NOVEL NEXT CHAPTER 23 Draugrs
Adam made his way to the next level- that is, the second floor.
Since the crypt is situated on the top of the mountain, it's technically a basement floor as he is headed underground. To the best of his knowledge, the entire mountain is one massive super crypt with more than a dozen floors.
The next floor appears to be more cave-like than the previous floor but the overall structure remains the same; hallways and various chambers with undead. Additionally, the place is supported by various stone pillars- and the pillars will become more and more common in the succeeding floors.
While the pillars would provide more cover for Adam, it can also make sniping slightly more challenging.
Such were the things going on in Adam’s mind while walking past said pillars. And then-
THUD!
Without warning, something strong struck the pillar that is in front of Adam. If not for the pillar, Adam would have been the one hit by it.
THUD!
THUD!
Adam quickly went into fight mode. He ducked for cover, immediately nocked an arrow, and aimed his bow to where he thinks the projectile came from, ready to release the arrow the moment he saw a target.
Whoever- or whatever, was throwing the projectile seems to be a single entity. And based on the frequency of the projectiles, it appears to be some kind of missile-type spell with around 5-seconds cooldown.
Adam chugged an invisibility potion and slowly moved. He cautiously moved away from cover and very slightly exposed his left arm.
THUD!
Another projectile hit the pillar he was hiding from. This means the entity throwing the projectile doesn’t know he exposed his arm. In other words, it can’t detect his invisibility.
'Good.'
But just to be safe, Adam did one more experiment. He exposed half of his body with his left arm fully stretched out.
THUD!
THUD!
The projectile is still hitting the pillar.
‘That’s good enough for me.’ Adam concluded.
Although the entity is capable of casting magic, it's still not intelligent enough. But despite his invisibility, he still cautiously moved from pillar to pillar until he could identify the entity throwing the projectiles at him.
Eventually he saw it. It looks like a zombie but moves nimble enough like a skeleton minion.
Adam knows what it is: a Draugr.
Draugrs are the next stage of a zombie’s evolution. Once a zombie makes it to level 100, it will undergo a transformation and become what is called a draugr. They are tougher and stronger than their less evolved brethren. And some are capable of using magic as demonstrated by this enemy.
Now he realized what projectile was being thrown at him: Ice Barb. In simple terms, it is the Cryomancy’s counterpart of Pyromancy’s Firebolt spell.
From the looks of it, it doesn’t have any other weapon and relies solely on its spells.
Fire Enchantment!
Adam nocked his arrow to his bow and drew as far as he could.
Swish! His arrow hit the draugr’s arm.
[You have dealt 110 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
Doing so may not have dealt as much damage, but it at least interrupted the draugr’s spellcasting for a few seconds. Adam then took this opportunity to pepper the draugr with as many arrows as he could.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
[You have dealt 135 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 139 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 132 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
THUD! THUD! THUD
The draugr was able to resume casting and started shooting Adam with more Ice Barbs.
Adam took cover in one of the pillars, waiting for a break in the enemy’s casting to take another shot.
Once again, he aimed for one of its arms. Then his following shot is to a more vulnerable area- like the face.
Swish!
[You have dealt 109 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 140 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 138 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
‘How are you still alive?’ thought Adam.
So far, he has dealt around 900 damage. Even for a draugr, it shouldn’t have this much HP, especially since it’s a mage-type.
Adam and the draugr exchanged a few more projectiles
THUD! THUD!
Swish! Swish!
[You have dealt 137 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 135 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
And finally-
[You have slain Draugr Lvl. 120. You have absorbed 3300 Essence.]
“So, that’s why you’re so tough. Level 120 with about 1100 HP.”
Adam made a mental note of the enemy’s level, HP, and tendencies to ensure he can maintain his edge over them despite the level gap.
This explains why it detected Adam before he can sense its presence. Due to its high level, its perception must have a wider range than Adam’s.
Fortunately, its battle effectiveness is still pretty basic as it did not bother to seek cover or even try to dodge his arrows.
