The item that the dropbox gave was a little odd, but it was one that Colin was excited about the possibilities for.

Vial of lesser Spell Aging. Weight: 142 grams. Item quality: 6.

This vial is made from citrine and covered in a filigree of unshined silver in patterns of frothy liquid swirling around. This empty vial is attached to a cord made from wound-together strands of alchemically treated Adult Dracowolf fur. There is no stopper for this vial because it was never meant to be used for fluid, but structured forms of magic instead, more colloquially known as spells.

You can take one spell that you have recorded in a spellbook and store the next instance of that spell in this vial for later use. The next time you use this spell, instead of the spell coming from your books or mind, it comes from this vial. The spell stored in this vial gains an extra effect; the longer a spell ‘ages’ in the vial, the more potent the magic becomes.

All effects of a spell, except mana cost, become .5% more potent for every hour it is stored in this item. The maximum amount that a spell can be aged by this item is 20%, meaning that this item can ‘age’ a spell for forty hours until the effects are maxed out.

-This item can only hold up to 250 Mana Points.

-This cannot be used to transfer spells or effects to other people like other spell-storing items.

-This can be used on some spell-like skills or techniques.

-This item can Evolve if the right ingredients are brought to the right crafters.

Spell Instance Stored: None.

Your Appraisal Skill is now level 5.

Definitely odd. Who had ever heard of aging spells for greater effects? But in theory, magic could react in almost every conceivable way, as long as the crafters had the correct mana types to achieve it.

Staring at the filigree for long moments allowed his perception skill and his knowledge skills with Enchanting. Now Knowledge: Magic allowed him to understand the item a little more. Whoever made this had to have possessed every magic skill or had some ability that allowed them to bypass that restriction. This thing had passive threads of twisting magic that flowed from hidden rune to tiny visible rune that Colin did not recognize.

Whatever it was, it was the main component in the Enchanting work that allowed it to work, and Colin wanted to know more, but it could wait until later. Now, he had a choice to make. He could give the Item to Rielle, Paladin, or keep it for himself.

Deciding to nip one person off the list quickly, Colin just asked him, “hey Paladin! Do any of your abilities function at all like spells or considered spell-like?”

“No, other than my potion work, all my abilities and skills are based around Ki and techniques. Why?” he asked, stepping over to Colin. The man was cleaning off his bare stomach with a rag that seemed to absorb the gore from the previous battle and destroy it. What little remained of his wounds were all scabbed over, and even those were fading by the minute.

Colin raised the fancy magic item for Paladin to see and explained the item’s functions. Paladin nodded and stayed quietly in thought for a moment, his hand rubbing his chin that appeared to be growing a shadow of a beard. Rielle looked at it in thought, having spent the last few minutes working on sharpening her sword and coming closer when Colin started explaining.

“Walker, May I see it?” she asked tentatively.

She took the item and put it on. Colin didn’t stop her, curious about what she was doing though, he asked, “what are you thinking?”

Right before she answered, a single drop of Green fluid that was dusted with gold sparks dripped from the roof of the vial. She looked up at Colin and smiled at him, “I just filled it with fifty MP of my Heavenly Blight. I’m going to use it really quick so I can try something else,” she said. Looking away from the group and glaring at a torn piece of tapestry that hung from the wall. The tapestry lit up with the Heavenly Blight and extinguished itself moments later when the magic ran dry.

The drop of fluid in the vial was missing as everyone looked, and then Rielle grabbed onto the item and closed her eyes. Seconds passed, and nothing happened. Colin was counting the seconds, literally, since she closed her eyes. At about the eighteen-second mark, she opened her eyes and looked down at the vial in her palm. Her wonder and excitement showed in a stare that stayed on the vial in her now open hand.

Everyone gave her a moment. Colin and Paladin knew that she wasn’t very outspoken and felt like it was a good idea to give her a moment. Larry did simply because Colin glared and mouthed at him to keep quiet.

A minute passed, and Rielle looked up to find Colin and Paladin waiting patiently for her. She blushed a little and looked away before vocally answering their gazes.

“I filled it with fifty MP of my Spirit’s Plea skill,” she said, lifting the vial for them to see. It was pretty; it looked like it was filled with liquid pearl and sparkles that shifted even as Colin watched. It was rather entrancing to watch, but Colin was curious about what she hoped to achieve with this.

