Metropolis - Capsule Bay 341 - Unit 7

Monday, May 11th, 2089 | 02:22pm

[Status: In-Game]

Aya was still watching the countdown when it finally fell below one minute. The more time that passed, the more she started to wonder about what would happen when she woke up. Was she already dead? Was the countdown in Era time or in real time? But before she could stress out about it too much, she was knocked back into consciousness. Dazed, she blinked, wondering if she’d misread the counter, but when her vision finally cleared, she understood.

She was surrounded by her warrior group and before she could finish catching her bearings and feel the full relief of the fact that she hadn’t died after all, Lulia, the female warrior, spoke up.

“I took the price of the healing potion out of your loot portion.”

Not a question, a statement, but Aya wasn’t about to dispute it. She knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, she got up and brushed the dirt off her tunic. Going by the expressions on the group’s faces, they weren’t excited about waiting around for her. As they moved out, Aya patted down her pack just to make sure she still had everything.

A surprising side effect of the poisonous darts was that she received a new stat called Poison Resistance. She’d gotten bitten two or three times on their way through the dungeon but it had never resulted in a stat gain. Then again, she’d never gotten poisoned seriously enough to die from it. Aya had only been hit by two of the dozens of darts aimed at her; for anyone else, it would have been instant death. It was one of the few occasions where she’d been awarded for being short.

Having learned her lesson, Aya was a lot more careful going forward. Before leaving the trap, she looked for what had triggered it and eventually spotted the cobblestone she’d stepped on. It moved slightly under her weight, but other than that, the only aspect that indicated its presence was its slight discoloration. Aya wondered if it was from frequent use or perhaps the trap had been installed some time after the building of the dungeon. For whatever reason, it made her hopeful that she’d be able to spot any further traps from then on. She scanned the cobblestone carefully, relying on her darkling sight more than she ever had before.

It wasn’t more than fifty feet later that she saw the same kind of discoloration in their path. She pointed it out to the warriors but they couldn’t spot it, no matter how hard she tried to explain. Eventually, she just gave up and guided them around it. They started coming across the rattlesnake Slithers, but this time Aya did not join the fight after her initial strike, too busy scanning the area for more traps.

Because of Aya’s caution, it took them over an hour to clear the last floor, but they also successfully avoided six more traps on their way to the final boss room. There was a communal sigh of relief when they spotted it, but it wasn’t over yet. The mob-boss was slithering randomly in the corner of the room but Aya’s entire attention was caught by the entrance. Before the warriors could step forward, she pulled them back and warned them.

The passage was very narrow, maybe two feet in width, and very long, probably more than ten feet in length. The entire passage was made of one slab of stone, the same color as all of the traps she’d avoided. She looked around, trying to see if there was a way to avoid the trap, but if there was one, she didn’t find it. The passage was too long to jump through in one go. Even the best long jumper wouldn’t be able to clear it; there simply wasn’t enough space behind them to get any kind of running start.

After staring at the narrow ten-foot long passage for a while longer, she shared her findings with the group. The four of them spent another five minutes looking around, trying to come up with a solution to their problem. When no solution came to mind, the warriors started to get impatient. Without consulting the rest of the group, the blue orc simply screamed across the room, trying to get the boss’ attention. Aya cringed, and looked over at the boss. If he headed over toward them, now she’d be screwed. While frontal attacks were the warriors’ preferred method of combat, it would most definitely get her killed. Luckily, the serpent king didn’t even turn to look at them.

Aya heaved a sigh of relief as further attempts went unanswered. She needed the EXP from the boss if she wanted to level up but how was she going to be part of the fight if the warriors were hellbent on a frontal assault? And that’s when it occurred to her: she would need to bait the beast. Stepping forward while the three warriors were creating a racket, trying to get the serpent’s attention, Aya took off the stones she’d tied on to her wrists and ankles. She’d tripled the weight already and when she took them off, she felt as light as a feather. It didn’t mean the trigger would see her the same way, so she got down on her knees before proceeding.

Her actions quieted the group as they watched her progress but she was too concentrated on the task to pay them any mind. She couldn’t see the trigger, but she guessed it was probably weight activated. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense to make the passage so narrow and long. This guaranteed that anyone who wanted access had to go through the precisely-laid path. Afraid of how sensitive it was, she spread her weight over the ground by getting down on her stomach before she entered the passageway. She held her breath and scuttled forward like she’d seen it done in so many military movies.

