Alan had thoughts of returning to his makeshift home. He had planted some fruits there and wanted to check in on them. He had been in that dungeon for over one hundred days. With the time dilation that meant he had only been gone for just over a day here. That would normally not be a problem to ignore plants for that short a time, but with their accelerated growth rates he couldn’t be sure.

  The other option was to get going on collecting more dungeon points and rewards. He had collected a phenomenal amount of points so far, just under a thousand, but if the Network was going to keep adding to the list there was bound to be some very good and very expensive choices in his future. Before deciding, he took a look at his skills to see what he had gained in the time he got to spend with his mentor.

  Skills:

  Aura Reading: 102, Blunt Weapons: 25, Cooking: 6, Daggers: 49, Dodging: 25, First Aid: 12, Harvesting: 10, Herbology: 10, Identify: 21, Mana Drawing: 52, Mana Enhancement: 23, Mana Handling: 95, Mining: 3, Running: 26, Sneak: 11, Swords: 3, Tracking: 20, Two Weapon Fighting: 41, Unarmed Combat: 18

  His aura reading was by far his best skill at over one hundred, followed by mana handling. However, his mana drawing had also made a big improvement. It was that skill that decided him, as he wanted to try out some circles to help boost his plants’ growth. It wouldn’t be anything as impressive as the magic circle he had worked on around the tree, but it was an interesting field that he wanted to explore. It had nothing to do with the literal pile of fruits and seeds he had contained in his storage ring.

  Honestly, the fact that in his progress forward he may end up controlling a city was kind of thrilling. He had spent a lot of time training locals over the years, mostly in combat, but also in ways of upgrading their living conditions. It had always been his favorite part to see how much his trainees’ lives improved by the time the mission was over. The idea that he could take an even more hands on role was both exciting and intimidating. Food production had always been a limiting factor for villages so if he could find better ways to grow things that could make a huge difference.

  Not only that, but if he got better with his mana drawing and enhancement he might finally feel confident enough to work on his daggers. He could still feel the sharpness of the blue sword as it almost effortlessly cut through his skull. His daggers had nowhere near that level of power. A lot of that was probably the craftsmanship and materials used to create the items, as hers was clearly a special weapon, but if he could boost them magically it would make a huge difference.

  With a plan in mind he set out south. The first thing he would need to create some magic circles was lots of quartz rocks. He had a nice collection himself, but he would need a lot and he had gone through a decent amount working on his skills in the tower. The only place he knew where he could find them was the lake separating the two tiers. If he happened to pass some dungeons on the way, he would check them out. He was planning for his long term future, but he also needed to work on his short term growth.

  As he traveled through the plains of tier two he noticed that they weren’t as empty as before. Not only did he see small birds and insects flying around, but there were now small animals running around as well. Rabbits eating clover, squirrels running through the branches of the occasional tree, and a few groundhogs standing in the grass. He was a little worried about what these varmints might do to his unprotected plants, but the true scare was a snake that he almost stepped on. That one he quickly cut the head off of with his seax.

  His heart was still racing from seeing that brown and tan snake rear up as he almost planted his foot on it. While many might consider Alan a tough guy, snakes were icky. It was therefore a welcome distraction when he noticed a dungeon entrance up ahead. There was a small rise in the ground and set into the face of it was a shadowy opening. It kinda looked like an evil hobbit’s home. The dilation was 3:1 which wasn’t bad, so he stepped inside.

  [Warning, once you enter this dungeon you cannot exit unless you complete the quest. Threat level: medium. Do you still wish to enter?]

  This was different so he chose no and backed off. All of the dungeons, except for the last one, that he had entered had given him the option of leaving at any time. It meant giving up any gains he had made, but it was a safety net. He wasn’t sure what to do until he realized he had forgotten something.

  He had been cut off from his party chat ever since he had entered Dracon’s tower. Now that he was out he should be able to talk to Tamee again. He sent a party invite over and it was accepted almost instantly. That was followed immediately by Tamee’s voice in his head.

  “Oh, now you remember me. You could not be bothered to say hi when you got back.” She sounded pissed.

  “Sorry, it had been so long I honestly forgot that this was a thing.” It was a lame excuse and it reminded him of all the lame excuses he had used on the women in his life. It went over just as well.

  Alan could hear the hurt in her voice as she replied. “You forgot, after all I have done for you, you just forgot?”

  “It’s been over four months for me and I didn’t realize our party wouldn’t automatically reconnect when I got back.”

  “Pssh, you really are not very bright are you.” He had a thick skin and insults didn’t do much, but the repeated assault on his intelligence was getting old. He decided to forgive her anyway as it was a good way for her to work out her understandable frustration. Alan was honestly embarrassed that he had forgotten to try and contact Tamee.