Despite defeating the draugr, Adam didn’t let his guard down.
He cautiously approached the body of the draugr and looked around. There appears to be no other enemies in the vicinity.
But, there's a few coffins near the draugr and there’s only two zombies that are dormant.
He used his dagger to make quick work of them.
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99. You have absorbed 2000 Essence.]
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99. You have absorbed 2000 Essence.]
“Level 99? Must be in the process of evolving, then.”
An evolving zombie is different from a zombie that is merely lying in a coffin. The evolving ones are fully unconscious for a certain period of time and is completely defenseless. On the other hand, a 'sleeping' zombie is one that is simply lying in the coffin, waiting for an unwary adventurer to get close.
How can one tell apart the evolving zombie and a 'sleeping' one? The level. Anything that is not level 99, 199, 299 (and so on) and lying on the coffin is a sleeping variant.
After the encounter, Adam proceeded much more carefully by moving from pillars to pillars, using them as cover.
Not long after the first fight, he found his next target.
It was another Draugr in another chamber with several coffins. And judging by the sword in its hip, this one appears to be a warrior-type.
Adam prepared to shoot it with an arrow. But he did not activate Fire Enchantment as he’s using an arrow that has been doused in oil.
Then he chose to aim at its feet.
Swish!
His arrow hit the foot of the warrior, pinning it.
[You have dealt 101 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
The arrow temporarily bolted the draugr in place. Since it hasn’t seen Adam yet, its reaction is slowed down as it tries to look for where the arrow came from while trying to set itself free.
Obviously, this is a golden opportunity. Adam followed-up with two more arrows- both doused in oil. This time, he aimed it at the knee, and at the belly of the draugr.
[You have dealt 125 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??]
[You have dealt 132 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??]
“Guraaaaah!”
Now, the draugr found Adam.
The draugr set itself free from the pin and started rushing towards Adam. But he anticipated this, and he is ready to fire another arrow.
Fire Enchantment!
Swish!
[You have dealt 142 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
Crackle! Crisp! Snap!
The draugr was set alight with the arrow. Now, it started taking damage over time due to the flames.
[You have dealt 50 damage...]
[You have dealt 49 damage...]
[You have dealt 48 damage...]
Meanwhile, Adam switched back to using an oil-doused arrow and aiming it once again at the warrior’s feet.
[You have dealt 101 damage...]
A few seconds later, the draugr succumbed to the arrows and flame’s damage-over-time.
[You have slain Draugr Lvl. 102. You have absorbed 2500 Essence.]
“So this one has a lower level, that’s why its HP is lower than the first one despite being a warrior.”
The warrior had approximately 750 HP.
“If it had the same level as the first one, it would have most likely had over 2000 HP.”
He proceeded to stab a couple of zombies lying dormant. Both are level 99.
After clearing the enemies, he continued exploring the area. In the following chamber, he faced a draugr accompanied by a couple of skeleton soldiers and archers.
Adam used the pinning shot and damage-over-time fire combo with the oil-doused arrow. It worked particularly well with the skeleton minions as he didn’t have to use as much arrow against them.
After several more rooms with level 99 zombies lying dormant, he couldn’t help but notice that the number keeps on increasing.
“Just how many of them are in here?” By his count, he had already stabbed over 24 dormant zombies. Given time, each of these would have been a newly risen draugr.
In the next room, it had more enemies than any other chamber Adam has encountered so far. There’s approximately six skeleton archers and three draugrs. Luckily, all three draugrs are warrior types going by the swords they were carrying.
He chugged a haste potion and proceeded to plant a single oil-doused arrow in each of the skeletons. Since the potion increases the movement speed of the drinker, it enhanced Adam’s firing rate and allowed him to accomplish this feat.
In a few short seconds, all six skeletons had an oil-doused arrow in their bodies.
Now, Adam threw a Fireball in the area with the six skeletons.
BOOM!
Four skeletons were caught by the blast immediately. Meanwhile the other two were dumb enough to react by approaching their burning ally so in the end, all six were set ablaze.
