First problem: I still couldn’t deactivate a second skill, so I was stuck with both, MP draining at a too fast rate. I barely had a minute to get to the bottom of the pit.
My feet were firmly planted on the wall. I could move, but I wasn’t falling. So the skill did as promised.
I did the only bright thing I could do, which was to extract my arm from the shield’s straps so I could go down. I expected it to fall on my head later, when I ran out of MP, but it happened immediately. The moment my arm left the straps, the extension disappeared—I think—and the shield dropped first on my head, then all the way down the tunnel, clanging as it went. At least I got a sense that my MP drain halved that moment, [BULWARK] deactivated.
For my part, I forced myself to remain standing, though gravity really wanted my knees to bend the wrong way just then. I could reach out to the other side of the wall and prop my hand there, but that wouldn’t happen with a dislocated shoulder. So I began walking down.
It’s a surreal experience. Walking down a steep hill is already a challenge in itself. Walking down a straight wall, step by weary step, is asking your brain to do a lot of very quick reassessments of life and physics.
“Easy does it,” I breathed out with every other step, trying to move fast enough to reach the bottom before my MP bar did, but slowly enough not to have both feet leaving the wall.
Judging by the hideous noise my shield had produced once it stopped falling, I judged I couldn’t be more than ten metres or so from the end of the ordeal. What waited for me below, I had no idea, but maybe luck held enough that I’d come out in a field of flowers blooming in a fragrant meadow, next to a bubbling brook. While I was fantasising this wonderful absurd reversal of luck, I could also hope for a whole roast pig waiting down there. I was regretting not eating more of the lizard, just the same as I was afraid I’d be spewing all of it out given the unfortunate position.
“Easy does it.”
One step in front of the other. Nice and slow. Nice and easy. Falling on my head from even a metre up in the air was unacceptable, so I had to just keep going. With one arm cradling the other, I could only hold out my elbows and hope to not mangle myself further.
Those were the longest two minutes of my life by far and bar none. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes because that’s about as much MP as I had to work with. When the bar flashed red and entered its final quarter, sweat drenched my back and ran in rivers down my brow to drip off the tip of my nose. Two steps after that, I reached the ground, my elbows touching the fallen shield. It was still hot to the touch, but cooling.
I lay on the shield, with my feet still stuck to the wall, and just basked in its warmth while waiting for my MP to drain to nothing. Like the lizard snoozing on the warm wall, I was now happily ready to sleep on my shield. You are what you eat, and in that moment I was a lazy lizard on a hot piece of steel, not quite believing I still lived.
“I’m sorry Crystal. I’m sorry Tusk.” I said it in a whisper.
This was taking a long time and I had no idea where I was anymore, or where I was going, or where to find the stupid key or how to return back to the stupid temple. I just hoped my two companions handled themselves as well as Crystal boasted they would.
Assumption really is the mother of all fuck ups, and I had assumed a whole lot when agreeing to this dungeon delve. The first and most egregious of them all was that I was capable enough to handle myself in circumstances such as these.
Naturally, my inner self did not appreciate this moment of self-reflection and recrimination.
Get the shoulder sorted. Get on your feet. There’s warm air moving around so there’s gotta be a way out of this pit.
With a groan of protest, I turned over and sat on my ass, good hand feeling around the bad shoulder. Yeah, definitely popped out. Far as I knew, one had to have someone else pop a shoulder back in, either by dragging on the arm or by… slapping it at the same time from back and front?
Okay, so my first aid know-how was shit. Neither option seemed feasible, so I did the next best thing: I reached out to that [FIRST AID] skill I’d learned, and allowed my mind to empty, hoping I’d get an idea from the interface. Apparently, that was the way to get the most out of skills, to let the interface do its thing and offer suggestions.
And it worked. With some difficulty, I pulled up my bad arm over my head, then kept pulling with the good one until I felt that satisfying pop as the shoulder went back in its socket. It hurt like hell, but I could move the arm again.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Still, I laid there for a while longer, feeling the pain draining away. A few points in constitution had lead to a semblance of a healing factor. I was still pretty sure the effect was just superficial—scrapes closed up faster, bruises cleared up more easily, that sort of thing—but it still helped so much in dealing with pain. I’d decided I’d get that stat up to 15 before any of the others, just to see what the threshold could bring me. Whatever it was, just adding points to constitution couldn’t be a bad thing.
Next, I was going to find my way out of this mess. Whatever happened, I wasn’t just going to lie at the bottom of a pit and wait to starve.
I followed the flow of warm air, groping blindly through the dark, cursing that I’d left the torch behind. The rock remained smooth on the walls, but jagged beneath my feet. It was a good thing I’d sat on the shield. Some of the protuberances felt sharp enough to pierce skin. Lovely. If this could get worse, I dreaded imagining how. What next? Find that I’d fallen into some lava stream and the only way out was to run straight through?