  “What did you think of Dracon? He was a bit of a twat in the beginning, but it turned out he was a nice guy,” he asked her.

  “I could not observe you in that tower. There are special dungeons scattered all over the zones in tier two. They provide unique experiences and opportunities, but because they connect to other zones I am not allowed to observe.”

  “Wow, then we have a lot to catch up on. And while I would love to do that now…”

  “Let me guess, you need something?” she finished for him.

  “Yeah, sorry. I’ll tell you all about the tower when I have some time, but it’s a lot to go through. This dungeon gave me a warning about entering. It says I won’t be able to exit until I complete it and it has a threat level of medium.”

  “I have not heard a question yet.”

  Alan grinded his teeth a little, “so should I enter it or not? What kind of risk is this?”

  He wasn’t sure how it worked but he could actually hear her facepalm. “It’s a medium risk, duh. I suggest you go for it. Medium would mean that you might have a life or death moment but should be able to handle it if you keep your wits about you. These one way dungeons usually give better rewards too.”

  “You seem pretty cavalier about my life.”

  “Alan, you will never grow strong enough to defeat the other zones if you play it safe. It is not like the danger was extreme or deadly.”

  “Fine, fine. I’ll do it.” Stepping forward, this time he accepted and was transported into a dimly lit hallway. The walls were built with small black bricks. Whatever mortar they had used had long since been replaced with some type of moss or mold. The walls also appeared damp. Looking up and down he noticed the same type of construction for the floor and ceiling. Here and there he saw the moisture gather on the ceiling and drip down to the floor below. The drops were clearly not water, they were far too oily and viscous.

  “Well this looks cheery.” Tamee commented.

  Alan had to agree, this looked like a classic dungeon described in every rpg. The hallway he was in ended a few meters in front of him and he could see an intersection. Behind him was simply a wall. There was no portal out so he truly was trapped until he finished whatever the dungeon had in store for him. He was a little surprised he hadn’t gotten a quest yet so he decided to press on and see what happened.

  Standing at the end of the hallway he saw that he could continue left or right. The dim light only allowed him to see for maybe ten meters before the shadows were too thick to penetrate. He sent a low powered light bolt in each direction and quickly realized where he was.

  New Quest: Toderack’s Maze (75)

  [To escape Toderack’s Maze you will have to find your way to the center. You’d better hurry because it sounds like something’s coming.]

  Both hallways extended farther than he could see, but they had multiple openings on each side. Alan wasn’t too worried because there is a trick to mazes. If you aren’t worried about being fast, and just want to make sure you get to the end, just follow the right hand rule. If you keep a hand on the right wall and keep walking you will eventually find the exit.

  He wasn’t going to actually put his hand on these walls, that seemed like a good way to catch some horrific disease, but all he had to do was make all right turns. Turning to his right for the first time he started walking. He also took out his whetstone. It glowed brightly from all the mana he had infused into it over his mana sharpening sessions. He was now able to see twice as far.

  He started his exploration at a jog, but after slipping on the wet floors and almost crashing into the wall he decided to take it easy. Instead he moved through the halls at a brisk walk. He had been traveling for five minutes before he found his first deadend. He saw it from a ways off but decided to check it out just in case. Sure enough, it was simply a dead end.

  Turning around to head back for another right turn he was confronted with a terrifying sight. A white skeleton was charging towards him holding a cutlass in its bony hand. It was about the same size he was but there was not a shred of tissue on its body. Its skull was slightly cracked on the side and the lower jaw was missing. Instead of eyes it just had two empty holes. He wasn’t sure where it came from, he had just been down that hallway himself, but it didn’t really matter at the moment.

  He sent a normal sized fireball into its chest. It exploded inside its rib cage but didn’t seem to have much of an effect. Alan drew his two daggers and prepared to meet it. The skeleton’s blows were clumsy and slow, clearly it wasn’t a skilled fighter, and it wasn’t much of an issue for him to block or dodge them. However, he wasn’t able to do much in return either.

  Every time he managed to slash it with his seax it only took a small chip out of whatever bone he hit. His pugio was totally ineffective since there wasn’t really anything to stab. He tried putting it through the skeleton’s eyehole once but it just bounced off the back of its skull. The only thing he could think of was to hit it repeatedly on the crack in the side of the skull.

  It took about four solid blows before the crack split open and the head exploded. The whole skeleton, cutlass included, briefly flared into light before forming a kind of mini tornado that ended up coalescing into a copper coin. Bemused, Alan reached down and stuffed it in his storage ring.

  Once again Tamee had a comment on his performance. “Sometimes I think I judge you too harshly, but other times you prove you’re an idiot.”

  “What did I do wrong that time?”

  “Did you just kill that thing by bashing its head open with a dagger?”

