NOVEL NEXT Adventure 230 – Decaying Land Entrance of the Toxo Catacombs
Liam felt his stomach lurch after stepping through the portal. He gripped his stomach with one hand while placed his other on his knee while trying to fight back against the bile that threatened to erupt. After a few seconds of fighting, he felt the feeling subside. The same could not be said for his other companions.
Liam turned as he heard liquid erupt from each of their mouths. As he stared at them he gave them a wide grin. He waited till they had stopped spewing vomit and before any of them could protest he said a phrase that felt just right for the occasion. “Upchuck Roulette strikes again.”
“I hate you,” Roman stated as he wiped his mouth. “I hate you so much right now.”
“I haven’t heard that in some time,” Blair started to say as she narrowed her eyes on Liam. “And I would be happy never hearing it again.”
Artem straightened his posture and looked through his inventory. He didn’t say a word, but instead passed Blair and Roman a water bottle to help clean out the nasty taste that lingered.
As they did this, Liam’s grin faded into a serious look as he took in their surroundings while changing his current equipment for the one he decided to use for his Fiddler’s Spider Web business. He figured since he was in here and there wouldn’t be anyone from the outside to be allowed to come in then he would be safe wearing it.
The sky was dark with a full moon looking down. Rotted tree trunks with black leaves surrounded the area behind them and the portal they came through. Poles with Yooperlite Stones glowed, providing light here and there where the darkness of the night was the thickest.
The ground beneath them was hard and rocky that lead to a tall earthy looking hill that seemed to be about half a mile away. As Liam narrowed his eyes to get a better look he noticed there were holes here and there the closer you got to the hill. These holes varied in size. Some of the sizes worried him, but not as much as the piles of bones and skulls that littered the ground near these holes.
The other aesthetics that stood out to Liam were the spider webs. They were thick in most places, but they covered the holes, were strung from tree to tree, and even laid broken in some areas across the ground.
Liam felt Artem, Blair, and Roman walk up beside him. They must have looked around as well because he could see their heads move about.
“Remind me again why I let you guys talk me into coming here?” Artem gulped.
“You know exactly why,” Roman responded as he stared at the area around them. As he looked around to get a better picture of the terrain he started to question his choices.
“How are we going to do this? Have you done a dungeon like this before?” Blair questioned as she eyed the skulls.
“I don’t know. I have only done Free Roam and Tower type dungeons This will be my first Wave dungeon,” Liam stated before looking at her. “What about you guys?”
“Haven’t done any other types of dungeons since the Tutorial Area,” Blair replied. “Just a few Tower ones to get some experience.”
“Same here,” Roman and Artem chimed in.
“Since we don’t know what to expect nor what the levels are going to look like I guess we’ll play it by ear then,” Liam stated. “If we start to get overwhelmed I can use a few Chemicalized Creations I made recently.”
“So you have made some?” Roman wryly smiled. “The same as last time or some new ones?”
Liam smiled wickedly as he answered, “I have some new toys to show you guys.”
“Of course you do,” Artem said as he shook his head.
Roman was about to make another comment, but stopped as his ears perked up while looking around. He then slowly and cautiously placed a hand on the ground and closed his eyes.
Curious, Liam asked, “What’s wrong?”
Roman indicated to give him a moment as he raised a finger in the air. After a couple of seconds he stood back up and placed his fists up in a fighting stance as he announced, “I think it’s about to start. I feel movement coming from the three closest holes. Two on the left and one on the right near the trees.”
Liam looked at the hole with spiderwebs covering over it. He noticed the webs dipping in and slowly pushing up then back down. It almost looked like someone was breathing with the way the webs were moving until the webs started rising up and up until the middle broke open. The web coverings on the other holes broke as well making him, Artem, Blair, and Roman start to back step as a dozen of tannish brown furred wolves, lightly armored goblins with daggers, and a few dark green and black spiders emerged from each of the three holes.
Liam assessed one of each to get a better idea of what they were dealing with.
“Possessed Zombified Goblin Warrior. 850/850 HP. 0/0 MP. Level – 15.”
“Possessed Zombified Stone Fanged Wolf. 956/956 HP. 640/640 MP. Level – 16.”
“Toxo Disease Spider Carriers. 500/500 HP. 300/300 MP. Level – 15.”
Liam assessed a few more to verify the levels and confirmed the monsters were a group of leveled fifteen and sixteen. None were lower nor higher than that. While the health of each monsters could be manageable to fight against, it was the number of monsters that came out that worried him.
There were a total of thirty six creatures in this wave. They had five waves in total to go through four if they didn’t count the final wave that held the final boss. Although he wasn’t sure if the boss would have mobs with it as well.
