Neil

“Well bottoms up.” I said to myself as I uncorked the small bottle and drank the contents in one quick gulp. Keeping it down was actually proving to be pretty tough as it tasted like dirty grass mixed with berry juice. Not the worst thing in the world but bad enough that combined with the surprise I almost spat it out.

Concentrating I closed my eyes and focused on the Mana that was pooled in my stomach. I felt as if it became just a little less pure, a little dirtied by the potion that I had drank. I was starting to get a pretty good idea of how much foreign Mana I could have before I got Mana shock. Probably three or four more potions today.

Smiling I opened my eyes and looked around and exclaimed, “Holy Shit!” It was literally like night and day. Before I had taken the potion I could barely make out anything in the dim glow of the pole. Now I could see everything almost perfectly, there weren’t even any shadows anymore.

“Wow!” Now that I could see everything clearly I felt a lot more comfortable here, it was amazing how just a little light, or at least a potion making it seem like there was light could make an abandoned underground cavern filled with horribly mutated monsters feel like you were at right at home.

Looking at my watch I made a note of when the potion should end, I would like to be back here by then, or at least someplace safe where I could have another potion. I really had no idea I might be down here.

Walking towards the steps with my spear held in front of me in both hands I tried to make myself ready for anything, monsters, traps, a pile of corpses. What I actually found was an empty stone room with six doors lining both the east and west walls, windows on the north and south walls and another stone staircase to the right of the one I was on leading further down. Lining the stone walls near the ceiling were several crystals similar to the ones that had been on the roof. Likely some kind of a lighting system, it was too bad I had no idea how to turn it on.

Deciding to check the rooms before moving on I walked over to what I was now considering the west side of the building. Really it was just the wall that was on my left when I walked down the stairs. While I did have a compass in my things, this place wasn’t so complicated so far that I bothered to pull it out.

Judging by the state of the ruins above ground I didn’t think there would be anything of value in these rooms, I was actually more worried about monsters. So far I hadn’t seen anything moving and that actually made me more worried than anything. Remembering my fight with the mutated rats I wanted to be certain that I wasn’t going to leave any enemies behind me.

Opening the door to the first room I pushed it open with my spear standing just to the side of the doorway. Quickly looking in I saw that the room was about 10 feet by 10 feet. There was a heavy looking table against the far wall and small piles of debris and rotten wood. Walking in I quickly gave each pile a quick kick I was surprised when something metal slid across the ground. Double checking that there weren’t any monsters in the room I bent down to pick it and found a simple metal file. There were other pieces of metal in the room, but most of them were far too rusted for me to see what they had been. This one was actually not completely rusted and it looked like half of it was still usable. Maybe this had been some kind of a workshop? Did the people here really use metal files for their work and not just use magic to make things? I guess magic isn’t practical for every thing.

Well for whatever reason they had this here I now had myself a file. Picking it up I placed it in my backpack and quickly checked the rest of the rooms. Almost all of the rooms were empty of anything useful, with just piles of junk and half rotted furniture being in most of them. In a few rooms there had been what looked like anvils, those had had pieces of metal that may have been tools at one point, and forges as well reinforcing the idea that these had been metal workshops.

The final room I expected to see more of the same and for the most part I wasn’t disappointed, the floor was covered in small piles of junk but there were other things in the room as well.

“What the hell...?” I said out loud. There on the far wall was an older style elevator gate made up of a few dozen metal bars over the hole in the wall. From where I was standing it looked like they would fold in and out in order to block off the entrance when needed. Looking at the room I saw several large metal mining carts haphazardly placed in the room. Looking in them I could see that each of them were empty except for one which had a single bar of metal in it. The bar and the cart were each so rusted I almost didn’t see it in the bottom, but the potion allowed me to pick out the details I otherwise would have missed.

“What is it?”

DING

Steel Ingot This is a simple steel ingot; it was of excellent quality but time and rust have caused its quality and quantity to degrade considerably.

Grunting I picked it out of the cart, it may have rusted to half its original size but it was still pretty heavy. It must have been huge when it had been made. Dropping it near the door to the room I simply left it there. Walking closer to what I was certain was an elevator shaft I looked down and saw nothing but blackness.

My potion had been working perfectly so far so it was strange that I couldn’t see anything there. Probably it meant there was some kind of a distance limit on the potion. Or the shaft was so deep I couldn’t see anything because of that.

I was just about to leave when I caught a whiff of something coming from the shaft. Moving closer to the grate I sniffed a few times trying to place the smell, it was faint but it smelt like rotting meat. Depending on how far down this elevator shaft went there must have been something foul down there, and it was apparently on me to deal with it.

