The Newt and Demon - Book 7 Chapters 55,56,57 (Patreon)

Chapter 55

Kobold Dungeon

The naturally formed tunnels beneath Broken Tusk were expansive. Standing in the open cavern, Theo and Tresk squinted to see the monsters on the far side of the room. Although the alchemist’s eyes adjusted to the dark, it was still difficult. The light coming from the fungus was faint, barely creating the silhouettes of the foul-smelling creatures. He wasn't sure if they had a plan or if they even needed one. However, figuring out where the monsters came from became a sticking point in his mind.

“Do we have a plan?” Tresk asked. Theo could feel her itching to kill some monsters.

“We’ve never really fought alongside one another,” Theo said. “Remember, I use throwing weapons. So I need the right angle on these guys.”

“Yeah, just don’t use the throwing daggers that explode. Poison only, please.”

Although they had little experience fighting alongside each other, it felt as though they didn't need it. Their connection had become strong enough that Theo could feel all her intentions before she acted on them. It was growing to a ridiculous point of synchronicity that transcended even that concept. He thought he could feel things her body and mind would do rather than the things they were doing or had done.

Tresk was the first to move. She jumped through the shadows, appearing behind one of the eight monsters and driving her daggers into it. Theo unleashed a barrage of poisoned daggers from nowhere, drawing them from his inventory and snapping them out with blinding speed. They thumped into the hearts of three targets, but Tresk had already jumped to another kobold. A few more daggers and shadows-jumps later and the entire group hit the floor.

“Well, that was easier than expected,” Tresk said aloud. “You know, if you had a couple of stealth skills, we’d make a mean assassination duo.”

Smiling to himself, Theo turned his gaze to his companion. He drew upon the Tara’hek Union skill and then slipped into the shadows. He borrowed Tresk's ability to both blend into the shadows and jump through them, performing a few quick jumps to prove his point.

"Okay, fancy pants," she said, folding her arms. "Message sent and received."

With the borrowed stealth skills in mind, Theo and Tresk padded down the passages of the cave system. The level they had encountered the first kobolds seemed to be the far reaches of the monsters’ range. As they descended deeper, they found more permanent structures made by the kobolds. Of course, every monster they encountered died through a combination of flying daggers and knives to the back.

Theo snuck to the corner of another passage, poking his head around the side. There was another adjoining passage heading in the opposite direction that he peered down. He stopped to speak with Tresk.

“How are there more of them?” Theo asked, shaking his head. “This looks like more than just a few monsters coming from a dungeon. Or ambient mana.”

“Yeah, so we’re looking at the last option. Migrants from another region. Or some super-dungeon we’re not aware of.”

Massively powerful dungeons are all the rage nowadays. Theo wasn't eager to clear all of the tunnels by hand, but he had to wonder if it would be all that difficult. If he drew on Tresk's power of stealth, and she drew on his raw attributes, they could cut a path through an army of low-level monsters without even being detected. But how long would that take?

“Does it matter?” Tresk asked, sensing Theo’s concerns. “You got somewhere to be?”

Theo smiled to himself. No, he didn't have anywhere to be. There were projects that required his attention, but not today. He had sorted everything out, and everything was fine, so he shouldn't be concerned about finishing this job as quickly as possible. Instead, he focused on the task of clearing out the monsters. At least that might give them some sense of why they were here and whether they posed a larger threat.

Before proceeding on their murder spree, Theo made notes in his administrative interface. He warned the adventurers about attacks in the underground city from the kobolds. If they stirred up the nest, it was possible they would rush forward. However, that depended on how intelligent the monsters were; so far, they seemed to operate at no higher intelligence level than the goblins in the swamps.

“The density of the kobolds is increasing. I have an idea… why don’t we sneak past everything we can, and find the source of these kobolds,” Theo said. “That way, we’re not wasting as much time and we don’t agitate them.”

“As long as I get to stab a few things along the way, I’m game.”

