On I went, with a crude armor dropping midway to my stomach, badass looking gauntlets on my fists, an oversized knife on my belt and a big bone on my shoulder. Everything on me looks out of place with questionable origins. Everything I know is bringing forth more questions. So basically, I am a walking question mark.

I have walked far into the cave system and, I won’t lie, I am lost. Then again, I don’t think that’s very different than when I woke up, as in both cases I didn’t know where I was.

As I went deeper into the system, I tried not to think about some creature lurking in the shadows, waiting pick me up and splatter me across the walls. And I had to make a conscious effort not to look behind me every 3 seconds. Especially because it doesn’t change what I’m seeing. Pitch black.

But traversing in the darkness isn’t as hard as one might like to think. While I haven’t developed any kind of night vision main characters from novels tend to get after spending 5 seconds in a dimly lit room, I am starting to get better at not bumping into rock formations that hang from the ceiling every now and then by just listening.

New skill Acquired!

Echolocation (Passive)- Navigation through the use of reflected sound waves.

Apparently I’m developing my own sonar. Which is very odd, considering that I am a Walking Dead --pun unintended-- and the dead can’t develop anything. Then again, a dead can’t walk and here I am, violating the very law of nature.

And the fact that I am developing something like a sonar is very...weird, as that is something that is achieved in millions of years, not tens of hours of walking.

Although, I’ll admit that its kinda funky walking through the dark and almost never hitting something after just 13 hours. Back in my place I would have already sacrificed my toes to the Gruesome Gods of Furniture Legs.

Anyway, all this walking has made me understand a lot about my new body. There are many factors that act as a question spawner in my head. For example, the fact that I am a mummified corpse, and yet I felt no irregularity from my weight. I mean, think about it. The status page showed that I was affected my mild desiccation. Which also means that I had desiccation debuff prior to falling into the river. Despite regaining a lot of water and not having them in the first place, I don’t feel any different. Water makes up 70% of your body. In other words, it has a shit load of influence on your weight. Now I don’t want to come off as some guy or girl who’s obsessed about their weight but, why the fuck do I not feel light?

Maybe because I am an undead and thus a Dark creature?

Sorry, couldn’t help joking about it.

Another thing is, with the sort of muscles I have --which should be none-- how the fuck am I moving? I can’t just throw it over my shoulders shrugging “Magic, what can you do about it?” and whistle on my merry way as if it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Because it does! And I can’t whistle no more. These undead lips are not where they should be, leaving my teeth ever exposed. Now that I think about it, I’m more worried that this eternal snarl will bring me more troubles than not. I can think of one stupid way to deter them from thinking that I’m hostile-

“D-Don’t get the wrong impression! I-It’s not like I’m showing you my gorgeous teeth so that you’ll like me or anything! H-hmph!”

-or something like that.

Man, I’m so bored! So bored! I’m counting hours for chrissake! I just don’t get it! This is a fantasy world, isn’t it!? Then why the fuck aren’t any fantastic things happening all over the place!!!!

WRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!

Shit! I accidentally activated my skill! How fucking stupid of me!

And true to my predictions, the tunnels rumble.

And what follows, is what I would like to account as an unholy sound. And no, the irony isn’t lost on me.

SCREEEEEEEEE-SHAAAAAAA-KHOOOOOOOOOoooooouuuuurrrrrrrhhss…

Then followed some high speed winds fanning through the tunnels.

Ding!

Warning!

You are overwhelmed by

Sensory organs will haywire for a small period of time

And silence, as if that bone-vibrating and earraping screech never happened.

After a few minutes (not hours, minutes, I swear) of recovering from that sensory overload of my newly evolving ears and cautious listening, I resumed my travel. No use of worrying about something I can’t do anything about. But at least that confirms one of my suspicions:

I’m not the only one in these tunnels.

I hope that wasn’t something similiar to how a tiger meets another tiger and then roars to issue challenge, and then the other one roars back as if saying “Bring it, punk!”

Ding!

The Devourer has accepted your challenge.

