Zeroth Moment: My Cheat Skill Is Stupid, So I'll Just Ignore It

A few moments ago, Topher's plan had been simple -- find a small, defensible room with as few exits as possible, check it for traps with his new detection spell, and hole up subsisting off of his Create Food and Drink spell long enough to finish reading his grimoire and mastering as many spells as he could stand before he went insane with boredom. He'd had some experiences recently which had made him suspicious that perhaps a large number of the rules of magic, as he understood them, were not so much rules as they were conventions; he had been genuinely excited to tinker around with the base assumptions of his framework in a way he hadn't experienced since childhood.

He was no longer thinking about such things.

The space before him was impossibly vast -- probably covers multiple city blocks, thought Topher in awe -- and was draped in shadows; the blue light of the innumerable torches cast only a fraction of the illumination he would have expected from the brightness of the torches themselves. Worse, he could see that there were definitely some sort of dim shapes -- a lot of dim shapes -- clustered around the ghostly lights down in the depths of the darkness before him. He shuddered. "Kid, I don't think we should go down there." Then he cursed at the realization that he'd just broken his Sanctuary spell.

Hotaka nodded. "Probably a wise decision, Bailey-sensei. I believe there is an English proverb about 'the better part of valor' which may be applicable here."

"Damn right," growled Topher. He turned, intending to head back the way he'd come; but the breach in the wall behind him was now impossibly far away despite the room clearly being about fifteen feet across, and attempts to cross the room only seemed to make his destination move farther away. His skin crawled. Not good. He had the very distinct feeling that something was pulling him in, somehow -- his vision was starting to blur, and his body felt leaden and cold. Hotaka's translucent form was saying something next to him, but his ears were ringing...

He shook his head, like a wet dog trying to shake off water; his thoughts were starting to get slow and confused. Something wrong. Gotta get clear. He felt as though he was being stretched out, pulled backwards; he fought grimly for control of his faculties. Gotta Shield myself... regular Shield won't work... wand? No... gotta modify. Identity... Stasis... Topher's brain practically creaked under the strain, but the runic transformations came as easily as they always had, smoothly and intuitively. Forcing the words through numb, cold lips, he forced out "Zom... Voq... G-gadiph... Eht."

Instantly, his head cleared; the familiar staticky gray spherical shield sprang up about him, and he felt himself tumble backwards into somewhere as whatever force had been acting on him latched onto his protective enchantment and launched him like a slingshot back in its direction, like a rubber band snapping taut. Weirdly, Hotaka hovered in his peripheral vision, steady as a rock despite everything else around him turning into blurry spatial mush; it was like the nerdy boy's projection was something stuck in his eye. Inside my mind, intuited Topher suddenly. That's crazy. The world lurched around him, spinning and cartwheeling in odd directions, and he realized with a slight shock that he was actually motionless and inertialess inside a sphere that was being rocketed around and over solid objects at tremendous velocity, like a hamster ball launched from a massive pinball spring. Oh, shit. Instinctively, he braced his arms and legs against the shell of his shield, but it only flexed gently and gave him no support at all; instead, he closed his eyes and curled into a ball to keep from throwing up. He was aware of his Shield contracting around him, shrinking somehow, but didn't understand why and couldn't do anything about it anyway. Hoping he wouldn't suddenly be splattered against something or fall into some worse hazard, he clenched his fists around his terror and waited for everything to be over.

Eventually, he felt that things around him had stilled; cautiously, he opened his eyes. He seemed to be somewhere deep inside the space he'd been trying to escape; rows of silent shapes, lit by the occasional blue torch, surrounded him, and his shield had seemed to shrink down and coalesce around him like some kind of protective suit. Huh. Guess that Mij transform shaped it to my body? He checked his MP, and found that he was down to 22 somehow. Guess that was expensive, whatever it was.

For a long moment, he paused, hardly daring to breathe for fear of disrupting his Sanctuary spell, before he remembered that he'd already done that by talking to Hotaka and by casting his spell. The transparent, vaguely shimmery form of the nerdy boy half-crouched nearby, looking around with mixed nervousness and interest. After a long moment, he stood up slightly. "I don't think they can see or sense us, Bailey-sensei."

Cautiously, Topher straightened up as well, carefully stepping over to Hotaka to examine the nearest shape more closely. It was vaguely humanoid, and rested upon some sort of stalk or pillar coming out of the ground; after a few moments, Topher realized it was a body covered by a shroud that was occasionally twitching and shifting slightly. A frigid tremor of fear crawled up his spine. "I don't think we want to look under those shrouds." A thick coat of dust, so heavy it almost looked like snow or ash, covered every surface.

