THUD!
Sara planted her feet firmly into the coffin and quickly hopped off of it. They didn't wanna be disrespectful, especially since there was a corpse inside of it. "Lee, hurry up!" Sara shouted, looking up towards the hole.
Lee was slowly scooting backwards, shaking, and holding onto the floor. His feet swung, trying to touch the coffin, even though it was 7 feet below. Lee's hands suddenly slipped, his body slamming into the coffin. "I hate this!" He screamed angrily, slamming his fists into the stone coffin lid.
Rolling to his feet and standing in the small tomb, he glanced around. Sara had already rolled their eyes and proceeded to move around looking at the statues. It wasn't the same as it was when they first arrived, though. The ten statues, and the broken one from the ankles, were illuminating a soft blue glow from them.
The duo slowly proceeded to walk around the room starting from different ends. The glowing lights made it easier to see, and there was old writing on the pillars. "Can you read this?" Sara asked, their head looking at Lee who slowly nodded. "It's English," Lee said softly in return.
They had to learn an entirely new language when they were born, Lee and Sara had almost forgotten what it was like reading English. "Remember when mom and dad caught us writing it?" Sara asked, Lee had a choking laugh, trying to suppress the pain and sorrow. "I do. We were 11, trying not to forget it, a piece of something from our previous life…they thought it was a secret language we made up."
Sara smirked, some tears swelling in their eyes. "How creative, you made your own language. Don't talk bad about us when you get upset." Sara said, repeating words that their mother had once spoken. Lee looked at Sara, in an English dialect he spoke. "It feels foreign to speak it now."
"Foreign, but comforting," Sara responded in the same English dialect.
"Like a secret language, or a reminder of our old lives."
Lee stopped, his hand touched the wall reading it out loud, "Your path is not destined, it was created. Forged in the fires of failure, in the loops of time. You were not chosen."
"Sounds like even the walls knew we were gonna steal it," Sara said, glancing over at Lee.
Lee was quietly walking around the wall until he came face to face with the one statue that had caught his eye last time they were down there. "This is the bastard that destroyed our home," Lee said, his eyes glued on the statue.
"Or someone that looks like him," Sara corrected. "After all, why would a God want us dead? We are nobodies."
"WERE, nobodies Sara," Lee corrected. The entire time, his eyes were glued on the statues. "We WERE nobodies, but we have this system now. Maybe they knew or were afraid we would get it."
There was a quietness for a moment, the statues held no names. However, they held resemblance to the Gods of this world.
There were ten total statues, and an 11th broken and missing from the ankles up. Most of the carvings in the face and details of them were too old and worn to make out. It looked like they had weathered and dwindled or were poorly sculpted in the first place.
"Let's keep exploring," Lee said he made his way to the double doors. The same ones the chosen ones pushed through. Lee paused and looked at Sara, "If I die this time, I'm haunting you."
"The joke's on you. I'm already haunted by your decisions."
With the jokes aside, they began their descent into the unknown dungeon. Moving through the stone hallway, there was soft dripping of water that echoed through the cave system.
The walls had been painted on, murals of large beasts with multiple heads, a four tailed scorpion. They were hand detailed as well, as if someone spent a lot of time working on them. Moving past a statue here and there of one of the Gods, they didn't pay much attention. They were all crude, broken, damaged in some way from age.
It wasn't until they got to the last section where they saw a statue that was graffitied, with a mask made of stone laying next to it. "Damn, they really hate this one God." Sara said, Lee picking up the stone mask was left untouched.
**Item detected.
**Mask of !#$%
**Error
**Error
"Huh, strange," Lee said, flipping the mask around curiously. Slowly he placed it in the inventory as it faded from his hands.
"Let's keep moving, it looks like there's a door coming up." Sara said, Lee nodding and quickly following up behind them moving towards the door. It was pretty plain, a wooden double door that was oddly in great shape still.
They opened the door, and stepped in. It was pitch black, darkness lingering all through the chamber. The casual, calm collected feeling they had inside of them vanished quickly.
**Quest: Real Dungeon Floor
** Dungeon Initiated- Floor 1
**Clear the floors and make it to the final room.
**XP 75
"That doesn't sound good," Lee said, reading the quest outloud.
"LEE!" Sara suddenly screamed, Lee looked up from the interface window to see torches being lit automatically down through the hallway, each one showing another creature standing there staring at them.
**Lantern Maw
**Briarbacks
**Hollow Choi
The system began showing the names and health bars above each creature in the hallway. The Lanter Maw were floating skulls, they had skin on them but it looked half melted and their mouth was glowing. They moaned a horrific moan, Lee shivered from it.
Briarbacks were large boars. They had thorns for fur, and roots growing down the center of their back like a mohawk. They slammed and jumped in place almost waiting for the battle. Their bodies shook the cavern walls.
