I came to with the familiar feeling of a saddle under me as my hips rocked gently to the movement of the horse beneath me. I felt a warm presence pressed up to me from behind and a pair of arms were encircling me, helping to prevent me from falling over.
“Ah, good. You are awake, My Lady.” I heard Marv say, concern radiated from him.
“Ugh. Where are we?” I asked.
“We just left the boss arena,” I heard Lynn say from behind me. She must be the one keeping me upright.
Instinctively, I tightened my legs and adjusted my weight to match the rhythm of Marv’s steps.
“How long have I been out of it?” I asked, wincing as I remembered the last thing I had been thinking about.
I felt Lynn squeeze me tighter.
“Not long,” she said, resting her head on my back. “You went to loot Derrik and then stood there for a moment before falling down.”
“At that moment, I felt an intense wave of panic coming off of you, My Lady, then you fainted,” Marv replied. “While you were unconscious, I picked up the noble Derrik’s remains and Lady Lynn came to assist me with you. I cast Summon the Retinue to get you in place and Lady Lynn was kind enough to help keep you stable… that was maybe five minutes ago.”
“It’s a good thing you passed out too because not even thirty seconds afterward, these giant cockroach looking things came in and started eating the bodies that we hadn’t cleaned up yet,” Lynn said with a shudder. “With your phobia regarding roaches you would have probably just ended up running around while screaming for me to kill them with fire.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Kill them with fire?” she replied. “A few. Everyone killed a few, which then caused more to spawn. Luckily the corpses that were left were all ones that we had already looted, with the exception of maybe one or two… Matt even picked up a few of the roach creature’s bodies for you, you know, for crafting purposes.”
I heard her snicker when she said that.
“Yep. I got at least five that were mostly intact if you need them, buddy.” Matt chimed in enthusiastically.
I chose to not respond to that.
I opened my chat windows to see if there had been a response from Simbul, though I wasn’t honestly expecting one yet because we hadn’t even been gone from the Guildhall for more than an hour and a half, and if she truly was sleeping, then I suspected she needed at least six to eight hours like normal people… not that she had struck me as particularly normal. As expected, there was no response, so I closed the window and decided to check out the stuff that Marv and I had picked up while looting.
There were several new tabs including one labeled Books, which indicated there were four items stored under it.
Interesting.
First, I decided to check and see if I had looted any consumables which would, as far as I knew at that point, would fall under the Healing Items and Restoratives. Why those two were separate I have no clue and the answer to that question eludes me to this day.
Under the Healing Items tab, there didn’t appear to be any additional Standard Healing Potions than I remembered, but there was one additional item with my name attached that I knew hadn’t been there before.
Potion of Regeneration
Restores 2 HP per second when consumed for 2 minutes. Once per use, if you receive damage that is a killing blow under this effect, you will survive with 1 HP remaining. (Note: [Damage Over Time] effects don’t qualify for this effect and will not be nullified if you receive a killing blow.)
Cooldown: 30 minutes
Warning: Repeated rapid consumption may result in nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and poor life choices.
Additionally, there were now six Mana Potions with my name beside them while Marv still only had the two.
Under my Explosives tab, in addition to the smoke bombs and weak dynamite, there was one stick of Hobgoblin Dynamite.
Hobgoblin Dynamite
Made with the volatile sweat of a hobgoblin, this stick of dynamite has 10 times the power of a standard stick of dynamite, it is also 10 times more unstable and likely to explode with the slightest provocation.
Warning: Handle with extreme caution.
For a moment, I considered pulling the dynamite out to see what it looked like in comparison to the icon, but I decided against it because with the way things have been going, I would just drop it and blow us all up. Plus, so far, the icons seemed to be fairly accurate to appearances, though some things like my wedding dress were folded in the icon, only giving a vague idea the item’s physical look. Moving on I turned my attention to the new Books tab.
Apparently, the system had a loose definition of what a book was, because the first item was labeled as a love letter whose envelope icon was actually readable and declared it to be from Linda to Ash. While reading someone else’s love letter could be fun, it was an extreme invasion of privacy, even if the original owner was dead, so I instead moved on to the next item.
Tome of Cleansing Rain
This tome teaches the spell Cleansing Rain.
Requirements: 8 Intelligence
Cleansing Rain: Summons rain clouds over a circular area with a radius of (2 × INT) feet, centered on the caster, for 10 seconds per point of INT. Any creature touched by the falling rain removes 1 harmful effect, excluding curses, every 5 seconds.
Duration: 10 seconds per point of INT
Cooldown: 1 Minute
Cost: 10 MP
Considering how useful that spell sounded, I didn’t hesitate to click on it to learn the spell. For a brief moment, a red glow surrounded me, then my Spells tab automatically opened to show all of the spells I had learned so far, which to my surprise was a total of two, the second one on the list was simply titled Heal.
