Chapter 332: Saw this Coming (2/2)
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”Well, what did we get?” Morris asked after a while.
Mike explained the items and their effects.
”Not exactly a great haul, but I suppose I can't complain too much. This isn't exactly considered a difficult dungeon.” The bard grumbled.
”True. You'll probably have better luck in the next one. While the monsters are somewhat terrifying, I can guarantee that they drop better gear.”
”You aren't exactly making me feel better about it. This time around was dangerous enough.”
Mike slapped him on the back. ”With as much as the two of you have improved, you'll be just fine. Besides I'll be right there in the event you get overwhelmed.”
”Hopefully you won't be distracted when we need you.”
”Hey...ok, fair point. That does remind me, though…” He said while glancing up at the rotating golden ring. ”There is something I want to check out. Do you two mind heading out before me?”
Morris followed his gaze and frowned. ”Are you planning on doing something dangerous?”
”Hopefully not, but better safe than sorry. I just feel a lot more at ease knowing that you two aren't wrapped up in it.”
The bard stared at him for a few seconds before finally nodding. ”Alright, just be careful. Dungeons aren't exactly well understood, and several aspects of their existence hint at powerful forces at work that are beyond the understanding of mortal minds.”
”I promise.” Mike replied lightly.
He waited until Morris had grabbed the still absentminded Sera and taken her out through the exit portal before turning his full attention towards the ring.
Rising into the air, he floated towards it cautiously, senses fully trained for any hint of danger. This continued until he was roughly five meters away, when he suddenly collided with an invisible barrier.
Rubbing his nose, he flew around the boss room trying to see if there was a way past the wall, and after a few minutes of experimentation, he was able to determine that the invisible barrier extended outward from the top of the tower in a dome-like manner, measuring roughly five meters laterally and twenty meters vertically from the surface of the observation platform. Based purely on his limited knowledge of how dungeons operated, he was forced to conclude that this was another one of those 'edge of the traversable map' lines that he'd seen before.
[Whoever made these things definitely borrowed too much from video games, but I guess this means my investigation is done.] He thought resignedly, wondering how much Morris would tease him for wasting his time like this.
Before he had the chance to descend, however, Audra burst out of his pocket and took to the air. She circled him once, and then flew in the direction of the barrier, somehow managing to cling to it with her claws.
”Hey, come on now. There's nothing here. Let's get back to the others.” He tried to reach for her but drew his hand back when he noticed her intense gaze.
”What's the matter? Do you feel some-” He started to say, but stopped when the little dragon turned back to the barrier, leaned forward and bit down on it.
He heard an audible crunch, and was shocked to see a portion of the dungeon's blue sky vanish into his familiar's mouth.
[I knew she had a strange diet, but this is ridiculous.]
A few more bites later, and Audra had created a sizable hole, behind which he could see an impenetrable black void. She glanced back at him and gave a short gurgle, before slipping through. By the time he'd realized her intentions, the little dragon had already vanished into the space beyond the barrier.
”Crap, crap, crap!” He groaned, leaning down to look through the hole, but was unable to see anything. ”Audra! Come back! We don't know how dangerous it is!”
Out of desperation, he grabbed the edge of the hole in the barrier and pulled. With a crack, another section of the sky broke off in his hand. He took a moment to examine the shard, noting the strange sight of a fluffy cloud gently drifting in the piece he held, before dropping it and repeating the process.
In a matter of seconds, he'd created a crack big enough for him to slip through. Feeling a slight trepidation at the thought of what he was doing, he nevertheless pushed forward.
There was a brief sensation of almost impossible cold washing over his skin, mixed with a sort of electrifying tingling, but it passed in less than a second once he'd left the darkness. He found himself in a vast, dark chamber that reminded him of the dimension he'd ended up in after dying. It even featured the seemingly unending horizon with a barely discernible contrast between ground and sky. There was one large difference however.
Floating in the air behind him was a large, complex structure, roughly five meters in height, that was incredibly confusing at first glance. It looked a lot like someone had built a model tower with translucent walls and ceilings, allowing viewers to get a bird's eye view of the entire building. As he watched, he noticed that there were tiny figures moving through the hallways, and he leaned forward to investigate.
In one section, near the bottom floor, a tiny group of humans was in the midst of fighting a larger group of fishmen. He was marvelling at the life-like movements for a few seconds before he realized that this must be some kind of representation of the dungeon, or maybe the dungeon itself, somehow.
[Alright, this is pretty trippy.] He thought, before shaking his head. The mysterious dimensional model could wait. Right now, he needed to concentrate on his familiar.
Looking around again, he quickly spotted the little dragon perched atop a red glowing orb the size of a beach ball. The unusual object was in turn resting on an intricately carved pedestal that was surrounded by meters upon meters of complex arcane runes. Based on what he could tell from the bits his Communication Magic could make sense of, these two objects formed the center of the dungeon realm, and were somehow involved in maintaining it. Using Appraise would probably give him more information, but he didn't have a chance.
This realization struck home about the time he saw Audra open her mouth with the intention of biting down on the orb. A sudden premonition of danger had him using every ounce of his Tier 4 speed to launch himself at the little dragon in a desperate attempt to stop her.
Moving faster than he even thought possible, he barely managed to grab his familiar and pull her away from the orb as he blazed past the pedestal, sliding to a halt several meters away.
He was just about to sigh in relief when he noticed the glowing orb wobbling. For the briefest of moments, he saw it balance on the very edge of its perch, and then it fell, crashing into the stone-like floor with a loud crack.
Wincing, he waited for the thing to explode or shatter or cause the world to implode, but nothing apparently happened. He glanced down at the orb, noting that a large crack had appeared along its length, and that its glow was beginning to fade.
”Maybe we should get out of here before anything else-” He started to mutter before he was thrown off his feet by a massive shockwave.
The dark realm he was in was shaking violently. Even the air itself seemed to be shuddering uncontrollably in the wake of the disastrous calamity.
A mechanical sounding voice rang out, seemingly emerging from the pedestal itself. ”CRITICAL CORE DAMAGE DETECTED. INITIATING DUNGEON PURGE. EVACUATING ALL USERS.”
”Time's up, let's go!” He shouted while exploding into motion. He didn't completely understand what was going on, but he knew enough about these kinds of scenarios to make an educated guess. Their best chance of survival lay in quickly re-entering the dungeon and hopefully catching a ride on this evacuation the voice mentioned.
Before he'd even crossed half of the distance to it, however, the tower-like construct shattered into millions of specks of light that slowly disappeared as the realm continued to collapse.