I admit I was pretty upset that I wasn’t immediately spirited away from this place after I defeated the “boss”. At least I didn’t get swept away to an even harder level, so I should count my blessings. Still, I barely survived the next hour as my mp struggled to keep up with the expenditures of healing my body. Much less half of my neck dissolving into a toxic biomass, I still had barbed arrowheads stuck inside my body. All these things took time and carefully triage to make sure I didn’t die at the moment of my glory.

Some glory it was. Not.

While the death of the mage surely ended my hardship here, the bloody, bloody, and ordorouse corpse of the guy was hard to look at. Sure, I have had more than my fair share of gorey messes this last week, but those were categorized in my brain as “not really real”. Do intelligent spawns count as people? I think not, beside I need some sort of mental protections to keep myself sane here. If I have to pretend everything here is fake to do that, than so be it.

But the mage, unlike everything else here, I felt was a real person. His dead body only yards away from the exotic console I am sitting on, agrees with me. I think I have finally killed my first person. Somehow, I don’t feel like he is going to respawn.

I don’t regret killing the miserable son of a bitch, it was clearly a him or me senario, right up to the last moment. Plus, it was war.

…

I just wish I could get out of here.

During the hour it took to bring myself up to a stable condition I did my best to ignore the pain by inspecting the stink out of anything within reach. I must say, this inspecting thing is supremely unhelpful.

Instance Setting: Managerial Equipment

Basically, everything said this, giving me no idea what any of this stuff actually did. Even worse, the blasted consoles themselves, even that holographic thing, were all in a foreign language. The stupid system wouldn’t translate it for me and after button mashing hard on the flickering lights the holographic display froze up like a windows xp computer.

Nothing makes me more frustrated than technology not working. Rage, rage against the machines. Despite my best ignorant efforts, I wasn’t able to “turn off” the dungeon.

At least a minimap of sorts was left open by the mage before he met his timely demise. While the symbols on the blasted thing made no sense and I couldn’t manipulate it much it seemed to be showing me the area around the temple. Small characters were floating randomly in an agitated frenzy around what I believe to be the Temple. Looks like killing the boss didn’t unsummon all of his creations like I had hoped. After a quick look, it appeared nothing was coming inside the building since I locked the door shut. Good.

My inspections didn’t fail me completely though. In a nearby room I was able to locate the mage’s little lair. Inside was a weird bed thing, and small tables, and a stash of food and water. I suppose the Mage was a real organic creature that needed to eat, thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh God, yes. After a quick cleansing I found out the material delight of dry crispy wafers. I munched those vanilla wafers like a starving man, which I guess I nearly was. There were cases and cases of this stuff inside this pantry, like the mage was planning on being here for a long while. I would think the wafers would get old fast, but I am not complaining. This stuff is literally like manna from heaven. For the first time in days, I gorged myself.

Then I threw it all up. I guess I should have taken it slower.

Once I ate my fill again, much more responsibly this time, I headed back to the control room and gave a stink eye to all the fangled equipment there. The body of the mage was still lying where I had slain it, in a pool of its own blood and guts. Not pleasant. Gritting my teeth, I decided to get it out of my sight and move it away. It was gross but I felt it was needed to be done. That spear I had did a real number on the body, practically splitting it in two. Its an awesome spear, but if I actually had any skill in wielding it, I probably could have dealt with the problem more effectively.

Looking over at the mini-map displayed I see a change happening around the temple. The characters are moving less sporadically now, less chaos and more order. Additional enemies are coming into view too, if I had to guess I would say the roving bands are returning. That’s probably not a good sign. Despite everything, if they storm this place, they could easily overwhelm me. I am kinda trapped in here. If I can’t figure out how to end this instance, I am going to have a hard time exiting this place.

Not that I am sure that I want to. This place is conspicuously missing the bacteria, mushrooms, insects, and other horrors that gave me hell for the last week or so. While I’ve been fighting for survival, this chum has been living the high life in here. That bastard.

I drag the corpse away, wondering if I should bury the mage. The rooms here are uncompleted, many with dirt floors still, so I could dig a hole if I wanted. The thought of leaving a real person’s body out in the open, human or not, enemy or not, just feels wrong. Also, its an ugly fixture inside my new temple, I’d like to bury it just to get rid of it.

I had already tried to cleanse the body away, like I could do to a zombie or skeleton, but it didn’t work. It just cleaned him up a bit. Geeze, I could get a job at a funeral home, cleaning up the dead bodies for viewing. This mage looks perfect, except for the slice bisecting him.

