Muttering, I rubbed my chin, “Some kind of mutants but not like the Branded in Braithe. They are crawling all over the place. KKG any hints about what we might be facing here?”
“Nah bro, like I said, I don’t pay attention to the lore stuff,” he said with a shrug and a grin.
Sighing, I rolled my shoulders, “First off I’m going to find a place to sit down and craft some Explosive Fire Wards and then we should run this like an old school dungeon. We pull, burn down what comes and move on. I can’t help but feel like there may be a time limit on our optional objectives and…,” I rubbed the back of my neck, “there are important NPCs on the line.”
“Like your girlfriends?,” KKG said with a lopsided grin.
Giving him an annoyed sidelong look I produced my best smile, “She knows a suspicious amount about me and I’m keen to find out why and Valerie…,” I paused and sighed before continuing, “she’s important.”
Before anyone could chime in again I said, “Anyway, are we ready to hit this lab and see how far we can get?”
Sakurai and Nomura nodded and KKG just shrugged. With that we approached the distant gate with the armored skeletal warrior in the lead.
–
I spun off the tumor covered monstrosity sending a plume of puss filled blood spraying all over myself and several of my comrades. As my Blooded buff activated I noted that I had a poison damage over time counter in my notifications. Luckily my Poison Resistance skill was mitigating a lot of it.
We were in a broad hallway of iron gratings and fighting what must have been the tenth pack of the howling mutants. The labs were filled with shattered and destroyed equipment, spartan undecorated dormitories and small dining halls. Despite having all the amenities of a community the place felt cold and lifeless. We did occasionally find rooms that hadn’t been touched in the time since the place had been overrun. They were always behind locked doors that provided me some chance to elevate my lockpicking skill.
According to a small journal we found in one of the labs the mutants here were originally Haithan peasants and dissidents banished to be experimented upon by the nobility. There was a narrative in the logs over the course of several months about something the lab director, Dr. Krenchit had been developing in the deepest parts of the lab.
The monsters were covered with tumors and malformed body parts. Their arms and legs, sometimes well above or below four, often turned into weapons like scything blades or massive bone bludgeons.
No two creatures were alike.
They screeched and swarmed, with no regard for tactics. However, there were so many that battling through the hordes proved a considerable challenge. I often ranged ahead and grabbed a few of the creatures and led them into a series of Fire Wards before the party as a whole fell upon them. Almost all of the creatures were Malformed Experiments that ranged in level from twenty five to thirty one.
From time to time I caught sight of something else moving at the end of the seemingly endless hallways. It prowled at the edge of the packs of creatures that bled, burned and died at our feet but seemed satisfied to observe and then retreat.
As I was deflecting the strikes of a particularly tenacious creature with three scythe-like limbs KKG asked, “Yo Mal, did you pick that class because it reminds you of your ex. Not healthy bro.”
Sparing him a flat look I dodged under one of the creature’s bladed arms and sliced across the mutant’s stomach sending its guts hanging to its knees. It let out a wail of pain as I said, “I’d rather not talk about Syd.”
Nomura, who was just finishing gathering a ball of flames writhing with dark energy and hurling it down a hall into a newly arrived pack of screeching creatures, asked with interest, “What happened Mal?”
Sighing, I savagely sliced another mutant’s throat as I answered, “It is a long story and I would appreciate you,” I looked at KKG, “not giving me shit about.”
He kicked a spindly creature into a wall with a resounding crunch and scoffed, “Bro, I talk a lot of shit on my streams but that is a character. I would never give anyone shit for losing the love of their life.”
There was a note of experience in his voice and I lowered my voice, “I suppose I appreciate the concern.”
He grabbed one of the mutants by its pliable neck, ichor bursting from its tissue paper like skin all over his arm, as he lifted it and threw it into three other creatures, “My girl left me a year ago. We were together for ten years, since middle school.”