“Oh,” she responded, letting the vial hang from the cord. “I was hoping that it would give me a greater chance at a Lesser Spirit coming when I call instead of a Least level Spirit. I’m not sure how well it will work, but I was just curious if it would help,” she answered, then looked at Colin, her eyes suddenly wide. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Walker! You wanted this, right?! Here, let me get rid of the skill and-”

“No,” Colin stopped her quickly, trying to keep his smile looking as polite and kind as possible. “I was debating on who should get this item, you or me. I think you should have it, Rielle. Besides, when was the last time I gave you a decent item,” Colin chided himself. “Keep it.”

“Really?” she asked, wanting to be sure before she got too attached.

Colin nodded once, “yes, but expect me to borrow it briefly on occasion so I can make some enchanting notes or try and evolve it. That thing is rather interesting,” Colin told her before turning towards the stairs.

“What?” Rielle said, looking at the item she held. “This vial can evolve?”

“Yeah, why?” Colin asked.

“That’s…” she paused, unable to state the words she knew. “Are you sure you want to give this to me? This item is much more precious than I originally thought.”

“What, Why?” Colin asked, stopping and looking at the group.

Everyone looked at him, Rielle looking apprehensively between Colin and her new item. After a moment, Paladin answered, “evolving items are items that let the item evolve to a higher rank or quality under the right conditions. There are a few ways to make evolving items. Very high-level Enchantments or Rituals, using a soul belonging to a sentient creature of a high level or using some amount of a metal called Godsteel. Evolving Items are rare because they let someone with the appropriate skills increase an item’s strength without blueprints or even fully understanding the magic involved. They just need the required stuff, and boom, upgrade. If the item becomes a high enough grade, it almost guarantees a skill level up. No matter the level.”

Nodding along, all of that made sense. It even gave another reason why Sansinite, also known as God steel, was considered so precious. It didn’t change his confusion as to why they were all acting so… unnerved by the item’s nature. “Okay, but why does that change anything?”

“Because it guarantees that the item will become something truly mythical someday if it is upgraded appropriately,” Nox answered, stepping out of Colin’s shadow. He looked at the vial with a little bit of envy before looking at Colin, “DevilWalker, some things are considered very precious, and nearly anything that can evolve is so. I know you won’t change your mind, DevilWalker, but all of you should take care of who you tell about this item.”

Colin nodded, “You’re right Nox, this doesn’t change my mind. It might have if it could be more useful to me than her, but that is not the case in my opinion. Rielle,” Colin said, his gaze softening as he looked at her. “Keep it; we’ll upgrade it as we can. Okay?”

She nodded, smiling softly at Colin as he smiled widely. “Okay, Walker.”

Besides, Colin already had a Mythical Item that evolved, and she definitely deserved to have something precious.

He nodded in response and announced to the group, “alright, who is ready to go?!”

Everyone answered in the affirmative, and Larry hurried ahead to take his place as First-Line Tank. Colin moved in behind him with Larry looking at the item for a few moments with Rielle as they started down the staircase that led into inky darkness.

Something was comforting about the stairs, Colin internally remarked as they walked down the stairs. It was strange considering they were still in the Dungeon with literal Demons that wanted to rip their faces off. The stairs didn’t appear to be anything special before they started their descent, simple gray stone that had once been polished. Now it felt chipped under their feet as they walked down them and that feeling only got worse as a torch-lit ahead of them.

The one-lit torch changed moments later until the light spread around them to reveal that the stairs led into a large chamber. The chamber looked like a cross between a disaster zone and a massacre scene with destroyed fortifications ripped apart and stained skeletons still in their armor littered the room. Many of these emplacements might have once been small defensive shelters for Archers and Mages and Others heavy wooden walls for quick defenses given the braces Colin could see. Five doors led away from this one central room; all were fortified with metal and completely intact.

But what bothered Colin was the absolute lack of inhuman corpses. There were many old human or humanoid remains, but those were most likely the defenders in this siege. He saw no Dracowolf skeletons, nor any remains involving Lesser Plated Demons, or any Squash Demon remains.

If this place was attacked by Demons before it became a dungeon, shouldn’t there be something remaining of the Demonoid remains?

That thought occurred mere moments before the door to the far left of the stairs opened, and something came into view. The basic form was unsurprisingly humanoid but was tall enough that it had to hunch to step through the door. It looked like everything about the creature, except for its head, had been stretched to its limits. Long, thin, and bony arms stretched to the floor where sickle-like fingertips dragged against the floor. Its back was perpetually hunched over with six-inch dull spikes coming out of its spine and large feet that it refused to pick up all the way.

The face was the thing that tied the freakish thing together. Stringy hair hung from a nearly bald scalp that had fresh scabs over most of the surface. Its yellow eyes were bloodshot and wide open with a pointed and birdlike nose that hung over its open mouth. It was a mouth with four tusks, two out of the top and two out of the bottom, jutting from its maw. The rest of its mouth was sharp but black and decaying.