The first two feet were the hardest and longest. She expected some trap to go off at any second, but it didn’t. The remaining eight feet went by in a blur and before she knew it, she was on the other side, unharmed. Dazed, she sighed in relief and dusted herself off as she got to her feet. She’d scuttled a lot further than she really needed to but she just wanted to make sure she was past the area of effect of the trigger. As soon as she was upright, she activated her Stealth skill again and looked over at the Serpent King. He still hadn’t noticed her presence, which allowed her to sneak up on him as she had with all his underlings.

He was much bigger than the rest of the Slithers they’d come across, of that she was sure. Even in the dim light of the dungeon, his purple scales gave off a metallic sheen. He continued to slither back and forth and the closer Aya got, the more she realized how big the boss was. By the time she made it across the room, she’d come to terms with the fact that the room was a lot bigger than it seemed from the outside. Standing four feet away, she realized that he too was much bigger up close, standing over three times as tall as her, with a another ten feet of tail following him wherever he went. Biting her lip, she tried to figure out what to do.

His scaly skin looked a lot tougher than what she’d come across that far. Her goblin dagger was already reaching the end of its lifetime and in the past two floors had barely been able to even break the skin of the snake-beings. She swallowed hard, envisioning an attack where the dagger simply shattered on impact. Shaking her head to clear it of the silly notion, she commanded herself to get a grip and do what she’d gone there to do.

Aya clutched the dagger and waited for an opening. After three minutes of observing the boss she realized that every couple of passes, he would stop and look at a particular spot on the wall. Her eyes followed his and she saw the same slight discoloration she’d seen on the booby-trapped cobbles. Curiosity almost got the better of her, but she forced herself to focus on her task and look into it later. For now, she would just use his distraction to catch him off guard.

She didn’t actually think her blade would shatter on impact, but it didn’t mean she was going to blindly try to get a cut in. His scales looked quite hard and she was not confident enough to risk her life for a badly-placed cut that wouldn’t buy her enough time to get away. She needed to wound the boss enough to get a head start out of the room and to do that, she first needed to find a weak spot. Aya considered his gleaming, yellow eyes but, discarded the thought on account that he would see it coming.

Instead, she opted for what she thought were either breathing or hearing holes he had some way down his throat. There was a bigger and smaller hole on each side of his throat and they had the added benefit of being two feet closer to the ground and thus, to her. They were still too high to reach, but luckily, he’d chosen the corner of the room to slither back and forth in. With her little and lithe body she’d be able to propel herself off the wall and up to the right height. She positioned herself accordingly, waiting for the right moment to strike. The snake chose random moments to check on his discolored stone and so she waited another six passes before he finally looked at it while he was within her reach.

Taking a deep breath, she lunged up the wall. Immediately, realized she still wasn’t high enough. Fear propelled her to get a second jump off the perpendicular wall. If she fell back down now, without getting an attack in, she’d be giving herself away. Stealth worked only as long as the opponent did not know she was present and there was no way she could muffle the sound of her landing on the cobbles. Getting the second foothold allowed her to jump high enough and latch herself onto the Serpent King’s neck just long enough to get her blade in. She aimed for the larger of the two right breathing holes and by some miracle, the blade went in perfectly. But when she tried to pull it out, it broke at the hilt. Not having enough time to freak out about it, Aya simply threw the hilt away as she jumped off and ran toward the warriors.

In her preoccupation, she didn’t even hear the agonized scream the Serpent King let loose, her entire mind on the task of getting away. She activated the Stealth skill but at her skill level it was almost ineffective at a run. If she’d ever run faster in her life, she didn’t remember when. The warriors were all ready for the attack but in her hurry to escape, she’d forgotten the minor detail of the trap. Not having another option, Aya fell to the ground and started moving forward on her stomach as fast as she could.

Behind her, she heard the Serpent King’s fast approach but she didn’t let herself turn around to look. She needed to focus on getting to the other side so the warriors could get to him and that’s what she did. When, after what seemed like an hour later, she finally reached the other side of the entrance, she thought she activated the trap. The stone beneath her sank slightly, making her jump up from her position. She didn’t care if she still had a foot to go, she just got up and lunged past the wall of waiting warriors.

On her feet and behind her group, she watched as the Serpent King worked his way out of the passage. It was already a tight fit for such a big beast but his weight must have activated the trap because the ceiling had given out and was pushing the boss to the ground. He screeched and wriggled wildly, trying to get loose. The warriors were laughing as they attacked the imprisoned beast. But Aya stepped back, doubting the boss would be held captive for much longer.

