The Systemic Lands

Chapter 56: Day 141 – A Big Boom

It took a day to change locations nearer to the giant stone pillars and another day to locate the dungeon. I took time to mark up a map in my book. With notes on the monsters as well. I let out a sigh as I looked at the dungeon. It was a pit in the ground with shadows oozing out of it.

I had returned early and gotten Ruth for her opinion. We were both looking at the shadow pit. “Ladies first?”

“Yeah, no. That isn’t happening. I would have thought a staircase or something up one of these large rocks.”

“This place is like Minecraft, with how the terrain appears to be generated, and features added to the landscape in one big mess.” I really didn’t want to go in the black ooze pit.

“Can you sense anything in there?” Ruth asked.

“No. A lamp is 10,000 points and only lasts five hours. Fuel is 1,000 points per hour,” I had written the costs of everything down the last time I had been in Purgatory to plan out situations like this.

“Two lamps with refuels?” Ruth asked.

“Are you going down there with me?” I asked. There was a long stretch of silence as she stared at the inky blackness that was the pit.

“Can you see anything in there?”

“No, just inky blackness. Might as well check.” I held a cheap club I had picked up from the cart when I went back. “The area is clear except for that pit. If anything happens, head back directly to the cart.”

“Got it. Stirring the pot?”

“Yeah,” I muttered and went over to the pit. I poked the blackness with the club. The darkness seemed to cling to the club like an oily mist.

I gathered up my breath, “GET OUT HERE YOU SCUM SUCKING MONSTERS!” I then retreated back to my previous location and watched. Nothing stirred out of the pit.

“I don’t know if I should be relieved or worried,” Ruth said.

“The wolves didn’t leave the ruin. So, it isn’t a surprise the dungeon is a separate area the monsters won’t cross over.” I looked at the club and the black mist was gone. “Acid Shot.” I launched the ball of acid into the pit. It was quickly swallowed up in darkness.

“Can’t I get a sunny dungeon, where the monsters are easy to see. Why is it always pits, mist, and misty pits?” I let out an annoyed sigh. “You think of anything?”

“No,” Ruth said, and I could see she was worried. Well, there was one last test before we left. I walked up to the mist and poked it with my pinky finger on my left hand.

The dark mist moved away and didn’t cling to my finger. I moved my hand in and the dark mist was pushed about a foot, or half a meter away. Great, I would get to see the teeth just before they bit my head off.

I tested more and more of my body before finally stepping fully inside the pit. The dark mist was about three feet or a meter away from my body swirling around. I stepped back out. “Troublesome.”

“No good?” Ruth asked.

“Not enough vision. The mist is dulling everything else and is too thick. The difficulty increased dramatically. At least with the wolf dungeon, the mist was thinner and not inky black. I could tell there was something moving through it with how the mist swirled. This is just blackness. There is no safe way to clear the dungeon right now.”

“Could try lighting it on fire, it looks oily,” Ruth suggested. I paused at that.

“Alright. What do we have?”

In the end I had to rip a page out of my book and wrap it around a small rock. I used a lighter to light the paper on fire and quickly threw it into the pit, while standing off to the side.

WHOOMP!

The entire ground shook as a jet of flame exploded out of the pit. The heat was incredible, and I quickly pulled Ruth down to the ground. My eyes were still seeing stars when the flames ended a couple of seconds later. Rocks fell down around us.

The entrance had turned completely molten, smoke was coming out of the pit. I got to my feet and helped Ruth up as I looked around. There was a buzz in the air, was that my ears ringing? No!

“Run! Now! Go!” I said and quickly pulled Ruth’s arm and she started running with me as we ran for the cart that was about two miles away. The venom flies were converging from all directions to the noise. I counted at least a couple of hundred and that was what I could see.

The nearest group diverted course for us. That was not good. “Acid Shot.” I took out two. “Don’t stop! Acid Shot.” I kept trying to keep the way in front of us clear as we ran. We didn’t even bother to grab the crystals when they dropped.

