Then he saw some writing on the wall beside the depression.
Complete the hidden spherical figure.
In order to secure your departure.
|
Smoke craned his neck closer to the wall to read what was written on it. He raised both hands and shouted after he read the phrase for the tenth time. He still had no idea what the phrase meant.
He thought harder and decided that there was a globe-like figure hidden somewhere inside the sealed chamber. He knelt down and had Igniz light the area where he was searching at.
Smoke tried to move every damp brick on the entire floor, but nothing was moveable. It had been two hours since he started his search. The DarkElf reached the opposite side of the room empty handed.
He was certain that the figure was hidden in plain sight. He thought he needed a better view of the chamber.
"Igniz, can you fly to the center of the ceiling, and light the room from there?"
The dark ember sprite flew up quickly. When he reached the middle of the room he launched his brightest light with his dark purple flames.
A circular energy pulse was released, and bounced off all the corners of the room, this sudden change in brilliance made the top of all four Corinthian pillars glimmer for two seconds.
Smoke noticed the brief clue. He removed his Knight gloves and equipped his rare Claws of Chiropterra gloves. The special claws allowed him to scale the wall of the sealed room with ease.
Upon further inspection, he noticed that the helix of the column had a slightly different color than the rest of the pillar.
With his special gloves, Smoke single handedly secured a firm hold on top of the wall. He used his right hand to try and remove the helix.
Carefully, he detached the helix, and found that it was one quarter of the hidden figure.
The DarkElf smiled. He stored the first piece of the figure, and went to collect the remaining three.
After he collected the last piece of the sphere. He placed all four pieces together, and they bonded. The scattered pieces turned into one sphere.
He gathered his belongings, and took the assembled sphere figure. He confidently placed the sphere inside the cavity in the wall.
The wall started to shake. In the next seconds the floor near the wall started to show a semi-circle indention. Everything inside the semicircle turned 180 degrees.
Smoke finally freed himself from the sealed room, but as soon as he was outside, his Cunning of the Dire Fox felt the presence of a pack of small sized monsters.
"Igniz, can you shed some light on our uninvited entourage."
Enthusiastically, Igniz made a large orbit of fire around Smoke. The increased luminance showed Smoke that he was now in a long hallway, and the small sized monsters were furry spiders.
Igniz made a larger fire orbit and damaged the monsters which revealed their names and lifebars. These monsters were called wolf spiders and had a maximum HP of 30,000.
Wolf spiders had a body length of 2 feet. These monsters looked like small wolves. With their long spotted grey fur and cropped in eight legs. The red light from their multiple eyes shone brightly in the dark labyrinth.
Smoke's Cunning of the Dire Fox indicated he was surrounded, and there were 100 of these small sized monsters. The monsters simultaneously came at him from all directions.
The wolf spiders released their sticky white web and tried to capture Smoke with it. He needed protection from all possible angles.
Smoke quickly took out his only shield which satisfied such a requirement. He expanded his bladed spherical shield v2.0.
This improved bladed shield was now completely made out of fire resistant metal. It had ten times the durability and five times the return damage of its predecessor on Mount Gliseloc.
Once he was inside the bladed sphere, the wolf spiders rapidly encased it with their web. Smoke ordered Igniz to heat up the metal of the bladed sphere.
Igniz obediently followed Smoke's order. Due to the intense flame, the metallic bladed sphere became red with fire. The web that was on it, instantly melted away.
Smoke switched weapons and used his Powersaw Bow instead. He pushed the burning bladed sphere and went after the wolf spiders near his left side.
The wolf spiders were so many that they had a difficult time to retreat. Smoke proceeded to roll over five wolf spiders and stopped right on top of them.
The monsters' HPs drained quickly due to the damage from the fire, the blades on the sphere, and Smoke's weight.
Smoke jumped up and down on the bladed sphere to increase its damage on the five crushed monsters. When he saw that the flattened wolf spiders were as good as dead, he took aim and let loose his torrent of fire arrows.
Some of the wolf spiders jumped on the flaming bladed sphere and tried to destroy it. The DarkElf switched weapons again, and used his green dual knives.
When the spiders below him finally died, Smoke rolled over the bladed sphere and crushed the spiders who had leapt on top of it.
This time he had eight wolf spiders crushed on top of each other. His encounter with the wolf spiders proved to be easy. He decided to secure the hallway and wipe out all 100 wolf spiders.
"Igniz, I need you to make a fire wall from both ends of the hallway, and build more of it going towards me."
The dark ember sprite nodded, and rocketed out of the bladed sphere. The wolf spiders who noticed the small flaming ball tried to capture Igniz with their webs, but his flames protected him from being wrapped up by the creepy crawlers.
With Igniz out of the bladed sphere, its burning attribute started to fade away. Smoke unequipped his knives and rolled around the bladed sphere in the entire hallway.
Smoke got five poison pellets from his backpack and crushed them on various blades of his sphere. The wolf spiders had poison resistance, but still received some poison damage.
The bladed sphere kept on rolling around the hallway until the entire area was covered in a sea of flames.
Igniz had successfully made multiple firewalls. The trapped wolf spiders were burnt to a crisp.
The monsters that were still alive tried to leave the hallway, but Smoke went after them and rolled over the escaping wolf spiders.
Smoke and Igniz's constant melding of energies increased his fire resistance and affinity to 75%. This made him immune to all of Igniz's flame attacks.