Colin’s Demonology Skill proved useless in identifying the creature, but Larry helped explain why a moment later. “It’s not a Demon, Master. That is an Undead; I think it’s called a… Hunchbacked Wretch. Never actually seen one before,” Larry said with a shrug. “They’re dangerous but-”

Before Larry could continue, The Undead’s eyes turned towards him, and it gurgled out what sounded like an unintelligible phrase. At the same time, it lifted a hand up and pointed.

Colin was lifting his own hand to try and stop the monster from doing whatever it was doing. Still, the creature was already done when Colin shouted. “Force Bolt!”

The Demon took the hit as Larry fell to one knee, grabbing at his throat. Colin could only spare Larry a second as the Demon recoiled, and he was definitely choking; his entire neck was being compressed by an invisible band.

The Hunchbacked Wretch spoke another garbled word before it took in a deep breath through his nose. A pale pink mist emanated from Larry’s head and flowed towards the Demon’s nose, like a puff of smoke in a breeze. Again, Colin had no idea what it was doing, but it really didn’t matter as long as they could kill the damned thing.

Colin activated Kinetic Vigor and Aligned Strike, hoping to make his first blow really count. He charged, and with his evil charged Xiphos, Colin swung and struck the Undead. The Xiphos sunk an inch into its forearm before stopping against the monster’s bone; the flesh inside felt more like gelatin than muscle and tendon. Colin pulled the weapon free with some difficulty and stepped away from it as the creature swung its clawed hand at him.

Paladin rushed over and shouted as he skidded to a stop a mere step away from the Undead and palm struck it once to knock it off balance. The Wretch was big, but Paladin was also big and built like a brick house. Physics was in his favor.

As soon as the Undead lost its solid footing, Paladin stepped in again, grabbed it by its wrist, twisted himself around, and threw him across the room. The gangly thing impacted the floor a moment later and tumbled to a stop, where it burst into Green-gold flame.

It stood up a moment later, the Heavenly Blight was noticeably eating away at its flesh, and one of its arms was bent at a weird angle. But still, the thing raised a hand and pointed, this time for Rielle. When it spoke, it jabbed a finger through the air, and the heavenly Blight dissipated from around its form.

The Death Fey was on the ground, curled into the fetal position and holding herself while muttering about how she was a good girl. She was speaking fast, repeating it over and over while the Undead said the same gurgled word as early and called over the pale pink mist from earlier to itself, this time from Rielle’s trembling form. As Colin watched, a small amount of the Undead’s disintegrated flesh started to reform itself, and he acted quickly.

He canceled Kinetic Vigor and activated his Fortify Mind Mental Spell on himself before raising his palm and firing off two Burning Marble spells at the Hunchbacked Wretch. Whatever this monster was doing, it had some kind of mental component to be doing this to Rielle. It was too bad that Fortify Mind was a preventative measure and not a countermeasure too. Otherwise, he’d help her with it.

Yet again, he was screwed because of a lack of space for more spells.

Colin didn’t let up, firing off more Burning Marbles as he stepped closer. Paladin did his part and removed a small gourd from a pouch on his waist and threw it at the thing. The gourd shattered and spilled a fruit punch-colored fluid over its flesh, coating it in the potion. Suddenly, Colin’s spells seemed to hit it much harder, and he kept firing the spells until he ran out of Mana.

He then rushed over and thrust stabbed at the Demon in one of the places where its flesh was still damaged. The Undead looked at Colin and batted him away with the back of its right hand.

You have taken 50 points of damage and now have 550/600 health remaining.

He scrambled back to his feet and rushed at it again while Paladin did the same thing. The Antagonist came at it from the side while Paladin attacked from the front, getting all of the things attention. At the same time, Colin swung carefully to avoid getting his sword stuck in its super dense bones. Paladin charged his palm strikes with Ki, trying not to throw the creature to allow Colin to keep attacking as well. His glowing orange palms hammering into its arms and torso when he could.

It took another minute with both men received over a hundred and fifty damage each for the Undead to finally go down.

You have killed a Hunchbacked Wretch and have gained 347 EXP. You now have 104,032/256,914 until level 21.

“Fuck!” Colin spat. “All that for only 347 experience!”

Paladin looked at his notification and shrugged as he took out a small bottle and started cleaning the blood off himself. He looked at Colin and shrugged, “what are you going to do, eh? It was technically one on four.”

“It was still a lot of trouble for three hundred and forty-seven experience,” Colin grumbled.

