Elsewhere

Duke ran though his INVENTORY one more time before placing his hand upon the standing stone and activating the dungeon entrance. He was again greeted with the choice to enter or flee. This time he chose to do something that no one had done in over four thousand years – he chose to enter.

The world dissolved around Duke. It was a sensation entirely different from his Ability as it took a few seconds for the transition and while it was happening it was cold. Not the cold of winter’s morning in Wisconsin that carried the dampness to freeze into your bones, but more the dry cold of space, ready to suck the heat from your body in an instant. When the cold faded and the world reasserted itself, Duke found himself elsewhere and several messages greeted him along with overwhelming pain throughout his body. He collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony.

***Congratulations traveler! You have survived transit to the Lake Front Dungeon. You have taken 432 points of Residual Damage due to the Dungeon not being successfully entered in 4,320 years. The Residual Damage counter has been reset. The Entrance Timer has been reset.

You have breached the portal and have entered the Dungeon. This dungeon consists of multiple levels, each with their own challenges and themes. After completing each level, you will be given the option to either exit or continue. Should you exit at any level before the last, you will receive all rewards earned up to that point. Should you complete the dungeon, you will receive additional rewards. Good luck!

Transitioning to Level 1: The Burrows ***

While Duke waited for his REGENERATION to resolve the damage, he took a careful look around the area he now found himself in. He was no longer in the cave system that he had been in previously. Instead, he found himself in what appeared to be an endless grassy plain. There were scattered smaller trees and occasional shrubs. The terrain was relatively flat with gently rolling hills extending into the distant horizon.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect coming in here, but this was definitely not on the list. What do you make of it Baslin? Some sort of pocket dimension?” Duke decided to check in with the Archmage. He received no response. “Come in, Baslin. Are you receiving me?” Still silence. “Great. No comms again. Guess I proceed on my own. Again.” Duke paused for a moment to consider his options. “First things, first. I want to mark the entrance so I can find it again if I need to since this place seems to go on forever.”

Duke used his FLAME DARTs to burn a bullseye into the area around himself, following it up with his ICE DARTs to extinguish the flames as they burned enough for his taste. Don’t want to start a prairie fire. Well, at least not yet but that may be my best way to clear the area in the end. I wonder if there’s any “rules” against that sort of thing. Guess I’ll find out when I run into them. Now to find out if the sky is the sky or if there is some sort of ceiling.

Duke cast LIGHTNING straight up to see how far it would go. The Ability travelled to its full length of roughly 140 meters. Duke TELEPORTED to its terminus and tried again, getting the same result. He tried this a dozen more times before he decided that there was no effective ceiling and was tired of falling. With a final TELEPORT, he returned to the ground, extremely thankful that his TELEPPORTATION Ability cancelled momentum. He wondered if that would cause him problems someday but figured there wasn’t much he could do about that at the moment and set the thought aside.

His aerial surveillance had shown him that the area was not as flat as he initially thought and that the hills all rose a bit higher as they approached a single point. There was a large tree on top of that hill and Duke tagged that as his destination. He debated just TELEPORTING there and seeing what happened. His Health had topped up and his Mana was full again. Nothing he had run into so far in this world had been able to stand up to his attacks. Maybe he could speedrun this dungeon. He decided to go for it.

With a quick TELEPORTATION, he appeared on the hill, next to the large tree. A tree that he had seriously underestimated the size of. It towered over two hundred meters tall. The trunk was as wide as a skyscraper and the root structure burst out of the hill in countless places creating countless dark openings.

As Duke took a moment to marvel at the tree’s glory, he felt a sharp, tearing pain in his left calf. His eyes flashed down to see a meter and a half, thin and furred creature with its jaws dug into his leg and had torn a chunk free. His IDENTIFY Ability flashed but he ignored the information for now as there were dozens of the creatures boiling out of the root system around him. He was down nearly a quarter of his Health in that single bite. In a flash decision, he TELEPORTED back to the beginning of the level.

“Fuckers bite hard! Great tactical move, genius. Fuck! OK, that’s not how to approach this level. Don’t head straight for the boss area. Got it.”