The hallway was charred. It took Smoke 30 minutes to wipe out the pack of wolf spiders. However, he felt that these monsters were at the bottom of the food chain here inside the labyrinth.
He expediently gathered the items dropped by the wolf spiders. There were spider legs, white spider silk, and an occasional gold spider silk. He examined the silks and discovered that it was used for clothes and leather armors.
Smoke got out his Beggar's tablet and updated his map of the labyrinth. The exit of the sealed chamber he was in was at the center of the hallway.
He decided to go to the left. He keened on his Cunning of the Dire Fox for any monsters that would be in his ability's range.
When he got to the end of the hallway he found that it opened into a wide room with seven tunnels. Smoke burnt a symbol on one of the walls of the room and labeled it as left-one.
Afterwards, he took the first path on his left. This pathway was narrower than the hallway. It was in the shape of a half circle and had a radius of ten feet, but the light from Igniz was able to light up the entire length of the tunnel.
Halfway into the tunnel, Smoke felt the presence of a medium sized monster at the end of the path. He told Igniz to dim out his flame.
The tunnel where Smoke and Igniz were in became stygian. Despite the lack of light from the dark ember sprite, the end of the tunnel started to glow.
A giant firey lizard which walked on all fours appeared. Smoke quickly took out powersaw bow and released eight poison arrows.
He attacked the glowing beast which revealed the monsters name and lifebar. Fire salamander (50,012/60,000 HP).
The flaming fire salamander came out. Its skin was black with hot streaks of yellow. From head to tail, it had a length of 6 feet.
The monster hissed out its forked tongue. The monster looked at the source of the arrows and got a scent of Smoke. It hastened its pace and ran towards the DarkElf.
Smoke estimated that he could still release sixteen more arrows before the fire salamander could reach him. He committed himself to utilize his range attacks and kept on firing his poison arrows.
Igniz tried to attack the fire salamander with his fireballs but the flaming monster pushed on unaffected. The monsters lifebar now displayed (32,488/60,000 HP).
Inches before the fire salamander could reach him. Smoke switched weapons and used his green dual knives, the Tails of the Virile and Fecund Lizards.
Smoke leapt up and touched the ceiling with his feet. He used the ceiling to increase his speed as he landed on top of the fire salamander's back.
The fire salamander responded by lighting its whole body on fire. Fortunately for Smoke his 75% fire resistance was enough to negate the salamander's flame attack.
The DarkElf raised both knives to his waist and started to stab the fire salamander. His Dual Wield and Knife Mastery abilities increased the damage and attack speed of his green knives.
Smoke also used the active ability of the Tail's of the Virile and Fecund Lizards, which paralyzed the fire salamander for a few seconds.
Just as he was about to give the fire salamander's death blow, three fire salamanders came out from the end of the tunnel.
The DarkElf plunged his knife on the back of the fire salamander's head and killed the monster.
+ You've dealt a fatal blow to the fire salamander.
+ You've killed the fire salamander.
+ You've gained 60,000 exp.
The three fire salamanders galloped towards Smoke.
He thought that he had an advantage over the fire salamanders because of his fire resistance. However, the fire salamanders that rushed him had another thing planned.
It leapt at Smoke with its mouth wide opened and took a bite out of Smoke's right leg. He was damaged for 3,200 points, and revealed his lifebar at (84,160/87,360 HP).
The damage was high, but the most concerning part was that he was now caught. The two other fire salamanders were getting closer to him as well.
Smoke expanded his bladed sphere to block the fire salamander's path. The bladed sphere's diameter of 8 feet was not enough to impede the two fire salamanders.
The monsters pushed the metal spherical shield, and took minimal damage from the blades. Smoke used his dual knives to loosen the fire salamander's jaw on his leg.
The fire salamander was momentarily paralyzed, Smoke freed himself from the monster's mouth and unequipped the green dual knives.
He used his Claws of Chiropterra to scale the walls and clung on top of the tunnel. The fire salamanders used the walls to help them stand.
The three monsters tried to grab a hold of Smoke with their mouths and claws, but their height of 6 feet wasn't tall enough to reach the ceiling.
Smoke stayed on the tunnel's ceiling. He wanted to get inside his bladed sphere, but thought that the fire salamanders would grab a hold of him before he got a chance to enter the spherical shield.
Then he remembered that he recently acquired a weapon from one of the Brandal's raid leaders. He equipped the Brandal's bull whip.
With the aide of the rare gloves, Smoke was able to hold on to the ceiling with just his left hand. He attacked the fire salamanders with the bullwhip on his right hand.
The damage from the bull whip was only for 2,000 points. Smoke thought that it would take a long time if he would continue with this attack pattern.
As kept on with his attacks, he slowly moved further away from the bladed sphere. The fire salamanders started to follow him.
When he was about 40 meters away from the bladed sphere, Smoke used the bullwhip's active ability. It had the power to hold a medium sized monster.
He held one of the fire salamanders and swiftly scaled the ceiling towards the bladed sphere. The captured fire salamander obstructed the other two monsters.
Smoke was able to get inside his bladed sphere and started to attack the fire salamanders with his poison arrows. The two monsters braved the poison arrows and started to claw the bladed sphere.
The spherical shield's durability went down by 25%. Smoke knew that he couldn't rely on his bladed sphere forever. He focused his attacks on one of the fire salamander and killed it.