Heal (Level 1): User immediately recovers up to 20% of their maximum Health. Unlike other spells and skills, Heal is locked at level 1, unable to be leveled up through use.
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Cost: 2 MP
Where the hell did this spell come from?
I racked my brain trying to remember any moment I could have learned it, but drew a blank.
At least it could be useful in a pinch, though it not being able to level up like other spells will limit its usefulness.
I thought back to when Simbul walked us through the skills tab and I had noticed a number beside each skill, no matter how useless it may have seemed. I had asked her about those numbers while my friends were opening their loot boxes and she had explained that all skills had a level associated with them which is what the number represented. As that skill was used, it would gain experience and level up to a maximum of 15, barring certain racial and class traits that could cause it to go higher. This cap also would render item bonuses to specific skills useless. I could only assume that spells worked in a similar fashion.
While I was thinking about it, I sent another message to Simbul.
CLAY: One other thing, do spell levels work like skill levels?
I closed the chat window and returned to the Books tab. The icon next on the list was for what appeared to be an actual book, though it looked really rough and like it maybe had a face on it.
Naturom Demonto
Bound in what smells suspiciously like leather but looks a lot like human skin, this book is completely inked in human blood. It features a warped, screaming face on the cover that appears to blink when you are not looking directly at it. Translating roughly to "The Book of the Dead," this text serves as an ancient Sumerian blueprint for ruining absolutely everyone's day.
Warning: Reading aloud from this book will void your life expectancy. Do not leave near tape recorders. Do not read if you value your limbs, your friends, or your sanity.
Allows access to the spell: Kanda, Estrata, Montos
Kanda, Estrata, Montos: Casts an irreversible localized portal to a hell dimension. Summons [Deadites] to possess nearby corpses, severed limbs, or your loved ones. Deadites gain a +50% bonus to psychological warfare and will constantly mock your insecurities.
Cost: “I’ll swallow your soul!”
Passive Effects while in your inventory: Groovy, Farewell to Arms, The Woods are Alive
Groovy: Grants a +100% proficiency bonus when wielding chainsaws or modified shotguns.
Farewell to Arms: If a limb becomes infected by a demonic entity, you can sever it with no regard to blood loss, provided you immediately mount a power tool to the stump.
The Woods are Alive: Trees and plants within the dungeon will now actively try to kill, trip, or molest you.
Oh, Ashley. Poor, sweet Crawler #666. He thought he was so clever with that little boomstick of his, but evil always wins, doesn’t it? I do love a man who knows how to handle a chainsaw, though. All those vibrations... anyway, don't read the text, Clay. Or do. I love a good puppet show.
Yeah… I ain’t touching that. Though, does that mean I picked up a shotgun and chainsaw?
Resolved to check my Weapons tab later, I look at the last item under the Books tab.
Tome of Mage Hand
This tome teaches the spell Mage Hand.
Requirements: 10 Intelligence
Mage Hand: Conjures a spectral hand capable of manipulating unattended objects that are in line of sight and weighing up to (5 × INT) pounds within (10 × INT) feet. The hand cannot attack, activate magical items, or perform tasks requiring fine dexterity. Items currently being held by this spell cannot be added to a crawler’s inventory.
Duration: 1 minute per point of INT
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Cost: 1 MP
Enthusiastically, I clicked on the Tome of Mage Hand in order to learn it, but the use option was greyed out. I pulled up my stats to check if they are the issue and found out that my INT was currently sitting at 8 due to equipment bonuses.
So, I probably won’t be able to use this until the third floor once I can distribute my banked stat points… speaking of which, I wonder what level I am now.
I checked and saw that I had increased from level 2 to level 6 since killing Billy, not that it helped my stats. I checked my other companions and saw that Matt, Lynn, and Aaron were also level 5 while Marv was only level 4. Mary had gone up from level 1 to level 3.
Hmmm, I wonder if getting the killing blow gave me any bonus exp since I have passed everyone else. At the very least, it appears we all get some experience regardless of if we land to killing blows or land attacks, because otherwise Mary would still be level 1. I’ll have to remember to ask Simbul at some point exactly how experience is distributed, since she glossed over that while busy fangirling.
I checked my map and saw that the Safe Room wasn’t too far away now and assuming we didn’t run into any opposition, we would likely be there in the next 20 to 30 minutes or so. With that figured out, I decided to check the level timer.
4 DAYS : 9 HOURS : 54 MINUTES
Luckily, it looked like we had plenty of time to get to the Safe Room, eat something, and maybe get some sleep before the premiere episode that Simbul recommended we watch. Very likely, we even had time to go out and grind a little as well before the recap, plus we all likely had new achievements that potentially would come with more loot boxes we would need to open. I glanced at the flashing System Notifications folder and new text popped up beside it when I focused on it.
You have 54 new system notifications, 8 new achievements, and 1 updated achievement.