Underworld - Sanctuary: A LitRPG Series, page 7
“Dust Worm?” Chris questioned.
“I don’t think we have seen one yet,” Aeris replied.
“We should totally run to its location before the others can get the bonus experience,” Travis joked.
I rebuked him with a look. “We’re going to have plenty of action soon enough. Right now, we’re backup. Let the others get a handle on this so we know they’re fine while we’re gone.”
“Yeah, yeah. This coming from the guy that went kill stealing as a joke.”
Bringing my hand to my chest, I gave him my best mock look of exasperation.
We shared a laugh.
There was a steady trickle of new mobs that started to appear every ten minutes or so. Wererats, Dust Worms, Rock Beetles, Dire Centipedes, and even a Goblin Scout showed up in the first hour. Khun was tracking their type and the region they entered so that we could go back and look for patterns that might lead us in the direction of any local mob hordes. The only drawback was that Khun wasn’t able to give us any information on the level or strengths of the creatures that entered the dungeon. To upgrade that feature would cost 100,000 DP. Twice the amount we had at max capacity.
The first mobs to reach the others were the Wererats. They were acting cautious, slowing their approach as they neared the Middle Perimeter.
“Can’t we go just to watch?” Travis asked.
I had to admit, I wanted to see how the others did as well. They weren’t simply standing around waiting for mobs to approach. Our mages had prepared some interesting surprises.
“That’s probably not a bad idea…” I said.
“Master. I can show you if you don’t mind,” Khun remarked.
I gave him a stern look. “Why didn’t you mention that before?”
“Forgive me. My last master Xenos didn’t want me to show him anything unless he expressly asked to see it. I didn’t mean to displease you,” Khun responded, bowing his head in contrition.
“All’s forgiven. Your suggestions are always welcome. I’d rather you annoy me than miss something.”
“I understand, master.”
This wasn’t the first time Khun had seemingly hid his features and abilities from me. Perhaps it was because he was still growing accustomed to me, but his personality seemed inconsistent. Sometimes he would go as far as interrupting me to voice his opinion and other times I’d have to pry it out of him.
Something the Head Mistress’s Lich had said came to mind, although he had said it about Zorik. “You cannot attribute human nature to him,” or in this case, to Khun.
As he had promised, Khun showed us the room where the wererats were about to run into the others. Instead of bringing it up on one of the wall panels though, his translucent image changed and suddenly we were watching a holographic projection above his pedestal. The image was made up of blues, greens, and shades of black, the mana colors of the elements Khun had access to.
When the hologram became clear, I couldn’t help but smile. Dozens and dozens of vines of all shapes and sizes were hidden to the sides and above the entrance that the Wererats were heading toward. This was the room Olivia had claimed or herself.
The little rat-faced creatures crept in, one after another. The lead wererat made it halfway into the room before its nose twitched side to side. There were no humans present, or any other enemy in its line of sight, but its senses weren’t fooled.
As the wererat turned back the way it had come to see an entire wall covered in vines and human-sized flesh-eating plants, its eyes went wide in terror. Before it could make a sound, a vine darted from the ceiling directly above it and impaled it in the gut, lifting it from the ground and delivering it into a giant plant mouth. It closed on the small, three-foot creature with a bone-shattering slam.
One after another, Wererats were ripped from the ground and devoured. Nine of the seventeen mobs that had entered the room were restrained in seconds.
Olivia’s Nature Magic wasn’t finished. The angle changed and we saw her a room away, kneeling down with her hand to the ground. I had seen her do something similar when she fought in The Belly. She was somehow able to feel the area with her magic.
The remaining Wererats had yet to enter the room with her nature traps but stood a room away watching in horror as their companions were snatched up.
They turned to run, but the numerous vines Olivia had in wait collapsed toward the doorway. They reached into the next room and grabbed at the remaining Wererats, fighting over the hairy little creatures. Not one escaped and many were strangled and broken before they made it into the jaws of the mob-eating plants a room away.