Moving through the basement, I see room after room, unlit, unfinished, but massive.

What was the mage trying to accomplish? What was he building this temple for? Surely not for just him alone and surely not for the zombies outside. Despite the mage’s taste for the disgusting and awful bio-weapons outside, the inside of this place is clean and dignified. Like a noble palace. We are just missing the rows of paintings lining the walls

…

Was he a servant, preparing the way? Who was he building this place for? And how do I fit in?

I ended up not burying the guy, I’ll get back to that later. It’s not like I am personally in danger from disease.

I make it back to the control room, my questions unanswered. I likely killed the only person who could enlighten me, assuming we could even understand each other. Time to take another stab at the holographic controls to try to figure a way out of here. I’m not about to give up.

I take a quick look at the mini map.

…

Blast! Imperial troops have entered the base!

I squint closer, trying to overcome my nearsightedness to try to make out what is happening.

…

Crap, while it looks like the zombies are somehow forbidden from entering the temple, it looks like no such restriction has been placed on the skeletons. I suppose that makes sense, nobody wants zombie gore messing up the pristine halls. If I am reading this thing correctly, it looks like about twenty skeletons have broken in and are heading my way.

Stink, I wish I had more time. Looks like I am going to have to do this the hard way.

Taking my new spear, I lite it with edge and go about smashing every piece of equipment in the room. Most shatter, giving me an odd sense of satisfaction, but my work is ineffective. Even the cool holographic board gets no mercy as I smash it up, feeling a nice tingling sensation as the lights flicker and die. But the instance dungeon is still running strong.

I leave the mini-map last for obvious reasons.

I step up to it. The skeletons are coming down the stairs now. Curse them, they are staying together, looks like several archers and soldiers but mostly the armored types. If they are smart, they would just form a wall of swords to corner me while their archers pick me off as best as they can. I don’t have unlimited mp.

I finally smash up the mini-map, but nothing happens except the loss of my last light. The whole basement falls into darkness.

God damn it, I hope I just didn’t screw myself. I defeated the boss, why do I have to go through this? Shouldn’t the minions have all given up? Shouldn’t this gladiator match have ended? Where are my victor spoils?

I light my hand up with flare and move on. There must be something else here.

I run down the hallways, away from the encroaching army who have no problem working in the dark. As I pass the dark doors, I check room after hollow room. All open spaces, no furniture or corners, no good place where I could make a stand to hold them off. Blast!

Eventually, I come to the end of the rooms, there really is nothing left down here. The mage wasn’t anywhere close to finishing his work.

Then I spot it, I almost missed it because of the dark. A small door in the ground, like a cellar beneath a house, lays at the end of the last hallway. I only notice it because the wooden door stands apart from the rest of the dirt floor. I drop down and pull the handle up, the hinges creaking loudly. Geeze, something needs an oiling. If the skeletons didn’t know where I was before, they surely know now. I stick my flared hand into it quickly and it seems tall enough to stand in with nothing obviously threatening. I take a look around and hear the marching skeletons drawing near. Not wasting another second I drop down my spear then fall in after it.

The fall was only about eight feet, but the floor was hard stone again, not soft dirt and in the blackness I misjudged the depth and crashed clumsily to the floor, smashing my right arm and breaking it. I resisted the urge to howl in pain but fixed myself up soon after. Looking around, no traps are springing at me, which is good, but I look up and see the door is still open. Its too high for me to try to close it too.

…

Heck with that, I don’t know if I can even climb out of here! I don’t think I can jump up that high!

…

Whatever, I’ll solve that problem when I get to it. For now, I can bottleneck the skeletons as they come down. Maybe I can climb up on their corpses when it’s over.

With a sigh, I turn around, inspecting the room. The walls are all stone as well, but a very different style from the temple above. Like and older wing of a building after extensive remodeling. It’s rather small too, only about ten feet in width and length.

Which makes it pretty easy to spot the floating object resting dead center. I cast identify.

Instance Core

An evil grin spreads across my face. Bingo!

Without hesitation I pick up my spear and cast edge on it. The golden flames cover the tip of the spear and with a mighty (hopefully) yell, I swing as hard as I can at the black marble, determined to end this charade once and for all.

To my shock, literally and figuratively, my attack does no damage as It feels like I just struck a concrete wall. My arms ache and shiver at the blow. This is why I hated playing baseball.