She said I was too wrapped up in work… other stuff. When she left me it kinda sent me down a dark path. Not an excuse but… It didn’t hurt that stroking incel egos got me millions of views,” he said as he gave another creature a stiff kick that almost broke it apart, sending it tumbling into its allies
Sakurai was surprisingly the one to speak up as she caught a charging creature with malformed wings on her shield, “Not the allegations then?”
The brutish zombie took a nasty slash as he looked sharply toward her. He quickly returned to his senses, elbowing his attacker into a wall and crushing the life out of it. He growled fiercely, “You can choose to believe what you fucking want but that grooming shit is not true. I would have never done that to Mari. I would never do that period.”
He managed to grab a smaller monster that was charging toward Sakurai and with a roar tore it apart with his bare hands spraying himself down with gore as he turned to glare at her, “So, do me a favor and if you want to call me an asshole do it because I’m on the fucking Men’s Rights bandwagon. Those so called allegations aren’t fucking true. I’m an asshole for plenty of reasons but not that.”
There was a tense silence as we turned back to the battle. Nearly a minute passed of silent slaughter before I asked, “Why did you stop streaming anyway?”
“When the allegations got cooked up my ma found out about it. Actually, she found out all the shit I’d been saying online. She knew I streamed and shit but she didn’t know who I’d been hanging out with. The lies about the grooming, that was bad… but when she found out how disrespectful I had been towards women in particular… it broke her heart.”
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He sighed as he raised his arms and took several slashes on his forearms and continued, “I’m Puerto Rican and family is kinda everything for us. When my mom decided she didn’t want nothing to do with me anymore, everyone in the family disowned me. Only my little cousin still talks to me. I thought if I stopped streaming maybe my ma would forgive me. She won’t even talk to me though.”
We all lapsed into a silence as we continued to tear our way through the creatures. Before long we were all standing amidst the torn apart remains of our foes. When the tunnel once again silenced completely Nomura blurted out something that I already knew from my discussions with Sakurai, “We had to stop streaming because we were dating.”
We all turned to look at him but it was Sakurai who confirmed it, “It’s really taboo for virtual idols to date. The illusion is supposed to be that you are available to your audience. They get to dream that they have a chance with the perfect singer, artist, or comedian.”
“You said you were an idol right?,” I asked Nomura, continuing the discussion.
He offered a clipped nod, “Yes, but mostly I was part of a singing group.”
KKG looked floored by that and guffawed, “You’re a singer?”
The ghoul mage sighed and cleared his throat. After a moment he started to sing. I knew precisely four words in Japanese, so I had no idea what he was saying. The man’s voice, however, was absolutely amazing. It rang out into the endless halls and my breath was taken away.
KKG was visibly shocked as the last echo of Nomura’s voice faded away and actually applauded him with a serious nod, “Holy shit, my dude. You are the real deal.”
The mage actually smiled and the four of us turned and started off down the tunnels in search of more enemies. As we did so the brawler looked to me and said, “Since we’re opening up and all, is all that shit they say about you true?”
I didn’t even glance at him as I took the lead, muttering loud enough to be heard, “Every word.”
As we walked I prompted Lydia to read out my notification in an effort to stave off my dark thoughts. My Expert tier skills were creeping upward but had not reached Expert nine which would herald some new tier, which I imagined would be even more restrictive than the cap of ten for Expert. Herbalism had finally reached the Trained tier and gained a chance to gather double the number of herbs.
Gaining two levels, I reached the level thirty milestone. As a result I gained a choice of three new Blood Dancer abilities. Once again, I was offered Blood Berserk and Sanguine Song, neither of which I wanted to take. The third ability wasn’t particularly interesting either.
“Blood Bolt: Summon a bolt of pure Essence draining ten points from your pool with each activation. Hurl at a target within 30 meters. The bolt solidifies in transit to the target and strikes an amount based on your Reason and Charm statistics.”
Thankfully at level thirty I gained a fourth option, read to me by Lydia in her typical cheerful way:
“Congratulations!
You have attained class level 30!
You have gained a new ability!