You won’t be able to leave this dungeon until you defeat it in the Way of the Tak’ze

You have met the conditions and accepted the Racial Quest : Stigma of Tak’ze

STIGMA OF TAK’ZE

Type: Racial Quest

Difficulty: B-

The Devourer was an elder of Tak’ze until the Taxxon era of Great Change, when he refused to shed the “the void” in exchange of a “serpent gullet”, as he thought of their “void” as a blessing rather than a curse. Due to this he was exiled from his homeland.

Out of rage, The Devourer cannibalized many taxxons before sabotaging the “Great Ritual”, causing many of the taxxons to be disfigured. Later, The Devourer had caused many griefs across the lands to sate his hunger which in turn caused other races to despise the taxxons. The races now recite folktales based off The Devourers atrocities to scare their young.

Condition: Defeat The Devourer in The Way Of the Tak’ze

Reward: A chance to change your race. [Due to being an undead, you will instead receive a scroll for race change. Use it wisely.]

Two skill books based off The Devourer’s skills. One of them may be degraded to a low tier skill.

May take one of the organs to integrate with your body. A probability of integrating more organs depends on how well The Way Of Tak’ze has been performed [Tier 2 undead trait: Undead Organs]

1000 Fame and 5000 Rep Points to the Taxxon race

Upon death or rejection of the path of Tak’ze, the quest will fail. If The Way of Tak’ze is rejected, you will get only 1 skill book. Fame will only be 50 and rep points will only be 100

Well… shit!

Let’s see, I just got tangled with a taxxon menace that not only has a taste for its own species, but also doesn’t discriminate the other races. And bad stories are going around for his lack of racism. Also, he made some important ritual go tits up which caused many taxxons to turn into freaks. And if I defeat this guy through this “Way of the Tak’ze” --which, by the way, sounds awfully like something snipped out of a rejected xianxia/wuxia novel-- I get a free organ surgery, a scroll that will turn anyone into a taxxon and some of its skills. Also, these taxxon fellows seem to put a lot of attention into this Way of Tak’ze.

Hmm...taxxon, have I ever heard that before?

PAK-POK-Pok-pok-clack-a-lack-a-lack*

I rouse up from my trance like locomotion to notice something rattle and clack on the floor. I don’t know what it is, but the sound reminded me of ping-pong balls and those screw-up teeth toy thingies Joker would carry around.

Clack-clack-clack-clack*

Something is growing? No, building would be the proper word. I can’t see anything grow, ofcourse, but I can definitely hear something...probably. And it doesn’t feel right to me.

I draw out the Big Bone from my back and calmly walk towards the source of the sound. Yep, something is definitely building.

A swung the bone over my head and smashed it mercilessly.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Phew!

At one point, they stopped moving all together, so I got on my knees and ran my hand through the smashed pieces. Soon I found something round and got hold of it. Rapidly tapping my finger on it, I tried to discern what it is as the waves created by my taps travel down the whole bulbous thing. After enough taps I finally reach a conclusion.

It’s a skull.

In other words a skeleton was building right in front of me.

But why? Why not just build somewhere else and then attack me?

RUMBLE*

Shit, did I raise a flag or something!?

The whole place is shaking like crazy. Like some sort of earthquake, which is weird considering that the place is cut into a different dimension. In other words, something is causing this quakes.

Better get moving. The Devourer may not be the only thing that heard my stupid scream.

=======================================================

She silently observed a certain draugr that has entered the dungeon. Draugrs from “Up Above” seldom intrude her domain. Last time was 200 years ago. The priestess and she had a bout on a silly matter and it ended in a messy way. Regardless, only the priestess would enter her domain. And now not only one, but two draugrs are roaming around. Both had abruptly appeared out of nowhere. One had somehow stuck itself at the river while the other issued a Tak’ze challenge to one of her Floor Bosses. Now The Devourer has left its position, that gluttonous battle maniac! She decided to deal with the challenger before The Devourer decides that going through the tunnel walls would be faster. She sighed deeply as she issued commands to the Dungeon Core.

=======================================================

I found myself in deep shit. Or pile of bones, to be precise.

smash

Skeletons!

smash

Fucking skeletons everyw’ere!

smash

And who ever said that skeletons-

smash

-were easy kill needs to be castrated-

smash

-and dunked in salt before deep fried and fed to-

smash

-xenomorphs!!! Okay, that was a bit of overreaction in my-

smash

-part. But when skeletons are falling out of-

smash

-the ceilings and out of the walls, and-

smash

-there’s that one skeleton refusing to get rekt-

smash

-by moving in ways its brethren couldn’t be-

smash

-bothered to, you really can’t help but overre-

smash

-act. Especially when that very skeleton is-

smash

-straddling you and smashing your head with-

smash

-another skull at the moment. It really pisses me off!

