His endurance wasn’t a big problem because of my Heal spell’s properties.
“You’ll be the lowest level in our group by over fifty levels. What can you contribute besides your knowledge?” I continued.
He grinned. “Let me show you.”
“Okay…”
As soon as I replied, he disappeared in a blur.
I spun around to find him a few meters behind me. His sword was drawn, and he grinned even wider.
“My talent isn’t good for fighting in formation, but it’s great for one on one situations.”
I raised a brow. Interesting. This was the perfect reminder that I really needed to get to know everyone and what their talents were.
He took my silence as a cue to explain what had just happened. “My talent is called Ambush. I have to target something like a mob or a spot on the ground, and then use it as a focal point. Once I activate Ambush, I get a surge of speed that whips me around to the rear of my target. It’s like running really fast, then grabbing on to a poll and allowing your momentum to swing you around even faster. It greatly accelerates my speed. I just don’t have to get a running start to pull it off.”
Maybe it really wasn’t a bad idea to bring Chris with us after all.
“How often can you use it?” I asked.
“That is the biggest issue I’ve had with it. It takes a lot of stamina and I was only able to use it safely twice at first. Now that I’ve been upping my Constitution and leveling my skill I’m able to use it seven times.”
I scratched my chin. That was more than I’d have guessed. “Let’s test something.”
Casting my Regeneration Aura, I extended it out to him. “See how many you can cast now.”
He blurred out of sight once again. This time I was able to follow his trail with Mana Sight, but even at double my normal perception he was too fast for me to turn with him. Almost as soon as I caught sight of him again, he blurred back around. I counted to myself as he used Ambush over and over. When he finally stopped, I had counted twenty-three times.
“About twenty-two without running out of stamina. Twenty-three is my max,” he said as he struggled to catch his breath. A few deep breaths later he started breathing easier thanks to my regen spell. “It looks like I’ll be able to fully recover in about ten seconds with your aura though.”
“No promises,” I responded. “I need to talk to the others first and see if they’re comfortable with you coming. If so, I think we can make it work.”
At hearing my words, he ran at me with a hoot and grabbed me in a bear hug. As small as he was, he nearly picked me up off the ground.
***
I took a bedroom near the restroom at the front of the hall for my own. Its location was important so that I could be the first to face any attack made it this far. Although I doubted I’d use it much. I had already grown accustomed to not having to sleep and I didn’t see that changing any time soon.
At first, I thought cleaning our rooms was going to take a lot of time since no one really had any cleaning magic. I considered trying to manipulate Ice Shard to create water to clean with, but then I saw Zorik step up and show off his skill. In less than an hour, he went through and power-washed all 24 rooms with his water magic. We’d decided to do every room in the hall even if we were only using 21 of them. Aeris came in behind him with her Wind Magic and dried the entire area in about fifteen minutes.
When I finally entered my room after the deep cleaning, it was nothing more than a large, empty rectangle. There was enough room for a queen size bed, a desk and maybe a bookshelf or wardrobe. If only I had any of those things. When we gave Khun the word, all that would be added were beds stocked with a pillow and blankets. As a bonus, the linens were self-cleaning, but to customize things we would have to find the items we wanted, construct them, or spend DP. In the future, we would hopefully be able to purchase them, eventually.
Everyone had gathered in the hall, just outside of their rooms, when Richard made an announcement. “Here we go!”
My voice joined the gasps of the others as a bed-sized slab rose up from the ground on the right side of my room. There seemed to be no distinction from the blue and green speckled stone of the walls. Khun had guaranteed our beds wouldn’t be made of rock, so I watched closely in anticipation. As my bed reached full height, about three feet off the ground, its texture began to ruffle and dull. Before my eyes, its substance changed from stone to fabric. The green and blue specks that made up the rock started to move around until they all fell into place, making a dotted pattern.
I approached what looked to be a full-sized bed and placed my hand on top of the comforter. When I ran my hand over it, it undoubtedly felt like fabric. With a shrug, I plopped down on its edge and sank into the semi-firm mattress. Taking a deep breath, I pulled down the comforter to reveal a typical sheet of solid blue and a green pillow. Without further delay, I fell and buried my face in its cottony goodness. I hadn’t used the cots at the Head Mistress’s often, but a real bed was worth spending some time to enjoy.
Suddenly, a scream rang out. I was up and out of my room without hesitation, darting across the hall to scramble into Aeris’s room.
Instead of finding her in trouble, she was rolling about on her bed and hugging her pillow like a kitten high on catnip. As she rolled away from the wall, she finally spotted me and a few others standing there, worried. She froze, looking up at us wide-eyed. After a moment of staring, she screeched at us with a playful cry and returned to rolling about.
***
By lunch, our 35,000 DP was spent. Zorik had taken extra time gathering all the scattered and broken pots, pans and cooking utensils before power-washing the restaurant-sized kitchen. If we included the utensils from the smaller kitchens, he would have far more than he would need to do his job. It was a job he seemed especially excited about. I wondered if he had fond memories of working here in the past.
We had begun rationing the food, so today's lunch was a hearty soup made up of beef sausage, green beans, and sweet potatoes, with other seasonings. It went a long way, I had to admit, but I was nowhere near full. Ever since reaching my current level, I could easily eat enough for five normal people. My magic would have to sustain me for now.
Instead of making Zorik do the dishes, everyone lined up at the kitchen sink as they finished to rinse their own food tray. We had no cleaner or detergent, but Clarissa had enough control over her Fire Magic that we were able to fill up one side of the sink and sanitize everything with boiling water.
I waited until everyone was finished before approaching Zorik. He was flapping his wings just enough to hover there. With his hands on his hips, he examined the kitchen.