Hotaka, appearing not to hear Topher, reached out towards the shroud, but his hand passed through it ephemerally; he paused, then withdrew his hand slightly apologetically. "As you say, Bailey-sensei. What do you think they are?"

"Kid, if you think I've got any thoughts beyond 'get outta here', you're giving me way too much credit," growled Topher quietly. He began picking his way between the rows of shapes, careful not to touch or nudge any of them or make too much noise. "Where do we even go?"

Hotaka shrugged, following along beside Topher; Topher noticed that the smaller boy didn't have to be as careful picking his path, since his incorporeal form simply phased right through the recumbent shapes. "I do not know, Bailey-sensei. Do you wish to go back to where we entered?"

Topher pondered this for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah. I think that area was sealed up before we fell into it -- probably no way back out from there. I think we're stuck trying to find another way out if we want to have a clear path back to the surface."

Hotaka cocked his head. "Is that your objective?"

"Well, not right away," Topher hedged quietly, "but I can't stay down here forever. Once I've finished doing what I came here to do, I'll need to get back out somehow -- and I can't do that if I'm trapped in a cave that doesn't have an exit." Unless one of my spellbooks has a Teleport spell, I guess, but I'm not betting my life on that. "Any suggestions, kid?"

Hotaka pondered. "The large staircase heading up might take you back out towards an area beyond this castle-like structure, or you could go deeper into it in hopes of finding the center." He pointed into the gloom back the way they'd come. "I believe I see a light source in that direction, further down."

Topher squinted into the darkness, searching for anything like what Hotaka had described. Huh. I guess maybe there is some kind of glow in there? No guarantee it's friendly, though. He contemplated the question, acutely aware that lingering here too long might be a bad idea -- if the things surrounding them suddenly woke up, he doubted there would be much he could do about it. "Which direction looks like it has fewer creepy shroud guys?" he muttered to Hotaka.

Hotaka's head turned in first one direction, then the other, then he shrugged. "The stairs seem closer, Bailey-sensei, but the number of figures appears to grow sparser towards the glow. I suspect each option has its own risks and benefits."

Topher nodded. "Let's head for the exit, then. These things haven't bothered us so far." He recast his Sanctuary spell, dropping his MP to 20, and gave Hotaka a shushing gesture; no sense taking risks unnecessarily. The two of them threaded their way towards the staircase cautiously, with Topher cringing and twitching every time an unexpected noise or movement startled him. How can these things still be this active? With this much dust, everything's probably been down here for who knows how many years.

They were almost to the base of the stairs when the inevitable happened; Topher tripped over a stone he couldn't see (due to it being partially covered by one of the creatures' shrouds) and involuntarily clutched as he fell, yanking the shroud off the figure. A huge cloud of dust puffed up into the air, and Topher sneezed loudly as it violated his sinuses; he felt his Sanctuary spell fall away again, and swore loudly. Then, as the dust cleared, he saw what had been under the shroud, and he recoiled in shock and confusion.

The creature under the shroud was a zombie, but not one created from a human -- it was an elf, with long silver hair, dry eyeballs that stared up sightlessly, and a twisted, agonized expression. As Topher watched, transfixed, the creature blinked with a horrifying rasping noise as the leathery flesh of its eyelids scraped over the stone-hard petrified surface of its eyes, and he had to clench his teeth to keep silent. What the fuck?!

After a moment, the dust settled; the zombie did not seem to notice Topher's presence, so he warily relaxed a tiny bit. The shimmering shape of Hotaka's projection, flickering slightly, leaned over the undead creature curiously. "Very strange. What do you think it is doing, Bailey-sensei?"

Instead of answering, Topher hurriedly gathered up the dust-streaked shroud and cast it back over the zombie, shuddering. "All I really care about is that it's not eating my face at the moment," he whispered harshly. "Can't you keep your voice down? What if you wake these things up?"

Hotaka shrugged. "I am not at all convinced anyone besides you can hear me, Bailey-sensei. It is possible my projection can only be seen by the subject of my focus."

Topher growled, but couldn't exactly argue; he didn't have any idea how Hotaka was contacting him in the first place. "Well, you're definitely freaking me out, kid, so at least pretend like it matters." He stepped back, carefully giving the zombie he'd disturbed a wide berth, then slid to the side around the next few and tried to find another route to the stairs as he recast his Sanctuary spell yet again. The distribution of shrouded figures was getting denser as he approached, and finding a path forward was getting increasingly difficult; he wished he had access to some kind of levitation or short-range teleport spell, but knew that was just as much of a risk as not having it; no telling what happens if casting a spell like that in here sets off an alarm. And that's if I don't explode or pancake myself with a miscast.

