Chapter 113: Alone in the Dark 3

POV Eliza

After the informative, sometimes frightening, but very strategic conversation with Luna, I left the cave and continued on towards Lightburgh. It was currently morning and it would take me until evening to get anywhere near the town. As the city gates were already closed and I didn't know what the situation was with Master Freyna, I stayed outside the city to be on the safe side. But I had to cross the river to get to the dungeon and as I still couldn't swim, I needed a boat. I knew that there was a spell for waterwalking, but I didn't know how to use it because my water magic wasn't good enough. However, the spell was very useful, so I should be able to use it by the time I got to the sea.

I went to the riverbank and looked for a boat. At dusk, I saw a boat approaching from the other bank. It moored near the sewers. Two people got out of the boat and then disappeared into one of the canals. I waited a bit and ran to the boat. Whoever had used it before deserved my heartfelt thanks. I could make good use of the boat right now. I got into the boat and rowed to the other bank. There I left the boat and walked to the suburb on this side of the river. Here I chose a lodging for the night.

The next morning I stocked up on food and traveled northwest. After three days, I arrived near the church's army camp and changed my route to the forest. I went around the camp again and approached it from the southwest. Here I built a small shelter, as I had done on my last visit. I didn't plan to use it, but it kept me busy.

I waited until an hour after midnight and when the camp had long since quieted down, I crept up to the entrance of the dungeon. I got there easily as the guards were not very attentive and I approached from the far side.

As usual, it was dark in the dungeon, but I quickly got used to the lack of light again. With my sense skills, I was able to move through the corridors without turning on a light. What Luna had told me was now coming true. In addition to Sense Presence, my new Sense Life skill wasn't reacting either. I had to rely on the other two skills. I moved swiftly through the first two floors 11 and 12 and only fought when necessary. Skeletons were still the enemies I had the most problems against with my daggers. My aim was to quickly reach floors 13 and beyond.

At the end of floor 12, I went for my first rest. After a good night's sleep, I started fighting the zombies. I had no problems with the wights either and then I was already facing the third boss fight. I was optimistic and entered the room after a little preparation. Fortunately, the boss wasn't a skeleton, otherwise it would have taken longer. I was past level 40 and had always been cautious unfortunately. But slowly my second nature as a battle junkie took over and I threw myself into the melee without much hesitation. Only about 10 minutes later, the last skeleton lay on the ground and disappeared. That was surprisingly easy.

I found something very interesting in the chest, a spell book. It contained some spells for curse magic. Possession of it was definitely forbidden, so I couldn't sell it. But I couldn't use it either, because I didn't have the necessary magic. I also didn't know any teachers, so I could only pack the book away for the time being. It was too useful to abandon it.

I had to think about what to choose for the stele. It was still only possible to upgrade to advanced, so I either saved the developement point or used my EXP to increase one of my new skills. I opted for a skill that I otherwise wouldn't have known how to increase at all: Mana Steal. Life Steal was also interesting, but I had to choose one and I knew from Luna that I probably wouldn't get any further than advanced with Life Steal. The only other interesting alternative was Shadow Magic, but I could turn to Master Freyna for that.

I then moved on to the enhanced ghosts, the Shades. They used two spells. One gave the status: Confused, medium. I couldn't find out what the second spell could do. It didn't seem to work on me or they didn't cast it, which I doubted. But after a while I realized that I was being enchanted more often without it having any effect on me. I only noticed the first spell at the beginning, because after that my Mind Resistance increased to a level where the spell no longer had any effect on me. This turned out to be my luck, as they still had no physical attack and couldn't hurt me. I ignored the ghosts again and set up camp at the end of the floor with two nocturnal companions. I had built up nerves of steel to be able to sleep here.

Then came the Lichs, and with them the first more difficult opponents. The spells they used were no longer basic spells, but advanced spells. The next strongest attack spells after the elemental bolts, the elemental spears, flew at me. The six spells dealt different amounts of damage. The reason was the elemental-dependent secondary effect. Fire caused additional damage to clothing, water made you wet and created puddles on the ground on which you could slip. Earth could damage armor, while air could throw you off balance. Ice slowed you down, while lightning caused additional damage to metal armor. Of all the additional effects, ice and air were the most dangerous for me, followed by water. The other three were less dangerous as I was only wearing light leather. Nevertheless, I was taking more damage than I would have liked and I had to take frequent breaks to regenerate.

That's why my progress on this level was slower than on the previous ones. I therefore decided to stop fighting all the battles after a while and then descend further. The mummies were an easier opponent again. Slow melee fighters were easy for me, so I made faster progress here again. Unfortunately, undead had no weak points, so I couldn't achieve any effect with targeted attacks. I actually had to beat all my opponents down to 0 HP because they weren't bleeding. Nevertheless, I went into another battle frenzy and only rested when I was out of breath. Inwardly satisfied, I lay down to rest in an empty corner that day.

After the lone mummies came floor 20, where I encountered mummies and liches at the same time. The Lichs were still difficult, but since half of the monsters were Mummies, they were only half as difficult. Still, I had to be careful not to get too close to the mummies while fighting the liches. Every blow from the mummies hurt a lot. I managed this level well and then stood in front of the fourth boss room. I was curious to see what awaited me here as a reward.

I cast my support spells: Haste and Agility Enhancement. In winter I was finally able to bring Air Magic to advanced and thus had access to the better support spells. I had made ample use of them in the previous floors. I got restless and entered the room. The boss was a lich, a challenging opponent. I just had to make sure that the boss's spells didn't hit me. As always, the room was lit up and that made the fight easier, even though I was getting used to the darkness. I took care of the rest of the enemies first and was always on the move. Nevertheless, it took me almost an hour to finally defeat the boss. I breathed heavily. Without the extra Stamina from my second class, it would have been more difficult as I would have needed breaks.

A chest and a stele appeared. I was most interested in the stele, so I went there first. I was curious to see which skills I could increase, as I already had most of them on advanced. There weren't many left. In addition to Life Steal, Dark Magic and Shadow Magic, I was particularly interested in Light Resistance. Light Resistance wasn't relevant for me at the moment, but it had a potentially important side effect. It reduced the effect of my Sunlight Weakness, middle. At the moment, I felt a tingling sensation when the sun shone on my bare skin resulting in sun burns. And it was only winter. I was a little worried about what it would be like in summer. That's why I chose Light Resistance, even though it cost me almost 10,000 EXP, but it could be vital.

The only interesting thing I found in the chest was a better dagger, which I could put to good use. I was able to sell the rest. I took the opportunity to realize that I hadn't collected any magic stones yet. I had completely forgotten about them. I looked around and collected the ones that remained after the battle. The one from the boss was particularly large. I could make more money with it than with the stuff from the chest. Although the zombies and wights also left behind weapons and armor, they were of inferior quality and therefore worth nothing.

In the remaining days until the return journey to Lightburgh, I continued to fight my way through the next floors. The skeletons were ignored and the zombies were still good EXP suppliers, as were the wights. The zombies and wights weren't the problem, it was the skeletons. They were now wearing leather armor and helmets, as well as other armor pieces, and their weaponry included swords and spears, as well as axes. Because of the armor, I could hardly hit them and did even less damage than I already did. That's why I had to resort to magic. Unfortunately, they already had noticeably higher HP than the skeletons before and I had to invest several spells in each skeleton. Although I had significantly more MP thanks to my second class and the fact that the acolyte was a caster class, it wasn't worth the effort. So I ran past them and descended to the zombies as quickly as possible.

In total, I spent about 2 weeks in the dungeon and then traveled back to the capital.