Against the back wall of the room stood a stone plinth about chest height, and atop it floated a shimmering neon blue orb that cast a faint light across the entire room.
“That’s a dungeon core. I’ve heard about them but never seen one.” Bo told the party with reverence in his voice. “They’re where the developers can change everything about a dungeon from one spot. Enemies, loot, even the structure itself.”
“We don’t have time for that right now, Bo. Let’s see what we can use from in here,” Nicholas told him.
Elijah went to work checking one alcove, but the shimmering blue orb kept catching his attention. He could feel the information flowing into it, could sense its connection to the surrounding area. He wondered if he could use it without drawing unwanted attention to his dev tools.
The room wasn’t the treasure trove that Elijah had been expecting. He’d been expecting stacks of game-breaking equipment and one hit kill weapons. Instead, the room was full of high-level gear that none of them could use.
“I worried this would happen.” Bo growled as he sifted through the loot. “It isn’t dev gear; this was just a room they used for testing high-level items.”
Elijah touched a short sword that looked similar to Nicholas’ own.
[Item]
Celestial Short Sword
Rank: Celestial
Damage: 250-300
Strength Requirement: 100
Condition: 99999/100
Enchantments:
debug{
Striking[Celestial,DMG_RANGE +100]
Stoic[Celestial,DR_PERC += 80]
Stagger[Celestial,STUN_CHANCE_PERC += 20]
Strengthen[Legendary,STAT_STR_BUFF += 20]
Epitome[Celestial,STAT_ALL_BUFF +=20]
DeathKiss[Celestial,STAT_ALL_STRIKE -=20]
}
The last two enchantments on the list were the most interesting to Elijah, but the sword itself was useless as well as most of the gear. Almost all of it had the same enchantments that he already knew about, just boosted way up to Celestial tier.
The entire party grumbled as they came up empty in their search for anything usable. They didn’t have time to go through everything, and all that they had found so far wouldn’t help them in the fight ahead.
Elijah could already hear the dervish that was Tom drawing closer and closer. If they chose the correct door, then not only would his party be relatively helpless, but the Reaper’s guild would have access to all the high-level loot.
And it would all be Elijah’s fault.
Nicholas called it before it was too late. “Get in formation. We’re not going down without a fight if they come in.”
Elijah watched as Benjamin cast a spell that hit Nicholas first, and then one landed on Elijah.
[Buff: Fortified]
Description:
Damage Reduction + 10%
It didn’t feel like much, but even a ten percent reduction to damage could be crucial in this battle. It could mean the difference between taking one of them out or dashing themselves uselessly against their enemy. Nicholas stood front and center in the middle of the room, shield in hand and sword at the ready. Elijah was a step behind him and to his right. On Nicholas’ other side and further back stood Benjamin, hands raised, ready to cast his spells at a moment’s notice. Further behind them, near the glowing dungeon core, was Sasha, as protected as she could be while having a clean line of sight to the party members. And Bo—well, Bo was somewhere in the shadows.
The sound of the blender was right outside the door now, and Elijah could feel every muscle in his body tensing in anticipation. It was only now that he realized that he should have tried locking the door, but to do so now would put him front and center of the Reapers if they came through.
The sound seemed to dim and then die out completely. Elijah could hear muffled talking from the other side of the door. An argument followed by a barked order.
A few seconds passed, and Elijah could hear Nicholas’ breathing slowly as they waited to see what would happen.
A blast echoed through the room, muffled by the wooden door between them in a way that told Elijah it was actually sturdier stuff than wood. As the dust settled, Elijah stood in silence with the rest of the party. His heart was racing in his chest as he waited to see what would happen. None of them moved or even spoke.
An insane laugh echoed through the halls, and Elijah knew the voice. The same voice that’d been haunting him for days.
Tom had survived the explosion.
The door creaked and slowly opened. Cautiously, a group of people peeked inside, finding their bravery once they saw Elijah and his party standing in the room. As they entered, he could see the burning hallway behind them, and smell what registered as burning pork to Elijah’s nose. There had indeed been a devilish trap on the other door, and at least one reaper had paid the price for a wrong guess.
They strode in, clad in dark grim reaper robes with the hoods up. Each carried a hand scythe like the ones Tom and Bob had carried while trying to assault Elijah in the alley. One of them glowed with the faint purple light of Master tier, while two others glowed with the dull green of Journeyman tier. The one in the back was the most concerning; he held a scythe that glowed with the golden light of legendary enchantments.
Their faces were all adorned with skull masks that completely covered everything above their lips. Faint glowing glyphs covered the entire outside, carved deep into the bone-white material. The way the masks seemed to blend into their flesh at the edges gave the impression that the skin from their faces was gone, leaving just their skulls.
