NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8 - The Underground River
Level 0 Summoned Skeleton has been slain
You have earned 25 experience points (850/1000 total experience points progress to level 2)
Level 6 Goblin Shaman has been slain
You have earned 300 experience points (1150/1000 total experience points progress to level 2)
You are now Level 2 (150/1500 total experience points progress to level 3)
Your total health has increased
Your total stamina has increased
Your total mana has increased
You have received 2 perk points (Current Number of Perk Points: 2)
What? No new class bonuses? I guess not every level would have these.
Slightly miffed by this, I was nonetheless happy for the rejuvenating rush from the level-up.
I looked at Aki. She was wasting no time and was currently looking through the shaman’s body checking for anything useful.
I used that time to quickly check my notifications:
The following attributes have progressed:
Strength: +44% (48% total progress to level 11)
Dexterity: +23% (25% total progress to level 14)
Agility: +150% (161% total progress to level 9)
Your Agility Attribute has increased to level 9 (30% total progress to level 10)
Endurance: +87% (115% total progress to level 10)
Your Endurance Attribute has increased to level 10 (7% total progress to level 11)
Your total health has increased
Your total stamina has increased
Vitality: +160% (258% total progress to level 8)
Your Vitality Attribute has increased to level 8 (79% total progress to level 9)
Your total health has increased
Your total stamina has increased
Willpower: +27% (49% total progress to level 13)
Resilience: +13% (31% total progress to level 7)
The following skills have progressed:
Bastard Sword - Two-handed: +80% (108% total progress to level 3)
Your Bastard Sword - Two-handed skill has increased to level 3 (4% total progress to level 4)
Earth Arcana: +10% (88% total progress to level 1)
Sense of Direction: +5% (5% total progress to level 11)
The following spells have progressed:
Rock Spikes: +13% (48% total progress to level 3)
I immediately put one perk point into Bastard Swords.
Your Bastard Sword - Two-handed skill has increased to level 4 (0% total progress to level 5)
You have spent 1 Perk Points (Current Number of Perk Points: 1)
I didn’t get an info dump like with the first point, but I kind of felt my… instincts improve for the lack of a better descriptor.
I quickly went over my character sheet to see if there were any obvious ideas on what to do with the other one, as I didn’t quite want to use both of them on my fighting skills.
Basic Details
Name
Lilyth
Race
Tenebral Slimeling
Gender
Transwoman
Age
33
Level
2 (150/1500 exp)
Class
Tenebral Stalker
Rank
Novice
Perk Points
1
Attributes
Physical
Progress
Mental
Progress
Strength
10
48%
Intelligence
16
17%
Dexterity
13
25%
Wisdom
12
0%
Agility
9
30%
Willpower
12
49%
Endurance
10
7%
Cunning
8
0%
Vitality
8
79%
Resilience
6
31%
Perception
9
0%
Faith
3
0%
Appearance
12
0%
Charisma
6
0%
Skills
Lore - General
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
Insight
Novice
17
15%
Lore - Humanities
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
Linguistics
Journeyslime
40
10%
Earth Literature
Apprentice
25
0%
Earth History
Novice
10
0%
Lore - Sciences
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
Data Analysis
Apprentice
30
0%
Mathematics
Novice
10
0%
Computing
Novice
15
0%
Survival - General
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
First Aid
Novice
2
0%
Sense of Direction
Novice
10
5%
Stealth
Novice
2
20%
Climbing
Novice
1
62%
Martial - Swords
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
Bastard Sword - Two-handed
Novice
4
0%
Crafting - Cooking
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
General
Novice
2
0%
Crafting - Magical
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
Arcane Writing
Novice
1
50%
Arcana
Name
Rank
Level
Progress
Earth
-
0
88%
Spells
Name
Arcana
Rank
Level
Progress
Rock Spikes
Earth
Novice
2
48%
Traits
Name
Level
Progress
Neurodivergence
N/A
N/A
The Queen's Raivarian
N/A
N/A
Entomophobia
08/10
Special
Hidden Predator
N/A
N/A
I kind of wanted to keep it to level up Earth Arcana to level two once I get the skill, but in the end put it into the Bastards Swords after all. Better safe than sorry. I wasn’t exactly in a position to worry about stupid stuff like “build optimization”.