Theo and Tresk worked their way deeper into the cave system, and it was deep. The naturally formed passageways were all sloped, heading down through the rock. At one point, the alchemists' ears popped, indicating exactly how far they had descended, and it just didn't stop. Three hours of sneaking and occasional stabbing later, they finally reached something that was different.

The collection of monsters had grown thicker on the last few floors. Their camps were more elaborate, and some had even excavated into the walls to create small houses. It was behavior the alchemist had never seen from system-generated monsters, and he was worrying. The pair hid in an adjoining passage which opened to a massive cavern with a rushing waterfall on the far side. Above the constant chittering sound the creatures made was the rush of water. Even the scent of the foul creatures was diminished, thanks to the smell of the flowing water.

Even from a great distance, Theo could see what shone beneath the waterfall. The strangely familiar glow, which pulsed like a heartbeat, stood out to him. It was the entrance to a dungeon.

“I see it,” Tresk said. “Let’s check it out.”

The monsters here were at a far higher level than those on the floors above, and at first, Theo hadn't bothered checking them. However, the last few levels had given him a strange sense, so he had started doing it. These creatures ranged between levels 25 and 35, which would normally pose a threat. He figured he could take on quite a few of them in a fight, but what he faced now was like a city. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of monsters roaming around, and it was difficult to make his way through them, even with the shadow-jumping ability.

Water splashed on the duo as they worked their way around the waterfall. To their surprise, the dungeon itself wasn't very well defended. There were the same number of random kobolds mingling here and there. They didn't seem to have enough sense to maintain a tight guard around it. But then again, maybe they didn't believe it could be a threat so far behind enemy lines. The alchemist approached the portal and pressed his hand against the cold surface. A system message appeared.

[Kobold Dungeon]

Level 25 Ascendant Dungeon

Monster Types:

Kobold

Description:

None

Trends:

Power draining for ascendancy.

Level trending down.

Threat Level:

N/A

Theo felt sweat forming on the palms of his hands as he read through the description. It seemed like an innocuous enough description until he leaned heavily on both his experience and intuition. This wasn't a good thing. The level 25 Ascendant Dungeon tag at the top was concerning, but that alone wasn't cause for alarm. It was the first entry under the Trends section that raised his concerns. The only dungeon he had examined that was "Gathering power for ascendancy" was the Cave Dungeon. This one said “Power draining for ascendancy.”

“Ah, crap! Does that mean what I think it means?” Tresk asked.

Theo had already put it together, and Tresk had filled in the gaps. This dungeon had already reached level 100, gaining the flag required by the system to ascend. It was now spending all of its power until it hit level zero. It would ascend, although the alchemist couldn't even guess what that meant. The system had changed, which meant ascending shouldn't be possible. Yet, here it was.

“Bad news all around. Should we stop it?” Theo asked.

“You’re asking the wrong lizard,” Tresk said. “I’m thinking no one alive knows what the hell an ascended dungeon means. Could we even clear it?”

That was actually a good question. Theo couldn’t say if there were only Level 25 and below monsters within. The description said it was level 25, but it also had the ascendancy tag, which meant anything was possible. This was just about as unpredictable as the negative dungeons. Entering it might not even be an option. They also couldn't bring backup since they were far too deep within the cave system.

There were simply too many unknowns to proceed, and the alchemist wasn't sure what he should do.

“We’re going to wait here while I think,” Theo said. He opened his administration interface and made a record of what he had seen.

When Theo realized he couldn't think about the problem properly, he joined Tresk, and they made their way to the outskirts of the area. They targeted isolated groups of kobolds and defeated them, collecting no useful reagents but gaining a fair amount of high-level monster cores. These were always incredibly useful for upgrading the buildings in the city.

Unlike the monsters on the higher level of the caves, these ones seemed to care that their friends were mysteriously dying. Some rushed off to gather in the center of the shanty town, while others circled through the encampments with torches held high. They searched everywhere, trying to find the mysterious source of flying daggers and backstabbing lizards. But, of course, the duo was moving the entire time, avoiding detection by jumping through shadows and striking quickly enough not to be discovered.