Duke kept his eyes watching the area as he waited for his Health to top off and REPAIRED his pants. He could not see if there was any further activity on the hill as it was just too far for his limited sight. He did see, however, that there were several burrows in the area around himself. He even saw one of the creatures dart out of a burrow and race into the next. It was just as big as the one that bit him on the hill. He decided to look back at what his IDENTIFY Ability uncovered.

***You have IDENTIFIED a Giant Ferret

This is a Strong-ranked creature

Level: 51

Health: 510

Mana: 206

***

Duke whistled as he read the stats. These fuckers are way overleveled compared to me. I’m bloody level 12 and these monsters are in the fifties! They have almost half of my Health as well. I’m going to have to take my time and do this one at a time if I can. Fuck! No speedrunning this fucking dungeon.

Once Duke was topped up yet again, he set out slowly, aiming for the first burrow that he saw. He crept up to it stealthily taking care to be alert to his surroundings. As he got within a few meters of the burrow, he heard a scrambling sound to his left and looked in time to see a giant ferret charging him from the side. He dodged as best he could and lashed out with LIGHTNING.

The giant ferret got a small nip on his leg but was not able to get a good hold as he jumped back out of the way. His LIGHTNING struck the giant ferret leaving a long line of singed fur, and one angry giant ferret. It chittered at him loudly and stalked him, circling for a good angle to strike again. He turned to keep it in front of him, charging LIGHTING in his fist, pouring more Mana into it since the base Ability didn’t seem to do all that much to the beast.

The beast chittered once more at Duke and leapt. Duke unleashed his LIGHTNING once again, but with an extra hundred Mana poured into it. The bolt struck the ferret in mid-leap with a resounding clap of thunder that echoed throughout the hills and plains. The ferret’s smoking body struck Duke full-on limply. He shrugged the corpse off of himself and quickly scanned around the area.

The thunder had stirred up ferrets from all around the area. Duke could see numerous heads poking out of burrows and some even stepping out to investigate. He knew that if they came at him in a group, he was in trouble. He still had more than 90% of his Mana available so began to charge up an even greater LIGHTNING blast, but one he was hoping he could strike multiple ferrets with. He poured in a full five hundred Mana and unleashed at the now-visible ferrets. LIGHTNING erupted from his hands, arcing and striking several ferrets. They twitched and burned as the energy expended through their bodies. As the crack of the thunder reverberated throughout the area, Duke was greeted with the smell of burnt flesh and ozone. He suppressed a sneeze and proceeded to collect the bodies into his INVENTORY to examine and loot later.

As he placed the last of the near dozen ferret’s bodies into his INVENTORY, he felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. Duke looked up to see a mass of giant ferrets pouring towards him from the direction of the great tree. It looked more like a wave of fur, teeth, and claws pouring out towards him.

“Oh, well fuck me sideways!” Duke considered his options as he had some time before the wave reached him, but he was not coming up with many. His Health and Mana were climbing back up, but he knew there was no way he could get this entire group in a single blast and the survivors would quickly overwhelm him. He cast about the area with his gaze, looking for some terrain advantage but found none save for the enormous tree. He had no idea how many ferrets were left in the root system, but there was nowhere else for him to go. With that thought, he set a plan in motion.

As The LIGHTNING charged in his hands, he picked out his destination. It was a risky choice, but not as risky as staying where he was. He had calculated his maximum range on LIGHTNING to be around 140 meters – that gave him enough time to get a blast off before he TELEPORTED away. At 100 meters, he unleashed his blast and TELEPORTED to the tree and then again, up to a branch higher up.

He saw the remains of the wave change course and come charging back towards the tree. This time, however, they were joined by more ferrets climbing up the tree towards him. He couldn’t see them clearly as the branch he was standing upon was as wide as a city bus and it blocked his view fairly well. He could only catch glimpses of the ferrets climbing their way up to him, but he could hear their chittering starting to grow closer again. He walked out towards the end of the branch where it got narrow, only shoulder-width apart. He hoped that such a narrow approach would limit the ferrets to attacking him one at a time.

Taking a quick look at his stats showed that his Health was nearly full, but his Mana was at less than half. I’m gonna need that mana if there is any kind of boss monster. Guess it’s time for sword-work. Jablach, this is for you! Duke retrieved the sword the Baslin forced him to take and took a ready position.

