Caesar didn’t know what rewards he’d get for clearing this location. But he did know he had no choice. To outcompete his opponents, he’d need to rank up as well. The others being from noble houses presumably gave them access to their necessary catalyst for easy progression. Thus, it was safe to assume they’d all be rank two the next time they met. While he could consume the purple grape himself, he preferred something safer.

He crept up the hill slowly, keeping his eyes trained on the silhouette. The trees provided cover and no spells flew his way. He resummoned his Ever-Shifting Faces to his location and had it scout for any threats. Three smiles signaled him to continue.

Caesar spotted a few soldiers patrolling the area and killed them. Once his trees disappeared, he rushed up the hill. Three spikes shot out in succession which he dodged. The lance came again. It grazed him, but the barrier stayed. With the mages distracted, the hippo came forward and roared.

More dark magic shot towards him and his hippo, but they either dodged or deflected it. The behemoth’s Darkness Bolt resembled the three spikes in power. He deduced his enemies to be three skeleton mages at rank one and the fourth at rank two, all skilled in necromancy. But the enemies he had faced earlier warned him of skeleton mage captains – a Rare monster.

Caesar stepped up the incline and neared the base of the building. Now he could see the windows of the three-storied posthouse, and wooden structures to his right. On the balconies above stood a group of four skeleton mages wearing black robes. He dashed to the other side of the wall, near the stables, as four Darkness Bolts crashed down behind him.

A skeletal warhorse charged out of the fog, and into the wall thanks to a Mind Spike. Stunned, it made for easy pickings. Caesar took the chance to resummon his tomb hippo before it took more damage.

Two more skeletal warhorses confronted his group only to die accomplishing nothing. Another warhorse appeared from the mists and bared its teeth. Five more followed behind it.

Spectral Warhorse – Rank 2

[Rarity]: Uncommon

The leader burst into pale, ghostly flames, searing the ground underneath with burning prints as the herd of horses attacked. His monstrous duo worked together to smash two into pieces, while one missed the behemoth and fell, twitching, right into his bludgeoning strikes. The other three swarmed the hippo with furious blows.

Caesar looked up and saw two skeletal skulls poke their heads out the windows to begin casting. Bones rattled. Horses shrieked. A scream drowned out all other noises and gave him a weird sense of calm in the midst of panic. He focused on the only thing that posed a threat to his party: the mage captain. He rushed back to the front door and resummoned his hippo.

“Break down this door.”

The stench of rotten flesh and miasmic smoke assailed his senses, making him retch. Caesar blinked tears away to look at the four shambling undead in the room. Covered in pustules and rippling flabs, the Bloated Corpses stumbled their way to the hippo and trembled. He quickly marked one of them as they burst into viscera and necromantic energies, tearing apart the shield.

Bloated Corpse: Uncommon

Level 7: 7 Free Stat Points -> 0 Free Stat Points

Ability: Self-Detonation (B)

Strength: 9 -> 11

Agility: 2

Vitality: 10 -> 11

Magic: 16 -> 20

Willpower: 1

Spirit: 1

[Self-Detonation (B)]: An ability that allows the user to overload themselves with magic, exploding violently for necromantic damage based on the Magic stat.

Nice. Caesar noted how his mark worked on enemies with suicidal abilities, even though he hadn’t touched them. This almost confirmed Presence as a stat that damaged Horror-type monsters, but not as explicitly as a suicide ability. He expected his mark to also fail if an enemy cast Fireball on itself, for example.

After some waiting, the room cleared up. Caesar walked in and looked around, discovering five closed doors and a staircase leading upward. He opened a door and dashed away, leaving his hippo to deal with whatever lay inside – nothing. He frowned. Was this place a dud?

All five doors were empty. He sent his Ever-Shifting Faces up first to test the waters. A scream immediately rang out.

Caesar rushed up the stairs and resummoned his hippo with haste. Three ghouls rose from their positions on the floor, still gnawing on flesh and bone. Twelve zombies lay scattered around the room in various states of lethargy. None of them had any ears. He only had time to confirm one of the ghouls as rank two Uncommon before the battle began.

They lunged at the behemoth, claws tipped with elemental lights. Red hot gashes tore into the beast’s bony hide. White cold slashes targeted its limbs. The third ghoul, equipped with brownish energy and bulging muscles, pierced its claws into the head. The hippo heaved its body forward, roaring. It smashed into the wall. Worried the building might fall, Caesar focused on the ghouls and hoped Mind Scream would delay the zombies from helping.

The monsters targeted the loudest and most threatening beast in the room. He had free reign to maneuver around the zombies and scattered debris, spearing the rank two ghoul hanging onto the hippo as they crashed into another wall near his path. Its grip slipped. Caesar lunged forward and sliced a shoulder off. It scrabbled on the floor, frantic, to try and run away from the massive beast. It failed.

Only four zombies remained, the rest trampled or minds spiked. They wouldn’t do much with their insignificant bulk and rank. The weaker ghouls gawked at his party, jaws gaping in hunger but fearful of their might. Clearly, these undead beings were a cut above in intelligence compared to the rest.

As the behemoth recovered from its injuries, it bellowed in triumph. Rage clouded the ghouls’ eyes again and they rushed forward. Claws swiped, unceasing in their fury. But they found no purchase against the hippo’s bulk and were pushed back again and again. With no melee skills to speak of, the tantrum stopped once Caesar grew bored.

