Project Seraphina [LitRPG, Magitech, GL]

“Talk about the middle of the sticks,” Chloe says as we land in a grove that could pass for either forest or bog or… something unpleasant.

It’s sticky as all hell here in the middle of the afternoon, bad enough that wisely cashing in a few dozen [Ether] on a [Cold] glyph for some well-deserved comfort is more than a little tempting. The ground is muddy, it smells like shit… Oh great goddess does it smell like a bunch of swamp creatures collectively decided to unleash a bomb of toxicity; I’m surprised I’m not taking nasal damage from the acrid stench alone.

The dungeon’s entrance is depressingly pedestrian. Just a simple cave this time around. No giant tower sprawling out in the middle of a city, no portal to a faraway island high in the clouds— actually, I should go check that out now that I’m learning teleportation magic for myself. I know this place isn’t just a decoy; I can sense the confluence of Ether and the distant rumbles of powerful creatures within.

All in all, I’m… excited. I can cut loose, I can go crazy without having to worry about things like ‘civilian life’ and ‘collateral damage’. I can get stronger in a way that doesn’t risk those frayed shreds of morality stretching even further and maybe even snapping altogether. And for at least a few brief hours, I wasn’t going to have to worry about anyone else dropping another load of shit on my already heaping-full plate.

“What do you think the System has in store for us today?” Chloe asks.

“Who knows? Expect the unexpected, or something.” I draw Filia from my inventory once more and prepare for battle.

“Another dungeon crawl, Seraphina?” Filia’s voice resonates in my head. “I wasn’t aware that you had plans for one so soon after completing the Tower Gauntlet.”

“Chloe’s mother was kidnapped. Neither of us has the tools or Skills to track her down, so we’re focusing on getting stronger for when our, shall we say, temporary coworkers, have more information.”

“I see. And, though I lack the capacity to truly empathize, I want to offer my condolences nonetheless. However, this dungeon seems off. Can you sense it, Seraphina? The odd flow of Ether within.”

I peer past the threshold with [Valkyrion’s Perception], trying to look for anything which seems out of the ordinary. However, after a full minute of analysis, I can’t identify what Filia is specifically referring to that they find off.

“I’m sorry, Filia. I must be missing something. I’ve only been in a few, plus the Tower where we first met. I figured they were all like this, in their own way.”

“Feel it deeper, Seraphina. This flow is different from the one in the Tower. I would advise you both to be fully prepared for battle before you enter.”

“Filia says they sense something off about this dungeon, though they either can’t or won’t elaborate further. Just a cryptic clue that we should be fully prepared for battle before we enter.”

Chloe nods in assent.

Half an hour later, our [Ether] reserves are almost fully replenished and our sweat glands are starting to run on empty, more bottles of water notwithstanding and not fully helping, even with forest shade on our side. Oklahoma summers are bad, but Texas ones are somehow even worse.

“Is it time?” Chloe asks.

I can tell that the oppressive mugginess, far from draining her, has only fueled her resolve that much further. I personally am feeling a bit parched myself despite being on my third bottle of water and my skin glowing as brightly as Chloe’s does right before a [Radiant Purge]. Then again, my armor is tight-fitting and sweaty while her robes are light and airy, which might explain some of the discrepancy.

“I’m ready.”

With my [Ether] sitting comfortably around eighty-five percent, I decide to throw caution into the lack of wind on this unpleasant afternoon and venture forth while there’s still a few hours of light to return to. Chloe takes the front this time around, her [Swords of Repose] drawn in an aggressive, open stance that seems to be her class’s trademark specialty.

Just as Filia cautioned, the moment we pass through the threshold and enter the dungeon proper, the flow of [Ether] changes. Not just the diminished rate of [Ether] regeneration that I’d half-forgotten about and wasn’t going to pretend to miss in the slightest. It was something more fundamental, as though the laws of the universe had been subtly yet unmistakably different. Intuitively I understand almost immediately, but not until I spread my wings and try to fly off the ground do I fully grasp the new law that has been placed upon us: ‘flight is verboten.’

[Defiant Spirit] doesn’t activate in response. Strange, that. Whatever effect this dungeon has seems to be a more fundamental change to the environment, rather than a [Power-Suppressing] type effect that my Skill would passively negate. Good to know that such effects still work on me now rather than at a time when I’m in more imminent danger.

Chloe has no better luck with her own wings. “Strange, this. No change in the local gravity, and we can jump just fine.” She leaps almost a dozen feet in the air to demonstrate. “It’s only once we use our magic to try to cheat the rule that we end up denied.”

I give teleportation a single try, flickering from one spot overhead to another, which again works; subspace transportation doesn’t seem to violate the strict interpretation of the rule. Due to the massive cost of even a brief use of [Dimensional Rift], I don’t repeat with further tests.

It takes about two minutes before we learn the next bit of unpleasantness which awaits us here in super happy fun land. The creatures native to the dungeon— presently a pair of human-sized, bat-like demons— do not seem to abide by the same restrictions. They glide from stalactite to stalactite, from and to each of these strange plants that look like trees, if not for the fact that they look sickly, have no leaves, nor any ability to conduct photosynthesis here in the dark abyss.

They attack in tandem with barrages of small needles flung with such velocity that they leave a small whistle of wind in their wake. With their speed, it’s difficult to properly defend against them, and with their having the advantage of hundreds of feet of cavernous elevation, projectiles are unlikely to avail us. However, Chloe’s [Mirage Sword] seems custom-tailored to this particular challenge.

