NOVEL NEXT Chapter 52: Rather Devilish
The differences were immediately obvious. Where before it had been a savannah which had encircled a sandy coloured hexagonal building, now it looked a lot wilder.
‘I think I understand the reason for the ‘abandoned’ bit of the new name,’ Dominic remarked dryly to Leo.
‘Indeed,’ agreed the lion with a sense of curiosity mixed with slight trepidation. The former-human didn’t blame him: what met their eyes was far more foreboding than before.
Forest had overtaken the savannah area, or, rather, jungle. They were standing on something that looked like it had been a path – once. Now it was barely a track which was mostly overtaken by the flora around. At the far end of the track, Dominic could faintly see a sandy colour which might be the temple he’d visited last time, lit by the full moons which hung in the sky instead of the sun back then. Actually, all evidence so far indicated that this dungeon was going to be completely different from how it was on their last visit, so he’d better get out of the habit of comparing it.
The sound of soft feet on the ground reminded him that he’d better move forwards: others were coming through.
Glancing around, he saw Sekhmet had been the first to follow – unsurprisingly. After her came the two juvenile male lions, and then the two amesheks brought up the rear. I need to give them names, decided Dominic. If I’m going to be fighting and exploring with them, they need names.
But maybe at a moment when he didn’t fear they might be attacked at any moment, or needed a break anyway.
Behind them was a free-standing circular door frame made out of the same pale gold coloured metal which had formed the door on the outside. There was no metal filling it, though; instead, it looked more like the shimmering waterfall Dominic remembered.
They were in a small clearing surrounded by trees. The scents of a rich forest surrounded him, though they were rather…stale. Or perhaps two-dimensional was the right word. The savannah had had a richer scent than this place, and this was surely filled with moist loam or whatever the word was. All he knew was that walking in a forest back home as a human had smelled more complex than walking here as a lion.
It seemed peaceful for now. Dominic didn’t know whether it was meant to lull them into a false sense of security, or whether they genuinely wouldn’t be attacked until they stepped foot outside the ‘safe area’.
Of course, they might not be attacked at all: last time it had been Dominic who had instigated all of the previous battles. If he hadn’t entered ‘aggro’ range of the trodils, they hadn’t tried to attack him. But he’d already decided that planning a strategy based on last time was a bad idea. He suspected there were enemies waiting for him, and not just because logic told him that there must be. He couldn’t smell anything that Leo was able to specifically identify; just the hint of something which made Leo uneasy, but that was enough to get his hackles to rise slightly.
‘We probably need to get to the building which I guess is at the end of this path,’ he said in the Pride chat. ‘I don’t know what you all think about us taking the obvious route, though. It seems likely there would be traps of some sort, or creatures waiting to attack us. Or both. Probably both.’
Fang and Lionel both sent bafflement as a reply, and preferences for not dying. Dominic didn’t blame them. They were still very much Tier 1, so expecting them to be able to really conceive of a ‘dungeon’ with an expected path and potential dangers because of that was probably a bit too hopeful.
The amesheks and Sekhmet were a different question.
Cocking her head to one side, the lioness sent a follow-up query in the chat.
‘Why should we go to end of track?’
It was a fair question.
‘Because, ultimately, we need to get to the end of this dungeon. It’s likely that the majority of the dungeon is in the building at the end of the track.’
‘Perhaps we should test the track first. If we encounter opposition, we could then take a different route,’ suggested the ameshek who had started the expedition at level 18. He was the one with the slightly more armoured body, the one where the fur seemed to be starting to merge together into small plates. The other, who was now also at level 18 but had been level 17 at the beginning, agreed.
It was a good idea, except that none of them were particularly built for scouting.
‘Alright, I’ll go,’ decided Dominic. Although he didn’t actually have the largest health pool in the group, he was probably the best placed to survive past the first attack. The one with the biggest health pool was the first ameshek with a health pool of just over 700 HP – Dominic had taken the time to dig deeply into his Pride status screen information just to make sure he was fully informed before making the decision. Dominic’s pool was the second largest, though.
Another factor was that he had more of an idea of what to look for – the others would most likely be looking for traces of other animals; Dominic knew that traps could be made of more than just that.
Stepping forwards, he moved carefully, even when he was still in the clearing. If the ‘safety’ of the area was just an illusion, he didn’t want to be caught napping.
He managed to make it to the edge of the jungle without any complications, despite his tension. The jungle wasn’t terribly thick, but it was thicker than their forest, with trees perhaps a few feet apart and undergrowth that reached up to Dominic’s head height at times. Neither he nor Leo recognised the trees or undergrowth, though by itself that didn’t indicate that it was necessarily ‘alien’ – there were plenty of plants from Earth that neither of them had any idea about.
The jungle was actually quite colourful. Although its base colour was made of different shades of green and brown, there were plenty of multi-coloured flowers. Taking in a deep breath, Dominic again used his recently improved sense of smell to try to gain clues about this new environment.
Once more, he smelt dirt, plants, and a sort of dry musk of some type of animal. Closer to the source of the smell, his companion was able to give him more information about it and why it made him feel uneasy.
‘Not mammals,’ Leo told him grimly.
‘What then?’ Dominic asked.
‘Snakes. Reptiles.’
