Elsewhere

Duke emerged in a wide-open prairie that reminded him of the first level. He wondered if it was a repeat of the level or something that was meant to be clever and deceptive. He didn’t much care either way as he took a long look at the area around him. He quickly noticed that the grasses surrounding him were bone-dry and there were countless burrow holes in the ground as well. Far off in the distance he could see dark clouds gathering. He shrugged, picked a direction and started on his way.

Duke sighed as he was attacked by the first mob on the floor. It was, as far as he could tell, a giant prairie dog. It yipped and chittered at him angrily and then attacked. The attack came as an awkward run across the grass followed by an attempt to bite his head clean off. Duke simply TELEPORTED behind its charge and hit it with a 500-point LIGHTNING strike.

The creature skidded to a halt, turned and charged again. Duke was almost so stunned at it still being alive that he didn’t react in time on the return charge. Almost. His second TELEPORT and LIGHTNING attack struck home and the creature stumbled, temporarily stunned. Duke poured 1,000 points into the next LIGHTNING strike and the giant prairie dog stumbled further, fully stunned. Duke finally poured yet another 1,000 Mana into another LIGHTNING strike and finished off the beast.

Duke stared at the smoking corpse of the prairie dog and considered what it had taken to kill it. It took multiple strikes to kill that thing and it’s the basic mob for this level. This is not looking good. I’m going to have to take my time and fight things one at a time here. It’s a damned good thing my Mana is regenerating at almost a hundred points a second because I’m going to have to pour excessive amounts into each shot. Damn. this is going to take a while. If I run into more than one at a time, I might have to bug out.

He put the corpse into his INVENTORY and waited for his Mana to regen before he continued on his selected path. The next three prairie dogs that attacked were equally mindless and went down individually with massive Mana expenditures. As long as he kept it to single fights, he would be fine, he figured.

That was, of course, when things changed. The next prairie dog he saw didn’t blindly charge him. Instead, it popped up out of its hole and struck him with a sonic attack. Its scream made his ears bleed and knocked him flat on his back. He scrambled back to his feet, ready to meet the charge with furious LIGHTNING but there was nothing charging. The prairie dog had dropped back into its hole. When Duke made it to the hole, there was no sign of the prairie dog. At least, not until he was struck from behind by another sonic blast. Duke didn’t hesitate and TELEPORTED back to the level entrance.

“Well, that fucking hurts. It even deafens me temporarily so I can’t hear the next one lining me up from behind. Clever bastards. Now, how do I stop them?” Duke sat down, waiting for his Health to regen. He absently activated RESTORE to get his armor back into pristine shape. The grass around him suddenly perked up and turned bright green instead of the dried-out tan it had been.

Duke pondered the situation for a bit, instinctively knowing that he was safe in the spot he was resting. I could try what I had done with the ferrets and close off their holes. That seems a bit boring and repetitive though. Let’s see, what else we’ve got in our bag of tricks… It took a few minutes, but Duke came up with a plan. But first he needed to experiment.

Duke set out into the level yet again. This time, he approached in Stealth and took his time getting to the first opening. He kept looking around himself to make sure none of the prairie dogs could sneak up on him. At least that was his intention. After several careful minutes of creeping up to the hole, Duke looked in to see if it was clear. Thankfully, it appeared to be empty, so he quietly dropped down into the hole.

He quickly checked both directions the hole traveled and saw the coast was clear. The passage was wide and tall enough to stand comfortably for him, which made sense as the beasts came up to his head height at the shoulder. Picking a random direction, he set out to follow the tunnel. Every third Stealthy step, he turned back in the direction he had come from to ensure he was still alone.

He passed several intersections before he heard what he was hoping for – the sound of a creature moving in the tunnel ahead of him. He slowed down even more and prepared his experiment. He charged a POISON DART with 1,000 Mana. It was not one of his harder hitting Abilities, but it did carry a damage-over-time trait and that was what he was testing.

Once the creature was in sight, Duke let the dart go. He then immediately TELEPORTED back to the beginning. There was functionality in his display for combat that he had never turned on as he had found it initially distracting. This showed vital statistics for himself and any enemies in combat. He had plenty of experience in using a HUD from being a combat pilot, but this was a bit more data than he wanted to see if there were a lot of foes. He wanted to test the functionality now and see if he could get it to work for him.

It took a bunch of mental manipulation, but he was able to get his display to show him exactly what he wanted from his foes. As he was making his final adjustments, he made a happy discovery. There was a “dungeon level” display. With it, he could look at a map of the area he had already covered and, most importantly for this current level, a count of active foes. This was perfect! The listing showed 24 foes still left in the level. He flipped back to the active combat screen.