Ability Evolution: Consume three of your offered ability choices when leveling to buff your previous abilities. You will not be offered these abilities at a later time.”
Highlighting Ability Evolution; Blood Berserk, Sanguine Song and Blood Bolt appeared flashing within the window. A button beneath prompted me:
Combine? Yes/No
Activating the ‘Yes’ option, the window flickered and was replaced with a list of my current class skills. When I highlighted each of the options I was offered a straight buff to a pair of abilities:
Tireless as the Grave becomes Blood Cloak
In addition to your essence pool the item equipped in your Shoulder slot becomes a cloak made of Essence. It will extend behind you and grow longer as your pool is filled. This increases your Essence pool by one hundred.
or
Crimson Dance becomes Waltz of the Eternal Lords (Stance)
Activating increases your Dodge skill by four. All Light Blade attacks inflict the damage over time effect of Slice with no Essence cost. Your damage over time effects cause 50% more damage to Off Guard targets. While within this stance all targets within fifteen meters of you have a -10% to all damage against you and your allies.
Surveying the choices, I bobbed my head back and forth and muttered out loud, “A ton of options at level thirty.”
Sakurai spoke up from behind me, “I’m close to thirty myself. Is it a difficult choice?”
Studying all the options again, I shook my head, “You gain an ability called Ability Evolution that allows you to consume your three choices to modify an old ability. It just turns out I have three duds.”
There was a smile in her voice as she said, “I will be fine on that front. I have two abilities I wish to take eventually, still on my list.”
Chuckling as I locked in the Blood Cloak ability I said, “Lucky.”
Nomura looked up and his ghouls eyes went wide, “Whoa, that’s pretty cool.”
My new bright red cloak flowed around my body and coiled around me. It looked like tattered glowing red fabric and reached halfway down my back.
KKG muttered, “Stylish.”
Smiling as we continued on I muttered, “Always better to have a bigger pool.”
After that exchange we had sporadic encounters with packs of mutants but the hordes we were facing before faded away. As we fought my new cloak flowed out behind me to a length of at least three meters. It seemed to have a life of its own, weaving around and avoiding my comrades as I danced amidst our foes leaving bleeding and struggling mutants in my wake. There were still distant sounds from the darkness, a hiss or scraped boot on steel.
I scouted ahead of the party looking for the route we needed to take. After the initial levels of laboratories and living quarters we emerged into an all new part of the dungeon. We had ranged down into these levels of hissing steel and machinery for three levels so far. Each of them surrounded a brass elevator that had either broken down or had simply been shut down to hamper us.
As I traversed an iron stairwell into the darkness toward the fourth level I paused in mid stride. My Alertness triggered and I hunkered down peering upward for signs of the danger. It took a moment but I saw them there suspended in the shadows above clinging to the bottom of the iron grated floor of the level above us. My suspicion was that these four were the monsters that had been trailing since the earliest levels.
These creatures had far more erratic forms than the chaotic mutants we had been fighting so far. Each of them was roughly humanoid but with four arms ending in large black claws. Their skin was still the color of rotten milk and covered in tumors. Each was wearing a strange green suit covered in what looked like cable connectors that bulged with their tumors. I initially thought that they were wearing old WWII gas masks but realized that what I thought was a helmet was in fact their actual heads. The ‘beak’ of the pointed jaws was a flat open maw like a lamprey filled with teeth. They had no eyes.
“Malformed Breeder Level 35
Tier F
Weakness: Fire
Resistance: Cold
HP: 1400
MP: Unknown
Special Ability: Sawtooth Mouth. If a Malformed Breeder latches onto an enemy it may apply constant damage to the target rather than make any other attacks.“
With a good measure of the four of them I turned and moved back up the stairs quietly. I had gotten near the top when my boot scraped a little too loudly against the iron stairs. Each of the monsters turned its horrifying tooth filled maws toward me and let out a high pitched howl of rage.
I pulled the Sanguine Sisters from my belt and crouched letting out a sharp whistle as the monsters dislodged from the roof and dropped down to meet me.