Damn! That was supposed to work!

I move closer to the core and take a few probing swings at it and find that, despite the blasted thing floating in midair, it behaves like a solid fixture.

I hear clanking above me so I am forced to turn my attention away. A moment later I see a soldier drop down, only to get chopped in half by me and my spear a second later.

Dang, did I tell you how much I love this thing?

It takes another moment before another one drops down, this time an armored type. It fares none better as I slice through the steel like butter.

Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. I’ll have to thank that mage, if he ever does respawn, for gifting me such a great weapon. He should had given it to his guardian much sooner.

I wait for the next victim to drop down but none more appear. I can still hear them up above, shuffling around but they aren’t moving in on me. Perhaps they realize it won’t work? I guess they are smarter than I gave them credit for. What can they do, anyway? I mean, besides wait me out?

…

Crap, they can do that. I didn’t bring much with me down here. I could last a few days, I guess, but if they just park themselves up there for a week I am done for.

I wait for a few more minutes but nothing else happens. The noises have died down, but I am pretty sure they are up there.

Stink!

Crap!

There is nothing else for it, I warily return my attention to the giant marble resting a few feet from me. Looks like this is my only ticket out of here.

A few more taps with my spear produce nothing more and casting identify on it just makes me angry at the continued lack of information. Is this thing indestructible? How does it work?

…

I see its all black and misty, with wisps coming off it like the dark magic around Pesos. Since it appears to be what is powering this place, it makes sense that it's filled with black magic, literally. Maybe I can cleanse it?

With some trepidation, I cast a look behind me to make sure the skeletons aren’t planning any funny business before reaching out with my cleansing hand.

The moment my hand makes contact with it, I feel like I have made a terrible mistake. Rather than my cleansing light wiping away the darkness, the black smokes consume it and then starts traveling up my hand and onto my arm. With a yelp I try to pull away, but my hand is stuck there by a powerful force. For every second that passes, more mist pumps out of the core, eating up my arm.

Oh my God, I do not want to go this way! Is it going to eat me and turn me into a lich or something!? I pump as much mp into cleanse as I can in my panicked state before switching to flare. My spear is gripped in an awkward way by my left hand so I can’t just slice my arm off with it at the rate the blackness is traveling. I am also thinking about cutting off my arm with a barrier, but I have no idea if that could work.

…

At least the mist doesn’t hurt at all.

…

Finally, the flare seems to work as it stops the mist before it can reach my torso. I give myself a moment to calm myself at the equilibrium, before I start pushing my way back into my arm. Its works slowly, the black mist receding before my most powerful skill, but the mp I am consuming is unsustainable. I hope the skeletons don’t take advantage of this moment of vulnerability.

Flare eventually clears up my whole arm and hand again, forcing the black mist away, but the sphere resists my attempts to attack it with flare and, despite my efforts, I still can’t seem to take my hand away. I am burning mp just keeping the mist at bay.

Going over my options quickly, I try to cast barrier between the core and my hand, but nothin’ doin’. I adjust the spear in my left hand and prepare to cut my right hand off with the blade, but I want to try one more thing. I switch back the cleanse and focus as best as I can on the core. I still need to beat this thing to get out of here.

With my renewed and focused effort, I feel the mist slowly give way to my cleansing, smooth white glass appearing around my hand where the core was. I keep a close eye on my dropping mp, making sure I don’t screw myself over.

As the core get purified I notice small tremors in the stone floor. Subtle at first, but as more and more of the core gets turned white the tremors turn into shaking and dirt and stone start falling from the ceiling around me.

I think that’s a good sign? I look around warily. At the loss of focus, the mist starts taking back territory.

Blast, this is difficult! I refocus on the core but I feel I am winning. I can feel sweat appearing on my brow from the effort but I also notice that the temperature is rising in here. God, I hope this marble doesn’t explode.

Once I have cleansed over half of the core I feel its resistance lesson, as if I have just passed the top of the hill. I let out a sigh of relief because during those last few seconds at peak my rate of mp consumption would not have been enough to finish the core off. The shaking has only increased though, if my hypothesis is correct, the instance should be starting to fail.

Oh, God, please take me home.

The skeletons use this opportunity to drop down though, two of them getting down quickly. With a curse I pull my spear around with my left hand and awkwardly try to fend them off while I finish my business. Can't they give me a moment of peace?