“What was that?” Tresk asked.

The ground rumbled beneath Theo's feet. He steadied himself against a wall. The pair was perched on a ledge of rocks high above the cobalt shanty town. He narrowed his eyes, watching through the dim light of the camps as the monsters moved around. They surged forward, heading for the waterfall in the dungeon itself.

“Maybe they’re retreating,” Theo said, tilting his head to either side as though to get a better angle. “Can monsters go back in the dungeon?”

“Maybe? I’ve never seen it happen.”

The way the kobolds moved wasn’t like an army organizing. There was fear in their ranks as monster crushed monster underfoot. It was a level of sapience Theo had never seen with monsters, and it sent a shock through his chest. The water pouring forth from the waterfall shuddered, sputtering and stopping several times. As the curtain peeled back, the alchemist watched the surface of the portal vibrate. A pair of massive hands jutted forth, seeming to peel the dimensional rift apart.

“While this isn’t unexpected, I’m still mad at myself,” Tresk said. “Who could’ve expected a giant kobold to come out of the ascendant portal?”

“Literally everyone in this room,” Theo said, watching as more of the figure emerged. It was ten times larger than a normal kobold, and shouldn’t have fit through the portal. But as more of the monster emerged, the more wrong it seemed. “That ain’t right.”

The monster that came forward wasn’t just a larger version of a kobold. First the arms came, covered in patches of both hair and scales. Then the head came with its long snout and horns twisting upon its forehead. When its forebody came through, it came with the first set of legs. Then the wings and the rear body. Tresk vibrated with excitement as the nature of the monster made itself clear.

“Chimera,” Theo said, gritting his teeth. Whatever ascendant magic flowed through the dungeon had twisted the boss. “That’s some kind of centaur.”

“More like a dragon-kobold-taur!” Tresk shouted into Theo’s mind. “This is the top of the top things I wanna kill!”

Theo let out a heavy sigh, trying not to smile. She’d pick up on that. “Okay. But we need a plan. Oh… Actually, he’s looking straight at us.”

“Whoops!” Tresk shouted. She and Theo dodged to the side at the same time as a massive spear embedded itself into the cave’s wall.

“Guess we’re fighting,” Theo said.

Chapter 56

Mass Bind

The roar emitted by the chimera sent a shockwave through the gathered monsters. Theo watched, holding his laugh back as the creature tore a path through the kobolds. It held no loyalty to them, even while they assembled to tackle the pair threatening the dungeon. Tiny bodies were flung here and there, slamming hard against walls or tumbling into gathering crowds. Tresk released a shrill laugh, pointing and laughing at the boss monsters.

“What a doofus!” she screamed, dipping to the side a moment later as another spear hurtled through the air. “A doofus with pretty good aim.”

Theo chucked a Firebomb to the group below, watching as the flames spread out. Kobolds shouted as they scattered, only spreading the flames to their companions. Tresk chugged a few potions before releasing another scream. Before the alchemist could do anything about it, she dashed through the air, slamming into a group of kobolds.

The way Tresk danced through the group was inspiring. Theo latched onto the sense of danger as he watched her, side-stepping another throwing spear from the chimera. She must have chugged a Dexterity Potion… One infused with the Haste spell. Monster fell by the dozen. The boss couldn’t wade through its companions fast enough and could only watch as its allies were thinned.

Well, if Tresk could do it, so could he. Theo withdrew a Major Dexterity Potion from his inventory. One infused with Elemental Wind. He drank it, feeling his Dexterity shoot up by 40 points. His body buzzed with power as his physical speed scaling shot through the roof. He then drank a Potion of Desperate Attack and smiled to himself.

Theo kicked off the wall, shooting through the air and angling straight for the boss monster. With a dagger in his right hand, he drove it into the back of the boss. Ribbons of magical light formed into blades, slicing into the monster as 60% of the alchemist’s health drained away. He kicked off from the chimera, tossing a barrage of daggers infused with Dragon’s Dance. The field of battle devolved into a churn of magical blades, even as he drank a Retreat Potion then a Healing Potion.

