Everything has been hastily prepared. The room, or bait, the trap and the other trap in case the first one does not work. Currently Merlin, Damon and Stinger are waiting for the arrival of the enemy.

We have actually a pretty nice setup to track the enemy, first there are the goats and second one of my skeletons using a special item. The item is the 'Spooky Blue Eyes' that was dropped ages ago, it can track treasures meaning this skeleton can see the enemy and its magical rings and sword. Together with the goats we are able to do some quick positioning right before it arrives.

The walls the being is coming through does not explode like I expected. Instead the first thing I see is a sword point stabbing through the wall, it is quickly taken back and through that small fissure gout of fire spews out.

The fire quickly takes a humanoid shape, and then becomes a flesh and blood man. Well man might be an overstatement, many might call this a monster. The creature is tall and lanky, with powerful muscles but no fat at all.

I’m pretty sure I can see its nerves snaking across its body. The other striking feature is its…clothes? Fur? I’m not quite sure, there are weird dark red strips covering its body, in some places it looks almost like a mixture of muscle and hair, in others it's like leather. These pieces cover most of its body, including its head, arms, legs and most of its face. The parts of the body that are not covered show a high amount of scars, including the creature's mouth, which is more ‘fleshless jaw’ than an actual mouth. A jaw that has not stopped moving since he appeared in my vision, he seems to be muttering something under his breath with a wild smile.

On its right hand it holds a black longsword, the air around it shimmering slightly because of the heat it produces. The sword seems to have had a crossguard, but it is broken now. I use my {Analyze} and one of the 8 rings on his fingers shines a bit, blocking me.

He looks at it, his mouth movement accelerates and now produces a few grumbles and laughs. I see his mana moving, one of the rings in his hand and both of his eyes shine, and he starts to look around. His face morphs into a scowl and he quickly deactivates the ability. He tried to use some ocular power but…well, with the amount of black mana around here you might not be able to see much.

“Can you not speak properly?” Asked Merlin. The creature’s head snapped to look at him, then it straightened its back a bit.

“Well, well, well. Yes, Yes! I can speak!” It said, with an extremely rough voice, the voice of someone who has not actually spoken properly in quite a while. “I am actually surprised you can speak, most of the time undead dungeons only generate mindless undead, hateful undead or morose undead. It’s quite impressive you have not jumped to attack me yet, though I can see the other two seem quite willingly to do so.” The monster started to tap its sword with its rings.

Merlin looked at Stinger and Damon briefly. “Yes, they like hitting people, uh, creatures? Are you a person?”

“As in a human being?” The tapping stopped.

“Yes.”

“...”

Maybe he’s something else other than human? An elf, though he seems to lack the pointy ears, not that we can see behind the hood on its head.

“Are you an elf? I can’t see your ears.” Merlin says, right after me.

The creature flinches, its left arm moves a tiny bit, towards its head. It's back to muttering under its breath again.

He’s definitely not normal. I can tell he has some type of demonic mana in his body.

“You seem to have some demonic mana on your body? Do you have a tiny imp hidden in your…clothes?”

“No. It's pretty common to have demon mana within you around here…” It says, its voice barely a whisper.

“So there are others like you? Some form of society?”

The creature takes a small breath and then speaks. “Did you see some goats passing around here?”

“Why? Is your demon-hybrid society hunting theirs?”

“There’s no such thing.” The creature says, tensing up. “Even if there is, it has nothing to do with me.”

“Well, that's disappointing. So you are some kind of mutant?” The creature flinches, actually can you ask its name? I don’t want to keep saying “the creature” all the time.

“Do you have a name?”

“...”

“A…name?” The nameless creature says, almost like it's asking itself.

“Yes, a name. I can’t keep calling you ‘creature’...in my mind.”

“I’m not some ‘creature’! You, you husk thing.” The creature says while making a snarling sound. “You are not better than me!”

Stinger disagrees very loudly, to an undead, a living being would not be able to hear it.

“Yes, that is very debatable. I can clearly remember my name for starters.”

That seems to do it for the mutant, it lunges at Merlin with spittle flying from its mouth. Longsword raised upwards ready to descend on his shiny skull. Stinger and Damon charge right back while Merlin back steps away.

With a single large sweep the mutant stops Damon’s and Stinger’s advance for a moment. A moment in which Merlin shoots his rays at him. The longsword is raised and the mutant is able to block the rays for a second, before Merlin can move the ray or the other two can charge again he creates a fiery explosion from his sword.

The red hot blaze spreads all around the room, engulfing my tree undead. The fire doesn't particularly hurt any of them though, though it does screw up their vision a bit since it is rich in mana. Damon trashes around with his hammer while Stinger dashes to her enemy in what I assume is pure instinct. The creature quickly swings against her and Stinger is barely able to to deliver a elbow and a palm strike against the blade, which still sends her flying to the other side of the room.