The most unnerving part about these four players is that Elijah couldn’t see name tags floating above their heads. It was as if they had some sort of anonymity spell or enchantment upon them. He guessed that was the purpose of the masks.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my old friend Elijah.” Tom’s voice echoed from the man standing second in line. He pushed past the leading reaper and stood front and center, just ten paces away from Nicholas as the other three formed up behind him. The man with the legendary scythe stood at the far back.
“Hi Tom, where’s Bob? I expected him to be siphoning up the mana the next time I saw you,” Elijah sneered, stepping forward and tapping Nicholas’ shoulder to swap positions with him. The big man hesitated for a second before relenting without a word.
Tom couldn’t suppress a grin as he scoffed at Elijah’s boldness. “Turns out when a Mana Mage gets popped from feedback like that, it extends their death sickness to several days. He’s sleeping off the timer in the real world. Good trick, I think I’ll add it to my repertoire if I ever come across someone with similar powers.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Elijah couldn’t help but play into the cocky feeling he had going on in the moment and laughed. “So what? You decided you needed more backup to handle my little party? Did Mara really scare you that badly?”
The man grimaced. “You’re funny, you know that? But your humor isn’t going to save you here. See, my leader, he thought a couple of my newer associates could use the workout.”
Elijah looked over the members of Tom’s party. The two directly behind Tom fidgeted nervously, their scythes loose in their hands and their stances swaying. The fourth, the one holding the legendary-tier scythe, held himself with a calm demeanor. There was something especially unnerving about that one. Elijah couldn’t see the man’s nametag, but Elijah felt he was likely even stronger than Tom.
The two in the middle rushed forward, reacting to some unseen stimulus, probably a party chat, and moved to engage Elijah and Nicholas.
Nicholas charged forward, using his ‘Dash’ skill to meet one of them head-on with his shield before they’d been able to get far. Bones cracked as Nicholas’ shield met the outstretched arm of the Reaper, and Elijah caught the faint white glimmer of bone protruding from the man’s arm.
The one angling towards Elijah was caught off guard as Bo dropped from the ceiling and stabbed them in the back. Elijah wasn’t certain exactly how Bo had gotten up into the ceiling, but was thankful for the few seconds of distraction it bought him. He noticed the legendary scythe wielder in the back. He hadn’t rushed forward like the other two, which confirmed Elijah’s suspicions about his strength and rank.
Bo wrenched his knife free from the Reaper’s back in a spray of red gore, before bounding off towards the shadowy edge of the room. Elijah watched Tom track the rogue with his eyes, but the higher-level player didn’t intervene.
Elijah lunged forward with his own knife, slashing wildly at the downed Reaper, who caught the slash on their scythe. Elijah grinned, reaching forward and grabbing the outstretched weapon hand.
His ‘Reality Warp’ skill activated, but the debug menu flashed and sputtered before disappearing. It didn’t matter though; he knew he couldn’t affect the stats of another player, but he’d gotten the information he’d wanted. This Reaper was Scarlet, the level 21 Swashbuckler who had been running the Guild Hall. That confirmed Elijah’s suspicion that the Reapers were responsible in some way for the disappearance of the NPCs.
“Elijah!” Benjamin’s voice called out from behind him. He lunged backwards just as a searing bolt of flames rocketed past him and hit Scarlet directly in her mask. He couldn’t tell how much damage the spell had done, as their masks obscured their health bars and their nametags, but the woman let out a horrific screech as the flames caught on her robes, burning her flesh behind her mask and singeing her hair.
She ripped the mask off, revealing her burnt face underneath.
[Player]
Name: Scarlet
Class: Swashbuckler | Level: 21
HP: 80 / 160
She was down to half health, but still had a relatively huge amount left. Bo launched himself from the shadows again, knife aimed straight for her. Elijah’s eyes barely tracked the Legendary Reaper as he moved. One moment he was standing next to the doorway, the next he was hovering over Scarlet and caught Bo by the throat with one hand. Bo’s health plummeted, but the man didn’t strike. He tossed Bo to the side, his action almost effortless. A glowing orb of white light hit him as he went flying, Sasha catching him with a ‘Cure Wounds’ spell mid-air like a clay pigeon.
Elijah watched Bo’s health return to almost full before dropping to almost nothing again as he cratered into the far wall.
The man turned from where he had thrown Bo and glared down at Scarlet. “Useless. You are useless to the cause now.”
He raised his foot and with a brutal stomp that splashed gore in all directions, Scarlet was sent for a respawn.
“You know?” Elijah shouted over the clanging of steel on steel coming from Nicholas’ fight. “Ever since I started this game, I don’t think I’ve had more than two or three fair fights.”
Elijah had a stupid plan forming in his mind, but he needed to bide some time in order to get into position. He backed up slowly until he was beside Benjamin.
Tom moved forward to attack, but the Legendary wielder grabbed his arm, stopping him.
Elijah > Benjamin, Sasha. Tell me you have enough mana left for a ‘Thunderclap’ and ‘Magical Bunker’
Benjamin > Yeah
Sasha > Yes, but I’ll be drained.
