The acolyte had landed behind a set of bookshelves that had shifted in front of their path, blocking their way. Then the dungeon shuddered, and a high-pitched screeching noise echoed through the library. The group all had to clasp their hands against their ears to not be deafened by the noise.
Bo > What the hell is that?
Bo’s message came through his chat interface. The interface was too clunky to be used when the party was this close, but the noise was too loud for them to effectively communicate otherwise.
Nicholas > No clue, but we need to finish this fight before it gets any worse.
Elijah could see the Acolyte’s debug screen, even as his vision blurred. A new line had appeared.
Elijah > I don’t think it’s the Acolyte doing this. I can still see his stats. He’s being deafened too.
Benjamin > Doesn’t matter. We gotta take him out before we can figure out what this is.
The sound stopped as suddenly as it began, and they were met with the pop-ups of a boss being killed.
[Boss Kill]
Your party has killed: Acolyte of the Undying Library!
XP Reward: 30Current XP: 1101/1154 XP
~~~
[Kill Menu]
Player BoBoBoBo
Player Nic
Player SASHH
Bo looked between the party members and the direction the boss had come down. “What the fu—”
Then, the library exploded.
Elijah had assumed that the flying bats were set dressing—passive creatures designed to give the dungeon a more active feel. This assumption proved to be wrong as every book in the library flashed with a dark purple light and transformed into one of these bats. The book-bats flocked together in a swarm of wings and teeth. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the beasts circling overhead. Wind swirled heavily around Elijah, an oppressive force from the sheer volume of wings that battered the air into submission above him.
As one, the massive flock dove at the party, red eyes glowing in streaks like rivers of blood. Elijah stood frozen, unsure of what to do, if there was anything he even could do.
His ears rang again as a loud booming sound emanated from his left just moments before the flock struck. Benjamin cast his ‘Thunderclap’ ability at the last moment, and the bats scattered around the party.
“Sasha! Bunker, now!” Nicholas’ voice called out, just barely audible through the ringing in Elijah’s eardrums. Sasha did as instructed without a second thought, the green glimmer covered the spot that the party stood once more. She collapsed to the ground as the Mana Drain hit her, Bo moving quickly to catch her.
“Fight or flee?” Elijah shouted at Nicholas as the bats began hammering against the bunker. Elijah grabbed hold of the magical construct and started reinforcing it, but they were tearing it down faster and faster every second. They wouldn’t have long until the creatures made it through.
Bo answered before Nicholas could. “If we teleport out, we aren’t going to be able to collect the loot from the Acolyte.”
Nicholas shook his head. “Something’s glitched. None of us have the loot menu, and I don’t think whatever does is going to pick something anytime soon.” He stared through the bunker at the bats. “Our healer is out of the fight, and there are too many of them to take on effectively. Benjamin. Open the portal.”
Benjamin did as instructed, and Nicholas helped Sasha through the portal followed closely by Bo.
Elijah was about to run for the portal when his eye caught something that made his unease at the whole situation spike. Through the chaos outside the magical bunker, he spotted a single book lying on the ground. He could feel his ‘Reality Warp’ skill connected to it still and pulled up the menu.
[
Description: It's a book?
His eyes went wide as he read the item description.
‘Is the AI speaking directly to me?’ he thought to himself as Benjamin yelled at him to hurry.
He turned from the book and rushed towards the portal. Above him, the bunker cracked and creaked as the onslaught of bats grew more ferocious.
The bunker buckled, and the spell shattered.? “Go!” Elijah screamed at Benjamin as the bats descended towards them. Benjamin hesitated for a moment, allowing the leading members of the swarm to bash into him, pushing him through the portal. The bats weren’t able to enter the portal themselves as the low level of the teleport spell could only take allies.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
As Benjamin passed through the portal, it flickered and disappeared.
Elijah stared as the bats regrouped above him. His hands brushed over his tunic and chaps, swapping the secondary enchantments of strength and damage resistance for additional agility. The strength and resistance wouldn’t do him any good here, but if he was going to survive then additional dexterity might help.
The swarm dived towards him. He waited until the last second and jumped out of the way under a table. They smashed into the ground; dozens of the bats were killed immediately on impact, and Elijah could feel the experience from their deaths flowing into him. There were still too many to count as they veered off or bounced off the bodies of their cohorts.
A chat box flashed into his vision, but he minimized it on instinct as he rolled out of the way of a tendril of bats that struck at him. A wing from the very edge of the formation nicked his leg, taking off a point of health and applying the necrotic effect to him.
He grabbed at the status effect and made it time out after a few seconds. Even so, his health bar was dangerously low. He had to find some way out of this, but the library was a labyrinth and was still shifting violently.
The book he had dropped came into his vision as he dodged yet another attempt by the swarm. It was down a long path through the library, and he wouldn’t have any cover. The bats would surely kill him before he could reach it, not that he even knew for sure that it could help him, but something about it made Elijah suspect it was his ticket out of here. If not, he didn’t think there was much chance of survival, anyway.