As if by prophecy, the Serpent King freed himself in the next second. He lunged forward at the trio of warriors. Thankfully, they’d attacked him enough for the boss to change targets. Taking advantage of her forgotten position, Aya quickly activated her Stealth skill and made her way around the Serpent King. The warriors were a well-trained team and they were attacking evenly from all sides, but there was a part of his back that was uncovered because of the passageway rubble that was in the way. Taking advantage of its perfect position, she scrambled up the pile of broken stones and waited for an opportunity to attack.

She didn’t have to wait long. The Serpent King was already tired from his struggle to get loose and the warriors were doing a very good job. Aya waited until one of them looked like he needed a break to step in. This happened shortly after when Samil, the blue orc’s, mace shattered on impact. Seeing that the Serpent King was going to take advantage of Samil’s loss of momentum, Aya jumped in. She didn’t have a weapon anymore, but she had a small amount of sticky frog slime. At the taller vantage point, she didn’t have any trouble reaching the Serpent King’s eyes and struck the moment he bent down to go after Samil.

Aya had the slime spread on both her hands and, securing herself with the help of her legs, she rubbed the slime into the boss’ eyes. It took her two or three seconds to work the sticky substance off of her skin and by then, the Serpent King was already bucking wildly, trying to get her off. Unable to hold on any more, she flew off its back and thankfully past the warriors into safety. She fell with an ungraceful and painful thud, but by the time she got back to her feet the boss had already forgotten about her existence.

Samil used the time she bought him wisely and pulled out his backup weapon, a large, unwieldy wooden hammer. It was obvious that the orc wasn’t comfortable with the weapon, but thankfully the the loss of sight in its right eye gave the Serpent King such a big movement and accuracy debuff that they managed to defeat the beast not long after that. When the boss finally fell to the ground in deathly stillness, all four of them were panting furiously.

It dawned on them then that they’d probably chewed off more than they could handle with their attack on the boss. Without the initial damage given by the passageway and without the debuff Aya had caused, the four of them would probably not have come out on top. The fact seemed to dawn on all of them at once because all three of the warriors were looking at Aya with grateful smiles. Taken aback, she nodded slowly in return. It was the first time that anyone had looked at her with anything akin to trust in quite a while. She smiled back.

After they recovered their health and made sure there were no more traps left, they unburied the passage from the rubble and made their way back to the boss room. The Serpent King had very good loot, just like all the forum posts had said and they were fortunate enough to get a rare main drop, Fangs of Pure Venom. The online market put their price somewhere around 18,000 gold. The warriors had been ready to leave after looting the Serpent King, but Aya convinced them to stay and check out the boss room. She was still curious about the boss’s interest in the hidden tile.

It took them over twenty minutes just to get back in the room, but when they did, it was worth it. They cautiously approached the trigger tile and Aya threw a rock at it from a distance, just to be safe. It was a good thing, too, because the same type of poisonous darts sailed across the space she would have been in to reach it by hand. A small section of the wall beside the tile gave way to reveal the open space behind the wall. It wasn’t much bigger than two square feet and inside, there was a pair of bladed weapons supported by an iron stand.

A notification popped up labeling them as The Lost Poisonous Claives. The group was ecstatic at the discovery and grew more so whenthey couldn’t find a single mention of them in the forums. They guessed it to be an unique item that could only be found once. The Eastern Plains were a pretty new region so it wasn’t too surprising that new artifacts were still springing up, but this particular dungeon had already been explored many times. The discovery of the weapons was bound to stir some attention.

Aya thought they were beautiful, made of a green metal so dark it almost looked black. The blades narrowed steeply right off the hilt and then broadened again to a hooked tip. She wondered what kind of price they’d manage to get, but at the same time, she was saddened by the prospect of selling them.

Lulia, their self-proclaimed leader, stashed them away.

The way out was a lot easier than the way in and loaded down with loot, they didn’t bother clearing the dungeon out again, just running out as quickly as they could until the mobs de-aggroed on their own. In less than half an hour, they made their way up the dungeon, a trip that had taken over ten hours on the way down. When they reached sunlight again, Aya had to shield her eyes from the bright afternoon sun. Without having to worry about her next target, she really felt just how grimy she was. She shuddered at what she imagined she looked like in that very moment, a small, greasy child of indeterminate gender. And yet, she felt the best that she’d felt in days.

Her step was lighter, a grin stretched across her face and she realized that the only person she’d been fooling was herself. She had loved the dungeon hunt. It was the most fun she’d had in years, more fun than she had felt since her parents had died. As she thought about it, the pressure to succeed in Era came back, but those hours where she’d been so focused on the task ahead that she’d forgotten her worries, she’d felt truly free. Sighing, she smacked herself back into reality and her steps immediately felt a thousand tons heavier.