  “Yes”

  “And is that the tool most people use to bash things?”

  “No. Oh.” She was right, he was an idiot. He put his daggers back in their sheaths and took out his thonking club. It looked a little different since the last time he had used it. It had a band of runes running just above the handle area. Alan hadn’t wanted to risk ruining his daggers since he had no way to replace them, but the club was something he crafted himself so he could always make another. Once he had mastered some of the basic engravings he had added one for heaviness.

  When activated it made the club weigh almost three times what it did now. He could have used an enchantment to get the same effect, but that would have been an ongoing effect. Even with his higher strength he would have been unable to use it properly, even with two hands. However, since it was an engraving he could swing the club with its normal weight, but then activate the runes just before impact. If he also deactivated the runes just after, he could hit with a devastating amount of force, but still wield it normally. It would require skill and timing to pull off, but he had faith in his own abilities.

  He set off again and soon found himself facing another deadend. Before he could turn back he heard a scraping, shuffling sound coming from the hall behind him. Spinning around he was faced with a rotting corpse. It clearly used to be human, and probably not that long ago it was a living human, but the rot was beginning to show.

  The skin was pale and there were patches of hair missing from his head. It was also clearly a he because for some reason it didn’t have any pants on. Was it him, or did this zone seem to enjoy exposing people’s nether regions. The legs had some chunks of flesh missing and Alan was pretty sure he saw a maggot crawling around down there. Its stumbling gait was nothing impressive and if they were in a field he could have simply walked around the thing without any worries. Unfortunately the hallways were only a little over two meters wide so it would be tricky to sneak by. After a quick identify he felt that avoiding the fight was pointless.

  Undead: Zombie (common) level 3, threat: low

  Alan hefted his club and prepared to clobber it. He was still waiting ten seconds later, gods this thing was slow. Getting impatient he chose to advance. The zombie started to moan and its hands thrashed in front of it. Alan waited for his moment and brought the club down in an overhead smash right on its head. At the last instant he sent energy into the runes to increase the impact.

  In hindsight it might have been a little bit of overkill. The head was simply liquified from the contact and the club continued into the torso which exploded disgusting zombie bits all over the hall and Alan. After wiping rotting viscera from his eyes he saw that all that was left of the zombie was its two legs still sitting upright in the hall. They only went up to mid thigh, but the boots helped hold them steady.

  Once again light glowed from all the zombie bits and formed a whirling tornado that ended with a copper piece on the floor. He picked it up but was horrified to find that only the loose zombie guts had disappeared. The stuff all over him was still there.

  Four deadends and a series of encounters later and Alan had figured some stuff out. Every time he came to a deadend he was attacked by some form of undead. He had met two more skeletons, another zombie, and some kind of vampire cat. He also learned that he could use his seax to behead the zombie instead of smashing it to smithereens. It died both ways, but if he used his seax he didn’t end up looking like a gore painting.

  All of the monsters also turned into loot after they were killed. The cat had actually left behind a silver coin instead of a copper. It seemed fair since he had come out of that fight covered in scratches. If you have ever tried to give a cat a bath, you understand how he felt.

  The next deadend was a little different. There was something sitting on the ground. After getting closer he could tell it was some kind of wooden chest. Was this a treasure chest or loot crate? He was about to check it out when he was very rudely interrupted by an ear shattering roar from behind. Turning he was confronted by a towering mass of brown fur. The ceilings were just under three meters tall and this thing used all of that space. There was a large gash across its abdomen and its intestines were hanging out.

  Undead: Zombie Bear (Rare) level 8, threat: high

  “Shit.”

  Not only was this some kind of undead bear but it was huge. One of the claws on its paws was broken off and of course its guts were leaking out, but otherwise it was a freaking bear. Looking up at its face he could see the bright red eyes of a zombie, but most of his attention was on the still gaping mouth showing its huge incisors.

  Normally a zombie would call for his daggers to prevent a mess, but they would be like toothpicks against this monstrosity. He took out his club and braced himself. As the bear fell forward to return to all fours it stuck out with one of its paws. Alan met it with his club. Even with the runes increasing the force it felt like an even match. His shoulder ended up absorbing all of that energy and it felt like it wanted to explode.

  The bear must have felt something too because when it tried to put the paw on the ground it started to tip over. Maybe the blow had broken some of the bones in it. Taking the initiative Alan tried another overhead smash like with the first zombie. Too bad for him this one wasn’t as slow as the others. It struck out with the same wounded arm and smashed Alan into the wall. The advantage of the undead was they didn’t feel pain so a broken bone wasn’t a big problem.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Unfortunately for Alan, pain was all he was feeling right now. He slid back away from the bear while leaning on the wall. It wasn’t doing anything to improve the state of his wardrobe, but it was keeping him from falling over.

