Ferys turned the key, opening a small passage through the seemingly natural cave wall.
“Finally,” Ferys exhaustedly let out. She’d been searching for this place for three days now, nearly having given up a multitude of times up to this point.
She stood before a long, dark hallway, the roof just barely shorter than herself, making her take quite an uncomfortable stance as she entered the small passage. She flattened her ears instinctively, but they still swept against the cramped space above.
“Odd,” she muttered.
She wasn’t exactly used to roofs lower in height than herself; her stature wasn’t exactly above average, possibly a smidge lower than average, despite her reluctance to admit such.
“[Orb of light],” She chanted aloud, a small ball of light formed in her hand as she continued down the now lit-up hallway. The walls made of stone seemed perfectly natural; there were no signs of traps so far as she could tell with her bare eyes.
As a veteran dungeon crawler, she doubted a place like this would have traps that escaped even her senses, but she wouldn’t have lived to become a veteran if she blindly trusted her instincts.
Having a trap expert in your party was adventuring 101, but Ferys wasn’t really into the idea of travelling around the world stuck with the same group of people for weeks at a time, nor did she like the idea of entrusting her life to someone else based on the adventurers' guild's very questionable ranking system.
She pulled out a small bell from her inventory, ringing it once. As she expected, nothing happened.
There were always other options when it came down to it; that bell had cost her a small fortune, but never having to worry about traps again? Yeah, it was worth every last platinum coin she’d saved up.
After a surprisingly short walk, she found herself in a room slightly larger than the cave from which she entered. Before exploring further, she stretched out her back and fixed her posture, smoothing down her ruffled tail and flicking her ears upright again.
Inspecting the room she was now standing in, she immediately saw what seemed like a working desk with papers and books scattered about. Bookshelves were covering the walls all around her, yet half the shelves were empty, their contents lying on the wooden floorboards instead.
It seems whoever was using this space had left in a hurry.
Opposite the side of the room with the desk was a small reinforced metal door that had been locked from the side she was thankfully, currently standing on.
“One room at a time,” she reminded herself.
She walked over to the desk, flipping through some pages in one of the notebooks after clearing off some of the dust on it. It was some sort of research log.
***
27-11-907
Test subject #107
The test subject has survived initial injections, no signs of his body rejecting the serum.
…
1-12-907
Test subject #107
Proceeding with the enhancement ritual as scheduled
…
10-12-907
Test subject #107
The subject is experiencing unprecedented growth; we’ve had to expand his cell again today.
…
11-12-907
Test subject #107
The subject has become unusually active; he has been resisting the regular restraint spells our mages are casting. We have requested higher-level mages, who are expected to arrive within two days at a minimum.
…
13-12-907
Test subject #107
The mages have yet to arrive, and the enchantments on his cell are waning. If the mages don’t make an appearance soon, we may have to put down subject #107.
Since it’s a shame to put down our most promising subject, we’re planning to stall until the last moment.
***
Well…
This was clearly not some old dungeon, like what she’d been led to assume.
“907, huh?” She muttered. That would be fifteen years ago, right in the middle of the war against the dragons.
It seems this was a lab with the purpose of developing some sort of super-serum, or maybe a bio-weapon of some kind? It would line up with the dates reasonably enough.
It wasn’t completely clear what the purpose of these experiments was, but reading these logs, it seems that whatever it was was unsuccessful.
Should probably get back on track, though.
Judging by the state this room is in, it’s safe to assume no mages arrived, meaning they either emptied this place of all its valuables after killing the test subject, or, option two, they all died trying to contain their test subject, meaning the artifact was still here.
The answer would likely be found behind the door on the opposite side of the room. After reading those logs, the door gained a slightly ominous aura, but fifteen years of imprisonment would surely have killed whatever had been kept behind that door… Right?
Okay, time to actually get back on track this time.
She undid the lock on the door with a slight chill.
Passing through the door, she entered a large chamber, and what she found could most easily be described as chaos incarnate.
A dim light shone upon broken crates and glass that were scattered across the floor, and metal bars—presumably from the cells the test subject had been stuck in, had been launched into the walls, penetrating the stone walls in every direction.
