When Serenity woke up, he felt a hand on his forehead and the familiar feel of mana rushing into his body - though oddly enough, it wasn’t Death mana and it wasn’t headed for his stomach. It took him a moment to recognize the hand. “Raz?”

“Oh good, you’re awake. I was worried I was going to run out of mana before you came to.” The hand disappeared from his forehead and the mana flow cut off. Serenity realized Raz was crouched next to him and Katya was hovering nearby as well. “What happened?”

“I was an idiot.” While true, that probably didn’t answer the question. Serenity tried again. “I should have waited until the next rest break. The Voice told me I could send a message home. So - I did. Only…” He trailed off as he pulled up his status. He was nearly out of stamina, and his mana was low despite however much Raz had given him. “It looks like it completely drained my mana and stamina. It won’t stop us from starting, I can recover while we walk, I just can’t use any skills for a while. I hope you didn’t give me too much?”

“Most of it, I’m afraid. We can probably move on when you’re ready, I’ll recover mana while we walk. Are you sure you’re good to go?” Raz looked concerned, and helped Serenity when he went to sit up - even though Serenity definitely didn’t need the help.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Serenity stared at his Status, puzzled. There was no reason he should be so low on mana if a caster like Raz who was undoubtedly higher Tier had given him mana. Yes, there was some lost in the process but not that much. Unless… could his base stats really be that much higher? Enough to negate an entire Tier? He’d assumed they weren’t that different from normal Human, but what if he was wrong? “Raz, tell me how much mana you get from this please?”

Serenity touched Raz’s hand and directed a few points of mana out his channels and over to Raz. It wasn’t difficult when two people knew what they were doing, unlike when he’d had to move his friends’ Death mana for them. Raz should have the training to take the mana; it was commonly taught to children as a way to extend practice sessions, and he’d managed to give some to Serenity which was normally the harder thing to do anyway.

“That’s - Serenity, why did you just give me twenty points’ worth of mana?”

Serenity shook his head. “Testing. That’s what I was afraid you’d say. The good news is that it means that if you run low on mana, I should be able to supply you.” What it meant was that Serenity’s invisible base Mind score was higher than Raz’s, so what he saw as a “single” point of mana held more energy. It also meant that Serenity would generally do better at high-power applications but might have trouble with delicate things.

It was fine - even useful - for combat.

Serenity levered himself to his feet. He glanced over at Katya to see an amused smile. Raz might not know what Serenity had tested, but Serenity was pretty sure Katya knew.

The maze continued to have low difficulty undead for a couple of hours. Both Serenity and Raz were fine by the time they came to a wider opening in the catacombs.

“Stop.” Katya handed each of the others a small vial. “This looks like a final boss room. Drink this before we go in. It will improve your chances against the various curses, diseases, and other things the undead often have - the things that can make them difficult.”

Serenity looked at the vial, then silently handed it back to Katya. He appreciated it, but given how much of him was already sort of undead, he didn’t want to risk taking something designed to work against the undead.

Katya accepted it back, puzzled. “It’ll help keep you from getting infected with something that could kill you or turn you into an undead … I don’t need you to pay me for it or anything…?”

Serenity shook his head. “I have a way of avoiding that. I may even tell you about it sometime. Not right now. This … I’m afraid it would clash, for me. Can’t say for sure, but I think it will be safer not to.”

Katya shrugged. “It’s your death. Just don’t expect me to raise you if you get turned into a zombie.”

“That’s fair.” Serenity smiled. “I’ll be fine. Go ahead Raz.”

Raz drank the vial and handed the empty contents back to Katya. Once she’d had hers, she tucked both empty vials back in her pack.

“Ready?” Katya was staring at Serenity.

He thought for a moment. Actually, there was one more thing he should do if this was the last battle of the dungeon.

Please change my XP allocation to 100% Core. I won’t Evolve even if it completes as long as I’ve finished the dungeon, right?

[Done]

[Correct]

It was too bad this wouldn’t take him to level 25 for the first Evoker ability, but he didn’t want to be stuck mostly-dead (mostly undead?) any longer than he had to be.

Serenity turned his attention back to Katya. “Yes, I’m ready.”

They walked through the larger opening into a surprisingly large room with a much taller ceiling than the rest of the dungeon had had. Serenity looked around and didn’t see anything other than bones. There were bones everywhere; the floor was stone, but the walls were covered in bones and the ceiling had bones suspended like draperies and chandeliers made of bone.

“I hate dim rooms,” muttered Katya.

“Is the room dim?” Serenity asked. He couldn’t keep a note of amusement out of his voice. If Katya was going to complain about him having too many Sight abilities, he was going to rub it in when they were useful. It was too bad he couldn’t share his vision with the two of them, but that was a risk he didn’t need to take. Not if Katya thought she could do this fight on her own.

“Yeah, the only light’s from that bone chandelier,” Raz stated. “I think-”

Raz stopped when the room started to rumble. Bones started falling off the walls and ceiling and skittering to a common point in the center of the room.

