The next morning, I headed down to Djarleen’s shop first and stocked up on potions. Ten each of the ethereal flame and ethereal shift. I went to Dharkiss next, and sold him the albino carapace with the promise that he would let me see the final product. Preparations complete, I headed down to the only thing that I had come across that looked like it was related to death in any way shape or form.

An hour and a half later, and I was standing in front of the locked door of demonic subjugation I had come across after fighting the tunneling worm. The artistic detail was still fantastic, and I still saw no way to get it unlocked. Knowing that there would have to be a way in, I activated [Mystic vision], and was shocked. The entire relief seemed to reverse itself. Instead of the light races being subjugated by demons, they were pouring out of portals and fighting back with weapons made of pure mana. The portals were numbered, so I tried pressing them sequentially.

Congratulations Mortal!

You have unlocked the heroic dungeon: Catacumba Daemonica.

It is not recommended to fight in this place alone. As a heroic dungeon, all creatures within will be heroic rank and be three levels higher than you. Pay close attention to the seal just inside the dungeon, as this marks safe places where you may rest. Good luck, for you shall need it.

“HOLY SHIT!” I yelled as I read the popup. A heroic dungeon all to myself? This could be an experience farming machine! Shaking my head, I looked at the seal, and it wasn’t subtle at all. A 100-foot diameter circle of silver with a golden inlaid sunburst, it would be rather hard to miss. I figured that it would have some massive magic to keep monsters at bay, so I kept mystic vision deactivated. Looking around, I was in a large corridor. I walked up to one of the walls, as I couldn’t tell if it was intricately carved art or really constructed out of ancient bones. Even touching them couldn’t tell, so I just went with the assumption that they were made of bones that had ended up becoming petrified together.

The hallway was lined with two rows of knights, each one having either a massive greatsword resting on its point, or a massive two headed battleaxe with the blades resting by their feet. I’ll be honest, they would be very intimidating, with their solid black armor that had cruel spikes in various locations. I walked to the edge of the seal, and felt safe in activating [Mystic vision], hoping I could keep it up for most of the dungeon. Luckily none of the knights within my vision changed, so I felt confident they weren’t a trap. I did take the time to look down, holding my hand by my face to block any accidental sight of the actual seal. Surrounding the seal was an incredibly complex series of runes, it almost looked like there were three separate lines that had been interwoven to create the spell effect.

You lack the proper skills to study this enchantment

Enchantment: 0%

Rune language: 0%

Heavenly runic script: 0%

Rune weaving: 0%

Heh, guess I won’t be recreating this in any form anytime soon. Shrugging, I headed down the hall. I wasn’t simply running down it, as mystic vision would do nothing to show mundane trap triggers. The floor was carved stone, and was wonderfully flat, so any pressure plate traps were rather obvious. What was insidious was the use of the corners of the pressure plate as an anchor for tripwire traps that were at an angle to the perfectly square sides of the tiles on the floor. After the third one, I finally saw the first of the enemies of the dungeon.

Heroic enslaved spectral imp

Lvl 30

This ghost of an imp has been enslaved and will carry out its orders with no hesitation. Though imps are usually prone to pranks, expect this one to use ones decidedly more dangerous in nature.

Just effing great, not only are they ghosts, but demon ghosts. I used one of my vials of ethereal shift potion, saving the blaze ones for deeper in the dungeon when doing as much damage as possible was a necessity. The imp was a light purplish color, a hunchbacked little thing with vicious talons and wings keeping it aloft. It noticed me at twenty feet, and gave a shriek and chittered in a language that felt slimy somehow. It threw a blob of purplish fire at me that I easily dodged, but when I rolled back to my feet it was gone. Instead I noticed one of the armor suits was slowly creaking as it started moving. I could also barely see the two purple lights inside the eyes of the helm.

Heroic haunted armor

Lvl 30

A suit of armor being animated by a malevolent spirit. Did you really expect anything different?

Cheeky devs. I pulled out my crossbow and plugged it right in the face, knocking the head off the armor. Sadly, that barely took a chunk out of the health bar. Instead, the armor reached down and placed the head in the crook of its arm. Cocking my head, the name changed and its health bar grew.

Heroic dullahan

Lvl 30

An evolved form of the haunted armor, the Dullahan is surprisingly apt at combat despite the limited field of vision. You aren’t going to lose to someone with literally one arm tied to their side, are you?