In contrast to our typical formation, where Chloe has previously acted as support while I play point on offense, I’m the one providing backup while Chloe’s newest skill harries our demonic adversaries. My barriers and [Etheric Armor] do a passable job of defending us from the onslaught coming from every direction, but the relentless fury with which these two demons attack leaves me unable to do more offensively than throw out occasional bursts of undirected energy.

We’re at an impasse. Neither side has made a lick of progress for the past five minutes. Chloe has reduced her [Mirage Swords] from four down to two, and her attacks carry with them a sense of mere obligation. She’s not really putting in more than a token effort, knowing that doing so will only fatigue her in the long run, all while those menaces above have still yet to show any weakness whatsoever.

“Love, do you have any way to force these cretins down to ground?”

“I– I can employ [Gravity] again, but I’m concerned that we might get caught in the–”

“Do it. I think we can turn this dungeon’s dictum against it.”

I don’t like the idea of relying on just gut instinct, but Chloe has a point. I don’t know for sure, but if the Temple of Greed back those months ago was all about balancing risk and reward, then maybe this dungeon is all about rules, loopholes, and twisting both of them to our benefit. For what end to the System itself, I cannot hope to say. Or maybe it’s not the System at play; there’s still that even more mysterious Entity that I’d earlier hypothesized was subtly pushing back against the System while I was in the Tower.

I decide to oblige Chloe and begin channeling [Gravity] in the space high above us. Bits of the trees above wriggle in the subtle curvature of space and time I’ve now created, and a few nearby stalactites chunk off in boulder-sized pieces from the instantaneous tripling of local gravity, falling into the center of the dark sphere before just floating there. Just as expected, the no-fly zone keeps us pinned firmly to the ground even as one of the universe’s original fundamental forces tries to send us airborne.

The rules of magic don’t apply to these oversized man-bats, to their detriment for a change. They try to fly in their typical strafing pattern, more of those likely poison-tipped needles flung toward us for every direction. But their attacks are being deflected, their flight patterns erratic, as if they themselves aren’t certain how they should adjust to the shifted battlefield conditions. The challenges of being creatures with limited intelligence, operating on instinct rather than learned knowledge.

Chloe’s [Mirage Sword] is similarly affected, but she’s able to quickly adjust. Within a minute, she’s starting to gain on our foes. They move toward us in an attempt to bring the battle to close-range. Big mistake. The second they get within about thirty yards, I throw Filia like a javelin. The fact that one of them got right in the middle of the straight line path between me and my [Gravity Sphere] is all the better; I’m no Olympic javelineer, and the added force and course-correction is to my further advantage.

My swordstaff doesn’t just impale the creature. It flies right through and out the back, not having been slowed down in the slightest for the trouble. Only in the stomach— my lousy aim at work; I’d targeted the heart for a cleaner kill. Chloe makes short work of the creature and its momentary suffering; the momentary hiccup in the beast’s flight pattern gives her [Mirage Sword] just enough time to cut through the creature’s back and then slice off its head. Dark blood oozes from the wound, bubbling down toward the ground before both are absorbed into the gravitational maw.

The second creature should’ve remained cautious, but anger gets the better of it. Perhaps thinking that I’m now vulnerable without a weapon, it charges straight toward me, ignoring Chloe even as she manages to score a couple of grazing wounds upon it. Its hand reaches out toward my hand, perhaps trying to poison me in one last, suicidal gambit. It matters not.

“[Dimensional Rift],” I mutter with calmness. One instant later, I can feel the rift forming, one end at my current location, one location just outside the center of my gravity well, where my swordstaff awaits, suspended in midair, their edge buried hilt-deep in a large stone. The next instant, I teleport away, grabbing Filia and feeling the bond between us swell back from a thin strand to the normally wide channel.

“An excellent strategy, though I would have preferred to have known about it ahead of time.”

“Sorry; it was a spur of the moment sort of thing.”

Our conversation happening in the span of a blink, I teleport back, reappearing where I’d been less than a quarter of a second ago. I’d expected it to be so quick that the creature wouldn’t have time to notice I was gone and react. It was able to do so, but that paradoxically serves to my benefit. It’s stumbling around, trying to break-off its attack before Chloe’s Skill decapitates it just like she did to itsfriend.

The moment I reappear, its primal anger tries to reassert itself, its hands once more reaching toward me. The moment of hesitation, followed by the brief moments of processing and indecision while its primitive brain came up with a course of action, proves fatal. This time, I don’t miss. One clean strike, right through the heart, followed by a contemptuous flick to throw all the gore and sinew off my swordstaff.

With a quick douse from a [Water] glyph, Filia’s filigreed surface is again immaculate. The battle is over; two System notifications confirm as much, and the rewards are nothing to scoff at, either. But I can’t help but think, as I dismiss my spells. For a dungeon with creatures at this level, this first fight seems… just a bit too easy, and the Experience a bit too high.

I sigh. It’s not paranoia. Just a proper dose of vigilance to ensure we leave this place alive.

[You have slain two [Lesser Nulls (Level 64, 65)]. You have gained a boosted 115,000 Experience.]

[Level: 67; Experience: 6,340,044; To Next: 56,546]

[Current Stats: [Health]: 12,106 / 12,731; [Ether]: 5,795 / 9,583]

[Current Stats: [Strength]: 269 (Base: 118); [Speed]: 271 (Base: 119); [Vitality]: 324 (Base: 142); [Mind]: 433 (Base: 190)]