“Not fair!” Tresk shouted as the boss sagged to one side. She slashed at nearby kobolds, attempting to get her kill count up so she wouldn’t fall behind Theo.

Potions were absolutely unfair when applied in the right order.

Although the initial assault wasn’t enough to kill the boss monster outright, that didn’t mean Theo was out of options. After restoring his health and using the retreat potion, which allowed him to slowly fall backward, he tossed a Bind Bomb to keep the boss monster in place. 

Something about the magic of the potion clicked in his mind. He focused hard on it, feeling time slow as another amorous attack came from the boss monster. It was a strange sensation he couldn’t quite place, but the longer he focused on it, the more he realized what it was. He shifted his body to the side, narrowly avoiding a spike that flew out from the chimera’s wing. Then he focused, feeling something burgeoning in his soul and begging for release.

Magic flowed from Theo’s chest. Dark bands of magic sprung forth from the ground, covering the entire room. The kobolds were wrapped in that darkness—just like the Bind Bomb worked—and held them there. The alchemist’s eyes went wide as a system message appeared.

[Spell Cast Successful]

You have successfully cast [Mass Bind].

532 targets affected.

182 targets resisted.

Tresk wasted no time taking advantage of the spell, although some monsters had resisted it. The boss was already wrapped up in the potion’s effects. The marshaling dashed between the creatures, moving at an impossible speed as she sliced a swath through the hundreds. Theo continued tossing daggers and bombs down at the crowd. It became a confusing scene of evaporating magic and flying kobolds.

Neither member of the party could tell when the boss monster fell. The combat had turned so chaotic that they didn’t even notice. Theo was surprised at how much fun he was having, using his overpowered potions to defeat many of the monsters. He fell into that kind of bloodlust Tresk always talked about. He only took comfort in the fact that they weren’t real creatures; they didn’t have sentience and were made of magic. No blood came when they were split in half. They simply evaporated into wisps of magic if their bodies were so destroyed.

Theo stood on the ground, looking around and heaving breaths. He was bowled over as Tresk jumped and wrapped him in a hug. She was squealing with excitement, shrieking in his face about how cool their fight was.

“We need to do that every single day,” she screamed, shaking him by the shoulders.

Theo allowed himself to be jostled, his head hitting against the hard stone, but a smile plastered his face. When he had first arrived in this world, he had thought of doing anything but fighting. However, this wasn’t a struggle. This was a one-sided fight where they could let loose and have fun. Most of all, it was extremely satisfying to see his potions in action. He had a score of them in his bag that he hadn’t even thought to use. After spending so long being the provider of potions, it was impossible for his brain to wrap around the concept of personal use.

“That was fun,” Theo said. “And I think I accidentally created a new spell.”

“Yeah, Mass Bind,” Tresk said, finally removing herself from the alchemist and standing. She dusted herself off, as her leather armor was singed in some places.

“Maybe it was the excitement of the fight, but I was solely focused on the magical effect of the Bind Bomb. I had been thinking about turning my form of magic into large-scale magic. Perhaps those two things came together to help me create the spell.”

“I could feel that,” Tresk said, nodding along. “Both your desire to create the new type of magic and your Mage’s Core responded. It’s as if they are singing together in harmony.”

That was an oddly eloquent way to put it. Theo nodded to himself, rolling it over in his head. He could remember the sensation of the spell forming in his soul. It wasn’t the structured thing he had become accustomed to, not through dronon magic or the standard type of magic taught to him by Xol’sa. It was something in-between both of those things, coming in as both a song and a structured series of inputs. A bridge between words and runs he couldn’t explain.

Tresk’s attention turned away from the battlefield. She looted the boss monster and shrugged. “Some weird Level 1 sword. Yeah, this boss was all messed up.”

“Makes you wonder what’s inside the dungeon,” Theo said. He felt the familiar sense of danger and his attention was drawn down a nearby tunnel. “Well, decision time. Dungeon or returning to the surface?”

