B01DCAV4W2 (S) (10 page)

After walking over to the Great Seal, he donned his old set of sprite armor.  Though it wasn’t as impressive as the enhanced sprite armor, it was still nothing to sneeze at.  Wearing the entire matched set gave a 25% defense bonus to each individual piece.  Also the gauntlets increased his accuracy by 25% which should more than make up for the drop in accuracy from the heavy arrows.

He pulled up the hood of his dark green cloak and stood facing the stairway down to the next level of the catacombs.  Taking a Potion of Clarity out of his Bag, he gave it his familiar.  Then, bow in one hand and Alma draped across his shoulders, he prepared to take his first steps down into the dungeon.

CHAPTER 5

Before he could put his foot on the first step, his body froze and a prompt appeared.

Welcome Master of the Mist Village.  Currently you have access to: Level 1 of the catacombs.  Would you like to start the journey to: Level 1 of the catacombs?  Yes or No?

Richter chose ‘Yes’ and his foot fell to the step.  He felt a small tingle pass over his body.  It reminded him of when he left his hidden glen that had the Pool of Clarity.  He paused for a moment, but nothing else happened so he just kept walking.  The stairway seemed to be a natural tunnel that had been augmented in the past.  The entire thing was formed of grey stone.  The roof of the stairwell was a natural formation of rock, but on the walls were too regular to be a natural formation.  He didn’t see any sign of chisel or hammer marks, but then time would have worn those irregularities smooth.  Indeed, the steps were only half the length of his foot and had smooth edges, making his descent somewhat precarious.  Richter just thanked his lucky stars that the stairway was dry and non-slippery. 

As he journeyed, he thought about his game plan.  Richter didn’t really plan to do anything other than scout around this first trip.  Despite his recent successes, he wasn’t cocky enough to think he was a one-man army or anything like that.  Even though there was potential danger, Richter just couldn’t stay ignorant as to what was right beneath his feet.  Worst case scenario, he would be killed and lose some skill points if he ran into some horrible, high level monster.  He could live with that, but couldn’t live with having others die to satisfy his curiosity.   That was why he needed to go alone.  Richter had asked Alma to stay behind as well, but the stubborn little dragonling was having none of it.  When he had pushed the issue she had hissed at him, so he resolved to just keep her as safe as possible. 

The stairway continued down at a steady forty-five-degree angle, without change, for the first twenty minutes.  According to his map, he was moving both down and North, completely contrary to City Slickers logic.  He wasn’t exactly claustrophobic, but he also didn’t really enjoy the idea of millions of tons of rock being just above his head.  What was it with dungeons in The Land always needing to be so damn deep, Richter thought with irritation.  Hadn’t anyone on this planet every heard of a basement?

The only break in the monotony of his travel was a short hallway that led directly forward.  The floor of the hallway was a different color stone than the walls, more brown than grey.  Richter assumed that the only reason for the break in the stairs was that the rock under his feet was too hard to tunnel through.  After the short hallway, the stairs led down again for at least another 30 minutes. 

He had initially cast
Night Vision
when he started down the stairs, but as he went deeper, there wasn’t enough ambient light for the spell to be able to work.  After that he had cast
Simple Light. 
Richter hadn’t been wild about advertising his position, but he also didn’t want to start falling down a mountainside worth of stairs.  He had to cast and renew his Light spell several times during the trip. 

His Traveler’s Map clearly showed his progression, but unfortunately wasn’t quite like google.  He had no way to accurately measure how far he had come.  His best guess was that he was a quarter to a third of a mile down.  He just really hoped that he didn’t have to make a speedy retreat.  The narrowness of the stairway should keep him from being surrounded, but it would still be a harrowing fight having to climb the short steps backwards.

Finally, the stairs came to an end at an open archway.  Not knowing what dangers lay ahead, Richter dismissed
Simple Light
before reaching the bottom and activated his Stealth ability.  He didn’t know if he would be able to cloak himself in shadow with Alma on his shoulders, but thankfully it wasn’t a problem.  Richter was concerned that he would be plunged into complete blackness again, but as his eyes adjusted, he could see the faintest of blue lights coming from the archway.  He cast
Night Vision,
and thankfully his vision lit up in shades of green. 

Looking through the doorway, Richter didn’t see anything but an empty courtyard.  He listened intently for a full minute, but heard nothing.  Richter tried to cross into the room, but another prompt came up and again his body froze. 

You are about to cross into: Level 1 of the catacombs.  Do you wish to proceed, Yes or No?

Choosing ‘Yes’ he crossed into the dungeon.  Looking around, he saw a faint blue illumination coming from some moss on the walls.  He examined it more thoroughly. 

You have found: Creeping Blue Lichen.  This plant will provide illumination for a short while even after being picked.  It makes a vivid blue dye and will also provide hearty, if unappetizing, nutrition. 

Well at least he wouldn’t starve as long as he could find more of this, and it certainly seemed abundant in this first room.  Richter took a look at the rest of his surroundings.

The large room he was standing in looked like nothing so much as a dilapidated cathedral.  Large open windows were evenly spaced on the walls high above his head, though only a few shards of clear glass still stuck out from the frames at odd angles.  Richter couldn’t see anything through them except pools of darkness. 

Lining the room were rows of stone that looked perfect to serve as pews.  The entire room had a sense of gravity and heaviness. Richter felt like he was intruding somewhere that he was not welcome.  Since there wasn’t any other direction to go however, he started walking forward.  Alma picked up on the serious feeling of the place as well and stayed huddled on his shoulders. 

