“EEEaaaRRRRRUUUUUHHHHHHH!!!!!” Twin guttural screams greeted me as I kicked open the dual doors to the mausoleum. Across a small square antechamber were two horridly misshapen creatures chained by their necks to opposite sides of the doorway down. Bulges of flesh at random locations covered the creatures that might have had a humanoid base, though now they moved in a quadrupedal manner. Their teeth were sharpened, and their fingernails had formed talons that leaked a gooey black substance.

Feral ghoul (frenzied)

Level 70

When a vampire fails to completely turn its prey, it results in a ghoul. The lowest form of these hideous creatures are the ferals. Lacking all former thought processes, they live only to consume. Their menu consists of only one thing: fresh meat. Luckily for you that curse you just received makes you smell like a five star gourmet meal! Such a delectable aroma has caused these ghouls to enter a frenzy. Any such effect causes a 50% increase in attack speed and damage, as well as a loss of 50% armor and a complete loss of dodge attempts.

“Just fucking great. A mausoleum filled with things that will stop at nothing to kill me.” I muttered as I looked at the creatures with mystic vision. They were straining against the chains holding them to the wall, forcing themselves into a nearly upright position. Their bodies were interesting, having both a network of blue mana lines and black necrotic lines. Each of the bulges were concentrations of the black necrotic energy, slightly pulsing that was increasing in speed as I watched.

“Stay back a bit Inkler. I want to try a few things.” I said, pulling out my arbalest. For the first experiment, I shot the left ghoul in the heart with a bolt, killing it. As I watched over the next twenty seconds or so, the black necrotic energy displaced the blue mana. Once it was completely gone, the ghoul groaned and got back to its feet, though only at half of its maximum health. It immediately started trying for me again, though I noticed a slight strain on the chain holding it to the wall. The energy was slowly seeping into the muscles of the creatures, increasing its strength. “Enough of that.” I said, stepping forward and smashing a scythe into its skull. That permanently dropped the creature.

Turning to the other one, it was a bit closer than I anticipated. It seemed it had moved along the arc of the chain’s allowance, trying to get close enough to strike me. This one got an arbalest bolt to the head, and I noticed that the creature didn’t rise. “Alright Inkler, looks like we have a battle plan. Headshots kill it permanently, anything else lets iit resurrect at half health. If you can’t take out the brain, go for crippling blows. And use claws only, I don’t want you biting this and picking up whatever they are carrying.”

Inkler chuffed his agreement, and I looted the bodies for a vial of blackened blood each. Smiling a grim smile, I descended into the next level of the mausoleum. Mindless creatures ready to be slaughtered? Seems like the perfect remedy for releasing the rage that the mention of Pelor brought on. At the bottom of the stairs, I was forced to activate darkvision. The small landing room branched into three hallways, and I took the left one. After walking for nearly twenty feet, I heard a slight snuffling and a screech.

Rapidly coming around the corner, and slamming into a wall before recovering, was another ghoul. Its scrambling saved its life, as my arbalest bolt buried itself into the creature’s shoulder instead of its head. Switching weapons as fast as I could, I took the brunt of the creature’s momentum in the chest, barely managing to get the shaft of my weapon in the creature’s mouth as it tried to chew on my throat. Falling down, I was at a serious disadvantage. “Inkler! Little. Help.” I managed to grunt out as I was scratched repeatedly by the creature. Three lines of darkness slashed through the top of the skull, killing the ghoul.

“Thanks bud.” I said, shoving the corpse off of me. I noticed an odd status notification, it looked like a gaunt face. Pulling it up, I groaned at the notification.

Ghoul’s blood curse

You have been scratched with a ghoul’s blood, and have received a curse for it. Each stack of this curse lowers your damage and attack speed by 1%, stackable up to 30 times. Each stack adds one minute to the total duration of the curse, and any stack after the maximum allowance will reset the timer. Should you die while cursed, you will rise again as an undead. Resurrection penalties will be double, and any party resurrections will only be possible if they kill your resurrected form first.