In the middle of it all stood the cause of this chaos, a large hunk of rotting flesh, a giant humanoid creature with chunks of its flesh barely hanging onto its body. The stench was excessively nauseating to Ferys’ unfortunately keen senses, that of a corpse which had been rotting for over a decade.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Before the monster could spot her, she quickly dashed behind a not completely destroyed pair of boxes.
Its head swung around toward the now opened door. Despite the fact that the giant's body was roughly double the size of the door, it seemed it was desperate enough to attempt any form of escape, regardless of the futility.
“[Inspect]”
***
Thiorin Mekram
Level 1504 Undead [Monstrosity]
***
“Those mana crystal gloves better be both real and still here, because I am not fighting that thing without a prize.” She had been expecting, at worst, some Lichess tomb with level 600 death knights. Undeads were something Ferys tended to avoid when possible, but with the prospect of finally getting her hands on a real mana crystal artifact, there wasn’t much she was willing to avoid anymore.
She brought out a couple of mana potions from her inventory and readied her staff, as she started casting her preemptive strike, bright red runes began appearing every few milliseconds. The attention of the monster shifted from the door towards Ferys—who had now left her hiding place behind the boxes—and the numerous glowing runes filling the air surrounding her.
“[Ignis],” Ferys spoke, with the intent to turn the monster to ash in an instant.
The very next moment, the monster’s entire body was engulfed in a raging inferno, a horrible scream echoed throughout the room as it struggled to put out the fire. Its body crashed into wall after wall, charred flesh falling off its body with every collision.
Knowing well the durability of high-level undead, Ferys emptied her first mana potion as she began casting once again. A new pattern of emerald green runes filled the air once more, this time concentrated around the end of her staff, pointed toward the monster who had managed to extinguish more of the flames than she’d hoped.
"[Windcutter]," Ferys spoke, with the intent to shred the monster's body into a thousand pieces.
A dozen blades of wind launched toward the monster, tearing through its rotten and charred flesh, and large chunks of its body hit the floor with a disturbing sound. An arm and half its torso were cleanly separated from what was left of the somehow still moving monstrosity.
As the staggered monster regained its footing, its remaining torso and the shoulder of the missing arm began moving in an unnatural manner. The flesh inside its body moved out to fill the gaps created by Ferys’ attacks; it was regenerating at a grotesque rate, killing an undead of this level was no simple endeavour.
“Well… fuck” Ferys sighed as she moved today's second mana potion to her mouth. This fight was about to become quite expensive; mana potions didn’t exactly grow on trees.
***
“You’re paying me back for these!” Ferys yelled at the disfigured undead monstrosity as she threw her sixteenth emptied bottle at the monster.
Undead really were way too durable; if she wanted any hope to properly finish off the monstrosity that had been chasing—more like throwing itself in her general direction—in circles for the last thirty minutes, she would need a high-tier light spell.
Unfortunately, light magic was far from her specialty, and teaching yourself a new tree of magic while running for your life wasn’t exactly the ‘optimal learning environment’ she preferred.
“[Orb of light],” Ferys cast, unlike the small ball of light she had created earlier, she poured most of her remaining mana into the spell.
A blinding white light filled the room; she had pre-emptively averted her gaze, but her eyes stung as the light reflected off a shard of glass on the floor. Without another moment of hesitation, she threw the orb resembling a small sun in the direction of the undead monster.
The orb of light burned through the undead monstrosity’s body like a heated knife through butter, and a large hole was left in the monster's chest. It fell to the ground for a moment, but it stood once more. The damage had been significant, but this wasn’t a proper attack spell; the monster wasn’t dead yet.
As the light filling the room faded, the wound of the monster had yet to heal—Undead regeneration couldn’t fix a wound from light magic.
Ferys opened her inventory to grab another potion, but to her dismay, there were none left. There was, of course, her emergency potion, made with diluted liquid mana crystal—unlike the others, which were both more diluted and made with inferior mana stone.
“Sorry, but this is way too expensive for a level 1500.”