Resolutely, he shuffled forwards, wrapping his arms around himself and stepping on tiptoe with great caution; the last ten yards to the stairs felt like a hundred. But, finally, he managed to break out of the final thickly-packed ranks of shrouded zombies and released a quiet sigh of relief as he stepped onto the first step. Now I just have to climb a shit-ton of stairs. He struggled up the first thirty steps, dragged even more miserably up the next thirty, and was practically crawling with fatigue by the time he reached the first landing; Rank D Constitution my ass, he gasped to himself as he flopped onto his back and fought for breath. Dungeon full of level billion monsters, surrounded by zombies, and I'm gonna get killed by these fucking stairs.

Hotaka's concerned form floated over him. "Are you all right, Bailey-sensei? Are you unwell?"

Topher gritted his teeth around his gasps and waved at Hotaka dismissively, then pointed to his mouth and made a zipping motion; he wasn't sure how effective it was with his pie-hole gaping wide in a feeble attempt to shove enough breath into his lungs that he wouldn't pass out, but he'd just have to hope it did the job. It took him nearly five minutes to catch his breath, and another ten to build his resolve to tackle the next stretch; it was nearly a half-hour before he struggled, covered in sweat and possessed of some pretty severe heart palpitations, to the top of the landing.

The only problem was that he wasn't alone.

The creature which beheld him from about thirty feet away was massive -- easily twenty feet tall at the back despite being on all fours -- and looked quite a bit like a huge skeletal hound or tiger, with cruel spikes of bone protruding out from its spine and foreclaws. Baleful green flames glowed in the sockets of its skull, and it shifted restlessly as it stared at him. Topher gulped. Did I recast my Sanctuary spell? Did I accidentally dispel it on the stairs? He didn't know, and didn't want to take his eyes off the creature long enough to check. Beside him, out of the corner of his eye, he noted dispiritedly that Hotaka's projection had vanished again. Typical.

He waited a long, breathless moment, but the creature did nothing; it simply sat there, glaring directly at him but making no move to attack. Finally, Topher could stand it no longer, and he gasped for breath as quietly as he could; the creature's form settled slightly, but took no other action. Topher dropped carefully to one knee, panting as silently as he could, and waited until he'd gotten his breath back (or at least enough of it to run if it was a choice between that and death, and even then he'd think long and hard about death), then he hauled himself to his feet, silently cursing the loss of his spear/walking stick. He shuffled, with agonizing slowness, to his left, keeping an eye on the creature the entire time; he wanted to summon his Stylus in case he needed to blast it, but didn't want to risk something going wrong (like accidentally disrupting the structural integrity of the room, if his last attempt at wand usage was anything to go by). Finally, he edged out of the way far enough that he could see the path behind the creature -- a long, dark tunnel -- and looked cautiously up at the great beast to check and see if it was turning to attack.

What he saw instead was that the creature was staring directly ahead, right at the spot where he'd been after coming up the stairway; it took a few minutes for his oxygen-starved brain to puzzle it out, but when it did, he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. I'm so fucking dumb. It was just staring out over the stairway to guard the area; I just happened to come up right where it was looking. Slowly letting his breath out, he crept around the creature to the side, staggering off into the tunnel as quickly as he dared. Something tells me this isn't a good place to let my Sanctuary spell run out.

The tunnel went on for several dozen yards, and Topher had nearly gotten his heart rate under control when darkness dropped onto him like an anvil; something extinguished my Summoned Light, he thought to himself warily as he crouched down and peered about uselessly into the blackness. I need to see, but I don't have any other light sources. I'll have to cast something, but what?

After a few moments of frantic ratiocination, he decided upon his Shocking Grasp spell -- he mumbled the words to it and felt the seething electric charge spring up around his fingertips. He'd never actually used this spell before, but having something he could attack with without firing blindly seemed like a good idea at the moment, especially since it created a little illumination. Sure enough, the bright blue snapping and spitting light cut through the thick, velvety darkness well enough for him to see the tunnel opening up into a larger space -- something with low benches and pews of stone -- but before he could register more than a glimpse of the environment, he abruptly discovered he had bigger problems. There was a startled snarl, and something large and sharp scythed out of the blackness towards his neck.