“How many potions do you have left?” Tresk asked.

Theo gave her a concerned look. He had a lot of potions in his inventory, and even a decent stock in their shared inventory. It was obvious Tresk was eager to do more fighting with him, so he weighed his options. They had just put in the effort to clear the cave. Leading a group of adventurers down here would be a pain, and clearing the dungeon might be even harder. But wasn’t Elrin still in the area? Even if he wasn’t, that dude could teleport.

Theo withdrew the communication crystal from his inventory, squeezing it tightly. To his surprise, he answered right away.

“What is it?” Elrin asked.

“Are you free? Can you get underground quickly? I’ve got an ascendant dungeon I need help dealing with.”

There were a few long moments of silence. “The ascendant dungeons must be destroyed. All of them. Where are you exactly?”

Theo explained where he was, and Elrin somehow understood where it was. By the time he hung up, the kobolds were storming down the passages. Tresk was vibrating with excitement again.

“A last stand,” Tresk said, visibly shaking. “Oh, this is so good. Let’s go!”

Before Theo could say anything, she had dashed down the path and was fighting more kobolds. The alchemist released another sigh and joined her, taking it as a chance to cast his new spell again. It didn’t come so easily to him, though. And the spell wasn’t in his interface. No matter how much he focused on the sensation he remembered from the spell, he couldn’t bring it back.

Oh, well. Nothing a few hundred bombs couldn’t replicate.

They didn’t need to fight for long. Of all things to come down the tunnel, Theo didn’t expect an eagle. It was massive, about the height of a marshling, and came soaring in over the tides of kobolds. A moment later, the eagle poofed and Elrin appeared in his dark armor and massive halberd. He landed, turned, blew a whistle, and then a menagerie of creatures thundered toward the monsters. Those kobolds were torn apart by the onslaught of animals.

“Well, that works… I guess,” Tresk grumbled, folding her arms as she watched Elrin’s beasts do their work.

Elrin’s eyes were locked onto the dungeon in the distance, disdain painting his face. “Are you two joining me into the dungeon?”

“If you don’t mind,” Theo said. “I’d like to see this thing through to the end. And it seems to me like you know what an ascendant dungeon is. Don’t you?”

“I’ve dealt with them in the past,” Elrin said. “The dungeons themselves become sapient. They can even forge contracts with the system or the gods. The result of that in my time was disaster.”

“What does a sapient dungeon even do?” Tresk asked.

“Depends on what they want to do. Worst of all, they can move and think. That alone is enough for concern. But I’m certain the rules for ascendant dungeons now are different than my system,” Elrin said. “We had many differences, so I can’t speculate. All I know is they’re dangerous, and each should be put down. Tell me, local, how far does this underground area span?”

“Me?” Tresk asked, pointing to herself. “Gawsh, way to boil me down to being a weird towny… We don’t know how far the underground area goes. I’ve heard the dwarves talk about them, and they claim them to be expansive.”

“That’s concerning. If dungeons can spawn underground, my search above ground will be a challenge,” Elrin said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the dungeon in the distance. “If that underground area is large, I’m in even more trouble. I don’t suppose you two could lend a hand, could you?”

“How?” Theo asked. “We both have responsibilities to the Southlands Alliance.”

“Perhaps there’s another way you could help me,” Elrin said. “I’ve been talking with Death, and we’re working together. No, I don’t enjoy it. But enough has changed that I can overlook what he did in favor of a brighter future. If he agrees to give some of my people back, they could help with the search.”

“You want to make a deal with Death?” Tresk asked, scoffing. “That sounds smart.”

Elrin withdrew something from his bag. Theo realized it was a round from a post-modern looking rifle. Something that used gunpowder to send a bullet zipping forward. Only this one was covered in an intricate layer of sigils and arrays almost too small to see. When the alchemist attempted to inspect it, the system simply tossed him an error.

“This is my last resort,” Elrin said. “Something I promised I’d never use. This is the one item that saved Earth back in the day. The item that drew the attention of the Watcher.”