The prairie dog he had poisoned was still losing Health and was down to about 75 percent. He kept watching as its Health continued to tick down every second. After what had been 30 seconds, the creature’s Health stopped ticking downward, stopping at close to 60 percent. Duke nodded and set out again.

This time, he saw there were prairie dogs out and about. He smiled thinking that his Stealth strike had stirred the coterie up pretty well. This would actually work out pretty well. Duke TELEPORTED about 30 meters away from one of the prairie dogs and hit it with a 1,000 point POISON DART. He then immediately TELEPORTED away, winding up another 30 meters or so behind a different prairie dog and hit it with a POISON DART as well. He repeated this for all four prairie dogs that were out and about twice, finally TELEPORTING back to the start again. Each time he hit one, the entire group would turn and blast sonic energy right where he had been standing.

The prairie dogs became more confused and enraged as the seconds ticked by. Duke, on the other hand, just regened his Mana. He checked his dungeon level display, and it confirmed the one thing he was hoping he had right, even after the poison wore off, the prairie dogs weren’t healing back up. The four were sitting at between 20 and 40% Health.

Duke smiled and started the cycle again, finishing off the four who were above ground. He waited for his Mana to regen and set out yet again. There were no prairie dogs above ground, so he dropped down the same hole he entered last time. He was brimming with confidence and that led to carelessness. He dropped down in-between a pair of the beasts who were waiting for him.

The sonic wail of the prairie dogs’ attacks struck him from both the front and back. Duke felt his ears pop and hot wetness poured out, dripping down his neck. He responded faster this time, having not been stunned by some miracle and fired off a 4,000 point FORCE BOLT at each of the attacking beasts and TELEPORTED back to safety to regen. I can keep this up all day. His musings were interrupted by a system message:

*** Exploit noted. Conditions adjusted to retain floor intent. The level entrance is no longer considered a “safe zone.” Good luck! ***

Duke swore and climbed to his feet as he felt the ground rumble. “Oh no, not happening.” Duke TELEPORTED 200 meters to the side. He turned back to watch as a dozen giant prairie dogs swarmed over the level entrance. They tore the ground up looking for him. He watched as they continued their rampage, thinking about how to approach the problem now. He really wanted to kill all the mobs on this level because he was sure they were all over level 100 and would give him phenomenal experience, but he was certain that taking on a dozen at once was not the smartest or most survivable idea.

His decision was made when he heard a squeal behind him, followed by another sonic blast that nearly knocked him flat. He spun around to see a prairie dog duck back into a hole a few meters away. “Fuzzy bastard. That’s going to cost you!” Duke TELEPORTED over to the hole to get a good, quick shot in. Instead, he was blasted in the back, knocking him hard to the ground.

Duke scrambled back to his feet in time to see the mob of prairie dogs headed his way. One, by one, they disappeared into holes before they got close to him. He TELEPORTED back to the entrance area. Even though it was torn up, it still gave him space to think about how to approach this latest tactic. “Either I play whack a mole, or I take this into the tunnels and collapse the tunnels.”

Duke scanned his Ability list, pulling up the information for REMOTE CASTING. It was an Ability he really had not used much before but might work well for this approach. He was able to start the origin of an Ability at a distance away from himself according to a rank and level formula. He poured through the information. “Yes, here it is. Five raised to the rank level plus Ability level within rank in meters. OK, so, Untrained is rank one, and I have it at level 2, so I can REMOTE CAST an Ability a full…” Duke’s hopes crashed as he did the math. “Seven meters away from myself. Well, shit. Guess I have to practice that one too. Just too damned many Abilities to get them all ranked up. Oh well, let’s try it anyway. Seven meters is still seven meters farther back I can be from the blast.”

Duke charged up a FORCE BOLT with a monstrous 7,000 Mana, TELPORTED close to a hole, and REMOTE CAST it to travel down the tunnel before TELEPORTING away. The resulting explosion of dirt was impressive. The ground shook beneath him and the tunnel collapsed all along its path. Even better, another opponent was crossed off his list.

Duke knew the prairie dogs would change tactics yet again, but he had to take advantage of the temporary edge he had built. The problem was that he had used so much Mana it would take him almost a minute and a half to regen. In normal use, that was no time at all. In the middle of combat, that was an eternity. He had to find a way to regen and keep on the move so that they didn’t pin him down again. Some quick math later, he realized that he could TELPORT every second and still get more than 80 Mana every same second in regen. The next fifteen minutes were spent hopping around the level and blasting away every time his Mana regened. It wasn’t glorious. It wasn’t fun. But it was effective. He had killed another half dozen of the prairie dogs or so and only had 10 remaining.

