Inkler glared at me as his toy disappeared, though he quickly got ready for battle as the summoning circles appeared across the sands. Three hunchbacked horrors appeared. Roughly three feet tall, they were covered in a grey, stringy fur. DREADLOCKS! It came to me in a flash, their hair reminded me of dreadlocks that hadn’t been washed in ages. This fur covered their entire bodies save their whipcord tails, and just below their wrists and above the ankles. Pinkish white skin covered elongated fingers and toes. They stood on the first two knuckles of each toe, and the rest of their feet hovered a few inches above the ground. Bobbing and sniffing, it wasn’t until one raised its head up that I finally recognized it for what it was.

Divine Beastman, rat variant

Level 30

Like their smaller brethren, the beady eyed rat beastman has poor eyesight. It relies on its acute sense of smell to locate prey, and their teeth can tear through steel. They rely on swift hit and run tactics, letting the diseases passed along by their bites wear down enemies. Rage has been known to take them when injured.

Shit. Would the system recognize a disease as a poison or not? Best not try and find out, and just assume that I am not immune. Luckily these three didn’t carry any weapons, but I couldn’t guarantee that would always be the case. “Inkler, don’t bother with invisibility, and don’t let them bite you.” Though I hissed, three heads immediately swiveled in my direction as Inkler chuffed at me in annoyance. I could almost hear him mutter that rats were always prey to cats, especially this one.

“Well, let’s get this party started. [Oblivion sphere][Lance of light][Light bolt][Dark bolt].” I spoke calmly as I straightened up, blasting the central ratman with the first spell, and splitting the remaining spells at the other two. They had just started to move towards the sound of my voice when the first spell hit, destroying the head of the first rat. Its friends froze as they were showered in gore, only to swiftly take spells to their chest area. The one on the left took both light spells, getting knocked backwards by the impact. I saw Inkler pounce on it, so I focused on the enraged one that took the dark bolt spell.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAA!!!” It screamed at me as its eyes changed from black to a burning red. Its muscles swelled, and the hair wrapped around the body as some form of woven armor. Dropping down to all fours, it moved across the sands at a speed that rivalled the hobgoblin king. That was the last thought I had, as I was forced to defend from a flurry of strikes that were coming from all directions. Desperately blocking and parrying, I was no match for the onslaught. Even with me backing away, blood was flying from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a strand of hair flick out to absorb my blood. Damnit, the bastard was recovering while draining mine.

“Inkler! Little help!” Health rapidly draining, it took a few seconds but Inkler managed to get there in time. Just as he dug claws into the back of the ratman, it snapped forward and bit down on my forearm. “Hyaaaaaaa!!!” I screamed as his teeth punctured my armor. It seemed even with Inkler savaging his back, this guy was determined to take a portion of me with him. Shoving my left forearm against its throat, I tried to simply hold it in place as pushing back caused me a good bit of pain. “[Reality slash].” I grit out the words to the spell, slashing through the beast’s neck.

“Oof.” I grunted, as the combined weight of Inkler and the body fell onto me. “Get off bud, he’s dead.” I groaned, as Inkler was still tearing into the creature. While he did that, I worked on prying the jaws out of my arm. Once I did, I shoved the body off and staggered to my feet. I felt odd, my hands clammy. Once I had the head removed from my arm, I noticed a popup flashing in my vision.

Divine disease contracted!

You have contracted a divine disease. This condition is stackable up to five times, and has a 75% chance of transferring to allies of the same species that are within ten feet of you.