“Holey underpants!” Travis exclaimed.
I snorted. “More like finger food.”
“Gross!” Aeris proclaimed.
“French fried rat nuggets,” Chris suggested.
“Rat sushi? They ate them raw,” Travis responded.
“Yeah. Or rats in a blanket. They did have pants on,” I added.
“Seriously?! Are you guys really having this conversation?” Aeris scolded. She kept her eyes on the hologram, trying to ignore us.
“Sorry, Aeris,” I said. “Here, I have some bacon jerky left. Do you want some?”
A gust of air blew up into my face. It was so intense I had difficulty closing my eyes. I held up my hands to fend it off.
When the gust had finally stopped, Aeris stood with her arms crossed, unwilling to even look at me.
Leaning close to her ear, I whispered where only she could hear. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”
She turned her back to me, but it wasn’t enough to hide her grin. When she smiled, her subtly pointed ears rose up with the corners of her mouth.
Everyone fell into a nice rhythm and had plenty of downtime between attacks. Russ led the attack against the first Dust Worm, which was fifteen feet long and as thick as an adult python. He smacked it in the head with his hammer, stunning it enough for the three girls with Dexterity builds to finish it off by hacking it to pieces.
“Mel. Three Rock Beetles heading your way,” I said through group chat.
The three mobs waltzed in from the south.
Mel had his minions spread out over three rooms. He waited for three mobs to enter, hiding his skeletons against the wall, similar to the way Olivia had. These creatures were nowhere near as timid as the Wererats, nor did they seem to care when half a dozen skeletons wielding swords and axes cut them off. From the front and back the skeletons surrounded the chest-high beetles and cracked them open like giant eggs.
In the Master’s Chamber, at a distance from the action, we got little experience, which was a bummer, but with three of the creatures showing up in the first hour, I was confident I’d eventually get to kill one. I also tried Creature Observation through Khun’s holographic display to see if it would work, but there was no luck. Observing an image of a creature wasn’t the same as observing the creature.
Everyone else was spread out in the Outer Perimeter, but close enough that they were sharing experience. With the mages able to manage entire rooms of mobs, our bashers soon grew bored and started to compete against one another for the most kills.
Wererats were by far the most common creature they faced, coming from almost every region. The other scavenger types like Rock Beetles, Dire Centipedes, and Slime Badgers were also common. There were actually a number of creatures that were over level 200 that wandered in, like the Dire Centipedes which were close to level 300, but none of them proved overly difficult. Because the Dire Centipedes were tougher than the average mob, I went to get a closer look and confirmed their level. Certain types of creatures just seemed attracted to the bait of Khun’s Dungeon Aura more than others, so the level limit was a loose one at best.
The Goblin Scout that had been among the first creatures to enter our perimeter got close to our forces and remained at a distance for over an hour before leaving.
Once dinner time came around the first real challenge started. Managing everyone’s time. I had to make sure everyone got a chance to eat while there remained enough people left to fight the incoming mobs.
Technically, we had enough DP to just activate the giant doors to the Middle Perimeter. If we spent the points, we could just open them when we wanted to fight mobs and close them when we wanted a break. The problem was that two of the massive stone doors cost 4,000 DP each. That was two days’ worth of DP that could prove more useful elsewhere. When asked, everyone agreed that they would rather just take shifts fighting mobs, even if that meant they would have to take turns fighting at night without my endurance healing ability around while we were off looking for the imps’ dungeon.
It probably wouldn’t end up being an issue. Olivia and Mel had the greatest advantage fending off mobs in the Outer Perimeter. The numerous small rooms connected to one another in no logical pattern and possessed two to four entrances apiece. Olivia’s plant minions could be issued a command to auto-attack anyone outside her party and she could fill multiple rooms with them. Mel’s undead minions could also defend multiple rooms and work together to take on groups of mobs. Both of them had the ability to leave their minions to fend for themselves. It was possible that Sanctuary’s defense could be left to just the two of them. In time, they could defend it alone. That is, as long as any greater creatures didn’t attack.