His other concern were the monsters he had never fought against. While the goblins were familiar and the Stone Fanged Wolves sounded fairly easier to understand what they were capable of, the Toxo Disease Spider Carriers were confusing. He wasn’t sure why they were named that or what they were capable of. He had some ideas what they could do, thanks to the ominous dark green dust cloud that periodically shot down to the ground beneath them, but what else they could do was still a mystery.
After seeing they hadn’t started running straight towards them after emerging from the hole, Liam took this brief moment to make a decision. They needed to take out these monsters as fast as possible without tiring themselves out. They also needed to make sure they didn’t get infected with the Toxo’s venom or whatever type of negative effects they could inflict on them. In order to make sure of this, he decided to give his companions a bit of a light show.
Liam pulled out two glass flasks and threw them towards a spot he felt would do the most damage at the group of Possessed Zombified Stone Fanged Wolves and Toxo Diseased Spider Carriers before grabbing one more and tossing it at the group of Possessed Zombified Goblin Warriors.
Artem, Blair, and Roman didn’t say anything as they watched two orbs rose in the middle of the groups of the Toxo Diseased Spider Carriers and the Possessed Zombified Stone Fanged Wolves. The creatures tried to scatter away, but failed as the orbs started sucking them towards the epicenter. Both orbs slammed to the ground and released the power they held within.
A circle of flames exploded and engulfed the Toxo Diseased Spider Carriers as it washed over them. The dust cloud that pushed out from their bodies lit up and entered inside their bodies, making their abdomen suddenly explode. A shockwave of lightning suddenly washed out over the wolves causing them to fall to the ground on their sides. Arcs of lightning bounced around from body to body causing more damage to them.
While Artem, Blair, and Roman liked seeing those and was impressed with the damage done, especially towards the exploding spiders, their eyes were on the newest creation they hadn’t seen before. Even Liam was excited to see how this one worked since he too hadn’t seen this one in action yet.
An orb had formed in the air around the Possessed Zombified Goblin Warriors around the same time the other three had formed. Pitch black liquid suddenly rushed out from the orb and spread out within a ten foot radius. After the water reached the ten foot radius all around the goblins, several lines suddenly shot up from the edge and arced back to connect over the orb.
Liam, Artem, Blair, and Roman watched as the Possessed Zombified Goblin Warriors splashed around trying to run out of the watery land. However, as they tried to rush past the lines of pitch black water, their bodies came to a halt. The watery lines stopped them in their tracks, not letting a single creature out. As the last line connected the amount of water coming out of the orb increased. From a gushing stream to a dam breaking, the water started filling the caged area.
To all of their shock, not a single drop of water escaped past the lines that were now being filled. They watched as the prison filled up and blocked their view of what was going on further inside. The outreached hands of the Undead creatures were suddenly sucked in, the outlines of the bodies they were able to see had now disappeared deeper inside the pitch black water.
Liam didn’t know how long the watery prison would last. Even though he was the creator, the description never really stated the length of the watery prison. He moved his eyes over to the Possessed Zombified Stone Fanged Wolves since they were the only creatures still moving about. Liam wasn’t expecting the Toxo Diseased Spider Carriers to explode the way they did. If he had to make as best of a guess he could then the cloud that their bodies released might have been a flammable gas. He wasn’t going to complain about that. That was one less group of monsters to deal with during this first wave. Until the watery prison broke free, he needed to focus on the other group of monsters.
As he looked over the creatures he noticed something was off about them. While they were hit with side effects and had taken some damage, it looked like they didn’t take a lot of it. He stared at one to see if he could get as much of an accurate amount of damage as he could.
“Possessed Zombified Stone Fanged Wolf. 620/956 HP. 640/640 MP. Level – 16.”
It looked like they had received over a quarter of the damage he had thought they would take. He wasn’t sure if it was because the stone section of their name, but if that was the case then lightning magic was out of the picture for them.
Liam sprinted for the first Possessed Zombified Wolf he came across as they started getting back up. As he approached he pulled out one of his Bone crafted swords and aimed for one of their legs. He slashed through it as hard and clean as he could, but as it sliced through the joint he felt a powerful vibration shake through his weapon and hands.
Looks like the word stone in their names isn’t for show. Liam thought as he continued forward towards the next one. He had heard the others move after he had so he left the three legged creature for whoever was closest behind him.
He did this to three move Possessed Zombified Wolves. Each strike he felt his hands shake. Each shake made his hands almost involuntarily release his weapon. However, he persisted on. He hadn’t fought against a lot of Earth Type monsters, so he felt this was good for him to try and get used to this feeling.
As Liam approached the next wolf that had fully stood up and was turning its head towards him. Liam slashed down in a vertical angle. He felt his sword dig into the mane about a quarter of the way before coming to a hard stop. “Shit,” Liam swore as he tried to pull his sword out from the monster’s body.
