Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 2 Days 16 Hours

Goal: Kill 'Baby Boots'

The breach in the walls tore across a mural of Pathos standing over the Low Tomb, directly over her upraised hand. The sunbeam slanting down from the break made it look as if she held the sun in her hand, illuminating the prize of the lantern on the floor below.

The twin voices of the Experiments babbled insanity.

As he walked Nic drew back his bow and shot arrows between the bars of the cages. The Experiments screamed and lunged for him, but their arms couldn’t reach and they died where they stood, limbs pushed through the bars and heads slumped against their prisons.

It was bloody, and it was effective.

The moment Nic took the treasure he knew the doors of the cages would swing open and unleash the monsters within.

With so many enemies in such a tight space it would be near impossible to hold his ground. The fact that he couldn’t use Archive Recall to gain a read on their capabilities made the claustrophobic room seem all the more terrifying.

But as his arrows claimed life after life Nic began to drip with slimy sweat. This was easy. Too easy.

Anyone could see this solution. So why was it working? Could it really be so simple?

His eyes scanned the heights of the ceiling and the shadows between the cages in a paranoid frenzy.

Nic shot down the final caged Experiment and stepped towards the brittle corpse holding the lantern. His punching-dagger shot out and crushed its skull, sending the headless corpse toppling over and the lantern rolling across the floor.

Slowly, carefully, He reached out and snagged the ring at the top of the lantern with his hand.

The door crashed shut behind him. Nic didn’t flinch at the sound. It was too expected. His tongue flickered out, tasting a new presence in the air.

One by one the cage doors swung open with rusty creaks.

He was still waiting for the trick.

Waiting…

The light coming through the breach in the walls flickered. Nic dropped the lantern and dove aside into a roll just in time to escape as an eight-legged monstrosity dropped through the gap. As it landed it swung a massive halberd into the stones where he’d been split-seconds ago. It was huge, with a humanoid upper body and an arachnid lower body - but the human side was completely encased in Sophont crystals. They bristled out like blades of dark blue glass.

Cell keys hung on its waist. A jailer.

A Room Challenge Is Bestowed:

Defeat the Indurate Jailer.

Nic grinned in relief. At least it was all in the open now. Defeat the enemy or die trying was the usual order of the day.

But that grin faltered as the the Jailer reached out a hand and the corpses of the Experiments twitched violently. To his horror, the ones he’d killed already began to stumble to their feet. Leashes of blue energy connected them to the Jailer’s hand.

“Oh that’s not fair.” Nic groaned, and threw himself towards the enemy.

With the dead coming back to life he had to end this quickly. Before they could surround him.

His adhesive-covered feet darted up over the cages and he leaped through the air before the halberd could be lifted back up, slashing downwards across the beast’s crystalline face. It raised an arm to defend itself and shield its eyes. The crystal armor cracked and bent, and as he dropped Nic opened his mouth to spray poison into the wounds.

Instead, a massive jolt of pain shot through his body as his cultivation core revolted. The spiralling energy spluttered and exploded in his chest, and Nic hit the ground not on his legs, ready to dodge, but on his knees, a sitting duck.

The Jailer swung with the back haft of the halberd and knocked him across the floor. The weapon’s bladed axe-head lifted into the air and chopped down.

Nic activated the Wintertusk Bracer. His shield lifted and caught the blow, the impact spiralling through his suddenly weak arms. He roared and swung back with his tiger-claw, ripping through the halberd’s haft in a spray of splinters.

Turning, he swung behind him blindly with the shield’s edge. He caught an Experiment lunging towards him and flung it back into the sides of the cages with a deafening rattle.

More were coming. They stumbled over each other, filling the narrow space

Nic turned and flung himself at the Jailer in a fury. His best hope was to finish the fight in the few moments he had left.

And he tried his goddamn hardest.

His boar-tusk shield punched forward and then ripped upwards, tearing the curving points of the tusks across the Jailer’s midsection. His punching dagger struck forward again and again with rapidfire blows, each tearing away shards of crystal.

But the damn creature didn’t die, even as Nic’s fury drove it to cover its face with its arms and curl up defensively.

An Experiment hurled itself onto his back, clawing at his eyes with crystal-covered fingers. Nic swung around and tried to dislodge it from his shoulders, but another grabbed hold of his arm, weighing him down before his momentum could build. More and more piled forward. Claws and grasping hands filled his world.

He let the Wintertusk Bracer’s effect end, and shrank out from the enemy’s grasp. As he fell to the floor and flattened himself out he called to his boar-tusk shield.

With a snort and a wave of frost the boar echo manifested and charged, lowering its head to the meet the horde. Pinned together in the narrow hallway between the cages they had no chance to escape. The boar slammed into their ranks and sent them tumbling back like dominoes. The Jailer was crushed backwards and pinned to the walls.

Nic was breathing rapidly, weakened by letting the Wintertusk Bracer take its toll. The boar echo faded in seconds.

He lifted himself off the ground and prepared to charge. The Experiments had been broken to splinters, but a few of them were still able to stand and lurched towards him. The Jailer lifted its broken halberd like the jagged point was a spear and advanced on its spindly legs.