I headbutt the incoming skull, causing its alredy cracked cranium to crumble into fragments. Then I grab onto the legbones that has been pinning me for a while now and heave the whole skeleton off me. The other skeletons were kind enough to not interrupt eversince I got pinned down. I have lost my Big Bone in the skirmish at one point. I have also made a point not to use the oversized jaw knife. I’m not some idiot who expects the bone knife to cut through bone like katanas and other super sharp weapons tend to do in animes and light novels.

All I can rely on is my good old fists.

I raised them and glared at the Skeleton and beckoned it in boxer style, implying “Bring it!”

As if understanding, it rushed towards me. Its fists started to spin as its fore arms started spinning in an inhuman way. If at this point someone told me that this Skeleton has nunchucks for arms, I wouldn’t bat an eye. Knowing that meeting the charge head-first is a bad idea, I had to pull a clumsy dodge to move out of the way.

==Normally, I wouldn’t be able to achieve such a fluid movement. But After desperately dodging its attacks at the beginning of our bout I got this-

New skill Acquired!

Grace (Passive)-Increases the fluidity and control over movements. It slightly increases coordination and balance.

New stat(s) Acquired!

Balance- Increases your control on your centre of gravity.

Balance is set to 5

Coordination- Increases the response of body to sensory organs.

Coordination is set to 10

Immediately I got what was needed to keep my ass intact and land hits of my own.==

Skill Level UP!

Grace (Passive)- Level 3

Increased the fluidity and control over movements.

AGI +4, DEX +3, BAL +1

Just as I was about to land a punch on the back of its head a bone hit my wrist, causing it to only graze by its skull.

And just like a scene out of Thor, every bone of its body rotated until it faced me once more. Not wasting any time it kicked by abdomen, causing me to crash into a the standing skeletons. All started to pile up on me as they clutched at my armor and bashed their arms on me at the same time. The sheer number of arms thrashing me was overwhelming to say the least.

-3/-27

Shit, I neglected to check my health! I opened my mouth and breathed in deeply.

-10/-27

-18/-27

-24/-27

-27/-27

is now level 4

In just four breaths, I recovered my health. The surrounding skeletons have slowed their onslaught too. Still not stopping the life sip, I started to push my way out. After many punches and headbutts, I finally killed enough to come out. Outside the pile, the skeleton was waiting with its arms crossed. That gesture itself speaks volumes of either having a consciousness or being a puppet, but that is highly unlikely, right?

I got hold of a femur and charged at it. But as I got close, it suddenly lifted its arm, its fingers straight and together like a spear hand. I quickly held the femur with both hands and raised it towards his hand in order to defend myself from whatever it is about to do, and at the sametime, I dug my heels to stop my charge if possible.

Its hand descended in knife hand position. Clad in darkness, it effortlessly sliced through the femur, then continuing to descend it cut through the armor, then through my skin. I felt it grind against my sternum and then cut through my stomach --or at least where it was--. The whole process happened very quickly, but at the same time it felt really slow. I crashed towards the Skeleton as it swiftly moved out of the way, causing me to meet the floor face first. Ma hands quickly shot to my chest as I got on my feet. Except for the skin wound, nothing happened. But when the femur…

I turned to see the skeleton already facing me, flexing its hand that it had used not too long ago. Its fingers were grounded to a stump and bone powder were crumbling from it. We both burned a hole in each other with our glares as we came to a cease fire.

-20/-27

It can’t fight me without its minion covering its ass and my apparently strong bones being unaffected by its trump card and I can’t fight him without sipping its minions life force.

Ding!

WORLD SYSTEM NOTICE

The Dungeon Master has violated the dungeon rule #13 and #34 and crossed the line to stop an intruder. Due to this, the specific intruder will receive the latest skill(s) used to harm him as compensation. May your Dive be fruitful, The Fool

Great. Another mystery.