They weren’t the only ones that proved to be able to easily handle the attacking mobs. Trevon and his ice magic could easily trap creatures inside a room filled with frozen spikes, or he could just flood multiple rooms with sheets of ice across the floor and greatly limit any enemy’s movements. Audrey already had a lot of experience using small rooms to amplify her Fire Magic like our time fighting the Earth Elementals. Our Earth Mage, Clarissa, was also coming into her own. She had likely learned something in our travels through the Underworld and was now dropping showers of stone spikes from the ceiling onto the mobs beneath and manipulating the mobs’ placement with spikes from the ground for crowd control. They could each easily solo full rooms of the enemy.
Our bashers weren’t all as efficient, although there were a few exceptions. Skyler, Russ, and Steve had outpaced the others and could clear entire rooms of the low-level mobs quickly. Skyler muscled his way through them swinging his sledgehammer with a fierce tempo while Russ’s ability to manifest an enlarged arcane striking surface for his weapon helped him batter mobs with ease. Steve wasn’t able to kill them as quickly, but his ability to slip in and out of Invisibility was much faster than mine. He picked groups apart before they knew they were dying.
Zorik was an oddball. He had the power to clear entire rooms with his Ice and Earth Magic, but something was holding him back. He was so stingy with his magic that he wouldn’t cast more than solo mob killing spells.
That meant that about half of the people remaining in Sanctuary would be able to hold back the mobs at one of our two entrances on their own if things got bad. If things really went south, I had instructed Khun to allow Olivia, Russ, Skyler, and Richard to spend DP and close the doors to the Middle Perimeter.
The biggest problem we ran into was getting everyone to return from dinner on time. I attributed this to the fact that we really hadn’t had to track time since we entered the Underworld. Here we had no appointments to keep and just kind of did our own things, whether solo or with a group of friends.
That night went more smoothly than dinner even though I wasn’t healing anyone that would be up until 3:00 am. Although, I wasn’t sure anyone would be sleeping well with what we had gone through recently.
As time went on, the stream of mobs from the surrounding area slowed, until well after midnight we could go an entire half an hour before we saw any adds. It was possible that certain mobs slept at night, but more likely that we had already cleared the surrounding area of low-level mobs. Khun reassured me that his aura reached for miles, so some of the creatures wouldn’t have had time to reach us yet.
Still, a slower rate of mob attacks was reassuring.
The count reached 366 mobs before morning came. The group of us that would soon leave had left the fighting to the others, but it was interesting to know that over fifty percent of the mobs that had been drawn in by Khun’s Dungeon Aura had come from the northern region, the same area we were headed to. Hopefully, we hadn’t cleared the entire area, because this time, instead of heading toward The Belly to the northwest, we would head directly north and cut a path toward the imps’ dungeon.
Chapter 6 – Departure
When I visited Lydia for the last time before we left, I loaded up on each of the antidotes she was now able to produce after studying her poisons. I was confident in my ability to heal, but poison was not something I had much experience with. I decided to play it safe and keep some in my inventory at all times.
Making available her antidotes was not the only thing Lydia helped with. When we had been forced to flee the Head Mistress’s dungeon, I’d had 4 Experience Potions left that gave a 50% experience bonus over 24 hours. Lydia hadn’t been able to duplicate them, but she was able to dilute them for an impressive result. We gathered 11 potions in total from our group, which she turned into 44 Lesser Experience Potions that gave a 12.5% experience bonus over 24 hours. I kept one of the greater potions just in case.
In all honesty, part of me hated losing the Experience Potions for lesser ones, but it was only a matter of time before the minotaurs arrived. We needed as much experience as we could get in a very short period of time. 44 potions gave the 21 of us 48 hours of increased experience gain. This would likely give us more experience overall, I hoped.