Symptoms:

Stamina bar reduced by ½

All skills cost 2x mana or stamina

Duration:

1 stack: 10 minutes

2 stacks: 20 minutes

3 stacks: 40 minutes

4 stacks: 80 minutes

5 or more stacks: 160 minutes

“Just great, I’ve got the divine flu.” I muttered, looting the bodies in search of a divine cure disease potion. Each rat dropped a mangy pelt in varieties of quality, as well as a vial of diseased saliva. “Damn. Let’s try this. [Purging flames].” I cast the remove curse spell, as that was the only one I had that could possibly be relevant. Of course, I got a notification that my attempt had no effect, and that purging flames wouldn’t work on a disease. “Alright, new plan. Don’t get bit.” I told Inkler, adding, “Because that worked so well the first time.” I downed a health potion just as the timer for the next level finished counting down.

The next battle had four rats. My opening volley was slightly different, and the outcome was much better for myself. The first rat died to an oblivion sphere to the face, a spell that was rapidly becoming one of my favorites. The second one caught the same combination of light bolt and lance of light, weakening it enough that I left it to Inkler. The third one got blasted by a dark bolt, and while it was starting to rage I used [Death’s gaze] to give me a target for my arbalest. The bolt struck true, causing enough critical damage to end the creature. “[Binding shadow chains].” I spoke calmly, catching the last one. “Leave it for now Inkler, I need to buy time to get rid of this disease.” I used a bit of shadow manipulation to create some barbs on the chains, giving the thrashing creature a few stacks of slow bleeding damage. It wasn’t enough to really damage it, but you wouldn’t believe that from the reaction. The rat screamed and clawed at the chains, tearing its skin open more and more with each movement.

“Hang back a second.” I ordered Inkler as the thirty second spell was wearing off. As soon as the chains disappeared, the ratman went into an incredibly frenzy. Sand was flung in every direction as the creature single mindedly searched for whatever had caused it pain. It was so focused on finding the chains that it ignored the spells I was throwing at it, allowing me to finish it off at our leisure. “[Lance of light].” That spell took it in the back, dropping its health down to under half. I waited a full minute before launching another spell, choosing [Light bolt] as my next option. This dropped the ratman into critical health, and it finally turned to face us. “[Dark bolt].” I finished it with one last spell as it bounded in our direction. “Ugh, this disease sucks.” I said to Inkler as I downed a mana potion. I was down to a quarter of my maximum stamina from just that one battle, but I had lowered the duration of my disease to under five minutes. The bodies only yielded pelts, no saliva or cure disease potions this time.

Round 23 was another set of four rats, these ones increasing to level 34. Everything was going as planned. The first one fell to the oblivion sphere; the second one was finished off by Inkler. I got complacent, and the arbalest bolt didn’t trigger a critical hit. “[Binding shadow chains]!” I tangled up the fourth ratman, not wanting to deal with two at once. The third one was bounding towards me, enraged. Feet set, hammer parallel to the ground. I waited until it took one final leap in the air towards me, hoping to crush me under a pounce. “[Rocket smash]!” I cried, torqueing my body in the mother of all swings. My hammer smashed into the shoulder of the creature, knocking it off of its attack. Bones shattered, and the follow through of my swing smashed the creature into the ground, killing it. “Last one’s all yours buddy.” I said through pants, having spent nearly all of my stamina in that attack. While the last of the ratmen was trying to get out of the chains and attack me, Inkler pounced on its back and savaged its neck with his jaws. A few savage jerks, and the creature dropped in death.

Round 24 was a much simpler matter, as they increased in level again to 35 but dropped to only three ratmen. Because of the level difference, I changed up the rotation slightly. The first took an oblivion sphere and a dark bolt, while the second got both of the light spells as well as an arrow to the chest. The third was Inkler’s prey, after getting wrapped up in shadow chains. “Oh? Come take a little breather bud.” I hollered to Inkler after he killed the last of the ratmen. “Looks like we get an extra minute to rest before the miniboss. How kind of them.” I took the time to ensure that my health, mana, and stamina were at maximum, glad to finally be rid of that pesky disease.

The next boss threw me for a loop. I was expecting a hulked out ratman, or something similar. Instead, I got a creature covered in brown fur with a white belly. Its body was long and lean, and its eyes were focused on me. The paws were covered with a version of iron knuckles, and it gave me a grin full of sharp fangs.