Your Bastard Sword - Two-handed skill has increased to level 5 (0% total progress to level 6)
You have spent 1 Perk Points (Current Number of Perk Points: 0)
This time around I did get a vision of some additional attacks and parries.
So what… is this every five levels thing? What if I level it up naturally?
I hated that I never got any explainer, but then again if I wasn’t in a life-or-death… well… painful death-or-more painful death situation I would have enjoyed figuring it out on my own. Ah, who was I kidding? I would get frustrated and check the wiki.
There must be a Dwynveia Wiki somewhere, mustn’t it? New Quest Acquired: Get access to the Dwikia. Dwynwiki? Something like this.
The sound of fingers snapping brought me back to reality.
‘Hey!’ Aki shouted, waving her hand in front of my face. ‘Dwynveia to Lilyth. Are you there?’
‘S-sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I got lost in thought. Anything of use on the beardo there?’
‘Yup.’ She pointed to several lying on the floor. ‘All yours.’
I raised my eyebrow at that.
‘I saw you cast magic, so I think you’ll make much better use of these. I grabbed this for myself.’
She showed me a silver ring with a yellow gem that was now on her finger. I examined it:
Item: Ring of Protection
Class: Jewellery - Magical
Rarity: Coven-made - Uncommon
Quality: Good
Durability: 18/20
Charges: 2/3
Effects:
Creates a force field around the user that last for 5 minutes or until destroyed (This consumes 1 charge)
Traits:
Rechargeable - You can channel mana through the object to restore its charges
‘That’s pretty good.’ I said, happy that she would be safer now.
She beamed at me.
I crouched by the item pile Aki left for me. There were three of them: A bottle filled with purple liquid; a violet pouch tied with a red string; and some sort of a wooden cylinder.
I picked up the pouch first. I could feel something oval inside.
Item: Rune Pouch
Class: Container
Rarity: Specialist - Rare
Quality: Average
Durability: 5/5
Description: Used to store Magical Runes, coins and other small objects
Interesting.
I opened the pouch. There was a single rune inside and saw that there was a red flowy mark engraved on it.
Item: Rune of “Gust of Wind”
Class: Magical - Air Arcana
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Durability: 10/10
Description: Allows the user to learn the “Gust of Wind” Spell. Casting the spell without sufficient knowledge of Air Arcana may lower its effectiveness and/or cause it to fail
Spell Effect: Fires a torrent of air within a 1x2 metres cone. Has a chance to cause knockback.
Cost to learn: 1 Perk Point
That must be the spell the shaman was casting at us.
For now, I put the rune back into its pouch and moved on to the cylinder. It was made out of lacquered red wood. There was a twist-off cap on one side.
Item: Scroll Case
Class: Container
Rarity: Specialist - Uncommon
Quality: Average
Durability: 10/10
Description: Used to store scrolls, parchment and maps
I opened it and saw that there were three scrolls inside. I took them out one by one. The first one was another Air Arcana spell:
Item: Scroll of “Fist of Wind”
Class: Magical - Air Arcana
Rarity: Uncommon
Uses: 1
Spell: Fist of Wind
Class: Elemetal - Air - Damage
Description: Imbues caster’s chosen fist with the elemental power of wind. Striking a target with it unleashes a devastating torrent of wind. Causes knockback.
Casting Time: 2 seconds
The next one was Water Arcana.
Item: Scroll of “Ice Lance”
Class: Magical - Water Arcana
Rarity: Uncommon
Uses: 1
Spell: Ice Lance
Class: Elemental- Frost - Damage
Description: Creates a large spike of ice within the caster's hand.
Casting Time: 3 seconds
Those are some spicy meatballs.
The last scroll felt very weird when I touched it. I took it out and at that point, intense pain started spreading across my hand. I dropped it with a yelp of pain.
Aki ran over to me alarmed.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ’What happened?’
I examined my palm - there were now nasty-looking burns in the place where my skin touched the parchment.
‘There is something… wrong with that scroll,’ I explained with a grimace. ‘I’m hesitant to ask this, but could you try to pick it up? Just be careful and drop it the moment you start feeling any feedback from it.’
Aki nodded and carefully touched the scroll. She must have not felt anything strange as she was able to pick it up. Aki unrolled and examined it.
‘It’s a scroll of Divine Blessing.’ she said.
‘Let me guess… Light Arcana?’
She nodded.
‘Yeah. That’s a non-starter for me then. It seems I’m… allergic to it for the lack of a better term.’