Current stacks: 5

“Great. Inkler, these things curse you with their strikes. Do not let them cut you, understand?” I asked. “Let’s rest here for just a bit, I want this curse to run its course before we move on.” While we waited, I started practicing some stone manipulation. If I wanted to move through this dungeon without waiting for five minutes after every battle, I needed some crowd control. Sure, I could use binding shadow chains, but that only affected one target. With the narrow hallways and stone floor, I had the perfect idea. Stone manipulation caused four pillars of stone to raise up from the ground, thick enough that they wouldn’t allow the ghouls to break through and with enough of a gap that I could still attack through without letting a ghoul through.

“Ok bud, let’s do this.” I said, patting Inkler’s head. I had the stone pillars down well enough that it only took two seconds to complete, hopefully that was more than enough time. Getting my bearings, I took the only exit from the room, a right from my original direction.

“KREEEEEEEE!!!!!” I jumped a bit from the unexpected shriek, quickly raising up the stone pillars. I was almost too slow, but it ended up working for the best as the pillars impaled the body of the ghoul, trapping the thrashing creature near the ceiling. It completely ignored the pillar, swinging its arms and growling at me until it died. I removed the pillars and moved on, intent on fully mapping this floor. The layout was simple, a three by three grid of dots that would coincide with a square room holding a single ghoul. Each was connected by a hallway, and I originally entered in the middle south room. The ghouls never came to each other’s aid, making my life much easier. Get close to a room, raise the pillars, and walk close enough for the curse to trigger and the ghouls to come running to their slaughter.

Wanting to grind some of my skills, I would alternate between [Light bolt] and [Lance of light], targeting the heads. The first attack I used was an unchanted light bolt, and the energy must have had a horrendous reaction to the necrotic energy that fueled the ghouls. The creature lost ¾ of its health in one blow, but spent five seconds with its back arched in agony as it held its face, rolling on the ground. After that, I always used the chant to make sure it died immediately. The lance was strong enough to kill without the chant. Once the first floor was cleared, I headed down again.

The enemies upgraded from feral ghouls to ghouls, and their bodies were put together a lot better. They still lacked intelligence, and often came in groups of three. I kept up the same tactics, as they worked wonderfully. The rooms in this floor actually contained bones stuffed into alcoves by type. Some were strewn about on the ground, and to my disgust they all had teeth marks on them. They layout of the dungeon was different as well. The entrance was in a row of four rooms, with one to the right and two to the left. Looking down on my map, there were two wings that flared out and had to be traversed before you could come back and take the hallway splitting the wings to the stairs down.

The third and final floor of the dungeon was going to be difficult. There was a small chamber at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a hallway that opened up into a massive chamber with piles of bones all around. Several bands of ghouls wandered around aimlessly, and sitting in the middle of the room was the largest ghoul I had ever seen.

Alpha Ghoul

Level 80

Occasionally one ghoul will emerge far stronger than the rest. This one becomes an alpha, ruling by might. It will feast first, and once a month will resort to cannibalizing the weakest member of its pack. With limited intelligence, it can order its subordinates in pack tactics much like a wolf.

“Great. That thing has arm muscles as big as my thighs. We’re going to have to take him down first. Wait behind the bars Inkler.” I ordered, and used stone manipulation to create several bars across the entrance to the grand hall. I left a gap in the middle, and cautiously stepped through. Taking a calming breath, I targeted the alpha.

“Shadow and light, unite in annihilation. [Oblivion sphere]!” I opted to chant the spell, and fired it at the head of the alpha. Turning immediately, I squeezed through the gap and raised one last pillar as an angry roar shook the cavern behind me. I looked to see the alpha missing half of its arm, having used it to block my attack. As I watched, it bounded over to a group and bit the head off one of the remaining ghouls, refilling its life. As it chewed, I started taking shots at the remaining ghouls. They immediately charged, and started trying to slash me through the bars.

I wasn’t really that surprised that the ghouls were crushing each other in their desire to get to me. They showed no real concern for others, and were rather easy pickings. Even when the alpha came over, the most I had to do was reinforce some of the bars and keep blasting away. Having a feast of dead ghoul flesh at its feet to eat when it was injured made for a long and boring battle. I couldn’t use oblivion sphere either, as it would probably damage the bars enough to let the alpha through.