Then there was the worst of them all. Hollow Choir, they were children sized humanoids in cloaks. The hoods up over their face prevented actual face to face contact, and they were speaking gibberish.
"Lee…"
"Sara…
"If we die again, do you think we will remember both lives?"
"I hope to hell we don't remember any lives."
The battle was on, Lee was smashing and slicing through them. Sara was pelting stones straight through some of the child-like creatures, it was becoming more apparent that they had more than just looks to them as well.
Lee swung at a Lantern Maw, only for the hypnotic pulse to send an ear ringing noise through Lee. The pulse made Lee swing his blade directly at Sara mid battle, "You bitch!" Sara shouted, "Sorry! It wasn't my doing!" Lee argued, regardless Sara kicked his knee and pelted the Lantern Maw with another stone.
To say they were not organized was an understatement. They were in a small hallway, and they had waves of enemies running at them. The Briarbacks slammed into the base of Lee's sword, having used it for a shield. Lee slid back pushing the boar off of him before using whirlwind, his blade cutting through two Lantern Maw's and one Briarback.
The Hollow Choir was draining stamina the longer and louder they spoke, the gibberish being a form of singing for them. They were fragile, although they kept in the back lines as a support to the enemies. Sara's stones were able to make contact regardless, but only when they cleared the enemies around them did they have the opportunity to attack the choir.
The xp was being racked up, they finally managed to get off of the door and make their way through the dungeon. However, they were fighting the entire time. Wave's of these creatures kept showing up, too fast for them to get a rest.
Lee was taking hit's every so often, but managed to prevent Sara from getting touched. "This isn't a dungeon, it's a damn gauntlet!" Lee shouted slightly strained in his voice, throwing a boar into one of the Lanter Maws.
"Or a test, and I didn't study for this one!" Sara shouted, their arm pelting stones faster and harder through the line of enemies.
The last stone smashed through the lantern Maw's mouth causing it to slam into the ground leaving bodies scattered through the halls of the dungeon. Sara collapsed panting, Lee slamming into the ground holding his sword.
"This was awful!" Lee shouted, holding his stomach panting heavily.
"I regret our decisions," Sara added.
"Do we still have soup in the inventory? I need to replenish my health and stamina."
Sara nodded, the stew forming from thin air in the same bowl the village gave them in. Handing one to Lee, Sara pulled one out and they both began scarfing down the food.
The dungeon was brutal, but they were racking up xp. While the monsters they were fighting were a step above the squirrels, it felt like a much higher distance given the sheer number of enemies they were facing.
Finishing the stew and feeling their energy and stamina come back they took a few minutes to sit in silence and unwind. Lee closed his eyes, letting his thoughts roam. Sara on the other hand was zoned out staring at one of the murals. How many had they missed so busy fighting?
The one in their current location showed an adventurer fighting dragons, demons, but being stepped on by a giant. Kind of a brutal mural, one that Sara was trying to understand the purpose of.
"Where to next?" Lee asked, yawning and pushing himself up with the blade.
"It looks like we are at a dead end, but the dungeon doesn't show it's been clear-" Sara wasn't able to finish their sentence.
Slowly the wall cracked, it slowly spun showing a secret entrance. Whispers escaping from it, 'Only the unchosen may walk the broken path.' The words wisped past them with a slight breeze.
"This looks like a trap," Lee said.
"Eh, we survived this long and might as well throw caution to the wind."
"Sara, I'm the reckless one, not you."
Sara rolled their eyes and the two began making their way into the secret entrance. The walls were pulsating with a soft blue hue of light, each crack glowing in the wall. The further they walked in the eerier it felt.
As soon as both of them were a good few feet inside the door behind them slammed shut. The dungeon shaking some, Lee smacked his forehead. "Oh sweet, trapped in a hallway of doom.
"I've seen horror movies start like this," Sara added casually.
**Quest complete-Beat floor 1
**75 XP rewarded
**New Quest
** Adaptive Dungeon, Begin.
"What is an adaptive dungeon?" Sara asked, looking back at Lee.
"I think it goes off our level." Lee said, rubbing the back of his head, "Like it adapts as we adapt."
"Great, a dungeon that can learn how to kill us better."
Keeping their eyes peeled, they began making their way through the dungeon. It was a few minutes in when Lee finally noticed something appealing. It was a divot in the wall with a small fountain. It was about the size of a bird bath, but it had endless water spewing from the top of it.
Glancing back at Sara, Sara quickly shook their head no. But, Lee was shoving his face straight down into the water mouth open, choking down the liquid. Flinging his head up from the water, he flipped his hair causing it to fling water on Sara who quickly splashed Lee with some of the water.
"Great, now I'm going to get Lee germs."
"Maybe you'll get stronger from it."
"Doubtful."