“Well, hot damn!” Tresk shouted, clapping her hands. “Does that thing kill a god?”

“It can seal one,” Elrin said. “Sometimes. The chance isn’t high, but it’s enough to make non-corporeal entities fear the shot. Enough to get them to comply.”

“You’re going to threaten Death? After all the progress we made with him?” Theo asked, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

“No threats. This is a reminder of an agreement we had back in the day,” Elrin said. “A reminder that we stopped the killing when the world burned around us.”

That was grim, but Theo didn’t know if he could stop Elrin if he wanted. The alchemist’s abilities had grown a lot, but not that much. This dude was scary.

“However you want to play it,” Theo said. “You understand this guy more than I do, so I’ll leave it to you.”

Elrin shrugged. “Back to the dungeons. We won’t have much of a world to come back to if the ascendant dungeons aren’t taken care of. Who knows what kind of magic they could wield. I’d rather destroy as many as I can.”

“I know one thing,” Tresk said. “I’m itching to stab more monsters. Let’s go!”

Chapter 57

New Mushrooms

Theo wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to this sensation of entering a dungeon. He pressed his hand against the surface of the portal and felt himself being drawn through. It was a sensation not dissimilar to dropping into the void or using the portal back in Broken Tusk. Upon entering the dungeon, he was unsurprised to see a landscape similar to the one he had just been standing in. A large cavern sprawled out before him, featuring the same type of rock as before. However, this time, the glowing fungus was abundant, illuminating the entire area with ease.

“Finally, I can see,” Tresk said, huffing a breath as she entered behind him. Elrin came in shortly after, followed by the massive tiger.

The creature didn’t waste a second, dashing off down a tunnel without making a sound.

“As expected, the monsters here are high level,” Elrin said. “Around level 100.”

“Oh, that’s not disconcerting or anything,” Theo said. “Well, I’m glad we called you.”

“Indeed, you would have likely died,” Elrin said. “Just stay behind me and lend support when you can. I’ll be taking it slow, since these dungeons can hold many surprises.”

Theo was happy with whatever the man wanted to do. He knew enough not to question when someone provided help like this. Maybe Fenian could have come and taken care of the dungeon, but Elrin was the perfect man for the job. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he knew little about his level or even his class.

“What level are you?” Tresk blurted out. She must have sensed what Theo was thinking and took it upon herself to ask.

Elrin tried and failed to hide the smile on his face as he walked forward. Eventually, he pulled up his hood. “I’m pretty high,” he said. “The system for my world differed from this one, so when I accepted the change, it adapted what I already had and gave me a few bonus levels, I guess.”

“Yet you didn’t answer the question… Curious!” Tresk said.

Elrin led the way down the passage, his gaze shifting from side to side as he searched for threats. “Back in my world, I could absorb the power of dungeons, which gave me more attributes than I should have. When I came to this world, the system took note of that and assigned me the appropriate level. I’m level 782.”

“Damn, boy!” Tresk said. “Save some for the rest of us.”

Elrin actually laughed. “It’s not that impressive; just a lot of hard work. The way your system works makes it very hard to gain levels infinitely.”

“The key is to take a specialization skill for your cores. That’ll allow you to use two cores as your main cores,” Theo said. “You won’t need to level a billion other cores to get to the higher levels.”

“That wasn’t an option for me,” Elrin said. “I didn’t see it, anyway.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re getting any levels until the reset,” Tresk said. “The trick Theo is talking about only works for aligned cores. I think.”

“Disappointing, but not unexpected,” Elrin said. “From what I understand, everyone should be reset to Level 1 when the change happens.”

“We’re uncertain about that one,” Theo said. “I have a theory about it: we will be placed on different worlds to start. Those of us who have Thrones of Power will likely begin on our respective worlds, although Tresk and I are unsure. Our bond is unique.”

“Reminds me of the bond I have with Trevor.”

“Yeah, right. Our bond is super special and weird,” Tresk said. “We made an entire planet with it.”

Elrin stopped walking, turning to nod. “That is a powerful bond.”

