Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 3 Days 20 Hours

Goal: Kill 'Baby Boots'

As Nic headed out of the dimly lit tomb and into the sweltering desert sun, his senses twinged. A dozen separate points of danger were crawling across the walls of the chasm. Instantly backing away from the walls, he moved out onto the thin bridge of stone that connected the tomb to the far side of the chasm.

Something was dead ahead. His Eight-Eyed Mantle felt it even if his eyes couldn’t see it.

Instantly he drew his bow and nocked an arrow. Drawing back on the string he searched for the source of the persistent, thrumming sense of threat. On the far wall something twitched-

His fingers released the arrow. Instinct guided the shot.

A monster appeared out of nowhere as it moved and broke its camouflage. It was one of the skinny, emaciated humanoids he’d seen in the tomb, and it skittered across the walls on its too-long limbs like a nightmare. The shot bounced off the stone and down into the valley as the beast turned its head and hissed.

It had shreds of red, torn flesh hanging around its mouth like a veil, and its eyes had been replaced by faded gold coins.

Grave-Pillage Ghoul. F-Class // Undead. This hideous creature is all that remains of those the Guardian of the Valley slays for defiling the tombs. Bound forever to protect the valley they once desecrated, these tomb robbers live half-lives, haunted by a hunger that drives them to devour their own lips and chew their fingers down to stubs of bone.

As Nic readied another shot it slithered across the walls and down into a narrow hole.

His danger sense was still prickling and picking up new enemies crawling across the walls. They were everywhere. For a moment his senses even warned of several directly below, and Nic stared down at the bridge in horror as he realized that there were ghouls crawling down the underside.

Entering the tomb had brought the valley to a hideous unlife.

He moved slowly, careful not to startle them as he left his shield on his back and instead drew the hatchet into one hand and his tiger-claw into the other. Ready to fight as he advanced along the bridge.

His danger sense screamed.

Nic turned just in time to see the shot coming as a dart whistled out of the shadows and struck his neck. Poison spilled into his veins.

“Not this time…” He began to cycle his cultivation like a maelstrom to gather up the drops of black ichor that entered his bloodstream and pull them in. The Poison Devouring upgrade made it possible, but his practice purging toxins made it fast. In moments the venom had been swallowed up by his Poison Devouring nodes - and added to his Poison Mist’s next strike.

He fired a probing shot into the shadows and the mysterious assassin leaped away. It had long, skinny legs of dark brown, and the rest of its body was hidden beneath dark desert clothes - but it was no bigger than Nic was.

Valley Shadow. G-Class // Sapient. This quick-limbed creature lives in the Valley of Memories and serves as one of its many layers of defense. Beware, for it will give its life to defend these grounds.

Nic leaped down from the bridge, adhesive clad feet carrying him across the wall for three steps, four, before he dropped onto a ledge and leaped again. The ghouls howled behind him as they saw their prey escaping, and began to descend after him like long-legged spiders.

Ahead of him the assassin darted and bounced from one platform to the next. Nic was lagging behind, every landing rough and stumbling compared to the assassin’s graceful leaps. He slid and faltered as he tried to follow.

And then suddenly the assassin turned.

Nic was mid-air, dropping towards the next balcony, when his prey touched a secret plate concealed as a book in a statue’s hands. The mechanism clicked back.

And a dozen runes flared on the platform Nic was hurtling towards. Razor-sharp spikes of earth erupted up like a bed of nails.

Nic reached out and desperately grabbed the wall. He surrounded his hand with a half-coating of adhesive aura, enough to slow his fall into a descending glide along the chasm’s wall, and angled himself with a forward kick.

He went sliding down at an angle that carried him above the bed of spikes and directly into the assassin. His foot made hard contact with the bastard’s face, and they hit the ground together, rolling.

They both came to their feet at almost the exact moment, Nic braced with one hand on the earth, the assassin rolling back onto its skinny legs. They shot towards each other. A blade flashed out of the assassin’s sleeve to cut at Nic’s throat. He deflected across the back of his tiger-claw and surged forward, chopping down with the hatchet.

The assassin kicked back and evaded - and a slimy tongue shot from beneath its hood. Nic couldn’t pull away in time to keep the long pink ribbon from whipping around his leg and pulling him to the ground.

But the assassin had underestimated Nic’s ability to hold on.

In a split second Nic spread adhesive aura across his back and onto the tongue, trapping his opponent in place and preventing the enemy’s plan to throw him off the platform. He rolled, coming up with the tongue pinned underfoot.

“Bite me!” He called out. Not an insult, but a command. The tattoo on his left arm rippled and the centipede emerged to drive its fangs into Nic’s flesh.

A third venom swirled into his Poison Devouring node.

As the assassin lifted its sword to fight, Nic stepped forward with one leg and hacked through its tongue. The sudden release overbalanced his enemy and he advanced again, smashing his forehead into the foe’s hooded face.

The hood fluttered back.

Nic looked into a wide, amphibian pair of eyes as the assassin stumbled over the edge of the platform. A frog-man.

Without mercy he sprayed the tri-form venom into the beast’s eyes. Poison mist of three interwoven shades of grey billowed from his mouth and destroyed the assassin’s warty skin, stripping its dark-brown flesh from the bone below.