He was able to pull it out and jumped back right in time before an earth spike shot up from the ground where he was standing. Liam repositioned himself as his feet touched the ground and was about to make his way around the spike. However, as he made his move the wolf had decided to make one of its own.
With faster speed, the wolf whirled around the spike with its mouth wide open. It went to bite down on Liam’s wrist, but as it chomped it bit through only air. Liam, thanks to his Danger Sense warning him, had used his bandage wrap ability his gloves had to wrap around the spike and pull him towards it and out of the way of the strike.
He planted his feet against the earth spike and pressed as hard and fast as he could while driving his sword right through the wolf’s stomach. He didn’t feel any resistance nor any hard areas as the sword dug deep inside the creature. He then pushed down with all of his might, slicing the monster open. Blood and small spider like creatures poured out from the open wound as the wolf dropped dead. Liam stomped down as quickly as he could, hearing pop here and there with each stomp like he was stepping on the firework poppers.
After the last one was stepped on, Liam turned to see if there were any other creatures that needed to be killed. Instead he found Artem, Blair and Roman slightly chuckling at him.
“What?” Liam asked, confused.
“Nothing,” Roman started as he failed to hide the smirk forming. “It just looked like you were trying to dance. Nice moves by the way.”
Liam rolled his eyes as he muttered, “Bite me.”
Before Roman could make any more fun of him the watery prison bubble suddenly dropped allowing the pitch black water to wash out from the radius it was held in and disappear into the ground. The creatures that were trapped inside all fell to the ground. Their greyish green skin and armor pieces started to sizzle and melt away as the air touched their wet surface. Gurgled noises escaped some of their mouths as water filled lungs started to pour out of the others. Toxo Corpse Controllers flowed out from a few of the creatures, their bodies sizzling and melting away as well as the fresh air touched their skin.
Artem, Blair, and Roman slowly looked at Liam who stared at the sizzling and melting corpses of the creatures with a smile and an approving nod. They knew he could have learned some crazy new alchemical items, but they weren’t prepared for this.
“Dude,” Roman started as he asked the question the other two were thinking. “What the hell was that?”
Liam turned his gaze to them. with a straight face he replied, “That one was a Weak Poisoned Bog Prison. This was the first time I had tried this one out so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I must say…I was not disappointed. I can’t wait to test the others I haven’t used yet.”
Artem stared at Liam. “What others?”
“I have a Weak Poisoned Ice Mist, a Weak Crackling Lunar Flash, and a Weak Lunate Sickle Air Blast. Those three I haven’t tried out yet,” Liam stated. “Ones I think you’ll like that I have recently made are a Weak Crushing Dark Fog and a Weak Poisoned Shadow Ash. Those two had excellent results.”
Blair blinked a couple of times as she stared at Liam. She then pursed her lips and shook her head not saying a thing.
“What?” Liam asked, a bit confused.
“I didn’t think you could mix poisons with Chemicalized Creations,” Blair said.
“I’m not sure if you can in liquid form, but I found that it is possible in powdered form,” Liam stated.
“Hey Liam,” Roman interjected before anyone could say anything.
“What’s up?” Liam asked.
“How many of those Chemicalized Creations do you have on you?” Roman questioned as his ears twitched a few times while keeping his eyes focused on something.
“I have quite a few…why do you ask?” Liam inquired.
“Because I’m picking up a lot of vibrations on the ground coming from the holes in the ground over there,” Roman stated as he pointed towards an area closer to the hill.
“Do you know exactly how many?” Liam asked as he tried to pinpoint the areas he was pointing at.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I do feel the steps of a few taller creatures and a bunch of smaller…,” Roman was explaining until a web covering a couple of the holes suddenly burst out into the air.
Liam, Artem, Blair stared at the areas where monsters were coming out of. Their eyes widened as four tall Hobgoblins, four of the silver furred gorillas they saw earlier, and three dozen goblin warriors, and wolves suddenly came out of two holes.
Liam assessed the creatures as they poured out of the holes.
“Possessed Zombified Goblin Warrior. 850/850 HP. 0/0 MP. Level – 15.”
“Possessed Zombified Stone Fanged Wolf. 956/956 HP. 640/640 MP. Level – 16.”
“Possessed Zombified Hobgoblin Warrior. 1,150/1,150 HP. 0/0 MP. Level 18.”
“Possessed Zombified Infernal Silverback. 1,520/1,520 HP. 1,500/1,500 M.P. Level – 19.”
“Fucking hell,” Liam stated as he watched the creatures form lines in front of the Possessed Zombified Hobgoblin Warriors and Possessed Zombified Infernal Silverbacks.
He was about to start throwing more of his Chemicalized Creatures, but stopped as Roman stated, “Hold off on throwing those.”
“Why?” Liam asked, looking both confused and annoyed.
“Because I think there’s more that hasn’t come out,” Roman stated.