At the front of the room was a ruined statue.  All that was still standing was a pair of feet.  Strewn on the floor around it, were the broken pieces.  The head still seemed intact, but when Richter picked it up he saw that the face had been smashed in.  His initial assumption seemed correct.  This must be a forgotten temple of some type.  More important than the stone fragments, were the doors leading off from this first room.  Two doors led to opposite sides of the room perpendicular to the central aisle and a third led straight on. 

Richter checked the side doorways first, curious what the windows were looking out at.  Both just showed ruined courtyards and one had a dry and lichen covered fountain in its center. This building must be insanely old, he realized.  It couldn’t have been built underground.  It just didn’t make any sense.  Why would anyone build windows that looked out at nothing?  Some earthquake must have swallowed the building whole.   He supposed that the passage of time could account for what he was seeing as well.  It had happened on Earth that one generation built over the structures of previous generations.  Whole buildings could be found deep underground, just like this. 

He realized it was a moot point though and that he was wasting time.  He wouldn’t find any more information just standing around in this room.  He took the last doorway and walked forward out of the ruined temple. 

The next room was a natural cavern with multiple tunnels leading out of it.  The most interesting thing was that the tunnels were of varying sizes.  The smallest was only two feet in diameter.   The largest was wide enough to drive a wagon through. Having no desire to be stuck in a small space, he decided to go with the flow.  He walked down the largest tunnel.  There were rocks randomly strewn along the floor.  As he walked his footsteps sounded muffled and faint even to him, proof that the magic of the sprite shoes was at work.  Even so, he moved slowly so as to not break his Stealth.

The tunnel twisted and turned like an epileptic snake.   The curvature was so severe that Richter could rarely see more than ten yards ahead of him.    As he turned what must the fiftieth bend, a flash of red caught his eye.  A two-inch circle glowed under the dirt of the floor.  Richter froze, even his breath catching in his chest.  He focused on expanding his senses, checking each in turn. 

He heard nothing except his own heart beat and steady breathing.  He saw nothing except the hallway and the red glow of the trap. He tasted only the dry dust in the air.  The air was slightly warm on his skin, hotter than what he thought it would be underground.  He smelled nothing except for a slight sour smell like an old sponge. 

Moving forward, he examined the trap closely.  He gently brushed the dust away around it until he revealed a pressure plate.  It seemed to be of simple construction, just an iron circle welded to a bar on a spring.  Disarming it was easy, but he couldn’t figure out what it would have done if he had stepped on it.  The mechanism was short and didn’t connect to anything else.  His wand showed that the mechanism underneath was not magical.  He stared at it for another fifteen minutes with no further insights.  He ultimately had to just keep going.

As he walked down the hall, traps became more and more common.  Even more common were the tributary tunnels that randomly sprouted off of the main vein he was walking down.  Richter decided not to follow any of the smaller branches since they all seemed equally viable.

As he walked, the wet mold scent grew stronger.  It was more than a little unpleasant.  He had figured out what was so strange about the first trap he had disarmed because he had found several more like it.  It was a dummy.  It was connected to absolutely nothing.  Whomever had set the traps must have laid those just to delay or distract.  It was a level of deception that Richter hadn’t seen before, and it made him even more cautious.  It occurred to him, as he slowly creeped down the hall, that maybe slowing him down was the whole point. 

He was disarming yet another trap when he heard something.  Richter immediately left the trap alone and faded back to side of the tunnel.  He waited silently while the noise resolved into a language that sounded like a yipping dog.  His Gift of Tongues ability translated the high pitched barks into understandable words.

“Why do we have to come down this tunnel?”

“Because we need to check the traps.  You know that.  Why do you keep asking?”

“But we haven’t caught anyone down this tunnel in more than a hundred years!  Almost all of the side tunnels are either blind alleys or capture traps.  Even if someone was down here, they would have to come by us.”

The figures finally came into view.  Each was about three to four feet tall.  Their heads looked like a long snouted dog, but they were covered in fine scales.  He couldn’t tell their color with his
Night Vision
spell.  They weren’t carrying any means of illumination with them, so they either could see in the dark or were using a spell similar to Richter’s.  Each had a tail that trailed behind them and their legs were had two joints, the lower one bending backwards.  Both of the creatures wore scraps of clothing that looked like rags.  Analyze provided their identity.

Name: Tri’ulon.  Kobold Level 6. Health 110.  Mana 170.  Stamina 140.  Disposition: Distrust.  Kobolds are small reptilian humanoids.  Most adventurers can best a kobold in one on one combat, but you will seldom find such a fight.  They highly favor traps and ambushes.  Kobolds shy from bright light and make their homes underground.  It should be a wary adventurer that enters a kobold warren.  Kobolds get two points to distribute per level, and each level gives +1 to Intelligence, Dexterity, and Agility.

His stealth skills seemed like they were up to the task because the two kobolds came closer still arguing between themselves.  One had a crossbow on its back and the other carried a short spear.  They walked over to the trap Richter had been about to disarm when one of them froze and dropped down into a fighting stance.  The other kobold immediately unlimbered its crossbow and looked around.  They weren’t more than a few feet from where Richter was hiding.

“What do you see?” Tri’ulon yipped.

The other responded, “There are tracks in the dirt.  Something was here.”

Tri’ulon sniffed the air and said nervously, “I think I smell human.  We should run and tell the others.”

Richter shifted slightly to put his hand on the hilt of his new short sword.  Just that small amount of movement was enough to alert the kobolds.  With a cry Tri’ulon fired his crossbow at Richter.  The bolt caught him in the middle, but thankfully was only a graze.  Despite having avoided a direct shot, and with his armor, he still lost five health.