Thankfully the aggression, or aggro range, of the venom flies wasn’t that huge. We made it back to the cart and out of range of the horde.

“That was way too close,” Ruth said between breaths.

“Just another day. You, okay?”

“Just bruised a bit, not a big deal. Thanks for pulling me down and covering us with your shield.”

“No problem, that heat…I was expecting a lot of things, but not that. The ground was shaking right?”

“Yes, everything was shaking.”

“Well, you think the skill crystal is down there?” I asked.

“Maybe, but that horde. It is afternoon. Even you can’t kill that many venom flies and if whatever is down there, isn’t dead…”

“Yeah, did you see if any entered the dungeon?”

“No. I didn’t see anything once we started running.”

“A shame, that would have been useful to know.” My mind was churning, trying to figure out how to turn the situation to my advantage. “Well let’s head back slowly.”

Ruth didn’t argue and we slowly walked back towards the dungeon. There were venom flies in our path, so the cleared areas had been screwed up. That was good to know. The monster density also increased, and we were forced to turn back before we got to the pit.

“That is unfortunate. I wonder what stat pushes the black mist away?” I said as we got set up for the night.

“Aura maybe? Pushing hostile things away from you,” Ruth suggested.

“Hmm, I was thinking the same thing. Might be Absorption as well. Testing that will be annoying. Well, that dungeon is definitely out for now.” I lay against the cart annoyed.

“At least we are alive.”

“At least we are alive, new team motto,” I joked.

The next day we set off to the East. At least navigating was easy enough with the sun. Meerkat after meerkat met our blades as we pushed forward, taking turns killing them. There was just more deadlands as we carried on.

A bit after mid-day we crested a small hill. “Huh, see that?” I pointed to a dark line in the terrain in front of us. It ended a bit to the North and continued South out of sight. I shivered a bit, despite the arm being reasonably warm.

“Maybe a ravine?”

“It is a terrain feature. All the terrain features I have seen so far have meant dungeons. Onwards,” I said.

At the next hill the meerkats stopped showing up, but there were still holes in the ground in front of us. I called a stop. “There is another enemy in front of us.”

“What? Where?”

“The meerkats have stopped, that last bit of ground didn’t have the same encounter rate. Look there are more holes in front of us.”

“Could be a random patch.”

“No. There are also small dirt mounds. A minor but key difference. Another underground monster.” We paused and waited for a couple of minutes, but nothing showed up.

“Wait here.” I slowly advanced forward. A large brown ant emerged from a hole. It had wings but didn’t fly. It was about the size of a small dog, which made me cringe. I didn’t like insects.

“Ki ki ki.” It let out a noise from its mandibles. Slightly smaller ants started to emerge from the six nearby holes.

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” I was able to kill the non-winged ants easily enough but the winged one quickly dodged out of the way. No crystals were dropped from the lesser ants.

Oh hell no. “Get the cart, retreat, we can’t win. I will cover us.” Ruth didn’t say anything and quickly turned the cart around. “Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” Ants sizzled but the weak horde kept on coming. We retreated back to the meerkat deadlands and the ants gave up after a bit, returning back the way they came.

“Well, we aren’t going that direction. Dammit!” I kicked a rock that rolled across the ground.

“There were ants-“

“It was a summoner or spawner. The small ants don’t drop any crystals. The winged one calls them forth. That is the only one that matters. With how it dodged, it would retreat if we advanced. More winged ants would show up and call up more little ants. Then we would have a horde situation. It is impossible to deal with.”

“The way East is closed off by the ants. Maybe a person could run through, but who knows what they would encounter after that? Maybe the small ants could be exhausted, but I counted around 30 with a spawn rate of one per hole per five seconds. Impossible.”

“Now what?”

“Let’s go back to the shadowlands, I don’t want to deal with meerkats in the night. We can then go North or South. I was thinking North and then back West to look for another dungeon in the shadowlands.”

“Alright, I…I am out of my depth here. You know that right, I have no chance out here.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, but I understand. I think I am being careful enough.”