“It looks like it’s building a bone colossus,” Serenity stated. “Normal weak point is the main skull, but watch out for a decoy; secondary target is the central spine. Looks like it’s going for a more or less human appearance, even if it is three times the height of a person. The joints will be reinforced, don’t bother with them.” He watched for a moment. “Six arms and skulls for hands. Awesome. It’s a Ketheri variant. Don’t let it hit you with one of the skulls if you can avoid it, they’re usually vampiric and can use any skull to drain life or mana.” Serenity knew his voice had flattened when he saw the skull-hands. He despised the Ketheri-variant undead. He’d used them, of course, but that didn’t make him like them any more.

All of its appendages other than the skulls were composed of a multitude of bones, not all of which were originally from that part of the body. Serenity knew that was common in a basic Bone Colossus, and this was clearly a Ketheri - vampiric - variant on that. A better necromancer could simply reform the bone if desired - though some still chose the weaker but more intimidating “build it from a bunch of bones” look. It had three heads to go with the six arms, but they all seemed to connect to a single spine and it “only” had one pair of legs.

Serenity Far Stepped into the room, trying to reach the colossus before it was fully formed. There was no point in attacking early, but it also couldn’t attack until it was done, and that would help. Serenity wasn’t certain if it could drain him, under the circumstances, but he’d do his best to avoid getting hit just in case.

He reached the colossus just in time. It swung two of its lower arms at him, and he dodged backwards to avoid them. It was tall enough that he couldn’t really hit any of the important parts easily, even with his naginata; he really wanted to be standing higher than it or perhaps on it. He hoped to entice it into leaning forward so that he could hit the skull, but it didn’t lean far enough forward when it attacked.

If he could just get behind it, that might work too.

He danced around the golem. The barrage of spells from Katya and Raz would probably eventually work, as long as he could keep from being hit. He dodged to the left then the right, trying to circle around it, then he dodged forward when he should have stepped back and one of the skull-hands smashed into his chest armor and flung him back towards a wall, away from Katya and Raz.

The good news was that it didn’t manage to drain anything from him. The bad news was that he could feel how much the strike pissed off the Heart of the Deathless. He lost most of the sensation in both of his hands as he struggled back to his feet.

He was still fine; there was still plenty of time - as long as he didn’t take too many more hits like that.

The colossus turned away from him and lumbered towards his allies. There were many places on its bone form that were scratched or scarred by fire; their attack was hurting it. Unfortunately, it was going to take time to actually break any of the bones, and they didn’t have time.

Fortunately, it was facing mostly away from Serenity.

He took a few running steps forward to get close enough, then Far Stepped up in the air and slashed at its spine. He couldn’t get high enough to reach the skull, but if he could stop it from moving, that would be enough.

Serenity immediately had to pay more attention to his landing than how much damage he’d done. He landed on one leg, moving sideways and off balance. He converted the landing into a roll, continuing his motion to the side of the undead.

As he came up from the roll, he saw that the Ketheri variant was still moving, but it seemed to have refocused on him instead of the others. Its leg motions seemed a bit slower and jerkier than before, which made Serenity focus on the spine, trying to see where he’d hit. There was a kink in the spine; he hadn’t managed to sever it, but he’d at least cracked a bone and might have bent something.

Serenity backed away from the undead, trying to see how quickly it could move. If it was slowed enough, he didn’t need to get close to it. The undead tried to follow, but each step seemed to lag. “Hit it in the back!” Serenity called out.

Serenity tried to lead it in a circle around the room, staying close enough to keep its attention but out of its reach while Katya and Raz followed it, hitting it in the back. Eventually, it seemed to decide it just wasn’t going to catch Serenity and turned towards Katya - right before a firebolt from Raz caught it directly on the kink in its spine and weakened the bone enough that it snapped as the undead tried to turn.

It wasn’t helpless against anything that got close to it, but it could no longer chase anyone down.

Serenity backed off to join the other two, and started throwing Void Far Strikes at the central skull. When the skull finally popped and the undead didn’t stop moving, he sighed. He was almost out of mana. Far Strike was a very inefficient ranged attack, but he wasn’t confident his bow would even scratch the thing.

Serenity turned to Katya. “Do we want the core?”

“If we can get it. Why?” Katya didn’t even turn to face him as she kept raining down bolts on the monster.

“Kill the other two heads then. Taking out the core would be easier, but it’d break it.” Serenity tried to find the peaceful state of mind that would help his mana recover faster, but it wasn’t easy in combat, even combat that was effectively without danger.

“So, how did you know all that?” Katya asked while taking a breather from attacking the colossus. “I could have guessed most of it, but not all, and I’ve been here for a while.”

Serenity shrugged. There was an easy answer that was even the truth. “The Final Reaper was a necromancer. You pick up some stuff.”

“Your dad?” Serenity hadn’t expected Raz to comment.

“Not exactly.” He didn’t want to be more specific than that. Fortunately, the others dropped the subject and went back to attacking the boss monster.

Serenity wasn’t the only one to run out of mana while sniping the collapsed bone colossus. It took over an hour to destroy enough of it for it to stop moving. Once it stopped, Serenity walked up to it and looted the core.

It was a small black stone that looked almost like obsidian, about the size of a pea. Serenity suspected that it would make decent jewelry, if wearing it weren’t hazardous to nearly everyone.

Serenity checked his body as he walked to the back of the room. He was correct; he still had some time. The spread of death from the Heart was still above his knees, on his upper legs, and it still hadn’t tried to move into his neck. He wasn’t sure how much time that left, but he guessed there were only hours remaining. Fortunately, this was as far as they’d planned to go.