It was strange talking to Elrin as though he were a normal guy. Since the moment he had arrived, he had been cagey with information and often vanished without a word. He must have had a deep interest in destroying these Ascendant Dungeons. They walked in silence for some time before Theo realized the tiger was ahead, killing kobolds before them. If the man’s pet was as strong as or stronger than him. That was concerning. Exactly how powerful had this guy become before the other worlds had been reset?

“Want to see something cool?” Elrin asked.

“Duh!”

Smiling to himself, Elrin reached for his side, shaking his head a moment later. “The system gave me an inventory to replace my old bags. Still getting used to that…”

Elrin held out his hand, and a gun appeared. It was about his height and had, of all things, a suppressor on the end of it. The weapon was primitive by Theo’s standards, but it felt more advanced than anything a person in a fantasy-themed world could create.

“The visitors from Earth helped me with this,” Elrin said, flashing a devious smile. He pressed his thumb into a lever in the middle of the weapon and it cracked in half. He then slid a hand-length round into the chamber and snapped it closed.

“That’s a lovely sound,” Tresk said, sighing with contentment.

Elrin padded ahead, sticking closer to the edges of the cave’s wall. His tiger came back eventually, entering a similarly ineffectual sneaking pose. The group came to a corner and poked their head around the side. A group of the foul-smelling creatures waited there, all milling around as they awaited their death. As promised, they were between Level 95 and 100.

Not only were the kobolds a higher level, but they were more advanced gear. Some wore armor that glittered with magic. Their weapons were well taken care of. One even held a staff topped with a glowing magical gem.

“Watch this,” Elrin said, his smile widening as he looked down the sights of his rifle. His body shimmered with energy, the tip of his weapon bursting into magical fire. When he pulled the trigger, it made almost no sound, but threw him back a few feet.

The shot traveled through the air in a blink. It punctured through the armor of the first creature and kept going, leaving behind a trail that tracked a cross-cross pattern through the room. A blink later, and all five kobolds in the room fell over dead. Elrin turned, giving the thumbs-up and smiling.

“Well, that’s a fancy move,” Theo said, craning his neck to ensure all the monsters were dead.

“One of my favorite abilities. Glad the system didn’t take it,” he said, cracking the rifle in half again and replacing the round. “Yet firing that thing still takes 500 health away. I could never fix it, which made it a less-than-favorable weapon.”

“Maybe we could make you a railgun instead,” Theo said, scratching his chin. He noticed the look of confusion on Elrin’s face. “Instead of using gunpowder to accelerate a projectile, we use magic… Kinda.”

“Yeah, just think of it like this: thing go fast,” Tresk said.

“I’m interested.”

Clearing through the dungeon was a breeze with Elrin. Theo didn’t realize exactly how easy it was going to be with him and the tiger coming along when they had started.  While he cleared the dungeon, the alchemist concerned himself with a few reagents he had spotted along the way. Tresk had always been his eyes within dungeons, collecting reagents where she could find them. But she had never been in a Kobold Dungeon, and there were a few interesting mushrooms.

All the glowing fungus that clung to the walls was not alchemically reactive. But nestled between the various rocks was a kind of mushroom growing in wet bunches. The base of it was gray with spots of brown here and there. As Elrin cleared another group of kobolds, he cut a sample free and held it up for inspection. As expected, the properties weren’t revealed so he used his Reagent Deconstruction skill before inspecting it again.

[Lizard Beard Mushroom]

[Alchemy Ingredient]

Epic

Do lizards have beards? Does it matter? I named this mushroom. Deal with it.

Properties:

[Scales] [Tails] [Frail]

Theo snorted a laugh. “Why do they all rhyme?”

Not only did the properties rhyme, but the description had been created by a Loremaster. A grumpy Loremaster at that. They had named the reagent and given no context to what it did. Which was pretty annoying, but that was their right. He had a feeling the Tails property would actually give someone a tail. The Frail property would likely make a good poison, and Scales would be a defensive property. The Scales property reminded him of Carapace, which covered a person in chitinous shells. That effect was cumbersome, but effective.