Once it fell, I received 30 vials of blackened blood, as well as the second key piece. Rather bland, but then again it wasn’t really a challenging boss. The best results were skill and level gains, I jumped up to level 70 from all the killing. Light bolt went from beginner 4 to intermediate 1, and lance of light went from beginner 3 to intermediate 1 as well. Hopefully I would get some new spells when I advanced them a bit more, but until then I had a main chamber to search. Unfortunately, there was nothing interesting. “Sorry you didn’t get to do much.” I said as I gave Inkler a scratch on the head. Note to self: Don’t do that while walking. He will lean into it and promptly knock you on your ass. A few minutes later and we left the mausoleum, taking a moment to look around.

“Well, those angels went ahead and left.” I noted, sweeping through. The only thing I could see was a massive hedge. “Of course. There has to be a hedge maze. Can’t have a manor without a proper hedge maze.” I muttered as I walked closer. There was a golden gate that swung open at my approach, and we started our exploration.

“I will burn this mother to the ground. Why don’t I have fire magic? This place really needs to burn.” An hour and a half of wandering, and saying I was frustrated was an understatement. The path was simple, but I could swear that there were some things going behind us and changing things. Occasionally we would be forced to battle a plant tentacle, but that was child’s play at this point. The tentacles would fire poison thorns that did minimal damage, and couldn’t pierce Inkler’s armor plates. I would just take the hits, as I didn’t fear poison. The worst part was that when defeated, it would immediately shrink into the ground and we couldn’t loot it.

Another hour later, and I was constantly growling. Even Inkler was annoyed, eyeing the walls as if he was pondering if his reality slash could cut through them fast enough. I was rather ashamed to admit, but at one point I lost it and started trying to slash my way through the hedge. I did some damage, but before I could make a noticeable dent the walls would repair themselves. I stopped when the leaves of the hedge started fluttering and turning red, fearing that it would take a more active deterrent. With nothing left to do, we kept exploring.

Still fuming, I froze when Inkler chuffed at me, not realizing that I had wandered into a massive open area. In the four corners of the square, were four plants that resembled the different tentacles we had defeated earlier. One looked like a rose on steroids, the sap dripping from the thorns a bright orange. One was a black tube type flower with purple tips on the petals. The third looked like a hibiscus plant, only it had blue flowers. The last of the ones in the corner looked like a black eyed susan with white petals instead of yellow. In the center was a drooling sunflower with pink polka dots on white petals. Yes, drooling. It looked at me and opened its mouth, showing a lot of flattened teeth ready to grind me to a pulp. It also had two arms that ended in something like a pinecone ready to bash me with.

Burning Rose

Level 85

The burning rose torments its prey, the thorns are coated in a toxin that makes you feel like your blood is on fire. It will keep victims alive for nearly a week, slowly bleeding them down and ingesting their blood.

Voidgazer Lily

Level 85

The black petals of the voidgazer lily are a beautiful and deadly sight. It will use gravity magic to suck prey into its flower, closing around it and digesting it.

Madbiscus

Level 85

The stamen of the madbiscus plant inject a potent toxin that causes hallucinations so potent that the few victims that survive often go mad. Testing on criminals has concluded that the toxin works slowly, building up over five minutes before raging for nearly a half hour afterwards. Experts think the slow ramping effect is what causes the madness later, but further experiments have been outlawed due to ethical reasons.

Black Eyed Bruiser

Level 85

The black eyed bruiser plant smashes its prey with the hardened core of its flower. The saga of Eliondir has her summoning a bruiser to batter down the fortified gates of Mandalay, though the truth of this is highly suspect. Either way, letting it hit you is a Bad Idea.

Gnashing Halitoscium

Level 90

Feared by adventurers everywhere, the halitoscium is a groups worst nightmare. Capable of inflicting several different status effects by exuding a noxious cloud, your best bet is to kill it with fire as swiftly as possible.

“Fuck.”