Well, nothing as dramatic as that once I reached a bend in the tunnel that led to an opening. Again, a red glow showed the way. The parallels to a literal Hell were hard to ignore.
I didn’t find lava, just torches. And another long corridor filled with them. The walls were still just rough rock, grey and featureless, and the floor was cracked obsidian. My steps echoed as I tentatively ventured through. What more could this place throw at me?
A couple steps into the corridor answered my questions. It came in the form of a shallow cut across my cheek. Had I been walking faster, it would’ve cut to the bone.
I leapt back and drew the sword, spinning in place. No enemy attacked. But my cheek bled.
A couple swipes at the air revealed the culprit, which was again the now familiar near-invisible thread slung across the way. If I squinted a bit and rocked my head back and forth like a pigeon, I could definitely see the full extent of the danger. Threads were splayed out across the corridor, in single strands that just barely glittered in the torchlight. Cutting them down produced the same loud tinkle as before, and it was doubly amplified by the corridor. By the time I’d reached the far side of it, it would’ve been a miracle if the entire cavern hadn’t heard me prancing about.
At least this time I didn’t have to stew long in my own anxieties. The end of the corridor split into a three-pronged fork. Two sides of the fork led into ascending stairwells.
The middle one, which I chose, led to spiders. A room full of spiders. Not as big as the one in the forest, but big enough. The size of a Labrador retriever, I’d say, ugly as shit, black as sin.
I had chosen the middle route as it was the only one lit. The room that followed was… odd. Two columns held up the roof, roughly sculpted out of the same grey rock, as wide as I was. A couple torches burned in sconces in the walls and cast around a shimmering, shivering light.
I didn’t even see the spiders until I was in the middle of the room and the shadows decided to move.
There were three of them. Long, graceful legs uncoiled from beneath dark bodies, showing the chrome sheen. Each spider whirred softly as it became animate and turned to regard me.
Past them was a large double door covered in webs.
“Why am I getting boss and minion vibes?” I groaned the moment I realised how utterly fucked I was.
Fighting one in the forest had been pure adrenaline and a double helping of luck. Fighting three of them in a narrow room… well, I was ready to piss myself.
Their eyes glowed the LED-like red that I was growing accustomed to. So many of them focused on me with laser intensity.
Three spiders. Two to the sides of the room, one in the dead centre. Webs were strewn about, but not in a dense pattern. The light cast long, black shadows between the pillars and I had only the LEDs to use and keep track of my foes.
I guess I could’ve run… but where to? No, far better to stand my ground here and now. The day had had too many unforeseen events already.
Three spiders. Twenty four metal legs tipped with gut-severing claws. Eighteen eyes. Way too many fangs that I couldn’t even be sure weren’t poisonous.
They didn’t attack, but they did move, almost lazily, as if greeting me. Neither seemed surprised by my presence, nor in any hurry to send me on my way. In spite of it, my danger skill was sending me into near spasms of dread.
As I said, the bright side was that I wasn’t stewing in spider anxiety. I’d found them.
The less bright side was that there were three of them and they were going to pull out my guts and use them to redecorate the room.
“Well, come the fuck on,” I taunted. I even banged my sword against the shield and was rewarded with a stab of pain up my arm. “Come on,” I growled, feeling my temper flaring up with each word.
Bait, [ADRENALINE SURGE], [BULWARK] and pray for enemy stupidity. This wasn’t chess. These creatures weren’t intelligent. I had to remind myself that every glitch artefact so far had done the exact same thing: rush me at the cost of everything else, with the sole exceptions of those that were going for the dungeon in Carmill Hill.
“Come on!” I screamed this time, daring the first lunge.
All three lunged at once. One moment they were moving as if through a dream, the next they flitted forward like wraiths.
[ADRENALINE SURGE] allowed me to meet the first impact on the shield. The middle spider reached me and lunged with its front claws. It would’ve skewered me if not for the shield. I didn’t get a chance to slam it back, but its claws raking across the enchantment did send it into a short spasm of pain.
The other two leapt at once. [BULWARK] activated just as I pulled back the shield and made the split decision that I was going to slam the left-hand spider, and tank the other’s blow.
I bashed the shield into the spider’s face. Its friend dug its claws deep into my back. Ready as I was for the pain, it still ripped a howl out of me, and enough anger to follow up the shield bash with a sword strike. It cut through the spider’s eyes and shot sparks when the edge hit the stone floor.
The next blow would’ve been a killing one.
But its brother decided I’d had enough fun, and lifted me straight off my feet with impossible strength.
Should Chapter 0 be removed?