“I never had a knack for that,” Elrin said, coming alongside Theo to inspect the mushroom. “The old alchemy system was different, though.”

“It’s not that hard,” Theo said, moving from the first cluster of mushrooms to another. This one seemed harder, as though the gray-brown cap itself was a stone. “There’s a lot of class-specific stuff that helps me. I guess you get to a point where you see a mushroom and just know it is alchemically reactive, but the system helps a lot.”

This time, Theo deconstructed the reagent without inspecting it. It revealed the first three properties, but refused to help with the fourth. That had been a trend lately, and he didn’t know what it meant.

“What did you do there?” Elrin asked.

“Broke the reagent into its base parts so I can see what kind of effects it has,” Theo said. “You’re left with this dust, which is Primal Essence. The most pure form of an essence I can currently make. Problem is, it doesn’t interact like it should so it often needs reprocessing.”

“Sounds complicated. My old system started by picking a recipe from a list. As I climbed the levels, it got more complex until I was just doing everything by hand. This system seems like a blend,” Elrin said. “Not sure which I like more.”

Theo nodded along, grabbing another sample of the mushroom and inspecting it.

[Ironcap Mushroom]

[Alchemy Ingredient]

Rare

A hard-topped mushroom that grows in the deep places of the world. The cap is said to grow large and hard enough to provide a shield for the deep-dwelling diminutive races of the world.

Properties:

[Ironskin] [Defense] [Quench]

Defense was a repeat from before. It was a useful property, but Theo didn’t need another source of that. But Ironskin was likely a better version of Barkskin, which the alchemist was excited about. Quench was a weird one that he couldn’t get a sense for. It felt like a property that would affect an item on the surface, but that feeling wasn’t strong. He couldn’t tell until he brewed it into a potion. The good thing was there were plenty of both types of mushroom scattered around the area.

“I’ve got plenty of Dragon Talon Mushrooms,” Theo said, gesturing to a group of the spiky mushrooms. “Seriously. I’m disappointed we aren’t seeing any extremely rare reagents.”

“Does the magical density of an area determine the quality of reagent?” Elrin asked.

“It directly affects both quality and type,” Theo said. He explained the problem they ran into with having low-quality reagents screwing up the new system brought by Tero’gal’s alchemy. “But the one thing I haven’t studied well is how dungeons affect reagent growth.”

“That’s why you should run more ascendant dungeons with me,” Elrin said. “I’m sure you could figure it out after a few.”

Theo nodded, following along with Elrin as they headed down more passages. The alchemist hadn’t really run a normal dungeon. He always ended up in these weird dungeons, and felt as though he would always be denied the authentic experience. Although this was an ascendant dungeon, it seemed mostly normal.

Keeping track of time in the dungeon was hard. They descended several floors and Tresk even got in on the action along the way. She stuck to the shadows, applying crippling poisons to monsters to aid Elrin in the fights. He hardly seemed to need the help, though. Each room was easy for him to clear, and he wasn’t even breaking a sweat by the time they approached what felt like the last room.

“We have a boss up ahead,” Elrin said, crouching and slinking toward the corner of a room. He clicked his tongue. “This might be a problem.”

Theo drew closer to the corner, his brows furrowing as he set eyes on the monster. It was another creature like the one that had emerged from the dungeon’s portal. Another kobold-dragon-centaur thing that shambled around a massive arena. This one seemed in worse shape compared to the first one. It had trouble walking with one of its four feet, and the wing on its left side seemed broken. But its face was twisted into a snarl as it searched the room, its head tilting up as it sniffed the air.

“Chimeras are annoying,” Elrin said, preparing his weapon. “Get ready for some weird stuff. I’ll shout if I need any help.”

“There goes my hero,” Tresk said with a sigh.

“Thought you hated that guy,” Theo said.

“Just a friendly rivalry. I respect anyone who can cut monsters in half, and boy howdy can that guy cut monsters in half.”