Ch 210 – Dungeon
Hitting the ground with a wet slap face-first, Deacon immediately pushed himself up onto his hands and knees while frantically scowering his surroundings.
"A forest?" Deacon muttered to himself as he looked at the towering trees and thick underbrush surrounding him, before immediately brushing that assessment aside as he took in the sight of old and weathered patio furniture scattered across the weed-filled walkway, along with several knocked-over marble bust statues and a completely waterless fountain covered in moss and vine.
All of which led him to revise his opinion and realize he was probably in some kind of severely neglected noble's garden that had clearly been abandoned by its caretakers long ago and had since been entirely reclaimed by nature.
Looking around to check on the others, Deacon saw that everyone had landed relatively close to each other despite the chaotic nature of their arrival, with Leon having landed directly on top of what had probably once been a large circular wooden table but was now broken into countless pieces scattered across the walkway and was slowly pushing himself up while coughing up some water that went down his throat.
He’d assumed it had been a table based on the presence of several chairs that were still neatly arranged in a circle around where the table's center would have been.
Bonehead had landed awkwardly and was currently bent over one of the spiked metal fences that lined the garden paths, with two of the decorative spikes poking completely through his back and out the front of his alchemist robes.
And Valorie?
Fuck, where's Valorie?! Deacon shouted at himself as he pushed himself fully upright and cast Blood Sense within a split second, using the spell to frantically scour his surroundings to find her. Still, he kept coming up completely blank, no matter where he focused his detection.
In that same span of time, Leon had managed to push himself out of the pile of broken wooden planks surrounding him. He immediately began looking around desperately for his sister while shouting her name loud enough that his voice echoed through the overgrown garden. At the same time, Bonehead had started pushing himself upwards to get the fence spikes that had impaled him from between.
That's when Deacon heard the distinct sound of violent coughing coming from somewhere above his current position.
Whipping his head upward just as some liquid splattered down onto his face from above, Deacon's eyes locked onto Valorie's form laying on top of a massive garden gazebo that looked to be constructed entirely out of thin metal but had been almost completely covered and reinforced over the years by many thick and large green vines and wild grass and moss that had grown over it, transforming it into a natural green dome, with Deacon barely managing to make out Valorie's face through the dense curtain of vines covering the gazebo's roof.
Leaping upward the moment he spotted her, Deacon angled his trajectory toward a visible gap between two large vines and shot his arms forward through the opening to forcefully push the plant growth aside as he rose.
The vines, along with the thin metal they wrapped themselves around, bent and shifted with surprising ease as he continued his upward leap and landed on top of the flora-infested gazebo, where he could see Valorie hunched on her knees and actively hacking up water from her lungs.
Just as Deacon reached the top of the gazebo and began moving toward Valorie, Leon — having realized where his sister was after watching Deacon’s leap and recalling the brief moment before he and Bonehead passed through the garden gate, when he had seen her thrown by the shockwave — burst up through the roof of gazebo in a single leap, bursting through the vines and wires of the gazebo roof.
Reaching Valorie's side first, Deacon immediately began firmly patting her back to help her expel the radioactive water from her lungs.
Just as Leon landed heavily on top of the gazebo and reached both his sister and Deacon, Valorie suddenly held up one hand in a clear gesture, which immediately caused Deacon to stop his back-patting and made both boys back up slightly to give her some space to recover.
"Ah, shit," Valorie choked out, her voice sounding incredibly raspy.
Her brother immediately dug through his Spatial Pouch and pulled out a small honey packet, tearing open its seal before slowly kneeling beside his sister and handing it to her.
As Deacon watched Valorie nod weakly and take hold of the honey packet to drink from it, he turned his attention to the System Notification that had appeared when they'd first arrived but that he'd immediately brushed aside in favor of frantically trying to locate Valorie.
*You have entered the Mutant Manor Dungeon*
Dungeon of the Mutant Manor:
Deep underground, hidden from the chaos that consumed the surface world, this manor was once a refuge for the wealthy elite seeking to escape the mutant outbreak. When the mutant plague reached even this far beneath the earth, the Manor Lord sealed all the doors and declared a complete lockdown of the estate. However, a single mutated rat managed to slip into the manor's storage room through a tiny crack in the foundation just before the lockdown was fully implemented.
Dungeon Completion Criteria:
▸ Kill the Manor Lord
▸ Locate the Manor's Main Entrance Key
Status: Incomplete
So I was right about what this place is, Deacon mused to himself as he sheathed his short sword.
Upon seeing the garden door embedded into the side of the stone wall, he recalled a memory from years ago from one of the many late-night study sessions he'd participated in with Sam, Jass, Bonehead, and Esmerelda years ago back when they were still cadets at the Academy.
It was incredibly rare, but if you found a door or entrance in some completely random location like at the bottom of a pond the way they just had, or embedded in the side of a mountain, or anywhere else where a door shouldn’t normally be, especially on a new Floor, there was a very high probability it would lead to a Dungeon.
"Where are we?" Valorie asked, her voice noticeably less raspy than it had been moments before, thanks to the soothing properties of the honey coating her throat, though it would still be quite a while before her voice would return completely back to its normal tone and quality.