The first ferret scrambled its way along the branch and came right for him, paying the sword no heed. It sprinted down the branch, completely sure-footed. Duke, on the other hand, was not. His first swing was off-balance and did more damage to the branch than it did to the ferret. The only good news is that it deflected the bite wide enough that its teeth didn’t gain purchase. Its claws, however, dug into his thighs as it quickly climbed up his body. Its sharp teeth snapped at Duke’s face as he TELEPORTED away again. The ferret fell back down to the branch, its head swiveling around in confusion as its prey had vanished.

Duke evaluated his choices as he hid on a higher branch. That didn’t go well. After all the training and practice with Jablach, I’m still shit with a sword. Granted, it was less than a week of training, but it was a pretty intense time. I don’t have the Mana to fight them all without resting in-between, so how do I do this?

Duke did some quick calculations in his head as he rested. He was getting about ten points of Mana back per second and it was costing him 10 Mana to TELEPORT so that cost was negligible. His LIGHTNING was costing 15 Mana at a base level but the base level was nowhere near enough to one-shot the furry bastards. His OVERCHANNEL Ability was the game-changer for him as it allowed him to hit so much harder with the Ability. But was he putting too much into it? Could he reduce the amount from the massive 500 he threw into it last time to a much more manageable number?

He delved into the damage calculations and came to a conclusion. If he only put about 30 extra Mana into a bolt, he should do enough damage to put one of the furry bastards down. 45 Mana a shot plus a pair of TELEPORTs at 15 each, so 75 Mana for a single hit-and-run strike. He could do about 20 of those before he got low on Mana and would have to rest. He rested for the ten minutes it took to fully regain his Mana and prepared himself. He peeked over the side of the branch and could still see a few giant ferrets moving around the base of the tree. OK, here goes!

Duke flashed back and forth, quickly blasting a different ferret each cycle. The first seven went down quickly but then they started hiding from him and he had to reconsider his strategy. At first, he set himself on a lower branch and tried to wait them out. He was able to snipe three more like that before they stopped coming out entirely. After that, he only saw one choice and it was one that he did not relish – he had to follow them down into the burrows.

He waited for his Mana to fully recharge and prepared himself. With a fist arcing with charged LIGHTNING, Duke TELEPORTED down to the surface next to the furthest burrow he had seen a ferret enter. The burrow was slightly more than a meter across. There was no way he would be able to walk in there. Am I really going to do this? No, I don’t think so. Duke let the charge dissipate and considered the possibilities. There is no maneuverability in that burrow at all. Crawling in there would leave me completely vulnerable from behind. Sure, I could teleport out but that doesn’t help me kill these things. I have to find another way to get them to come out. Or…or I could kill them in their burrows without having to go in at all.

Duke had seen the effects of channeling various abilities in his training and practice. There was one that had struck him as interesting and might be useful in this case. He began channeling his EARTH SHARD Ability while holding his hand near the edge of the burrow. Immediately, the ground near his hand started to expand to fill the gap. It took a minute or so, but he was able to completely close off the burrow entrance. Slow, but that might just work. On to the next burrow.

Three hours later, Duke had closed off the vast majority of burrows before the root system of the tree. Only once has a ferret decided to come out and fight but that ended quickly with a fully OVERCHANNELED EARTH SHARD impaling the hapless beast before it could attack. “Nice try, asshole, but I’ve got your number. Just wait until you all see phase two.”

Duke spent the next several hours closing off all the burrows that he could find with little further resistance. Another three ferrets had tried to attack him, but his ready Shard was an easy response even for the one that snuck up on him and took another chunk out of his leg. His Mana and Health sitting at full, he returned to the single opening he left at the base of the root system. He withdrew a single item the size of a basketball from his INVENTORY and grinned maniacally. “Hide from this, fuckers!”

He ignited the item and threw it as hard as he could into the burrow. Immediately searing hot smoke started pouring out of the burrow and Duke quickly moved to close it up. Hot smoke leaked out of multiple burrows but there were no large clouds coming out. Good, they are all connected to each other. This should work. Duke looked around the area, his head on a swivel for the eventual breakout of ferrets. He kept his LIGHTNING charged in each fist as he watched for ferrets.