Now that the lion had said it, Dominic realised that he was able to draw a connection between what he was smelling and the snakes and lizards Leo had come across before the System arrived. The smell was stronger than he remembered it being and a little different but it definitely seemed to indicate that there were reptiles in the jungle.
The absence of any other sort of animal scent was a little startling, though Dominic supposed that it would be expected in a dungeon. After all, even if the dungeon master had done his best to make the environment fit whatever storyline he was trying to paint, the fact was that a dungeon wasn’t a natural area and in the past there were also only trodils.
Another aspect of this which was more disorientating, though, was the silence. There were no bird calls. No wind rushing through the trees in gusts. No small creatures rustling through the undergrowth or leaping through the canopy. Now he’d put his finger on it, Dominic realised that the absence of any other sound had been putting him on edge from the moment they walked in.
Though, on the upside, it should mean that any attack should be announced way ahead of time just from the sound of something moving.
Having not been able to detect any immediate threat with his various senses, Dominic returned his attention to the path. The dungeon had previously shown its tendency to use pressure traps and trip wires. While this wasn’t yet actually in the temple itself, they were in the dungeon, so it seemed likely that something could be waiting to be triggered.
Nevertheless, no matter how much Dominic scanned the area in front of him, he saw no indication of a trap or the trigger of one. Risking it, he placed a paw lightly on the remains of the path in front of him.
Nothing happened so he dared to put more weight on it.
Still nothing.
Gaining more confidence, Dominic started stepping forwards, carefully testing with a paw even after inspecting the area closely.
By the time he was close to the first tree that had planted itself in the middle of his path, he was starting to wonder whether the dungeon was giving a free pass to explorers aiming directly for the temple.
A hiss was his first indication of danger and Dominic instinctively leapt back. Where he had been a moment before was now a coiled green snake.
His reactions acted faster than his thoughts; his brain only caught up a moment later. The snake had lunged for him again, and his body had immediately dodged sideways to avoid it. Seeing the opportunity, Dominic didn’t dare waste a single moment. He struck at the back of the snake, biting straight through its spine.
[You have killed Boomslang (Basic Beast level 8)]
[You have earned 9 PP]
The whole thing had taken perhaps two seconds from the moment he’d reacted to the death of the snake. But those two seconds left adrenaline pouring through Dominic’s body. He panted roughly for a moment as his brain properly caught up with exactly what had happened.
‘Snakes. Lovely,’ Dominic commented to Leo sarcastically, even while quickly sending a message to the rest of the pride. He told them what had happened and offered reassurance that he was fine.
‘Well, we did smell reptiles,’ replied the lion with a sense of nonchalance. As well he might have – he was used to having lots of venomous snakes everywhere he stepped. Coming from England, where there was only one wild venomous snake species and there was more chance he’d be bitten by a snake in the zoo than find an adder in his city back garden, Dominic was a lot less sanguine about it.
A boomslang? he said to himself. He didn’t know anything about that species. He supposed that it was good that it hadn’t been a black mamba – he knew that that was one of the most deadly snakes in the world and lived in South Africa where he’d been when the System arrived. Though it could be an alien snake species, he supposed, and therefore more dangerous than he was expecting.
Still, it was just his luck that the country in which he had been at the moment of the System’s arrival contained multiple species of venomous and highly deadly snakes, insects, as well as other aggressive fauna, some of which he’d already encountered and almost died from. Maybe it’s been pure luck that I haven’t encountered these kinds of creatures sooner, he remarked.
‘Most reptiles don’t try to take on lions,’ answered Leo, reading his thoughts. ‘They’ve probably been actively staying out of our way. Though,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘there is a certain type of snake which doesn’t like to move out of anyone’s way, and can kill with a bite if stepped on.’ He sent a picture of a young lion being bitten by a thick brown and yellow patterned snake. It had a broad arrow-like head – that was supposed to be a sign of a type of adder, right? Leo then sent another picture of the lion, now dead, and the snake starting to eat it.
Dominic pushed it away, now feeling even more nervous than before. He resolved to pay even more attention to where he stepped. Tucking the snake’s body away into his Inventory, he decided to find its Core later. They might need the body as a portable health potion at some point.
Tentatively, he approached the tree again, ready to leap away at the first hint of a hiss. Fortunately, it seemed like there was only one snake in that tree, as nothing else fell down at him.
Just past the tree, he found something else: a pit trap, concealed by leaves which had fallen from the trees and obscured the path. It was rather devilish, Dominic had to admit. The expected reaction of someone having a snake fall on them was to either run forwards or run back. And despite having dealt with the snake, even Dominic had felt extremely tempted to hurry past the tree just in case another one was waiting. Doing that would have meant he’d have walked straight into the trap waiting for him.
He triggered it with a paw, causing the thin layer of leaves and branches covering the path to fall and reveal the spike-filled pit below. It wasn’t that big – perhaps half Dominic’s length in diameter. But that wouldn’t have helped much if he’d gone in head first.
Though, actually, with his new appendages, he might have been able to catch himself before tumbling in. Though whether he’d have been able to get himself out of the mess was another question.
Moving carefully around the pit trap in case of another trap waiting for him – animal or environmental, Dominic continued scouting the path for his party.
