Urges 9 (2/2)
“Turn right here! After that it’s a straight shot until we’re out of this place!”
“Okay! Orrrrraaa!”
“I’ll go further ahead. Keep going until you’re out of this cave!”
“Yes, Master!” replied the two demonesses in unison. One might actually get the wrong idea they were getting along if they saw them like this.
The speedy arachno-chest picked up the pace even more and, after several seconds of dashing, burst out from the cave and into the wide cavern that served as the entrance to the Litigar Dungeon Complex. It immediately noticed a group of adventurers, maybe 5 or 6 of them, all huddled around the alabaster-like pillar that served as this dungeon’s Waystone. They all seemed to be staring wordlessly at the bloodied dwarven waist and legs that had arrived without a torso attached to them.
Well, let’s just say that this particular adventurer’s Portal Key did not quite save them from a mysterious Power Overwhelming-enhanced Shadowbolt. The teleportation effect triggered at the same time as the Spell found its mark, leaving the upper half of the poor bastard splattered on the walls of the dungeon. And since they were all conveniently bunched up and not facing where the Mimic was, it took the opportunity to get the drop on them. It shifted back into its Xera-assisted casting stance and started chanting Dark Explosion.
“Master! The exit-”
“Quiet! Busy!”
It cut off whatever Xera was trying to say and re-focused its attention on the Spell.
Just as it was about to finish, the flashing boulder-sized crystal crashed into the slightly-too-narrow cave exit. Its momentum carried it through the mouth of the cave, breaking off the rocks and stones in its way and making one hell of a racket in the process. The gathered adventurers all turned to face the origin of the noise. That extremely bizarre sight of a giant red ball rolling behind a naked, well-endowed albino beauty made their brains momentarily skip a beat.
“Dark Explosion ~♪!”
Much like the goblins before, all the people gathered there either became red mist or were flung through the air, dying on impact with the walls and ceiling. The dungeon core then smashed into the cavern wall hard, finally coming to a stop. The Mimic quickly retracted its spell-slinging side and went to check on its prize. The extremely hard crystal was partway embedded in the wall, but completely flawless otherwise. Its familiars were a bit further back, having suffered some damage when they burst through that tight opening along with the core.
“Stop wasting time and get my shiny out of there,” it demanded.
“Yes Master!” responded Kora. She seemed to be quite fired up for some reason, which was the polar opposite of the succubus that had fallen off the other demon’s shoulders during the impact. She looked like she had ran a 40 kilometer marathon despite doing none of the physical work.
With the immediate area secured and its minions busy dislodging its prize from the wall, the Mimic finally had a few moments to verify the new Spell it had learned earlier.
Dark Infusion
Requirements: Level 17 Warlock, INT 60, MNT 80
School: Domination
Type: Targeted
Cost: 75 MP
Range: 10 Meters
Effect: Increases your target’s STR, AGI, DEX and INT Attributes by 20% for 30 seconds.
Your target will be stunned for 5 seconds once the effect expires or is dispelled.
The stun component of this Spell has no effect on Undead, Demons and Golems.
A significant boost in combat potential followed by an extremely dangerous downside. The Mimic would hesitate to use this on itself, but it was possible to empower its familiars ‘for free’ as it were. It was eager to try it out, but needed to raise its MNT Attribute to 80 before it did that. Otherwise the Spell would backfire and the resulting magical feedback would injure the Caster. It already suffered that pain breaking through the steel grating weeks ago and had no intention of reliving that experience.
There was a loud cracking and rumbling noise as the Mimic finished recalling that painful memory. It seems that Kora had managed to get the ball out of the wall by punching it real hard. If someone were to ask ‘Did she punch the wall or the core?’ the answer would be ‘Yes.’ Smashing things seemed to be her go-to solution for pretty much every problem. Such an approach would normally be questionable at best, but it was hard to argue with results.
“Good,” said the monstrous chest. “We’re almost out, so let’s go!”
“Yes, Master!” they replied in unison once more, although Xera had significantly less pep in her voice. She was currently lamenting over her immediate future where she would most likely be ordered to babysit a gigantic fucking ball for no good reason. Just the thought of a boring assignment like that seemed to be enough to make her depressed.
This was in stark contrast to the Mimic, which was very much looking forward to worshipping the gigantic ball of shiny. And then it walked over the border of the dungeon with its prize in tow. With the link severed, the dungeon no longer flashed with that obnoxious red. The annoying pop-ups had stopped too.
You have left the Litigar Dungeon Complex.
Feat of strength performed! You have unlocked a new Perk: Grand Theft Arcana.
All Attributes +10.
Oh right, Perks were a thing.
The box had completely forgotten about them, what with all the running around it had been doing ever since breaking free of this place’s control.
Grand Theft Arcana
Description: It takes a special kind of person to steal a dungeon from a dungeon.
Requirements: Remove a dungeon core from its dungeon’s sphere of influence.
Effects: Provides a permanent boost of +10 to all Attributes every time you accomplish this feat.
Number of pilfered dungeons: 1
It would appear that its selfishness and stubbornness had yielded an unexpected boon. The +10 to all Attributes was tasty without a doubt, but finding out this new way of growing stronger was perhaps even tastier than that. Granted, it had no plans of entering another dungeon, but it might end up doing so anyway in order to take advantage of this Perk. Gaining 5 Levels worth of Attributes was nothing to sneeze at, especially considering how slow Leveling Up had become of late.
Although it seemed that the cocncentrated mass of mana had two more things left to say.
You are now the owner of dungeon core AD-0429-PR.
All functions of dungeon core AD-0429-PR are currently unavailable.
Please establish a dungeon to unlock them.
WARNING!
Dungeon core AD-0429-PR is over maximum MP capacity by 953%!
Catastrophic meltdown will occur in 8 minutes and 19 seconds!