“Come on, you fuckers. You just going to sit in there and bake?” Duke could feel the ground getting warmer under his feet. Just what the hell had Baslin given him? It was just supposed to be a smoke and cinder bomb. This is over-the-top. Duke decided to relocate down the hill before the ground got to hot, actually walking somewhere for the first time in…well, a while.

Without warning, the ground behind Duke exploded in a burst of fire and smoke, sending him tumbling in the burning cloud. He hit the ground hard, rolling down the hill uncontrollably before he came to a stop tangled in a particularly spiny shrub. He bit down on a scream of pain as he realized that he had a spine sticking through his left eye.

***Warning! You have been partially Blinded. Your depth perception has been significantly impaired. You receive a -50% on all actions requiring depth perception until this condition is resolved.***

Duke thrashed his way out of the shrub, getting his clothes shredded in the process and picking up several more spines in uncomfortable places. He slowly and painfully extracted the spine from his eye, wincing at the sound of it squelching out. He knew his REGENERATION would kick in and fix it eventually but, in the meantime, it HURT! “Motherfucker, that hurts!” Duke cupped his eye with his hand, bent over in pain.

“Good.” The voice came from up the hill and Duke immediately snapped his gaze up from the ground to be greeted by an enormous, clawed paw grabbing for him at ridiculous speed. Duke immediately dove to the side only to be easily intercepted by the paw. It grasped him around the torso, pinning his right arm as well as he was slammed into the ground in an iron grip. “You killed my children. Now, you will feed me, mortal.” The voice chittered as Duke realized that his Xenoglossia had kicked in.

“I don’t think so, rodent.” Duke channeled his LIGHTNING throughout his whole body to try and shock his way free.

The creature chittered in laughter as electricity arced along its fur and into the ground, ineffectually. “No, child, your sparks will not harm me. I am Chodo, The Lady of Burrows and I am your doom. You should not have come here but now I will end you. Any last words, mortal?” Chodo’s claws scraped into the ground as she turned her paw towards her mouth and lifted Duke up. He continued to struggle and finally tried to TELEPORT away – and failed.

***Warning, you are actively engulfed in the Aura of a hostile Tier 5 creature. Your Tier 4 Ability, TELEPORTATION is insufficient to overcome its aura and has failed to activate. ***

What the actual fuck? Shit, shit, shit. Duke bit down on the paw gripping him hoping he could get some sort of reaction out of the beast. He did not get the reaction that he hoped for.

“Oh, you want to bite? I can bite too, little man.” Duke screamed as Chodo bit right through his left shoulder, completely severing his arm. She chewed it with agonizing slowness, savoring it while grinning at the screaming, struggling man in her claws. After an eternity of pain, she swallowed it down, her grin widening. Her grin was bloody as she opened wide to bite his head off and end him completely. It was more than Duke could take.

Desperate, Duke poured 1,000 Mana into his ICE DART aimed right down Chodo’s throat. A six-foot wide lance of ice launched from him, impacting the back of the monstrous beast’s throat and expanding to fill her entire maw. Reflexively, she dropped Duke as she choked on the block of ice cutting off her air supply completely.

Duke stumbled to his feet, his right hand doing its best to staunch the flow of blood from his left shoulder with the ardent hope that his REGENERATION was strong enough to grow a new arm because he wasn’t getting his old one back. He knew he should run, put some distance between the two of them but his rage was overflowing. Instead, he ran up to the struggling boss monster and slammed his bloody good hand into the block of ice and channeled his remaining Mana into it to try and grow the blockage. It worked. The block of ice slowly expanded, encompassing the entire head of the beast, weighing it down even further.

Duke stared into its eyes as he saw its panic at not being able to move or even breathe. His anger boiled within him, but he spoke coldly and with his command voice. “Don’t ever fuck with The Duke. You. Will. Lose.” The light of life faded from Chodo’s eyes as her struggles ended. Duke was greeted with a system message:

*** Congratulations! You have completed the first level of the Lake Front Dungeon. You have one hour to collect whatever loot you may find before you must decide whether to continue or to leave the dungeon. When this hour is up, you will be transported to a safe room where you may recover for up to one week before proceeding to the next level or departing the dungeon. Rewards will be distributed upon your decision. Dungeon restrictions have been temporarily lifted. ***