"A dungeon," Leon answered curtly while not actively helping her stand but instead hovering protectively beside her as she slowly got back onto her own feet and pulled out her bow from where it had been secured.
"A dun—?!" Valorie exclaimed in obvious surprise before immediately breaking out into another fit of harsh coughing from the strain of raising her voice, and after recovering, she tried again in a much softer and slowed tone. "A dungeon?"
Dungeons, in the simplest possible terms, were essentially miniature Floors that existed within a larger Floor's boundaries and structure.
They had their own completely separate completion criteria that were independent from the Floor they were currently on's objectives, and they could be randomly found scattered throughout a Floor.
Though there was absolutely no guarantee that any given Floor would contain even a single Dungeon, nor was there any way to predict how many Dungeons might potentially exist within a single Floor's boundaries.
But what was known was that they had good loot hidden within them.
Additionally, and most relevant to their current situation, once the entrance to a Dungeon closed after a person or group entered, it would vanish entirely, becoming inaccessible to anyone outside.
The entrance would not reappear unless every individual inside died, preventing others from finding it and attempting to claim the rewards for clearing the Dungeon.
Which is extremely good news for us, Deacon thought to himself with relief. The Hoarder cannot possibly follow us inside here even if he wanted to, and if we stay hidden inside this Dungeon for long enough, he'll eventually be forced to give up searching for us and go off somewhere else to hunt down other groups of climbers from our Generation or continue searching for valuable treasures scattered throughout Floor Twelve.
"We should plan to spend at least half a day inside this Dungeon before we attempt to leave," Deacon suggested to the group.
"Agreed," Leon nodded in approval of the plan.
Gently picking up his sister despite her protests that she could walk on her own, Leon followed close behind Deacon as the warrior leaped back down from the top of the gazebo to return to ground level.
As the three of them landed back on the overgrown garden walkway, they were immediately greeted with the sight of Bonehead standing upright on both feet with two large holes clearly visible in his robes where the fence spikes had pierced through, and he was currently holding up what appeared to be a severed mutant humanoid head that featured a large vertical zipper-like mouth filled with rows of sharp shark-like teeth.
Still squirming and twitching beneath Bonehead's boot was the rest of the creature's body, which appeared to have no clothes or skin whatsoever and looked as though various vines and some kind of purple-colored flowers had been somehow fused directly into its exposed muscles and bones, though Deacon noticed that around the area immediately surrounding Bonehead's boot the color of both the vines and the muscle tissue had turned noticeably pale and decrepit-looking that was actively spreading across the creature's body.
"Took you all long enough to get down here," Bonehead said in a dry tone. "I had to do your jobs for you while you were busy up there."
He raised his foot slightly off the still-twitching mutant corpse, allowing its body to rise a few inches from the ground before slamming his boot back down with force and crushing the left side of its ribcage with an audible crunch.
"What the hell is that thing?" Deacon asked as he approached Bonehead to get a closer look at the creature.
"A quiet fucker that almost got the drop on me, that's what," Bonehead grimaced as he raised his boot back up and shook it vigorously to dislodge the disgusting fluid that had gushed out of the creature's crushed chest cavity. "Though the System’s calling it a Verdant Prowler."
"They're apparently weak to herbicides based on what I saw happen when some of my alchemical compounds touched it," Bonehead added.
"You got any herbicide left in your supplies?" Deacon asked.
In response, Bonehead reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with clear liquid before tossing it to Deacon, then immediately produced two more identical bottles and tossed one each to Leon and Valorie.
Drawing out both of his short swords from where they were sheathed on his back, Deacon carefully and methodically coated both Damascus Steel blades with the herbicide, only to immediately widen his eyes in genuine surprise as the metal of both blades suddenly began glowing with a bright green luminescence.
What the hell? Deacon thought to himself in confusion as he quickly cast Identify on Echoform Reliquary to see what had changed.
Item Name:Echoform Reliquary
Type: Weapon
Rarity: Artifact
Description: Forged from Livingwood, Echoform Reliquary can shift between multiple forms stored within, seamlessly in response to the wielder’s intent. Currently, it is made out of Tier 1 Damascus Steel. The Echoform Reliquary is designed to accept upgrades, allowing stronger materials to improve its durability and additional forms to improve its combat effectiveness; further more enhanced by its recently added Devour Enhancement.
Current Forms (5/5):
▸ Form I: [Broadsword - Ulfberht]
▸ Form II: [Dual Short Swords]
▸ Form III: [Crowbar
▸ Form IV: [Double-Handed Axe]
▸ Form V: [Recurve Bow]
Enhancement (1/1):
▸ Devour
• Holy Flame
• Herbicide
Effects: Soulbound, Self-Repair, Form Swap & Devour.
Requirements: Humanoid.
Current Material: Tier 1 Damascus Steel
Material Upgrade Requirements: Tier 1 Titanium
Materials needed to Increase the Number of Forms: Tier 2 Artifacts x2 & Tier 2 Upgrade
Oh shit! Deacon exclaimed internally as he looked up sharply from Echoform Reliquary's updated description to see Bonehead, who had a look of both surprise and excitement.