Chris handed out the Lesser Experience Potions to the four of us as we stood in the northern section of the Outer Perimeter, preparing to leave. Each of us downed our potion in turn. The swallowing of the yellow liquid and the shuffling of feet was the only sound that passed between us. Everyone had their game faces on.
“I’m going to cast two forms of Invisibility and Dark Vision on everyone. Except for you Travis,” I said.
He nodded.
Chris had confirmed that he didn’t have any Invisibility or skill allowing him to see through Invisibility.
“Wait. Don’t cast Dark Vision on me,” Aeris said while filtering through her spell menu. “I’m still not sure how well it works, but I have a Wind Perception spell that allows me to see Wind Mana in the magic spectrum. Since all air has Wind Mana, even if it might be filled with other kinds as well, I think I’ll be able to see in the dark.”
“Mages can do all the cool stuff,” Chris said, smiling broadly.
It was an interesting revelation. “What does it look like in the light?” I asked.
Shadows hung to the corners all around in these run-down blue and green speckled rooms, but there was enough light that Dark Vision was unnecessary.
Looking up from her menu, she activated the spell and looked around. “It gives the world a silvery tint and makes air currents visible.”
I nodded.
“I tested it a little. It does work, but I need a lot more experience with it to get good at it.”
“Test it out then but fly low,” I said, narrowing my eyes in concern.
She grabbed hold of my bone plate covered hand and tapped it with her knuckles as if saying that she would.
“Let's do this.” I redirected their attention and cast my spells on the group. “I’m going to cast Rejuvenation as well, but it’ll only pulse to restore our endurance once a minute. This way mobs that are sensitive to Light Magic will have a harder time noticing our approach. It’s not perfect,” I admitted. “Travis, you take the lead. Chris, you follow with Aeris overhead. I’ll take up the rear. Aeris, if I see you about to run into any walls with Wind Perception, I’m going to cast Dark Vision on you right away.”
“That’s kind of you,” she chuckled.
We set off. To my natural sight my friends looked like semi-translucent ghosts. They remained visible to me since we were grouped. Watching through Mana Sight, Aeris glowed with silver light and the other two glowed in dull white. The dull white didn’t have the creamy thickness of Light Magic and was the same energy that radiated off of all of our non-magic users.
As we left the area, we’d eventually get out of range of Richard’s communication ability and would cease be able to contact each other at a distance. I guessed his range was a few miles. I could only hope we wouldn’t need it. Our destination was already set, and Travis had the best handle on where we were headed anyways. There were a number of locations we were to stop at on the way that looked like they might contain life or something Zorik thought we might need.
I had stopped to use Intermediate Blood Drain and Lesser Devour before we left so that the mobs the others had killed wouldn’t go to waste. By using both Blood Drain and Devour together, I came up with a new spell, which I just named Drain. My take of stats from the low-level mobs was almost nonexistent, but thanks to a few new creatures I received a few.
+7 Str
+8 Con
We walked through the last couple of rooms in the north of the Outer Perimeter to find the correct exit. It was one among dozens just in this upper area, and was more of a cave entrance than a proper doorway. But with Travis strutting his map skills, we went right to it.
Everyone naturally slowed, realizing that we were about to put ourselves in the position to face danger once again. Not a word passed between us. Travis seemed to realize he had slowed, twisted his head from side to side as if to loosen up for action and set off at a controlled run. We passed under the roughly hewn, arching hole in the wall which reached at least twenty feet in the air. We were off.
Almost immediately, I noticed a change in the stone. The blues and greens grew less consistent until all that remained was dismal grey. With Magic Sight turned up to three times my normal perception, I wasn’t excited about the next hour seeming to take three, but I wouldn’t compromise our safety to feel less bored.
I watched Aeris as she flew above Chris, looking around this bland tunnel as if it was a magnificent sight. I was truly happy for her. She was getting to experience a new spell that would literally change the way she saw the world. Remembering my first time with Mana Sight, I had no doubt she would be entertained for hours just playing around with it.