As it toppled over the edge its dying hand reached up. A golden missile spun through the air towards Nic.

Nic raised his hand to guard-

And the golden ring touched his flesh before falling to the floor.

A darkness filled the valley. For a split second, the sun dimmed as if passing through a deep cloud, and the shadows grew long and sharp as a cold wind blew past. He felt a dark presence watching him, as if the darkened sun was a single terrible eye.

“Oh FUCK ME.” Nic called out, instantly realizing what had happened. It would only take Archive Recall to confirm his worst fears.

Ring of Day-Into-Night. F-Class (Peak) // Treasured Artifact. Given as a gift from a princely sun god to his champion, this ring turned from boon to curse when that champion turned against his deity and slew sacred cattle. During the day, you gain increased strength and resilience but will expend aura far faster. Beware, for the ring cannot be removed, and by night it has another form...

From the moment you touch this holy object you will be hunted by the Guardian of the Valley. For each additional treasure you steal, the Guardian will grow stronger. Only in the waters of the Temple fountain may you be released from this curse.

The little bastard had thrown a treasure at him to make sure he was cursed.

The ghouls were descending fast from above. They dropped from platform to platform on skinny limbs, or skittered across the walls like spiders. Wanting to test their strength, Nic drew an arrow and fired off the shot into the lead ghoul.

It stumbled and hissed, coin-eyes flashing in the sun, but barely seemed to slow down.

Not good.

Snatching the ring off the ground, Nic began to descend. With no time to check for traps he spent as little time on the wall as possible, using them to brace and kick off into jumps or slide against to slow himself. It was a hectic drop, earth-spikes bursting out behind him, dart-traps spraying poison shrapnel.

But the defenses had been made to stop someone from climbing the walls, not bouncing down them like a devil.

As he reached the final bridge the ghouls seemed to hesitate. It was a long, wide stretch of paved sandstone stretching between two temple-like structures, and braziers lit up along the sides as Nic’s feet made contact. Solid enough ground to summon his echoes and make a stand.

He turned back, preparing to fight. Arrow nocked to the bow he shot one of the ghouls dead in the center as it took a wide leap, managing to send the pitiful creature tumbling off-target and plummeting down to the ground far below.

Still.

They hesitated.

One by one, hissing reluctantly, the ghouls drew back. They retreated up the walls awkwardly, long limbs grasping the stone as they hissed and called out tauntingly. In moments they had slithered into the secret tunnels in the rock.

Nic wasn’t entirely happy about that.

Because the main thing that made a monster retreat was a bigger, nastier monster.

The whole valley felt different now. The wind that blew past the bridges was cold and the sun offered no light. There was an oppressive sense of doom hanging above him. The curse was like a sword to his throat.

Shivering, Nic began to explore the temples at either end of the bridge. The first one he entered was a tall circular room of white stone. It was here he found the teleportation circle carved into the floor, a miniature model of the desert full of tiny pyramids and statues. Broken pottery lay at the edges of the room, and the walls were painted with a huge mural depicting a crocodile-headed god presenting a golden book surrounded by a sunburst to a crowd of people with their hands reaching up to receive it.

Nic's interest immediately perked up. This looked to be the same golden book he'd found a page of in the sand-devil kingdom. All around the edge of the mural were blue hieroglyphs, and digging out a piece of paper from his bag, Nic began to sketch down the strange symbols.

ahdafshuighas asdfhadsf

rdhfas thearf asdfhjasdf asd auierq

xcvbb dfgh dfghdgfh dfghdgh

sdfgsdg yteyj sssdd dds irutqer

fs adssa adsfdsf

He blinked.

That was by far the most confusing system message he’d ever received, but moments later it was followed by a more comprehensible one.

A Quest is Bestowed - “Words of the Dead”

The language of the Hecartii has long been lost, but forgotten words linger on the tongues of the dead. Seek them out. Return the language to life.

Recover Lore Fragments (1/4)

(Optional) Complete the Ancient Lores (0/4)

Reward - Knowledge of the Hecartii language, Plate of the Sun God’s Dictate

Interesting. It seemed he’d need to learn more about the world to be able to read these inscriptions.

But…

“Sofia?” He asked. “Is this world… real?”

“What do you mean by that? Obviously it’s real. You’ve come close enough to dying to know that.” She answered, sounding confused.

“I mean, was it a true world at some point before it became a Dungeon? Some of the things I’ve seen were obviously arranged by the System, set-up, like its telling a story- but some of this is just too real to be made-up.”

“Ah.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “A Dungeon is a world that failed its Integration, Nic. Those worlds… they break apart, falling into smaller and smaller fragments, called rifts. The System stabilized those rifts and builds new worlds out of them sometimes, but the vast majority of them just slowly flicker out entirely.”

“This isn’t because the System is cruel. Neither Logos or Pathos would stand for just… destroying entire civilizations needlessly…”

“That sounds exactly like something they’d do.” Nic thought. But it was a thought he kept to himself.

“But there are things I can’t tell you about yet. Reasons it has to be that way.”

“You know…” Nic sighed. “Even if you told me, I think I’d still say there’s no reason it has to be this way.” Not when he stood in the tomb of worlds, trying to read messages from the long-dead past.