He peeked out from under the cover of a bookshelf he’d squeezed into and saw the swarm was readying for another attack. Channeling his mana, he activated his ‘Summon Familiar’ spell. Bitter Root materialized in a sparkling blue cascade of light.
“Hey Boss, what we-”
Elijah cut him off by pointing the opposite way down the hallway. “RUN!”
Bitter Root quickly looked around at the situation, noticing the bats flying overhead. With a mad, gleeful cackle, the goblin took off at a sprint. Elijah waited until the bats had locked onto his familiar and began running for the book.
He could hear Bitter Root behind him, calling the bats ‘featherless chickens’ and shouting how he was going to eat their young. The insults grew more outrageous and unhinged until suddenly his mad laughter cut off mid-rant.
Elijah was more than halfway there when the goblin fell silent and he felt his connection to the creature snap. He didn’t have the time or mana to summon him again.
He felt the downward force of the bats’ wings, then the sound of tires screeching across asphalt as they dove for him. He was so close to the book now, and he entered his own dive.
His hands gripped the book, and as he rolled, he looked up into the eyes of the hundreds of bats bearing down on him.
And they were still.
They still hovered in the air above him, wings flapping furiously to stay aloft in the raging swarm, but they were no longer flying in for the attack. He cautiously looked down at the book in his hands, reading the information box again.
[
Description: It's a book?
The errors were still present, but the strange line that addressed him personally was absent. Something twinged at the back of his mind as his fingers ran over the smooth leather cover. The bugged-out description felt wrong to him, like a false cover waiting to be ripped off. He reached out for the book with his ‘Reality Warp’ skill and mentally tugged at the description box.
[Item]
Tome of the Dragontooth King
Rank: Celestial
Type: Class Tome
Description: This Tome will unlock the Class: Dragontooth King
Read this Tome to unlock its power and abilities as well as gaining the unique location Dragontooth King's Abandoned Fort as a base.
Warning: This class will overwrite your current class.
Discoverer: Elijah, The Reality Warper
Elijah’s mouth felt like cotton, and his head spun at the new description. The class ‘Dragontooth King’ wasn’t just a unique class. It glowed with the brilliant red that designated it as a Celestial tier class. This wasn’t just a unique item offering a unique class. It was probably one of the single most powerful items in the game. ‘Reality Warper’ was only a Legendary class, and it had given him the ability to nearly break the game. He could only imagine the power this book could unlock.
Greed overtook him as he considered his options. He should share this boon with his new friends, if they sold it, they’d be able to afford all the best gear until they were well into the late game content, or one of them could get a massive power boost by reading the tome and becoming the class.
He felt the same tugging as before at the back of his mind. He could feel the metadata of the book, even if he couldn’t see it.
It called to his class.
Called to him.
It was his by right of discovery. Wasn’t it?
A pop-up appeared in his vision as he touched the feeling with his mind.
[Debug Menu]
Merge Class?
1. Yes
2. No
He reached out and with a trembling finger clicked the ‘Yes’ option. A pain shot through the base of his skull, making him curl up in pain. He worried that the game was trying to kill him for a moment as the pain became unbearable. Then, as if it had never happened, the pain disappeared.
[Quest Complete]
The Dragontooth King
Description: The Dragontooth King has arisen. You have absorbed the old king's legacy and begun cleansing the undead from the Blood Oath Throne.
All hail the Dragontooth King!
He was absolutely ecstatic; he’d almost forgotten about the quest that he received the first time he entered the Fort.
Above him, the bats let out the same deafening screeching sound that had occurred during the Acolyte fight. Instead of it hurting him, he seemed to understand them now. An extension of his own power; they were his vanguard, his army. The Acolyte had been a defiler, hiding the secret of their long-dead king. They knew him now—the resurrected Dragontooth King.
He smirked as he pulled open his stat menu. Absorbing the book had made this a safe area for him, and he distributed his unallocated stat points.
[CHARACTER STATS]
Name: Elijah
Class: Reality Warper
Level: 10 (1101 / 1154 XP)
Health: 115 / 115
Mana: 50 / 50
Strength: 7 (Beginner)
Intelligence: 10 (Apprentice)
Dexterity: 20 (Apprentice)
Constitution: 23 (Apprentice)
Skills:
- Reality Warp - 8
- Summon Familiar - 4
- Mass Warp - 2
- Dragontooth Teleport - 1
-Dragontooth Swarm - 1
He could feel it as well as see the change; his Reality Warper class had grown as it absorbed the Dragontooth King class. He felt a pang of regret. He could have given this power to one of his friends, could have helped them out, but it was his ticket out of here now.
He activated the teleport skill and selected the Party’s mansion as his destination. He expected a shimmering half-sphere like Benjamin’s, but instead his shadow bubbled and exploded upwards, the darkness turning into black bats that swarmed around him in a funnel shape. Colors blurred around him and then went black, and when the darkness faded, he stood in the foyer of the party mansion, surrounded by? Nicholas and Benjamin, who both seemed to be particularly stressed and on edge right now.