Seriously? I shot him in the face and he evolved? By the time I had read the notification, the monster was halfway to me and was twirling the battleaxe one handed. I slowly backed up as I reloaded, and shot at his face again. Charging in behind the bolt, I drew my hammerscythe, doubly glad for its new ability against armored foes. Despite the fact that it had twisted its body to avoid the bolt, its battle instincts were on point as the business end of that axe was headed straight for my neck in a classic decapitation swing. I dropped into a slide and used my momentum and a [Mana shockwave] to unleash as much devastation on one of the knees as I could. As it dropped to a knee and used its spare arm to balance itself, I used the recoil of my blow to increase my speed and deliver a spinning smash to its back. Once there, it was simple to keep it on the ground with well-placed blows to the arm, and use my spare attacks to whittle down its health. Once the health had dropped to a quarter, I noticed that the purple glow was starting to look a little . . . patchy. Any attacks to non-glowing parts did minimal damage, and I guess that I was slowly wearing down the imp. Focusing my attacks on the remnants of its body, I quickly dispatched the ghost. Hmm, I wonder what you call it when a ghost gives up the ghost? Bah, not important. My loot was disappointing, I only got a vial of ectoplasm. Heading deeper, I finally came to the first branch of the tunnels. I slowly turned the corner, keeping low in the hopes that I would go unnoticed.

It was a simple room, with a stone sarcophagus in it. I noticed some mana glowing from inside the sarcophagus, and prepared myself for a fight. Inching my way into the room, I kept on high alert for ambushes, making sure to look near the ceiling. Finding nothing, I circled the sarcophagus looking for tripwires, and instead found a magical trap. There were runes hidden on the backside of the edge of the lid, impossible to see from above. Did I have any option to disarm the trap? Not many of my skills would interact with mana, the only one I could think of to use at any type of distance was [Mana blade]. Forming a long spike, I could extend it almost three feet. I slowly brought it in, and started scratching at the runes. Once I had one starting to flicker in my vision, the trap went off. A slightly blinding flash of mana sent the lid flipping over to slam down forcefully where someone less cautious would have been standing. Rapidly blinking my eyes didn’t help, but luckily the debuff only lasted ten seconds.

Standing up, I looked over and into the sarcophagus to find it filled with some bluish green fern. There were three plants, apparently called Ghost Ferns, and they gave me some spores to use. They had an odd bluish glow sitting in my inventory, and I vowed to keep my eyes out to see what I could make with them. Heading deeper, I immediately charged the next spectral imp I came across, hoping I wouldn’t have to deal with it in an armor form. “[Mana shockwave]!” I shouted, slamming my hammer into the creature. In my head, I expected the hammer to slam into the creature, and the shockwave sending it rocketing into the ground.

Reality had a different result. My hammer did some damage as it traveled through the imp, but it wasn’t solid enough to trigger the shockwave to detonate. Instead it felt like I was swinging through water for a second, and once it was through I slammed my hammer into the ground sending rock shards in all directions. I took some slight damage from the shards, but the worst part was the disorientation from my attack not moving as planned. This of course gave the imp plenty of time to slash my face with some flame enhanced claws, though they felt frigidly cold instead of burning hot. Staggering back, my flailing weapon managed to catch a thrown fireball through luck more than skill. Shaking my head to regroup, I at least saw that the imp would engage in combat once I attacked rather than dive into the nearest armor.

I set my stance, studying my enemy. Though the wings flapped, they seemed to do so more out of habit than necessity. The imp didn’t gain or lose any height while flapping. There was a slightly darker spot in the center of the imp, and as I watched I saw the dark color flow to the hands and form another fireball that it threw at me. Sensing a possible weakness, I charged in once again. “[Reaper’s edge]!” I snarled, slashing through the heart of the colored spot.

“GYEAHAHAhahahaha.” With a fading wail, the imp was torn asunder and dissipated. A pile of gray dust was left of the body, and I looted some ectoplasm and continued on. The walls didn’t change much, and any intersection with different halls were rather simplistic, one branch always ending in a dead end after a few turns. I found several of the ghostly ferns, and was rather surprised that they didn’t show up when I deactivated mystic vision. I vowed to keep it on even outside the dungeon as often as possible, who knows what most people had been inadvertently passing by?

Eventually the imps started showing up in pairs and trios. The core, as I started calling it, was always located in the same spot, making it trivial to take out the initial imp with one attack. Liberal use of [Keen edge] boosted my damage, and by the time I came to the floor boss I had boosted it from beginner level 6 to intermediate level 3. The damage boost jumped to 39%, but the chance of amputation remained the same.