She nodded and put the scroll into her satchel. I started packing my share of the loot, taking a moment to see how much punishment my poor backpack could still take.
Item: Backpack of Holding
Type: Magical - Bag
Rarity: Coven-made - Rare
Durability: 16/50
Traits:
Holding (Minor) - Doubles the capacity (60 litres) of the item (Total Capacity - 120 litres)
Soulbound - Cannot be stolen. If lost, can be resummoned by the owner at any time. If damaged, durability is restored at twice the owner’s natural healing rate.
The clothes I had on weren’t in much better condition. I looked at Aki - her garb was also soiled and damaged.
Yeah. We both need to change. Especially the girl - it can’t be healthy wearing those.
Once we were done, I motioned to the exit door.
‘Shall we?’
The exit led to a stone bank of the underground river. I could see a similar bank on the other side, but there was no way to get across. I tried to figure out where we should go next. If we turned right we would be heading upstream and best I could tell the collapsed corridor. Or would we? I signalled to Aki to give me a moment and did some mental pathfinding again. She used that time to light her lamp.
Let’s see. Assuming the turn where I met the goblins was around the staircase room, I then went along the sunken corridor, we turned right and now left again. Meaning…
I looked around.
‘We are currently between the sunken and collapsed corridors,’ I muttered.
Aki looked at me confused.
‘Sorry, just thinking out loud’.
I looked left and saw that a short distance away the river turned right at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle.
Yeah. No way this place is natural. So, assuming this is an artificial river… What could be the purpose for it? Water source? Sewage? In either case, if we follow it downstream we might get somewhere. Plus… we would be walking along the sunken corridor.
‘Let’s go left,’ I said to Aki and explained my reasoning to her.
She didn't seem entirely convinced by it, truth be told, I wasn’t either so I went over it again.
Wait. What if the sunken and collapsed corridors form the outer sides of a rectangle within which lies the dungeon proper? So, if we go right we would be getting closer to the actual ruin.
I raised this possibility with Aki.
‘So what you are saying - you have no idea where we should be going?’
I laughed.
‘Never had one ever since I got here. I say let’s try going right and if we don’t see anything interesting we’ll try the other direction?’
‘Sounds good!’
Going right turned out to be the correct choice. Eventually, we started seeing the remnants of what looked very similar to the stone blocks that were used to construct walls on the floor below lying on the ground.
‘Let’s stop here for a moment,’ I suggested.
‘Why?’
‘I think we’re far enough to not be in immediate danger anymore and we both need to rest and refresh a bit. Wait a second.’
I took off my backpack and took out both changes of clothing I had there.
‘One of them is for you. Wash up the best you can in the river and change. I’ll keep watch. ’
Her eyes lit up.
‘OH! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!’
She gave me a hug.
I sat on one of the blocks and stared into the darkness, the only sounds being Aki splashing the water and humming some tune I didn’t recognize.
As I waited I drank one of the healing potions and the mana potion, which turned out to taste like grape juice. It made me feel so much better. I thought for a moment about what to do with the bottles. Then an idea struck me, but it would need to wait a bit.
After a few minutes, Aki tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. She was genuinely beaming with happiness. My clothes were a bit too large for her, but I didn’t think she minded. They were also wet, but there was no surprise there, it’s not like we had anything to dry ourselves with.
‘My turn now,’ I smiled and approached the water. I took off my tattered clothes and examined my body. Despite all of the healing potions, there were still a number of blue-black semi-liquid “bruises” on my skin. None of them were oozing the black stuff, which I took as a good sign. I cleaned myself up and put on a fresh set of clothes. It would dry off eventually, I imagined. I turned back to Aki and said:
‘All done.’
I detached my canteen and passed it on to her.
‘You must be thirsty.’
She accepted it with a nod and took a swig from it, after which she offered it back to me. I shook my head.
‘Keep it for now. I don’t want you to drink the river water and it should refill automa… on its own.’
‘What about you though?’
I took out the potion bottles.
‘I’m immune to disease, so if anything is in the water it shouldn’t hurt me.’
‘Thank you,’ she muttered and took another swig.
I filled both bottles, emptied one of them, and then refilled it. It wasn’t the best I drank, but it would do.
‘Ready to go?’ I asked her after I was done packing everything up.
But before Aki could answer we heard screams coming from downstream. The raiding party was back.