That was, of course, when the boss decided enough was enough. It burst out of the ground with the other nine remaining prairie dogs surrounding it. Duke sighed. “Boss animal bursting out of the ground. When I said, ‘Play it again, Sam,’ this is not exactly what I had in mind.”

He received no response, but the prairie dogs all started running around the boss in a circle, moving faster and faster. The sound of their running was a low, but rising rumble. Faster and faster, they circled the boss and the pitch of their passage rose as well, quickly becoming painful. Duke found his equilibrium starting to waver as what he saw defied his mind. The prairie dogs were lifting into the air!

Duke stared as the remains of the coterie took flight and started to hover in his direction. As they moved, Duke could see sonic blasts randomly striking the ground like lightning from a thundercloud. Each blast sent a tremendous clod of dirt exploding into the air. He kept his distance as he finished regening his Mana and tried to think of a way to fight this other than to just blast it and see what happens.

In the end, he tried just that. He TELEPORTED close and unleashed with a 7,000 point LIGHTNING bolt before TELEPORTING away. He saw the crackling electricity arcing all over the outer ring of prairie dogs, but it dissipated before it seemed to do any visible damage. As he watched the gaggle of angry whirling fur wobble closer, he was caught by one of the sonic blasts. It knocked him 10 meters away and took half of his Health. From that point, he mostly kept his distance, only getting closer to try a different Ability on it. FORCE BOLT seemed to be the only one that even had a minor effect on the thing. Duke was sure he was heavily outclassed, but he also knew there was no choice but to win. He kept running and gunning.

After spending nearly an hour evading and exchanging blasts with the boss, he had learned a few things. One, the seeming random blasts were not random – there was a pattern to them. Two, although he could target a single prairie dog, the energy shield surrounding them all protected them equally. Three, he could survive a direct hit from one of the sonic blasts, but only just barely.

Duke continued to move about the area, desperately trying to come up with a way to penetrate the shield. Even the thrown spear bounced off, so he knew it was resistant to physical as well as magical damage. There was one thing he hadn’t tried yet and it was a longshot, but it was all he had left.

Duke focused on a single prairie dog as it whirled around the boss, watching it with all of his intent and concentration. When he was sure he had a lock on it, he pushed 5,000 Mana into TELEPORTING it 10 meters away from the boss. It worked! The prairie dog was ripped away from the boss and plummeted to the ground relatively close to Duke. It was severely injured, and Duke was able to quickly reach it and finish it off before he had to TELEPORT away again.

Duke laughed and proceeded to go back into dodge mode as the boss started wobbling his way with a bit more urgency. When Duke’s Mana was full again, he tried the same trick, and it worked just as well. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It got easier to start targeting individuals as he thinned out the group which required less concentration. He felt his headache ease. When there were only two left with the boss, things changed.

The energy shield that had been so strong that he could feel the hum from it had dimmed significantly and was nearly silent at any distance. The wobble of the prairie dogs had also grown heavily pronounced and the sonic blasts were far more infrequent and even more randomly aimed.

“Yeah, baby. You’re fucked now!” Duke TELEPORTED another prairie dog away from the boss and finished it off. The wobble as the single prairie dog whipped around the boss was extreme now, causing the boss to start spinning and tumbling faster and faster. As Duke stayed back to regen his Mana yet again, he saw the pairing grow more and more unstable with the orbiting prairie dog starting to pull away and move into a more elliptical orbit.

He watched, fascinated as the final orbiting prairie dog broke free, arcing away to eventually slam into the ground at tremendous speed. The boss, itself fell from the sky with much less velocity but by no means much less impact. Duke TELEPORTED close by and unleashed a 6,000 Mana LIGHTNING strike, nearly depleting his Mana in the hopes of finishing the boss off before it could get its bearings.

The boss struggled to its feet, growling with half of its face burned off by the LIGHTNING strike. Duke didn’t have much Mana left so he tried something that he had been thinking about for some time now. Instead of TELEPORTING away, he TELEPORTED onto the creature’s back and started stabbing it in the skull with his sword. The sword sang out its tune of Blood and War, growing louder with every strike. Duke felt the sword twisting in his hands but at this range, he could not miss. He got angrier and angrier as the sword seemed to fight him and each subsequent strike hit harder than the last and did not notice when the beast stopped moving. What stopped him was the system message.

*** Congratulations! You have completed the third 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. ***

Duke looted everything he could fit in his INVENTORY, thankful that it had expanded when it leveled up. He then proceeded through the exit portal. Back in the room, he lay down on the bed for a moment, falling asleep nearly instantly.