Nic took off. Building momentum into a run he flung himself up.

The plan was simple, elegant. He’d kick off the side of the cages using adhesive aura on his foot, bracing him for long enough to leap again. He’d go right for the Jailer over the heads of the Experiments.

Except as he tried to call up his Adhesive Touch, everything went wrong. His cultivation base revolted again, and blood sprayed from his mouth as his foot hit the side of the cages without any force or clinging power. He tumbled through the air as spikes of wild energy rampaged through his veins.

He hit the ground in a blind tumble. He stood like a drunk.

His whole body was pain and aches and his head felt violently dizzy.

The broken-halberd shot towards him, seeming to come from nowhere as his vision was covered by crawling black static. It pierced into his chest and he gasped in raw, shocking pain as he was lifted up, impaled onto the broken halberd pole.

He stared into the crystal Jailer’s masked face. His hand reached for the throwing axes on his belt, and he felt the cool hard grip of alligator bone slip into his fingers.

The jailer slammed him down against the earth. The pole twisted in the meat of his shoulder, ripping apart sinew and flesh. A weak scream escaped his throat.

The Experiments lurched forward, filling his line of fire with stumbling bodies.

There was always a solution. A way out.

A weak point. Every time he’d attacked the Jailer it had guarded the same place...

“Nic. Aim for the-”

“The eye! I know!”

Just for a moment the Jailer was there, lurching above him. Preparing to finish him. He drew back his hand, and a foreign strength flowed into his arm. Cold, clear energy filled him as he threw the axe into a tumbling arc through the air.

It slammed into the Jailer's left eye.

The same eye that was infected by crystalline growths in every other Experiment.

The Jailer stumbled back and let out a final, skull-splitting shriek. It wasn’t a sound at all but a wave of psychic energy that clawed its way into Nic’s mind and made him curl against the floor in agony. One by one the Experiments dropped as the leashes tethering them to the Jailer’s hand dissolved.

And slowly, the psychic wail ended in a whimpering, crying sound that was so miserable even Nic felt pity for the monster. Its deathcry spent, the Jailer slumped down and died.

Slowly, hurting like hell, Nic rolled onto his feet. He crawled forward and grasped the centipede-axe, ripping it free and bringing it down in a vengeful chop to make sure the Jailer stayed dead. As its head rolled across the floor the door grated open.

Nic lifted the lantern from the floor. His reflection ran across the glass, and something was wrong.

He lifted it higher across his face. Tiny spears of crystal were expanding from his left eye.

“Sofia?”

“Yes, Nic. I see it too. The… the interference of the Experiments, the psychic backlash they cause… it must be infectious…” She sounded panicked. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even been able to warn you about the weak spot. I’m starting to malfunction… I…”

“No no. Calm down. You can’t freak out on me now.” He whispered. “It’ll be okay.” He was glad she couldn’t read his private thoughts, because he was starting to doubt that himself.

“Nicolas. I don’t think you understand. You’ve lived with… with the fear of death. This is the first time in a thousand years I’ve been threatened…”

“Okay. Okay. But I’ve learned to deal with it, and you will too. Right now, I need you to tell me why I can’t use my aura. Is it the poison?”

Every time he’d tried, the backlash had nearly torn him apart inside.

“Yes. Yes it is. Nicolas... I’ve never seen something like this before, but it appears to be infecting your cultivation base from within...”

“LAVHIN!” Nic shouted.

The ghost popped up through the floor. “Er, yes?”

“Do you have any idea why there are poison centipedes that ate my damn Essence roaming around your home? Because if there are any more surprises, I will find a way to hurt you.”

“Ah. Yes. Well.” The ghost fretfully removed his glasses to wipe the lenses clean of some phantom or imagined speck of dirt. “The centipedes are escaped specimens. We used the venoms to prevent the corrupted Sophonts from advancing their control. Unfortunately, over the next few hours its likely to cause permanent damage to your cultivation unless cured.”

“And how do I cure it.” Nic said, restraining the urge to panic.

“There should be antidotes in the upper floor. But…” Lavhin winced. “I’m afraid the way has been sealed. The System placed challenges in the way to prevent just anyone from claiming the fruits of my research.”

“Nicolas. Ask him how to fix us.” Sofia asked.

“How do I get this stuff to stop growing out of my eye? Because it’s not a new look I’m interested in.” Nic translated for her. As he did he took out the pouch of pills he’d taken from the brutish human. Popping a handful of them into his mouth he chewed down.

Before they’d brought his meridians to life and allowed him to use his cultivation base momentarily. This time the effect was still present, but far weaker. The Essence and aura within his veins was sluggish and cold like poison bile.

“The poison should actually be slowing it down. But there are solutions in my laboratory that should stop it from advancing any further. At this point, well, I suppose you have no choice but to climb.” Lavhin didn’t sound too unhappy about that.

In fact he sounded almost gleeful.

Nic scowled. “Alright. Then we’re going up.”