Walking away from the shaft I paused when I heard something extremely faint. Pausing I strained my ears listening for anything. After a few moments I was ready to assume my mind was playing tricks on me when I heard it again, it was faint and far off but it was there.

Click, click, slide.

What was that? Straining my ears I listened for it again.

Click, click, slide.

Walking back to the main room I tried to identify where the sound was coming from but my pounding heart actually made it hard to hear anything else. Holding my improvised spear at the ready I walked to the stairs leading down deeper into the building and looked down, faintly I heard it again.

Click, click, slide.

Whatever it was it was rhythmic, every few moments I heard it again and it was definitely getting louder, so whatever it was it was heading straight for me.

Click, click, slide.

The sounds were now louder and much clearer, wherever it was coming from it was close. Taking my pack off I put it on the ground around the corner from the stairs and quickly opened it. Pulling out a bottle and a bag I placed them on the ground. Opening the bag of poison I quickly reapplied it to the tip of my spear. Closing it back up I put it back in my bag and I made sure that the healing potion was out of the way but easy to get to.

Crack, crack, slide.

Cocking my head towards the sound I listened, it was much much closer, and it had changed from a light clicking sound to a loud crack. Walking back to the stairs leading down I could hear it on the floor below me. Not wanting to get too far from my healing potion I stopped at the top of the stairs and pointed my spear towards the bottom of the stairs.

Crack, crack slide.

It was right below me now. Watching I saw something whip into view and hit the ground with a solid cracking noise. It hit the stone so hard that it actually dug into the hard stone a few centimeters. Almost immediately it was followed by what I now realized was a second arm. The second arm landed with a second crack as a hard claw buried itself into the stone.

The sliding noise seemed to fill the stairwell as it pulled itself forwards into view.

Its arms were long and thin, about the same length as my own but they ended with sharp looking hooks on the ends that looked to be made of chitlin or perhaps even metal. I wouldn’t say anything was impossible now.

Parts of its face looked like it had been a Lamia once, or perhaps even a human. There was one normal looking eye, and a nose that was completely average, but that was the extent of familiar facial features.

Its mutated eye was much larger and misshapen, looking far more like an insects eye than anything else. Its mouth was much larger than any persons could be and it had long thin teeth sticking out of it. Most of the teeth were straight but many were crooked and leaving its mouth at odd angles it even had several teeth piercing its cheeks. Its body was long and thin like a Lamias but it didn’t seem to have a Lamias tail, it actually didn’t have much at all past its hips. There was something trailing past its hips but I didn’t have the time to take a close look at it.

The second it saw me its mouth and its eyes opened wide, its teeth tearing at its own cheeks as it began shrieking. The sound was loud enough to reverberate through the empty hallways and corridors bouncing off the walls and coming back to me like as an echo.

The horrible screech actually saved my life, once I had seen it shock had set in and I found myself unable to move for a few seconds. That was until my hands moved to my ears clapping over them, almost hitting myself in the head with my spear, fortunately that was enough to force me to start moving again.

The second the sound ended I saw its mouth working as its head swayed ever so slightly back and forth, like it was trying to cough. It started to make a sound like it was clearing tar from its throat. Its head moved back and it was only the instincts I had gained from my dodge skill that forced me to move. Throwing my body to the side just as its head whipped forwards with a horrible coughing sound I heard something impact the stairs where I had just been crouching.

Landing hard on the stairs I scrambled to my feet managing to keep a hold on my spear. Looking at the monster I could see that its head was bobbing back and forth again, likely getting ready to spit at me again.

I hadn’t been exactly been watching its movements before it had spit at me before, but at least on some level I must have seen something because this time I was actually able to predict when it was getting close to being ready to spit again.

Back and forth, back and forth, it reared back a little further than normal, and.... NOW.

Already against the railing of the stairs I made a low jump forwards and down, sliding down four steps feet first and I suddenly found myself fairly close to the monster. Striking forwards with my spear as hard as I could I landed a solid blow on its body I felt a solid impact as I hit it in the torso. But the monster looked completely unphased.

I was pretty sure I must have broken its skin a little, even if just a little, but if I wanted the poison to be most effective I probably needed to get a little more than that.

Getting to my feet I hopped back up the stairs a little and I managed to avoid two swipes from its arms, but this left me in an awkward position. On the steps I found my mobility hampered a little, one wrong jump and I could turn my ankle, or even fall down the stairs. I should really be fighting this on even ground.