The boss room had no door, but it was easy to determine that it would be a tougher battle. There were three imps floating around with several suits of armor lining the walls. Seated in a throne was an impressive suit of armor, jet black in color. The helmet had three sets of wavy horns coming out each side and pointing upward, while the knuckles had some vicious looking short spikes reminiscent of brass knuckles. It also had a massive warhammer on one hand. Floating above it was a bloated imp, unlike the others it actually had a small trident in its hand. I wasn’t close enough to use identify it, so I reapplied the ethereal shift potion and also used the ethereal flame potion. Stepping into the room caused sconces along the circular chamber to erupt with a green flame.

Heroic imp lord

Lvl 30

Do not underestimate this lowest evolution of imp, as it is far more powerful than it looks.

“Fleeeeessssshhhhh, give usssss your fleeesssssshhh!” The ghostly spirits cried, before the three imps combined their flames into one massive fireball. There would be no dodging this, so I had to grit my teeth and charge into the freezing flame as I closed in on one and slew it with a [Keen edge]. Seeing the bonus damage from the ethereal flame potion was an amazing effect, as blue white flames erupted along the blade as it came in contact with the spirit. They transferred over, and aided in the rapid dissolution of the corpse.

Of course, as I was slightly transfixed with the effects, I felt an icy pain erupt in my left shoulder, and looking down showed the tines of the pitchfork sticking out from my chest before being ripped back. Spinning around, I traded blows with the imp lord as the other two kept their distance, occasionally firing a spell at me to disrupt my attacks. Once the imp lord had dropped to half health, the two remaining imps sacrificed their own health to create fireballs that healed the boss.

“Damn healing bastards, I shoulda known.” I muttered before daring around the fully healed boss and taking out one of the imps. I had to defend myself once again, as the boss seemed to be slightly enraged when I took out its minion. Once again I had to wear down the boss for a while before I could get around to taking out the final imp, but I got it down before it could heal the boss again.

“KREEEEEEE!” The boss screamed at me, then surprisingly made a beeline towards the chest of the armor on the throne. While it was getting its possession skill going, I topped off my health with some potions. Squaring off, I tried to find any place where the mana was concentrated in the possession, but couldn’t find any. Well, let’s see if this helps.

“[Death’s gaze].” I said quietly, staring at the boss. The only red spot was an oval across the face, so I decided to make the eyes my targets. Charging in, I saw mana flowing up into the head of that massive hammer, and had to cancel my skill in order to strike the hammer on its downswing just to deflect it enough to miss me. The spray of shattered stone cost me a bit of health, but far less than what I would have had that connected. Shuddering, I placed my foot on the shaft of the weapon, but had to dance back as I saw some pointed spikes leading a fist towards my shin. Swinging an uppercut with my scythe leading, I aimed for the face but must not have gotten the eyes. I backed off, slightly worse for the exchange.

I squared off with the boss again, trying to figure out his stance. That massive hammer was cocked back and resting on his shoulder, and I fully expected him to unleash a massive downward swipe. Once he started his cross motion, I would dart out to his weapon side, aiding his swing with my hammer, leaving me in a great position for a counterattack. Plan set, there was nothing left to do but charge in.

Ever heard the saying, “And that’s where it all went wrong?” Well, that’s what happened with my plan. Sure, the first move was to bring that hammer up and over his shoulder, then he brought it laterally across the top of his head and gave it a backhand travelling right at my face. I managed to duck under it, and gave it a slight deflection with my hammer. This left me wide open for his off hand to smash straight into my stomach, steel spikes leading the way. As I was bent over in pain, I got a lovely face full of upswinging hammer. Slamming a hammer into the sensitive snout of a kobold is a great way to get his eyes to water, much like what happens when you manage to do that to a human. With my vision blurry, slightly disoriented, and off balance, I was easy pickings for the combination unleashed by the boss. Face, thigh, shaft thrust to the chest, uppercut with the hammer head to knock me flat on my back and finally a two handed overhand slam into my exposed chest finished me off.

You have died!

Death in a heroic dungeon has different penalties than elsewhere. All equipment suffers 10% durability loss. You lose neither experience nor coin, and the only monsters that will respawn will be in unconquered boss chambers. As a member of the church of Thanatos, you will not lose any kills towards your weekly quota.