Chapter 25

[You have selected: A Choice of Selflessness. Your previous allies have been notified and have teleported to a safe room within their tutorial dungeon. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; just make sure that yours don’t get you killed while visiting.]

The warm, musty air filled his lungs as they expanded; the wooden bench he was sitting on felt grainy to the touch. His eyes adjusted to the light while his pupils dilated. His body felt…different, and the texture of everything was very focused as the transition ended.

He found himself alone in an old, dusty room with crimson rays of light leaking in through ancient wooden shutters showing signs of rot. The entire place had a very creepy haunted-house vibe going on. Cobwebs lined the corners and interior of the room, with ancient stone walls on all sides. There was also an old coffin, a rotting old chest, three glass vials on a rickety table, and bloodstained embalming equipment next to them. Then there was a rickety old door leading out as well, with signs of rust accumulating on the hinges and doorknob.

As he looked around, another hologram notification appeared in front of him.

[Special Event: Chalgathi’s Hand of Fate—You and your minion, Athela, have both started in a relatively high-risk, high-reward, minor hellscape dungeon as an introduction into Elysium. Normally you would be able to unsummon and resummon her to your side by focusing on the commands Summon and Unsummon or touching the pentagram emblazoned on your skin, but due to the nature of this trial, you must physically find her first before summoning options are available again. Athela has started out many miles from your current location, despite pairing up with the initial drop.]

[New Quest: Find Your Spider Princess—Meet your minion, Athela, at the center of the city next to the large statue of the bearded, axe-wielding man, without dying, to receive a reward. Dying would be less than ideal, for obvious and permanent reasons. But let’s be real, you probably are going to die here, little warlock—so pucker up! Also: if Athela dies in this dungeon prior to bonding with you again, she will be permanently killed, despite her status as your demonic minion. WELCOME TO HELL!]

His brow furrowed in sudden worry. Worry turned to frustration. Frustration turned to anger, and he momentarily closed his eyes to calm himself down. So that’s why he’d spawned alone… If he’d known choosing this option would put Athela at real risk, he’d have just sacrificed the others, as callous as that sounded. But he hadn’t known, there was no way he could have known, and the notifications concerning his choices were not as clear-cut as they appeared to be. Perhaps if he’d taken the selfish option instead, he may have very well ended up in this same exact situation—just in a different place with really neat warlock gear…

It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.

Riven let out a long exhale, rubbing his fingertips against the dusty wood and then against his skin. He sat there, trying to control his breathing on the bench that looked like it might collapse under his weight at any second now. “Goddamn it. What does Chalgathi find so interesting about me, anyways?”

He stood up and moved around, gingerly flexing his muscles and stretching before grabbing his gnarled staff and brushing dust from his crude black cultist’s robes. The backpack was still there, so at least he still had his things other than the missing minion.

He took a couple minutes to adjust to the new reality of his situation just as hope had been swept out from underneath his feet—yet again being thrust into a lonesome life-and-death situation. He was here, in an alternate version of Elysium’s tutorial dungeon that he knew less than nothing about. He was currently alone, now even devoid of his bonded familiar, who could die permanently if he didn’t find her fast enough.

God forbid he died himself. More than anything, though, he was concerned for Athela. She was certainly capable, but she was physically weak, and if she got caught in the wrong circumstance, she’d be gone just as fast as she’d come into his life. Being a minion, she had a vested interest in his own success and wouldn’t betray him like so many others had in the past. She was funny, though obnoxious at times, and she put herself on the line for his own sake. Even though he didn’t know her that well, she was a friend. He needed to find her before it was too late.

He chuckled, thinking that she was likely having similar thoughts about him. Or at least he hoped she was.

[You have entered Dungeon Negrada. Other in-area participants: one.]

His eyes paused upon coming to the other one in-area participant, and he frowned. Were he and his minion the only ones here?

Or did Athela not count as the other in-area participant?

He sat there for a good five minutes, seriously contemplating what the actual fuck had just happened, rubbing his forehead vigorously as he tried to make sense of it all. Eventually he shrugged and stood up. He’d had so much tomfuckery going on with this Chalgathi character and Elysium’s multiverse that he was beginning to just roll with the punches. He would succeed, just like he had before, and not only succeed—but he would excel. He had no choice.