“Walk- Walker?” Colin heard, pulling him from the unfairness. He rushed over to Rielle and knelt down to check on her, to find her infinitely better than a minute ago. Her shivering was gone, and the only thing left from what she was saying mere moments ago was a look in her eyes.

“You okay?” he asked, offering her a hand up.

She took it and stood on wobbly feet for a moment before stabilizing herself and taking a slow breath. “I will be, thank you,” she said.

“Well, we learned something about that thing,” Colin said. “Your Heavenly Blight does a number on it. It might be good to use that from the get-go from now on against these things. Recover your MP for a minute before we move on,” Colin said.

“Yeah, I’m fine now too!” Larry stated, climbing to his feet. He looked was rubbing his neck and looked rather frustrated at the whole encounter.

“Good,” Colin responded. “How’s your health?”

“Low, but regenerating,” Larry responded.

The Antagonist shook his head as he walked over and touched his Familiar. “Weak Heal Demon,” he intoned as the spell started healing Larry.

The Demon nodded gratefully, and Colin looked at his own regenerating Health and Mana. He could fight on if his health was the only issue, but a lot of his style revolved around his use of magic.

While they all recovered, Colin took a few minutes to look around, never sheathing his sword in case another one of those things showed up. The first place he looked was where the Hunchbacked Wretch had died, finding a blood orbed loot box in its place. He touched it and was disappointed yet again when he appraised it.

Bone Spur of a Hunchbacked Wretch. Weight: 765 grams. Item Quality: 4.

A piece of bone from the back of an Undead creature. This item contains some amount of magical Empathic resonance from the creature it came from, and maybe this can be used from something useful.

Colin put the item in his Dimensional bag, and another prompt appeared.

Your bound Dimensional Bag is at 95% of its total capacity. It is suggested that you remove items before you start to overfill your bag, and things fall out of the extra-dimensional space they use. Never to be seen again. Maybe.

Grumbling, Colin dismissed the prompt and knew that this bag had been too good to be true. The space was finite, and he just had no way to know how limited it was. Well, until recently, at least.

Superior Dimensional Bag. Weight: 210 grams. Item Quality: 9.

Made from Gretal Spider, White Writher, and Greater Carafret silks that have been woven together and enchanted into a potent Dimensional Bag. This bag has been Enchanted by the Sage Goblin Enchanter Icke to repay the Hero of Hel for saving his life. Nox Lightsnuffer has kept the item safe for many years until the day he was slain, the bag disappearing with the rest of his corpse.

-99% of all weight stuffed into the bag is nullified.

-The bag will not break, and no items destroyed when overstuffing the bag.

-The bag can pull whole items inside the bag by compressing space as long as a portion of the item can start the process.

-This bag can hold 75 cubic feet of goods without damage.

“Wow,” Colin said, reading through the prompt with growing appreciation for the gift that Nox had given him when they had first met. “Nox, why did you give me this bag?” he asked.

“Oh, finally appraised it?” Nox asked, only continuing when Colin nodded. “Icke was a friend a long time ago during my first life. For most Goblins back then, honor and duty was a thing for the upper world creatures, not us who lived underground and had to fight horrific creatures to survive. He was different though, I never found out why, though. He was actually the reason I suggested the concepts to my Goddess when she started founding Grimhold.”

“But why give it to me? This says it was a gift for saving his life,” Colin asked his own shadow. Feeling strange for doing so and expecting an answer.

“It was, but that was a long time ago, DevilWalker. Literally another life ago,” Nox stated, his voice low and somber. “His memory will always be important to me, but that item is just a thing, and I am not sentimental towards things, just memories, and people. Don’t worry about it, DevilWalker. I have not,” Nox stated, his voice returning to the silence.

Colin continued to look around the room for anything of use for a few minutes, coming back with only a handful of Copper Bits that were inside some dead men’s belt pouches.

Once his Mana was back to full, Colin checked in with the rest of his party and found that their MP was back up to max. Colin gave Larry another Weak Heal Demon spell to keep healing him and then proceeded towards the door the Hunchbacked Wretch had come from. Colin hoped that there would be less resistance if they went down that route, and no one disagreed with him. Paladin merely shrugged, but that wasn’t the same thing.

Down the open door they moved; Colin applied everyone with the Fortify Mind spell. He just hoped that it would be enough to keep at least Rielle from being affected by that same spell. They quickly reached a corridor marked file storage that was in shambles. Walls were broken down, paper, parchment, and scrolls were littered all over the place, with destroyed pieces of cabinets and desks everywhere.