Fifteen pulped corpses slumped on the floor. Blood seeped through the flooring and dripped below. The party had descended to think about their next action. It did not slip Caesar’s notice that there were only three ghouls in that fight when he had expected four. All other enemy packs had operated in groups of four, so, why had this changed? The only feasible explanation was that it went upstairs. Thus, two Rare monsters awaited him on the third floor.

Not wanting to jump into a possible trap unprepared, Caesar wracked his brain for solutions. He needed rank two strength to be safer. It might have been a stretch, but he came up with something by following the dungeon’s pattern: a fourth floor. He looked closer at the floorboards.

Nothing suspicious appeared, even with all the blood highlighting differences in the woodwork. He turned to the staircase instead, running his fingers along the wood. A small rectangular ridge extended downward, touching the floor. Caesar stooped down and tried to find an opening. With no results, he ordered his hippo to blast it open.

Chunks of wood blew apart, falling into the dark passageway below. A pitch-black pit lay before his eyes. The Ever-Shifting Faces floated down and scouted ahead, nodding at him to proceed. He crawled through the opening and jumped, letting his barrier absorb the landing. Behind him lay a tunnel, winding upward.

Placing his hand onto the head of faces, he followed it down a corridor. It guided him through winding halls, the height growing smaller, forcing him to crawl again. Turns and zigzags inserted themselves into the maze ahead.

The duo stopped. Ahead of them, a room many times larger than the floors above, dimly lit with dull red candlelight, exuded an aura of danger. In the darkness he glimpsed a wriggling mass of scarred flesh and flailing limbs. Caesar paused. Wary of his options, he sat and stared. He could either abandon this place and head for the main boss, losing all the loot here but ensuring his safety. Or he could confront the unknown monster below and win it all. His parents’ words flashed in his mind.

Caesar eased himself over the edge, ready to fall. He replaced his Ever-Shifting Faces with the Skeleton Mage, testing his summoning range. Success. Reassured, he joined his party below and dropped all bags onto the floor. He looked back up. Too high. Even standing on his hippo and jumping would not let him return. The only way back was to kill.

Skeleton Mage

3 Free Stat Points -> 0 Free Stat Points

Magic: 18 -> 19

Spirit: 9 -> 11

An empowered fireball drew a radiant path through the room, illuminating the horrible monster. Like a fleshy tree, it stood tall in the room and crawled with rootlike arms. Limbs of all shapes and sizes protruded from it, swiping the air erratically. Three faces jutted out, each with an eye dull and murky, while the other glowed red. A shell of bone grew out in patches over its skin.

The monster wheezed and heaved itself toward the flame. It continued its motions as if it felt nothing.

Undead Abomination – Rank 2

[Rarity]: Rare

Black spikes and fiery balls shot forward. It did not stop. But its speed made it look pathetic. Caesar’s party roamed around the room while attacking. He held a small torch in his hand, trying to see anything else in the dark. The last thing he needed was for something to jump out. Unfortunately, something did.

Six two-headed zombies staggered toward Caesar, who deflected them with his spear and let his hippo tear them apart. But this endangered his party. Amorphous energy gathered near one of the abomination’s faces and lanced toward the hippo. The burst of lightning exploded midair, shocking the party, shattering their barriers, and electrocuting the behemoth. Two more balls formed in the other two mouths, but one fizzled out. The other curved downward and exploded into a shower of ice.

Tricky. Caesar unsummoned his hippo and replaced his skeleton mage with the Ever-Shifting Faces. The duo tore into zombie groups around the room like a knife through butter. These chimeras posed no threat to his speed. Each had a glaring flaw and no active abilities. He exploited them ruthlessly until a rank two appeared.

Zombie Lion-bear – Rank 2

[Rarity]: Uncommon

Shaggy fur covered every part of its body, especially around its neck. Blind and faceless, it batted its paws at him who barely dodged. Flashes of stone shimmered around the beast, likely a shield of some sort. He summoned his Tomb Hippo to kill it and continued hunting zombies.

The abomination became indecisive, zigzagging toward Caesar at one moment then to the hippo in another. He engaged another rank two monster, a Failed Undead Abomination that had no active powers and was much smaller. A common monster, its slow movements and easily attacked weaknesses made it easy for him to cut it down. The two groups cleared away the remaining zombies and met up at the opposite end of the entrance.

[Notice]: Congratulations! You have leveled up to Level 19! +2 Free Stat Points

[Notice]: Congratulations! Your Ever-Shifting Faces has leveled up to Level 18! +2 Free Stat Points

[Notice]: Congratulations! Your Tomb Hippopotamus has leveled up to Level 19! +2 Free Stat Points

He increased his hippo’s Magic by one point, to nineteen, and saved the rest for after the rank-up. The Ever-Shifting Faces hovered near the abomination, harassing it to no effect. The thing had no mind. Caesar replaced it with his skeleton mage and repositioned himself elsewhere with his tomb hippo. The two monsters bombarded the Undead Abomination with spells.

Spellfire wore the monster down until it could no longer move. His summons practiced weaving in their shots in between discordant bolts and the abomination’s limbs, hitting the heads across great distances. After leading it around the room thrice, most of its arms and legs had fallen off. The abomination toppled to the ground, causing an earthquake. It still twitched – Caesar let his hippo finish it off while he watched the entrance.

[Notice]: Congratulations! You have leveled up to Level 20! +2 Free Stat Points

[Notice]: Congratulations! Your Skeleton Mage has leveled up to Level 20! +2 Free Stat Points

[Notice]: Congratulations! Your Tomb Hippopotamus has leveled up to Level 20! +2 Free Stat Points