The damage-over-time is impressive. In a few seconds, all six skeletons had fallen.
Of course, the draugrs had long been alerted to the attack. But Adam drank an invisibility potion and stayed still to avoid their detection.
While waiting for the draugr’s aggroed state to cool down, he decided to check the essence he has accumulated so far to see how many levels he could get.
‘Lucky!’
He has enough to level up two times. He immediately invested the stat points to Harmony; every point counts in increasing his flame damage. For the early spells like the ones he has, a point in Harmony would increase the fire damage by about 1.5 points.
It may not seem much at a glance, but if he were to consistently invest in Harmony, the damage increase would stack up. With his current Harmony stat at 20, it’s already adding about 30 points of damage to the base damage to all his fire spells.
Since it is evident how effective damage-over-time is, every bit of point in Harmony counts.
Eventually, the draugr has finally abandoned their search and went back to their guarding spot.
Adam chugged another haste potion and targeted the draugr’s feet this time. Since he was able to target six skeletons with a single arrow each earlier, this time he pinned both feet of each draugrs. Of course, the arrows are all doused in oil.
This time, determining that the dormant zombies will not wake up no matter what, he decided to unleash the rest of his pyromancy spells.
Fireball!
[You have dealt 148 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 139 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 145 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
The AoE of Fireball immediately engulfed all three draugrs in fire. Then the DoT kicked in.
[You have dealt 52 damage...]
[You have dealt 51 damage...]
[You have dealt 51 damage...]
He let the DoT dwindle the HP of the two draugrs furthest away and rained down arrows and Firebolts in the nearest one.
Fire Enchantment!
Swish!
Firebolt!
[You have dealt 188 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 138 damage to Draugr Lvl. ??.]
[You have dealt 148 damage..]
[You have dealt 182 damage..]
[You have slain Draugr Lvl. 107.]
With the increased intensity of his attacks, the first draugr died quickly. Then he repeated the cycle of pinning the remaining two draugrs with an oil-doused arrow, then cast another Fireball, before finally focusing on one of them to eliminate it quickly.
[You have slain Draugr Lvl. 105.]
After the two had been dispatched, the last draugr posed no threat and fell after a few Firebolts and arrows.
[You have slain Draugr Lvl. 106.]
He then entered the chamber and found that this room has an unusually high number of coffins- nearly over a hundred. This number of coffins in the area are way too many for Adam’s comfort.
There has to be at least over fifty that are lying dormant. He started checking the coffins.
As it turns out, his estimate was wrong; it wasn’t fifty, it was over eighty!
Although Adam felt that the explosions won’t wake up the zombies, knowing the actual numbers of the zombies in the coffin, he is not so certain.
No, he cannot afford to take the stance of certainty. But of course, he is glad that his hypothesis holds true so far.
He lit Vetius’ Dagger with Fire Enchantment and started systematically stabbing the dormant zombies.
Stab! Stab! Stab!
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99. You have absorbed 2000 Essence.]
Stab! Stab! Stab!
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99. You have absorbed 2000 Essence.]
These zombies are in the process of evolving! These are probably just a few days away from becoming draugrs themselves.
No, evolution forced them to lie dormant. They couldn’t wake up until the process was done. This time, he abandoned moving stealthily and hurriedly stabbed every zombie lying dormant.
Stab! Stab! Stab!
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99…]
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99…]
[You have slain Zombie Lvl. 99…]
So far, he has slain fifteen dormant zombies- all of which are level 99.
It was then that Adam realized something. It appears that he arrived a few days, or even weeks, before many of the zombies evolved to become draugrs.
Could it be…?
If a room had this kind of set-up, where a few draugr is protecting about several zombies in a dormant stage, what are the chances that the rest of the crypt chambers are just like it?
If so, then he arrived at the best possible moment.
Although he doesn’t have anything concrete to go by, he had this feeling that he only had a couple of days before most of the crypt zombies evolved into draugrs.
If he were to go by his gut instinct, then a slow and steady stealth approach is ill-advised.