“Is it how you remember?” I asked.
Without looking toward me, he replied, “More or less.” As if returning from his thoughts, he added, “Sir.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” I pried. It was probably the fifth time I had asked him in the last two days. “I meant what I said about helping you level up.”
“No, no, no, no, no, sir. At best I’ll slow you down. And if you need to use your Light Magic to heal everyone, I’ll just get in the way.”
I nodded that I understood. “Let's head to the Master Chamber. Travis will meet us there, so we can get a handle on directions.”
Aeris and Travis were both waiting with Khun, who had already appeared above his pedestal. Travis was studying what looked like a large scroll unrolled in his hands when his eyes shot up to greet us.
“Elorion!” he sang, waving us over. “It looks like my mapping talent is going to work better than we thought.”
We crowded around him to get a good look at his scroll. As expected, it was a map that looked to be made of aged parchment. I immediately recognized it was of our dungeon. Each section of Sanctuary was visible, with enough detail that each room was shown at scale in fine black ink.
What Travis did next left me baffled. He held the scroll in one hand while he placed his thumb and index finger on the surface of the map. As he brought his fingers together, Sanctuary shrank in size and the surrounding area became clear. It worked just like a touchscreen on a phone or tablet.
“Khun. Bring up the surrounding area like a good ghost, if you please,” Travis directed.
My head jerked to see Khun. I was relieved he wasn’t offended by being called a ghost, and even more surprised to see a map appear on the wall, replacing Sanctuary’s stats.
“You have a world map?!” I accused.
“Of course,” Khun responded as if it should have been obvious.
I had expected the dungeon spirit to have knowledge of the surrounding area, as I had confirmed with him in conversation, but he had never mentioned he could actually show us.
“There. That’s good,” Travis said, stopping Khun from zooming out any farther. Travis pointed at a spot on the map. “Look there.”
That was when I saw the giant cavern, bigger than Sanctuary that was depicted to the east. It was The Belly. My eyes quickly traced their way from The Belly to the crossroads with the horse-headed rock and then all the way to where we stood now.
“Watch!” Travis exclaimed.
Turning back to his map, I saw colorless mana seep from him through Mana Sight and into the scroll he held. His eyes were not on the scroll, but the map on the wall. As he studied what Khun was showing him, his map started to fill in the gaps until he had magically copied everything he was missing.
A croaking sound came from Zorik, who I found staring at Travis as if seeing him for the first time. “Wow,” he mumbled to himself.
“With this, can you show me where the dungeon is?” Travis asked the imp.
Still stunned after what he had witnessed, Zorik nodded his head frantically a few times in response.
We waited a moment until Zorik snapped out of his shock.
“This should make things easy,” the imp admitted. “Let's bring up northeast of The Belly and everything between us and it. Khun should have everything mapped in a twenty-mile radius and a few special locations that we used to travel to often. You might as well do some scouting while you’re gone. If we’re in luck, you might find some food closer to home.”
***
It was early afternoon when the time everyone had been waiting for had come.
Chris had joined us in the Master Chamber as I readied to give the command. Aeris and Travis were also there. The four of us gathered around the local map that would track every creature that entered the Outer Perimeter of Sanctuary.
When I’d asked the others if Chris could join us on our mission to find the imp’s dungeon, surprisingly no one had any objections.
We were all geared up and ready for action if the situation called for it. Chris was in his green leather and his black hood. Travis was in his tanned leather armor, leaning against his spear. And Aeris had also donned leather armor with a slight red tint and a matching leather skirt. We were all dressed for speed, but I had to admit that fleeing from the Head Mistress’s labyrinth had drastically reduced the level of gear we would have had if we still had access to the merchants. I was in the worst shape, still garbed in my Skeletal Armor. At least now I wore undergarments and had a few backup pairs in my inventory.
“Alright, everyone. It’s time!” I declared, calling to everyone through group chat.
Looking to Khun, I gave him a nod. “Do it.”
At my word, he turned off the Dungeon Aura’s repel feature and turned it to attract. Now, all we could do was wait.
We were waiting until tomorrow morning to leave just in case things got out of hand. We had no sure way of knowing what would happen once the attract feature was activated and Khun’s answer to that question left too much up to chance. I remembered how the were-creatures in The Belly had worked together. There was a real possibility that level 1,000 werewolves could show up with their low-level pals. We would first get a feel for how the Dungeon Aura worked, then leave after everyone felt comfortable. Worst case scenario we would turn the Dungeon Aura back to repel until we returned. If it did only bring level 200 creatures, it was worth taking the chance. There were still several levels the others could gain even from lower level mobs while we were gone. Levels they would need.
Silence reigned through group chat as everyone waited in anticipation. I examined the map and saw the others broken up into two main groups. They were in the rooms of the Outer Perimeter closest to The Bridge and The Pits. The Maze was still blocked off from the Inner Chamber which allowed us to focus our forces.
As the minutes passed, I started to think it may have been a bad idea to get everyone’s hopes up. If it was hours before any mobs showed up, everyone would just be standing around doing nothing.
The first red dot blinked into existence.
A tickle of electricity crawled up my spine.
“One Wererat. Northern region,” Khun stated. “Make that two.”
“There we go,” I said aloud.
“It has begun!” Travis called, startling us. He snickered as we all turned to glare at him. At least he was returning to his light-hearted self, for now.
Red dots on the map started to multiply on the northern part of the screen as they moved toward The Pits. They still had a lot of distance to cover, but Khun had made it clear that his Dungeon Aura would lure them into the Middle Perimeter. It looked like that would be the case.
“Seventeen Wererats. Northern region. One Dust Worm. Southwestern region,” Khun listed.