It dashes towards Merlin again, now that the flame has died down Damon is right behind ready to strike. Merlin does not back down and instead meets the overhead attack with his arms. The impact breaks through his crystal skin and he sends a wave of frost at the sword, trying to trap it.

The mutant is clearly surprised he didn’t cut through Merlin. He swings his sword, with Merlin still attached to it, against Damon, who simply swings his hammer against the blade. The attacks meet, the blade scores a cut against the hammer and Damon loses this contest of power, his attack still slows down the sword though. Which Stinger uses to strike a powerful knee and fist attack against the spine of the mutant, who grunts with pain.

It moves forwards and tries to turn around to face her, yet Stinger is able to easily follow through with her attack, using his unstable footing and his own turning momentum against him. She expertly flips him over and as soon as he hits the floor Merlin grabs the black blade and pulls while Damon smacks the hands of the creature. Merlin is still barely able to pull the blade, even with Stinger laying a barrage of punches on the head of the mutant.

Merlin backs off a bit, sword in hand, and I notice how the creature does not seem particularly worried about being weaponless…it does not seem particularly hurt either.

One of the rings on its hands shines, the creature extends its hand and the blade teleports towards him in an explosion of fire. It then becomes fire for a brief second, escaping Stinger’s combo and moving to a corner of the room before becoming fleshy again.

I tell them to try to make him do that again.

It dashes towards Merlin again, fire covering it like a mantle. As soon as it gets within striking distance most of the fire leaps from its body to the sword. It attacks and to its surprise, once more, Merlin dodges it. Merlin does not dodge the follow up kick to his torso though, which sends him back just as Stinger and Damon arrive.

I notice the flames coating its body are rising, it dashes between Damon and Stinger, though not without getting a punch from the latter. Its body is coated in flames again, this time they are bigger though. It attacks Damon this time, who blocks the attack. The power behind the attack is too much though, and the black lodges itself on his body, then he uses his skill {Igniting Blood}.

His body explodes, the blade is unharmed but still flies away from the grasp of the creature. Stinger punches it with her lightning and from the scream that left the mutant’s mouth it's clear he was not expecting that. Stinger attacks again, her lightning causing the muscles of the creature to contract and spasm. Merlin sends a wave of ice towards it too, just as another punch lands. Clearly overwhelmed the monster transforms into flame again, the lightning punch passes through it dealing less damage.

I activate my trap. An opening appears from the four corners of the room, in each of them an ice altar which activates immediately. Merlin uses all of his ice mana to create special armor around himself, Damon and Stinger.

The effect is immediate, the flame form of the monster flickers a bit and becomes smaller and smaller and smaller until it suddenly bursts and grows in size.

I pump more mana into the altars.

The monster has huge muscles now, its skin has become red and horns grow on its head, shoulders and spine. It attacks Stinger, she parries the attack. They both exchange fast attacks against one another and it quickly becomes apparent that the monster has some skill that is similar to Stinger’s.

He is clearly being affected by the environment, but he is slowly accruing strength and heat as they fight. In fact even though I am pumping a lot of mana on the four altars the monster is clearly not worried, or does not seem to be.

Meanwhile the ice armor around Stinger is cracking and breaking constantly, Merlin is constantly using the ice mana to repair it but…Alright, plan B.

Another opening in the walls appears, Merlin turns and runs towards it.

“Think you can run?!” The demon screams, ignoring Stinger’s attacks as it turns to run after Merlin. Who turns his head and screams “Yes!”

Merlin uses his crystal explosion to enter the opening faster. The demon also uses a great wave of fire to catch up.

As soon as he passes the threshold of the opening tongues grab him, they wrap around his body and quickly pull him. Blood pours from the ceiling as he is pulled into a large iron box. The box closes and then Gorger uses his spell to create tongues on a large block of stone, the tongues grab into handles on the sides of the iron box. The screams and explosions of the demon inside can be easily heard.

All together the goats hidden in the room manipulate the stone floor and turn it into a ramp. The box and large stone both slide easily from the ramp, right down the hollow tube. I see the sword piercing through the iron cube, so I activate a few arrays and cause a huge amount of blood to pour down together with rocks and iron bricks.

One skeleton with the 'Spooky Blue Eyes' watches this, eyes seeing the rings and sword easily. Together with the skeleton I watch them get smaller and smaller as the demon is sloshed down into the tube. Just to be sure I send in a few more rocks and blood down. Soon I can’t see the shine of the magic items anymore, presumably they are too far down.

I keep looking down, waiting to hear the sound of impact.

It never comes.