With his current strategy, as effective as his stealthy slow and steady approach is, the downside is that it is slow. It would take him more than a week to clear several floors at his current pace.
His instinct is telling him that he is better off going room to room and killing as many draugr and zombies as he could.
And so, he switched back to a sword and dagger set-up.
Vetius’ Dagger (Uncommon)
Type: Dagger
Damage: 75
Weight: 1
Durability: 40/40
Description: Using nothing but ordinary materials, this remarkable dagger was created. This is testament to the caliber of the blacksmith that created this weapon.
Old Lorikan Sword (Common)
Type: Sword
Damage: 52
Durability: 50/50
Description: An old sword that was a standard issue for a Lorikan soldier.
Although his current sword isn’t as good as the Superior Longsword, it’s still a good choice as his Fire Enchantment would compensate and make up for the lack of physical damage with elemental fire damage.
He continued sending the rest of the dormant zombies to a permanent sleep.
With each giving him over 2000 essence, he had an unbelievable amount of essence to level-up with- which he did as soon as he finished the relatively easy task of dispatching a dormant zombie.
With the combined total of the skeleton’s, draugr’s and eighty zombies’ essence, he had over 180,000 essence- enough to level up four times. Despite the hefty essence yield, his leveling is starting to slow down.
In the level 80s, each level up costs approximately 39,000 to 45,000 the higher one's level go.
Still, he managed to reach such a high level thanks to hogging all the essence to himself. All the points were invested in his Harmony stat. As for his skill points, he decided to wait for a bit before using it.
This is because he is close to increasing his Pyromancy rank.
‘Hopefully a good Pyromancy spell gets unlocked.’ Adam hoped.
After using Pyromancy extensively on all the enemies, it was no surprise that his proficiency is improving at a significant rate.
Sitting at an impressive 86% after becoming an Apprentice rank just over 2 days ago, he is now just a few fights away from becoming an Intermediate-grade Pyromancer.
He continued his solo raid. Luckily, the next few chambers did not have such a high number of draugrs so the fight ended with little trouble. And after a few more of this, his pyromancy leveled up.
[You are now an Intermediate Pyromancer]
[Willpower stat conversion increased by 3.]
[Pyromancer-related Traits have mildly improved.]
[Intermediate-tier spells are now available.]
And by reaching Intermediate, a few spells have become available for purchase. If he had invested a few more points in Mystery, more spells would be unlocked- otherwise, he’ll have to buy Intermediate-level spell books if he wants to learn other Pyromancy spells.
But fortunately, what he wants is available in the three options. He didn’t have to deliberate for long; he immediately chose a buff-type spell called Blazing Will.
The other options are Fire Javelin which has the added effect of pinning the enemy for a few seconds, and Fire Glyph which is basically a flame-type landmine. But he doesn’t feel these two are as essential as Blazing Will
Then he used the accumulated essence to level up once. And now he is level 90.
Name: Adam
Level: 90
Essence: 812 (49,126 essence to reach Level 91)
HP 160/160 (+100)
MP 300/300 (+200)
STATS
Vitality 20
Endurance 40
Willpower 10
Strength 28
Dexterity 14
Perception 15
Intelligence 14
Clarity 6
Harmony 25
Mystery 6
SKILLS:
(Intermediate Alchemist 62.08%) Purify
(Intermediate Pyromancer 1.01%) Firebolt 4, Fireball 3, Fire Enchantment 4, Fire Breath 1, Blazing Will 2
(Novice Blacksmith 0.00%)
TRAITS:
Botanist 1, Toxic Resistance 1, Flame Resistance 1, Frost Resistance 1, Metallurgy 1
MP Regen +15% (Necklace), HP Regen +10% (Ring)
TITLES: see more
ACHIEVEMENTS: see more
With his acquisition of Blazing Will, his confidence in fighting multiple draugrs in open combat has increased considerably. That is why he immediately upgraded it to level 2.
After admiring his undeniably impressive status window, he prepared to log out and unwind for an hour. It has been a consistently intense raid, after all.
“Log out.”