**Fountain of Healing
** bonus to healing regeneration
**Bonus to stamina regeneration
"Oh hell yeah!" Lee exclaimed, Sara smacking his arm. "Hell yeah!" They exclaimed as well. It wasn't much of a bonus, but it was better than having none whatsoever.
With that, the battle continued.
Floro after floor, they fought the same variant of creatures. Sword to tusk, stone to skull, it was non-stop battling. The worst part was it became apparent each floor was beginning to be recycled, like it was AI generated.
They would hit safe zones every floor where they could drink from another fountain, but it was a dungeon crawl. "Diablo?" Lee shouted curiously towards Sara, "Nope!"
"Cult of the lamb?"
"Wrong again!"
"I give up!"
"Hades!"
Lee kicked a choir monster and decapitated it looking back at Sara. "Your favorite dungeon crawler was Hades?"
Sara smacked a Lantern Maw on the ground and crushed it with a crunch of the bones. "Yeah? What's wrong with Hades?"
"Never played it, I don't know."
The duo was slowly becoming complacent in the dungeon, it wasn't really clear how long they had been down there. It was one thing they wished the system had included, a clock.
They had lost count on how many floors they had actually cleared, Sara said 5, Lee said 7. The truth was, they had only cleared 4.
Walking down the hallway Lee spun his blade casually and whistled, usually when the enemies cleared out they were finishing the floor up. Sara however, grabbed his arm and halted in their tracks.
"Hey, we haven't seen that before," Sara said pointing. It was an old wooden door broken and hanging on the hinges. Lee raised an eyebrow, Sara was right. They came across a lot of random stuff, but the hallways usually didn't have separate doors unless it went to a new floor.
They were quiet, but on the same page. Moving slowly towards the door their fingers wrapped around the handle and flung it open. Lee charged in holding the sword tightly, Sara jumped in behind him only to see a small storage room with a work bench against the wall.
"What a waste of time," Lee said before the system chimed.
**Crafting Bench unlocked.
Lee stared at it for a few minutes. It was a stereotypical gaming crafting bench, had some tools and hammers on it. The UI floated just above it, "Click me to view craftables." Lee read outloud examining it still.
"Magic?" Lee asked, rubbing his chin.
"Science fiction VR tech with a magic vibe." Sara corrected him.
"LSD, Final answer."
Sara began cackling, "LSD it is." They laughed.
**Crafting materials detected. Initiate Auto Transfer?
"Uhh…Yes?" Lee said in response to the interface.
**Crafter Materials transferred, 45 items transferr
"I guess we were passively collecting loot." Lee said, flipping through the crafting inventory.
"You'd think they would have given us the items before unlocking the crafting station. Or atleast made us collect them after unlocking it."
"Who cares, come open this up. Look at what we can craft."
Sara did exactly that. Opening the crafting station they found a massive amount of craftable equipment, items, and weapons. However, a lot of them were locked behind the level of the crafting station. They had options for basic tools, Sara did spot something that made them excited though.
**Making Boarbone Shield.
**Making
**Making
**Shield successfully created. +10 Defense.
Lee pumped his arm excitedly and equipped the shield. On his arm, a wooden shield with iron around the outside of it formed. There were bone spikes sticking out from the base of it. "Hell yeah!" He said, making fake bashing noises and fake victim screams. "Ahh Lee, no you're too powerful." He mimicked playfully too himself.
Sara stared for a moment before turning and making themselves a weapon.
**Making Maw Bone Bow
**Making
**Making
**Making
**Making
It was becoming nerve wrecking, why was it taking longer for their weapon to be made. That's when they realized Lee had been a black smith, Sara worked at a tavern delivering drinks. They had different skills.
*Bow Completed! +5 to attack.
Sara smiled excitedly, equipping the bow arrows also equipped to their back. "Perfect!" They exclaimed eagerly.
"Let's get the show on the road" Sara said, clapping their hands and making their way to the door.
SNAP!
Sara froze for a moment, their eyes slowly turning back to Lee who was ripping the crafting table from the ground. "Lee!" Sara shouted with shock, "What are you doing?"
"I'm not coming back down here every time I need a new knife!"
**Error
**Error
**Object not transferable
*Warning
**Warning
**Override accepted. Crafting Bench added to Portable Inventory.
"You broke it. You broke this dungeon Lee!"
"No no, I simply made it obsolete. Now we don't need to come back to it when we leave."
Sara shook their heads, both of them making it back down the hallway towards the large doors. However, these were different. They were massive, and the door had all 10 Gods carved into it. The 11th one that was usually marked out, or broken and removed had not even been on the door at all.
'Where's the warning? The rumble, overly dramatic voice yelling FINAL BOSS!" Lee shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.
"Maybe it's a silent boss?"
"That's worse."
Sara paused for a moment. "Let's kill it."
Lee began grinning and they both began pushing the door open.