Elijah > Sorry Sasha, it won’t matter. On my mark.
Elijah noted his surroundings. Bo was out of the fight, lying against the wall with a single health point remaining. Nicholas had remarkably taken out the Reaper he’d been fighting, but his health was down to below ten percent.
“I thought dealing with Tom was bad enough.” Elijah locked eyes with the nameless remaining Reaper. “Never expected I’d fight a Celestial so soon.”
He heard Benjamin gasp beside him and could see Nicholas’ muscles tense even tighter at his pronouncement. The masked man only laughed. He kneeled down and placed a hand on the dead woman’s chest, and when he lifted his hand a swirling green mist rose with it. The mist flowed from her chest into his hand, and when it finished, her body crumbled into blue light.
The man’s hand went to his face and pulled the identity-scrubbing mask from his face.
[Player]
Name: Arturus
Class: Necro Drifter | Level: 100+
The power, the green mist, must have been his special ability, the one that allowed him to copy the powers of those he killed.
“Well. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew it was dangerous to come myself, but after the boys told me how much trouble you’d been giving them, I had to see for myself. Truth be told, I was hoping to see this familiar of yours. The goblin. Show him to me, and I might let you live.”
Elijah smirked and held up his hand. “You want to meet Bitter Root?”
The man grinned, thinking he was getting his way, but Elijah had no intention of summoning Bitter Root. He didn’t want to test that his goblin’s inventory would be safe against a Celestial-tier player.
Elijah > Get ready.
Elijah summoned his bats, jacking up the number as he had in his first run-in with Tom. Tom immediately swapped into his dervish form, but Arturus had been caught off guard.
Elijah turned and ran towards the dungeon core. Benjamin’s hand came together in a clap, causing the walls to shake as his ‘Thunderclap’ spell shot forth. Elijah reached the dungeon core, running around the backside of it so that he faced towards the battle.
Sasha’s ‘Magical Bunker’ sprung up as she collapsed to the ground from Mana Drain. He wanted to go to her, but he knew there wasn’t time. Benjamin had just set off his third ‘Thunderclap’, and was downing a mana potion to set up for another round. Nicholas was dead, his armor and weapons dropping to the ground as Elijah turned to look.
He placed his hand against the glowing blue orb, just as Tom’s whirling dervish of death slammed into the bunker.
[Alert]
Developer tools not properly synchronized.
Chance of game code corruption: 85%
Proceed:
1. Yes
2. No (Recommended)
He wasn’t sure what would happen, but he made up his mind when he watched Arturus use ‘Dash’ to rush forward through the swarm of bats. He slammed into the bunker, going through Benjamin in a spray of red. The bunker shuddered for a moment before collapsing into shards of green cascading down on their heads.
A spike of pain slammed through his brain the moment he pressed the ‘Yes’ option. Through squinted eyes, he could see the others reeling from the same pain. Code and half-formed menus scrolled in front of his eyes before blinking out of existence. Elijah could see that they weren’t random; there was a pattern. An option for ‘Defense’ shimmered into existence before blinking out. He counted the number of menus before he saw the option again. On its next cycle, he slammed down hard on the screen, catching it just before it disappeared.
The blue dungeon core lit up. Its light was so bright it seemed to sear itself into his mind. Tendrils of light snaked out of the walls, slashing about like whips. He felt one tear into his back.
[Debuff: Core Poisoning]
Description:
-10% max health per second for 180 seconds.
He grabbed the debuff with his skill and set the timer to a single second as the tendrils whipped at everyone in the room. One slammed hard into him, sending him sprawling onto the floor. More and more appeared, filling the room. Within seconds, it was just him and the Celestial tier player.
The man grinned at him. “I’ll see you soon.” He shouted at Elijah before the tendrils overcame him.
Elijah tried to make it back to the core, but the tendrils were becoming more numerous and more violent with their flashing. He could barely keep up with the poisoning debuff. His hand touched the orb, and the glitching menus appeared in his vision, just as the last points of his health drained away.
---
You have died!
Time to
---
That didn’t bode well for him. Error messages seemed to cascade out of the surrounding darkness, moving too fast for him to focus. The pain in his skull was almost unbearable now.
Then, he woke up in the Temple of Fate. The pain was gone now, but as he opened his eyes, he saw something that terrified him.
[Error]
System Corruption Detected.
Reboot initialized.
Log Out disabled while system reboots.
Reboot Stalled.
The message wasn’t going away.
1. Memory Reaper is not only the story that gave me the idea for Arturus' powerset, but is also one of the few that I'm actually caught up to current on.
2. I wanted to shill down here for a chapter.
Patreon. Depending on the tier you can either get 7 or 14 early chapters. Especially after a chapter like this it might be time to subscribe if you've been considering it.
Discord set up. There have been some crazy theories posted on there so far and I'd absolutely love to connect with you all. Every rating, review, and comment warms my heart so much and drives me to keep pushing forward on the cold northern Ohio nights.