“You are…it is just…scary. Look at me a damsel in distress.”

“We can return if you want to give up?”

“No! No. I am not giving up. Just concerned at how difficult the monsters are. The pit dungeon is definitely off limits.”

“Well, you haven’t screamed once or ran away, so at least you have some common sense.” I sensed something and spun around, stabbing down. A stupid meerkat. It must have hidden in the ground when we passed by. How annoying. No dungeon, no going East, and stupid blinking meerkats.

Ruth probably sensing my frustration, wisely said nothing. We reached out campsite from the previous night and stopped there. I was in no mood to grind some more with what little light there was. I got out my notebook and began mapping and marking out creatures.

A spawner type monster. That was unfortunate that they even existed. Something like that, unless you killed it quickly, was hard to deal with. I considered my options. I was almost regretting choosing power over speed for Acid Shot.

The ant queen was a unique challenge. I finished making my notes and put the book and pen away. I then did a quick sprint off to the side of the cart, checking how fast I could push myself. I was fast, faster than I had ever been in my life. Probably reaching top tier athlete levels if I was on Earth, but it wasn’t enough based on how fast the ant queen dodged the Acid Shot.

I was about half the speed of my skill when I needed twice that speed to even have a chance of catching the monster in melee. I sat back down. We would check out one more area. If the monster there was another stopper, I would just spend the rest of the time grinding and go another direction out of Purgatory next time.

I set the timer on my watches to wake up before midnight so I could clear out the nearby venom flies.

The next day we began our journey South. Ruth got cart duty while I raced ahead and cleared out the venom flies. We made good time, since we didn’t have to deal with the meerkats.

The moment the venom fly encounter rate dropped; I called a halt. There were more shadowlands in front of us.

“So…any guesses?” I asked.

“Something terrible or annoying, maybe both.”

“Extra sunshine today, aren’t you?”

“You pull the cart then.”

“Alright, alright. Well, I am off. You know the drill.”

“Got it,” Ruth said, and I went forward. Two more venom flies and then nothing. My nerves kept pinging danger, danger. I banged my sword on my shield. There was no response. I shouted and stomped, and nothing popped out.

I made my way back to Ruth. “Did you see anything?” I asked her.

“No. Just you dancing like a madman out there.”

“My dancing is very good, thank you. Still, anything that ambushes more than meerkats…urg.” Urg, was the only proper response to whatever was hiding out there. Each region had a monster, and I had no doubt there was something out there.

“Maybe you didn’t go far enough, could be a higher-level area? This would put us diagonal from Purgatory to the Southeast.”

“True, but nothing after all that? Let me try again.” I went back out and went a bit further out of sight of Ruth and the cart. Nothing out here but the same scraggly bushes and rocks sticking out of the ground. I checked the sky, still heavily overcast with only a slight glow of some clouds to indicate where the sun, light source, was.

I looked at the bushes and rocks, nothing there. I picked up a small rock and threw it into the distance. Yelled and stomped a bit, no response. I made my way back to Ruth.

“Any luck?”

“No. There are four possibilities. The first is that there is nothing there, but I don’t believe that. Every area outside the city has had monsters. The second option is that it is in super stealth mode. I couldn’t pick up anything. Third option, a nocturnal monster like the mist wolves in that dungeon. Fourth option, a higher-level monster that is roaming an area like a sub-boss.”

“You want to turn back?” Ruth asked.

“I can’t fight what I can’t see, and I don’t want to fight an unknown in the shadowlands at night.” I let out a long sigh. “I don’t see any other choice but to turn back.” If I had a summon type skill, I could use that to scout. I thought of an ant dungeon and mentally noped on that right away.

“Back we go then, so grinding?” Ruth asked.

“Yes.” I gave one last look over my shoulder. The stealth on whatever was out there was quite high. We made our way back to our campsite. We kept returning here and it annoyed me. I didn’t like being forced back.

Still, I had information and time to think on things. I was done exploring and wasn’t that motivated to look for the other dungeon in this area I suspected was to the Northwest.