Just walking through the corridor, Colin could see through broken walls into the many rooms where every room was a variation of the same savaged chaos. Through these walls, Rielle spotted another of the Hunchbacked Wretches and pointed it out to Colin. It seemed to be in a stupor of some kind, seemingly not entirely aware of the world around it. Hunched and swaying as it was, he believed they could get the jump on it.

Colin took a moment to reapply Fortify Mind on Rielle and also used Inspiration on her in the hopes that it might give her another edge. The last one gave them trouble because they didn’t know what to expect, this time, they were more prepared.

When Colin gave her the signal, she activated Heavenly Blight on the Undead, igniting it with the green-gold flame as it woke from its stupor. The Undead writhed for a moment before its gaze found the group and locked on to them. It raised a hand to point at them, only to have Larry fire at it with a HellRime Arrow, and Colin threw one of his enchanted Throwing Knives. Both impacted the Undead, interrupting the action and letting Rielle go on with her attack.

Colin attempted to help whittle down its health further by throwing some more spells at it, primarily Kinetic Bolts and Burning Marbles. He did it carefully to avoid depleting his MP too far, but his help didn’t appear to be necessary. Within a minute, the Undead was crumbling to charcoal under the effect of Rielle’s attack, and they all got the Prompt a moment later.

You have killed a Hunchbacked Wretch and have gained 347 EXP. You now have 104,379/256,914 until level 21.

It was only a moment after the Wretch died that something else struck them.

“Hrrrrr-ack!” a tiny yet burly voice shouted as a brick flew and impacted Larry in the gut. The cut piece of rock bounced off him harmlessly, but the large man looked down at the impact spot then down the hall at the offender.

“Hey, Walker… you familiar with comic book stuff?” Paladin asked.

Colin shrugged, “a little bit. My wife likes ’em. Why?”

“Does that look like a tiny Hulk over there?” Paladin asked, pointing towards the end of the corridor near a bend.

Scurrying around with a perpetual scowl on its face was a two-foot-tall humanoid with tiny pointed nubs for horns. Its deep green skin tone and heavily muscled form flexed with its every movement. Short green hair hung from its scalp, and black eyes completed the near-perfect imagery of a miniature Hulk.

“Uru-hrak!” It yelled, bashing its fists into the stone floor angrily.

“A Brawn Imp?” Colin said, his Demonology Skill helping him know about the creature. “But where are the rest of them?” Colin asked, spinning around in a circle.

“Rest of them?” Rielle asked, putting away her bow and switching it for her sword.

“Imps travel in packs and have a sort of hive mind. If there is one, there should be more,” Colin said, getting more and more unsure as the seconds passed and the Brawn Imp before them roared.

The two-foot-tall Demon rushed towards them, it’s every step pushing off the ground in controlled jumps to demonstrate its strength. Paladin intercepted the Demon, stepping forward and becoming a wall that it couldn’t pass. With one final step five feet in front of Paladin, the Brawn Imp crouched down and leaped up with full force towards the Sumo’s chest.

It slammed into the Sumo, both fists forward and with an angry roar. To its frustration, the Sumo neither moved nor reacted to the attack. He instead backhanded the Demon, and it flew backward with a pained cry as it landed in a huff.

Paladin shrugged as he turned his face towards the others, “They aren’t so bad, see? Easy peasy.”

“Hur-auruka!” many little voices spoke in discordant unity as there were dozens of fists slamming into the ground nearby but out of sight. “Uhraa!” one barks as it went silent for a single moment.

“Shit,” Colin said, recalling what he knew of Brawn Imps. They were considered the most idiotic of the Imp subtypes but had the biggest egos. It didn’t take much for one to get a bruised Ego which is why they are also disliked more than the other Imp types. The last thing he knew was the detail that made them the most annoying Imp type to deal with when they, like all Imp types, became pests.

Their groups got the most numerous, banding together to smash any that make them feel small.

“Shit,” Colin groaned. “This could be bad.”

Larry agreed a moment later, “Heaven’s yes,” he spat.

“Larry, shall we regroup in a spot that we are less likely to be surrounded?”

“That probably would be best,” Larry answered. His tone was a bit disquieted as he spoke to Colin. “Would you like to start the tactical retreat, or shall I?”

“No, no,” Colin said. “We have to be polite.”

“I can do that,” Larry said, the sounds from the mini horde of Brawn Imps incoherent words shouting getting more frequent.

“Alright, Paladin, do you agree?” Colin asked him.

The big man nodded in agreement as all three looked at the bewildered Rielle and smiled politely at her.

“Would the lady like to start the repositioning to a better location first?” Colin asked.