I am down below fifty mp by the time the core is completely cleansed. The heat kicked out by the thing in the last few moments practically scalded my arm. There are three skeletons down here with me now, I’ve only managed to finish off one in the meantime. With a chilling scream, the core shrivels up and and turns into a small white rock that I have to catch before it drops to the floor. As soon as it is gone, I hear a sound like a rushing wind sweep through the dungeon. Now free from the glue of the stone I step back to get some space and slip the stone quickly into a pocket. I now use both hands to fend off the skeletons.

I don’t have to do it for long as soon the dungeon itself groans like a creaking tree in a storm. The wind intensifies and I have to cover my eyes to protect them, swinging my spear wildly to fend off the untroubled skeletons. Damn them!

Suddenly, the wind stops and I feel weightless. I open my eyes and see that I am slowly lifted off the floor. Stunned, I look up to see the three skeletons are also floating, like gravity just shut down. The four of us float absurdly, the three of them glaring at me in impotence. There is nothing but silence and the flickering light of my skills for a moment of time.

What the hell is happening??

A moment later, gravity returns with a vengeance and we are slammed to the ground. I feel dizzy from the impact before I heal as fast as possible and launch myself at the still dazed skeletons before they can regroup.

I finish off two quickly before the third is able to right itself. The bastard gets a good sword thrust at me, slicing my right side well before I lop his head off. With the three gone I slide to the ground, once more having exhausted my mp.

I extinguish my edge skill, plunging myself into darkness to conserve mana. I am dangerously low now and will have to wait a few minutes before I heal the slice to my side. I hold my hand to it to stop the flow as blood as much as possible and close my eyes and rest.

Hopefully the rest of the skeletons won’t jump down now.

I wait a few minutes, my ears straining for noise, but I can only hear a low intermittent roaring sound I can’t quite place. No skeletons.

…

...

Did it work? I can still feel the cold stone beneath me, so I guess not.

Several minutes later I heal my side and open my eyes, fighting off sleep. After a few seconds of my eyes adjusting I can see a dim blue light filtering down from the cellar door.

I crawl under it and look up only to have my breath taken away.

Stars.

Stars in a backdrop of a clear night. The night of the city as the stars are not too clear. The stars at my home.

Oh my God, am I home? Did it work?

I scramble up to get a closer look and i recognize the little roarings as the sound of cars zooming down the highway.

I jump up as high as I can, but I can’t catch the edge of the cellar door.

Breathing quickly, I drag over an armored skeleton and step on it. I throw my spear up through the hole and then jump up too, grasping at the edge. Then I slip and fall back, crashing onto the floor.

I am delayed, but undeterred.

Two more attempts later I am secure, clutching the edge and struggling to pull myself up. It’s not easy, I was bad at pull ups before and even worse now. I kick my legs instinctively for grip, but there is nothing there.

With a loud grunt I haul myself up and lay on my back, gasping for breath but looking up at the stars, the beautiful, beautiful stars. Closing my eyes I can feel a cool crisp breeze, feeling nice now that I am out of the oven. The air is fresh, as fresh as city air can be.

I made it, I can’t believe it.

I cover my face with my hand as I fight back tears. I can cry later.

After a few moments I open my eyes. To my left I see the insulation of my attic not feet away. Confused, I sit up and look around more clearly.

…

Looks like the space immediately around me got pulled to fill in the void left by my room disappearing? I am currently laying level with the floor of my attic, the side of it sliced cleanly like a laser beam went to town on it. The stone cellar that came back with me didn’t fill the space my room had occupied completely, I can see gaps into my home.

I don’t even care. I am back, that’s all that matters. Next to my house I hear the traffic of a highway at night just on the other side of the trees. I close my eyes and enjoy it, the sweet sound of home.

I hear an unnatural rustling noise and I look toward the disturbance. Underneath the glow of a streetlight on my peaceful boulevard I see the white gleam of a skeleton soldier. We stare at each other for a second before an armored one comes up next to it. Then, like a flock of turkeys, the rest of the bunch come walking by, only a few of them giving me a glance before the pack moves away, into the woods of the nature preserve next to my house. A few seconds later they are out of sight.

…

Dang, looks like I brought some company home with me. I like my neighbors and I don’t want to see any of them get killed by those murder machines. With a sigh I sit up and drop down from the edge of the vault onto my soft grassy yard. I cast a flare on my hand to find my spear.

My hands light up in the familiar unearthly glow as I grab my weapon and look out at the direction of the retreating skeletons.

As they say, no rest for the weary.