And first order of business was inspecting the rather creepy room around him.

He walked over the cold, dry floor toward the rotting chest first. A howl of sour-smelling wind whipped against the old wooden shutters of the window, causing them to creak when he got on his knees and put his hands on the unstable wooden box.

Pulling gently, he heard a snap when one of the rusted hinges on the back of the box immediately gave way without so much as an effort on his part—but the other one held firm, and the lid swung open awkwardly at an angle to reveal a set of clothes. They were poorly preserved, light brown in color and made of some sort of cloth with numerous holes in them. He stood up, holding the pants and tunic out in the dim lighting to get a better look at them, and grunted when they weren’t in his size anyway.

[Old Sinner’s Pants]

[Old Sinner’s Shirt]

Identifying them as being nothing special, he just put them back in the box.

Then he turned around and headed for the table next, where he saw some embalming equipment and three glass vials—the three inactive totems he had with him rattling against one another. He ignored the glass vials entirely, as they’d be utterly useless to him, but picked up one of the bloodstained, rusty knives that glistened in the dull crimson light and curiously looked it over. It was very simple, about a foot long, and was made of iron with a blade dulled from use.

Though it was still the sharpest of the tools here.

[Rusted Embalmer’s Knife, 3 average damage]

It did just as much average damage as the staff did. Not what he’d expected for a blade. Regardless, he was sure that this world had rules he was unaware of concerning damage output and didn’t question it much—so he held the knife loosely at his side as he moved through the room. Having another means of protection was still crucial just in case.

He looked underneath the table and underneath the bench, only to find nothing. Coming over to the window, he stood on his tiptoes to get a better look at the outside through a crack in the shutters where dim light was streaming through. There he found a strange, red, midday mist right outside his perch that obscured everything within three feet of where he looked out.

“Well, that isn’t creepy. Nope, definitely not.”

Riven scratched the back of his head with the handle of his knife and turned around to get a better look at the coffin. It was the only remaining thing in the room he hadn’t taken a good look at other than the door leading out, and he wasn’t about to leave just yet without having opened it up.

There could be loot in there, after all. This was a dungeon…right?

He came around to the side, where he saw a good-size metal clasp locking the lid in place. It was in slightly better condition than the rest of the metal around the room, and he didn’t have a problem flipping it up before yanking.

With a creak, the lid flung open and banged against the floor on the other side. Years of dust bloomed into the air from where it’d settled on top, and Riven had to cover his mouth and eyes with his robe to stop coughing.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

When the dust finally settled and another shriek of howling wind caused the window’s shutters to quiver, Riven pulled his robe down and evaluated the contents of the coffin more closely. There was a very frail-looking body, poorly mummified, with bandages yellowed with age. The skin was pale, gaunt, and wrinkled beyond recognition underneath the wrappings. It’d probably been a woman once, due to the bone structure of the corpse, but time had been unkind, and he really couldn’t make it out for sure.

He inspected the mummified old corpse thoroughly, gently folding the arms to make sure nothing was underneath—but frowned when he saw nothing but the wooden bottom of the coffin. The body was surprisingly soft, yet crusty to the touch, and pieces crumbled off underneath his fingers. He patted it down, trying to figure out if there was anything he was missing—and eventually came to the mummified left hand.

Feeling something hard underneath his touch along the pointer finger of the mummy, he quickly used the rusty embalmer’s knife to cut away the digit. With a crunch and a snap, the finger came off—and he gingerly unwrapped the decaying old appendage to reveal an emerald-studded silver ring alongside another smooth wooden ring that he really didn’t take a fancy to. The emerald ring was identifiable and titled Witch’s Ring of Grand Casting, while the other ring he got basically no information on, just like the necklace he wore.

[Witch’s Ring of Grand Casting, +26 points to Intelligence.]

[Old Wooden Ring: ???]

He almost began to drool at the sight of the emerald-studded witch’s ring. Multiple levels’ worth of stat points to Intelligence? Seriously? This one ring was about two-thirds of his current magic-boosting Intelligence points.