She looked back in the direction of the door from which she entered, thinking that leaving this undead here for the time being may be the best choice. The door, however, was nowhere to be seen; one of her spells had hit the ceiling, causing rubble to fall down, blocking the only way out.
The undead monstrosity was beginning to pick up its pace once more, despite the glaring hole in its chest—it was charging at Ferys once more.
“Just die already!” Ferys shouted as she regretfully brought out her ‘way too expensive for a level 1500’ mana potion. She had one last chance, and an [Orb of light] wasn’t gonna cut it even if she could make it twice the size this time.
If I cast [Orb of light] within the pattern of another spell, maybe I could create a makeshift light attack spell.
Her theory wasn’t entirely illogical—many spells were made this way, just cast a new element in an already existing pattern.
No point in stalling, you’ve done way riskier things in way more dangerous positions, Ferys.
She reluctantly downed her last mana potion and began casting—bright golden runes lit up the room, tightly concentrated around the end of her staff, for the last time pointed toward the undead monstrosity.
“[Arcs of light,]” Ferys’ voice echoed throughout the room. A dozen arcs of light launched toward the monster, shredding its body into a thousand pieces. Every arc went clean through the undead, leaving only a mess of rotten flesh on the floor where it had stood a mere moment ago.
***
Level Up!
You are now a level 1956 [Archmage].
Skill level upgraded!
Mana resistance XVIII → Mana resistance XIX
***
“Well, at least it wasn’t a complete waste.”
Mana resistance was her most treasured skill—it was what allowed her to drink seventeen mana potions in a single fight like it was nothing.
***
Mana resistance XIX
Reduces the negative effects of mana potions by 90%
***
It had risen by a full five percent. That might not sound like much, but it raised her limit from twenty mana potions to thirty before mana poisoning would set in. The average mage could barely manage three or four.
The skill upgrade was nice and all, but the real prize she had come for was the mana crystal gloves. If she could get her hands on a proper mana pool increasing artifact, she may be able to rival the dragon king himself in pure firepower.
She’d come to this abandoned lab looking into a rumor about a mage with “blue crystal-like gloves who was able to cast magic for hours on end”—it was one of the more promising rumors she’d investigated, surely she was bound for results this time.
As she frantically searched through every half-broken container in the room, she found the occasional bone from some poor mage—or well, maybe she shouldn’t feel too bad—they had been doing experiments on living humans after all.
There was also an oddly large amount of red fabric pieces scattered about—probably the mages' uniforms, not exactly the most common color for mages. Maybe she could send the bill for her potions to the crimson magic tower, the thought tempted her, but she wasn’t completely sure this was their work, so maybe not.
“FINALLY!” She exclaimed, nearly jumping with joy at seeing the faint blue glow of the exact object she’d been searching for. Hidden underneath a mountain of rubble she may or may not have created during her fight against the undead, was a pair of blue gloves.
“Not really as ‘crystal-like’ as I’d imagined but whatever, [Inspect].”
***
(unnamed)
Level 300 gloves [Mana stone]
Grants wearer Mana resistance III
***
It would never just be that easy, huh?
Why had she been so certain that this time was gonna be any different?
She hadn’t even really thought about the fact that she just stumbled upon a highly illegal human experimentation lab; she’d just been completely fixated by the idea of finally getting an artifact to alleviate her mana issues.
“Maybe I just need to rest for a bit.”
Running around the entire continent searching for an artifact that may not even exist for the last twenty years had finally caught up to her—or at least she’d finally admitted it had caught up to her.
She let out a sigh as she stood up and walked over to the blocked door.
There’s barely even any rubble actually blocking the door.
Without much trouble, she made her way out back into the small passage from which she came and continued out of the cave.
Dusk had just begun to set in, the orange sun escaping over a crimson red horizon.
“[Warp]” Ferys chanted, already visualizing the warm comfort of her tavern room bed, but as she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in her room at all. She was standing at the same place she had been before casting [Warp]—a couple of meters in front of the cave entrance.
Oh, right, I’m completely out of mana.