Seeing its head moving back and forth again I thought I had a few seconds before it would spit at me again so I took them. Turning and running I made it three steps up the stairs before I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, listening to my instincts I threw myself down and to the right.

“Fuck!” I shouted as I landed awkwardly on my arm, fortunately the tip of my spear wasn’t underneath me otherwise I would have to worry about the poison. Hearing the spit hit the steps in front of me I scrambled forwards as quickly as I could and got around the corner onto the stairs that lead up to the office and storage room.

If the poison was going to do anything it would hopefully do it quickly, but if it wasn’t I needed a plan of some kind.

Standing up I walked up four steps turned around and listened to the crunch crunch slide.

This thing was like the terminator, hitting it didn’t even slow it down. I’m not even sure if it actually felt pain.

Holding my spear in a reverse grip with the point facing down I took a deep breath and watched. Seeing the first hook hit the ground I checked my grip. Seeing the second hook hit the ground I took a deep breath and crouched down.

Then I saw it pull itself forwards into view and I jumped.

Landing on its back I drove the spear down into it as hard as I could and this time I was rewarded with the spear being driven inside it and the creature letting out a horrific screech.

Immediately after I landed on the creature it started thrashing back and forth throwing me off of it. Landing on my side with my spear in hand I rolled away from it and scrambled back onto my feet reversing my spear back to its original position of pointy end facing towards the monster.

The monster swiped at me with its one arm and then the other. I managed to block each swipe and then another twinge in my stomach told me to duck as another wad of acidic spit missed my face by inches.

Standing up I struck the monster in its face as hard as I could wielding the spear more like a baseball bat or a staff. It was a solid hit and I knocked it to its side, knocking it off balance, on the back swing I hit it again knocking its head the other direction.

I tried to hit it again but it managed to get one of its arms in front of the swing blocking the strike. That probably would have broken my own arm but this thing seemed completely unconcerned. Jumping back I prepared to block more strikes or dodge another acid spit, but I didn’t have too.

The poison started to effect it. Slowly at first it started to shake, then more and more until full blown seizures were wracking its body. For a few minutes it kept seizing and as much as I wanted to put it out of its misery its flailing arms prevented me from getting too close. Until finally it stopped moving, apparently dead.

Just to be sure I caved its head in with my spear.

Falling on my ass I held my spear in front of me as if warding off another threat, gulping down as much air as I could, I tried to get my breathing back under control.

The cheerful sounding ding was almost obscene with the scene in front of me.

Through practice under challenging circumstances your Sense Mana skill has improved! You are now able to sense Mana being cast by others in a close radius!

Huh so I guess that twinge I felt before it spit was me sensing the magic of its attack, that meant that the spitting was apparently some kind of a magical attack. I wonder if I can learn it? I thought as I looked at the bubbling spit on the stairs in front of me.

Now that it wasn’t spitting acid at me, I was finally able to get a good look at this thing. It did look like some kind of a Lamia, except horribly mutated. The changes to its face were the least of them, the thing trailing behind it that I thought might have been a tail was actually part of its skeleton, the rest of the tail apparently having rotten off at some point. There were little bits of what looked almost like a fungus on it that were oozing a disgusting black substance.

“What is it?”

A Lamia that has been mutated due to long term exposure to Taint.

When the shock of the fight started to wear off of me the smell hit me next. Gagging at the smell of rancid meat and death I stood up and walked up the stairs covering my face trying to avoid retching. Listening carefully I couldn’t hear anything else coming so it looked like I was all on my lonesome for now.

Taking a few deep breaths while pacing around the room I managed to get myself under control. There was something about this fight that had really unsettled me and after a few minutes I was pretty sure I had figured out what it was. I had come closer to death before this, compared to some of my fights against slimes even this had been a cakewalk. It was because this thing looked like it had once been a person. Animals were one thing, monsters another, but something that was once just like me or Shassala? Even if killing it was a kindness it was still pretty messed up.

Walking down to the corpse I found the smell wasn’t nearly as bad as I had initially thought, bad certainly, but not enough to make me sick as long as I kept my head about me. It had really just been the combination of the smell and the corpse that had caused me to freak out.

“God damn, you are ugly. I’m not sure if you were aware of what had been happening to you, god I hope not. Have you been here for hundreds of years waiting to die? But if you haven’t that would mean that people were sent in recently. Jax and Hallice didn’t mention anything about that. I guess I’ll just have to see.”

Putting a garbage bag on my hands I pulled the creature into one of the small work rooms

Putting my pack on again and my health potion back inside my pack I continued down the stairs to the next level, whatever else was down here, I still had a job to do.