Divine Weaselkin Striker

Level 37 miniboss

Often employed as rogues and assassins, their speed is unmatched among the beastkin races. Access to steel weapons has only increased their effectiveness in battle.

I had barely finished reading through the description when the weasel rocketed into action. I tried to move my weapon to parry, but it easily slid around my feeble attempt and slammed a fist into my chest, following up with an immediate cross punch to my face. As I staggered back, the weasel retreated back to his initial position and grinned at me. It casually licked a bit of blood off one of his weapons, grinning at me. “Alright bastard, ya wanna play that game? Let’s play that game. [Binding shadow chains]!” The weasel flowed around the spell with contemptuous ease, dumbfounding me. He even flicked Inkler on the nose as he tried to intercept, before smashing my left shoulder and right ribcage with two more strikes and flowing back to his starting spot.

“Damn, he’s just going to wear us down at this rate. I hate agile opponents.” I muttered, looking at my health bar that had dropped down to three quarters of maximum. “Alright, new plan. [Dark bolt][Oblivion sphere][Lance of light][Light bolt][Dark bolt]!” I fired off my series of spells, spreading them out a bit to obscure his vision. Charging in behind the spells, I grinned as I saw a look of panic on the weasel’s face as he realized that I had moved. Then my hammer made his acquaintance, knocking out a fang.

“Chtchtchtch!” It chittered at me as it tried to line up a strike, only for Inkler to latch on to its back leg. While it was distracted, I smashed it in the face again with my hammer.

“Taunt me ya little bastard? I’ll show you why that’s a bad idea!” Ok, so I might have been harboring a little rage as I kept hitting the boss in the face. I blame the lackluster loot along with not having a choice in boosting the difficulty of the dungeon. Either way, the health bar rapidly dropped as it feebly tried to block my strikes. It didn’t help that this only resulted in him hitting his own face with his iron knuckles. Several strikes later, and I was panting over the corpse while Inkler slunk back a few steps.

“Sorry bud, I’m good now.” I said, immediately putting my weapon away. He walked closer, flicking his tail a bit. I simply crouched down and stuck out my hand, letting him move closer at his own speed. After hesitating for a second, he darted forward and flipped my hand onto the top of his head in that practiced motion all pets seem to know how to do. “I’ll try not to get that out of control again, okay?” I chuckled as I scratched right between his ears. While one hand was occupied with that, I looted the body.

Iron knuckles of Striking

Rare

Monk only

A set of knuckles formed to protect the fists from powerful impacts, these have been enchanted to interrupt an enemy’s attack patterns.

Damage: 75-100

Durability: 5,000/5,000

Interrupting impact: 50% chance to interrupt an enemy attack if the blow lands in the middle of the attack or spell.

Congratulations!

You have beaten the first 25 levels of the dungeon! This entitles you to a rest floor before continuing on your journey. What would you like to do?

Rest: 8.5 hours without any enemies. Will receive warning prompts at 8, 8.25, and 8.5 hours

Visit the dungeon store

Continue on your journey

Leave the dungeon

“Looks like we can’t be leaving the dungeon just yet bud. Let’s take a look at the store, and then continue on.”

Item

Cost

Stock

Cart

Full health potion: recovers all health

50 gold

0

10

Full mana potion: recovers all mana

50 gold

0

10

Full stamina potion: recovers all stamina

50 gold

10

0

Full recovery elixir: recovers all health, mana, and stamina

1 platinum

0

1

Divine cure disease: cures all diseases

5 platinum

0

5

Satiety pill: fully recovers from hunger and dehydration

50 gold

9

1

“I wish I could buy the recipe for this divine cure disease potion.” I lamented as I hit confirm. I ended up spending twenty-seven platinum and 50 gold, but it would be worth it to make sure I could replenish everything several more times. With that taken care of, we moved on to the next floor of the dungeon.