Gaping at his magnificent find, he took both of them off the finger but flinched as a painful shock lit up his hand when he touched the wooden ring particularly. He dropped it by accident and in surprise, but when he tried picking it up again, he experienced another painful, similar shock.

Riven raised an eyebrow in confusion, and even when he tried using his foot to prod the wooden object, the same thing happened again. Only this time the pain was far stronger, and he even yelped slightly before stepping back. Nothing like this had happened before, so he didn’t know what to make of the item’s reaction.

He reached out one more time, and upon attempting to retrieve the item, it vanished in a puff of teal-colored smoke that fizzled away through the air.

[You are now haunted.]

He blinked.

“You’ve gotta be fist fucking me.”

Riven checked his status page, with no luck. There was no change there whatsoever, and he didn’t feel any different. He looked around to make sure no enemies were coming after him but didn’t hear or see anything noteworthy. Still on edge, he discarded the decaying finger and turned the remaining emerald-studded item around in his hands a couple times to admire the craftsmanship. It was just beautifully made, with multitudes of tiny dragons encircling one another as carvings in the metal—and the green gem itself was neatly cut into an octagon.

He put it on, then took it off, but became delighted as he felt the warm surge of power rush into him each time he wore it. The effect was immediate, and he could literally feel the power vibrating as it stabilized throughout his body with the item attached securely to a finger.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a creak from the coffin, and his green eyes tore back to the corpse.

Had it just moved? He could have sworn he thought he saw the head twitch, and his heart began to quicken slightly. But instead of waiting to see whether or not he was right, he immediately jammed his knife into the skull of the corpse with a brutal downward stroke that cut cleanly into the decayed flesh despite the poor condition of the knife.

The thing he’d thought to be a corpse wasn’t as dead as he’d initially thought. The old woman’s mummified corpse shrieked and spasmed, flailing its arms to grasp at him as he stumbled back in surprise. It abruptly flipped right over the coffin’s side to land onto the stone floor with a thud in response to his attack, let out a croaking and hoarse howl of hunger, and began lurching forward a short ways at a time in a slow but determined gait.

“Unimpressive.” Riven backpedaled, slapping away the grasping hands of the zombie that’d come to life right before his eyes as it moaned and reached for him—but was very slow. And given the way pieces of its body were falling off…it was still in a very poor state of decay.

How curious. Riven cocked his head to the side and circled around the room to keep his distance from the slow-moving creature while watching its gait pattern and ripples of teal death mana occasionally licking across the edges of its open wounds. If only he could study the monster and learn how to create something like this himself…

The undead monster suddenly lunged forward, nearly getting a hold of his left arm before he brutally rammed his knee into the creature’s face on reflex—sending it stumbling back momentarily with an audible crunch and giving himself some room to summon a Wretched Snare.

The black magic bloomed in front of him like a flower, expanding and encasing the creature with its needlelike net that tangled the howling undead up in a frustrating, flailing attempt to break free while it burned into the creature’s flesh with sizzling sounds.

Riven stood there, curiously examining his new enemy in silence despite the continued wails of the zombie. “You are quite…interesting.”

He watched the creature die slowly in the webbing of his own creation. The magic seemed slightly thicker along the needle-filled black net, and he could have sworn that it had gotten bigger with the cast after putting the ring on.

Looking down at the emerald-decorated ring on his hand, he curiously stared and then summoned two Bloody Razors, rapidly spinning to either side of his staff-wielding hand. Just as suspected, they’d also grown in size—though not by much. With a casual flick of his wrist, they shot out and tore into the trapped creature beneath him.

The creature born of hell screeched even louder as the two spinning discs of blood magic tore off an arm and severed part of its neck, black blood splattering along the stone ground and wall with a final ear-piercing shriek. The partially decapitated zombie’s reaching hand slowly fell downward while burning on the snare entangling it, and soon the creature’s entire arm fell limp as it died—jaw ajar as pieces of its rotted body continued to fall off like cooked meat from a bone.

“You’re also one ugly bitch.” Riven held up the gnarled staff in his right hand and slapped the dead creature’s dangling head with it out of irritation, also kicking it along the way as his magic faded and he bypassed the corpse with a humph.