  “I hate to interrupt Alan, but I need your help.” Tamee’s voice broke his focus and he missed the bear taking a swing at him. Fortunately, while it was faster than a normal zombie it still wasn’t as quick as a real bear. When it reached out for him he had time to overcome the initial distraction. Still not trusting his legs he pushed off the wall and just missed getting vivisected before landing against the opposite wall.

  “Seriously, I’m a little busy here.” Alan shouted back.

  “Right, right. It’s just I am doing a crossword and it’s four letters, Frankenstein's hated element?”

  “What the hell?” was his only response. But as he thought about it he realized that she was giving him a clue. Sliding back even farther from the bear he launched his largest fire bolt straight at its face. There was a nice explosion of fire that quickly spread to the rest of its body. It was clearly doing some damage as he could see flesh melting, but the flames soon burned out. The spell just didn’t have enough mana behind it to do anything more.

  Unfortunately as mentioned earlier, the undead don’t feel pain, and before the flames had extinguished themselves it was once more advancing on him. It was back on two legs and looked like it wanted to crush him.

  Alan tried to continue sliding away but he ran up against the wall at the end of the hall. With no more room to retreat he cast out another large fire bolt, this time into the cords of intestines spilling out of it. Not only did the bear’s flesh go up again but the flames found their way inside it as well. Heat and smoke poured from the gash and then some threshold must have been reached because he could see the red light fade from its eyes. Sadly it was still a three meter mass of melted, burning flesh that was on its way to crush him, it didn’t matter that it had died.

  He collapsed to the ground covering his head and the beast fell on top of him. The impact itself was enough to break whatever ribs he had that were still intact and he started screaming from the flames beginning to burn him. It was longer than he would like to admit before he realized that while he could feel some heat from the flames, they weren’t actually doing anything to him. Apparently your own spell couldn’t hurt you?

  He was still trapped underneath almost seven hundred kilograms of melted, rotted, bear carcass. His constitution was high enough that being crushed from the dead weight was not an issue, but his broken ribs let him know that they would appreciate it if he got that weight off of him. One of his pesky bones had even gone so far as to puncture a lung in protest, which he noticed when he started coughing up blood.

  He had the strength to move the carcass, but everytime he strained it was like his chest hosted a reenactment of Steven Seagal in Under Siege using his organs as the bad guys. Never mess with the cook! He didn’t want to risk casting his healing spell with the bear compressing his ribs because he was afraid they would heal in the wrong position. Normally they would adjust but he wasn’t sure the magic would be able to overcome the pressure. Through sheer determination he finally managed to shift the bear enough that it slid off of him and onto the floor. As a final FU, as soon as its weight was off of him the zombie turned into light and formed into a lootnado. It couldn’t have done that earlier?

  Instead of leaving something on the floor it was sucked into the wooden chest. Alan lay there for several minutes as he healed his body. He hadn’t tried it yet, but maybe there was a way to upgrade healing spells, similar to how he upgraded his mage spells? It would be nice if he could heal up from battles a little faster. He was getting better at directing the healing energy though, which made fixing the most critical damage easier. Finally when his ribs had all shifted back to their proper positions he got up on his knees and inspected the chest.

  This encounter had shown him that this dungeon had a mean streak and he wouldn’t put it past it to trap the chest. Or maybe it was one of those mimics that dungeon masters love to throw into their campaigns. After two minutes of searching he couldn’t find anything, so he cast one more healing spell to top himself off and lifted the lid. Inside was something he was not expecting.

  Hand Crossbow (Uncommon): This small crossbow can be fired with one hand. It was made by a talented smith using above average materials.

  And lying there beside it was a set of twenty small crossbow bolts. This was his first real ranged weapon and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Crossbows were known to be slow to reload but they usually packed a bigger punch than a bow and were easier to learn to shoot. Point and click baby. This thing seemed like the worst of both worlds, small and therefore lacking in power, and it still would require a long reload time.

  It was an uncommon weapon though, so he might give it a shot, but it would probably be useless in this dungeon. Undead didn’t care about small pieces of wood sticking out of them. He stored his loot and then went over the recent fights. Skeletons needed to meet his club, small zombies could be decapitated, and any larger zombies should get a series of fire bolts until they fell down. Preferably not on him.

  This came in handy when he ran into a zombie panda bear at his next deadend. He felt really bad about that one, because even though half of its fur had rotted off already and large slashes criss crossed its body, it was still so adorable. It was less cute after Alan melted its head like an ice cream cone on a hot day. That one turned into six silver coins. When they formed they were stacked up in a neat pile. It was kinda weird.

  Another half an hour and several boring encounters later, he had noticed two things. One, this place was immense. He hoped he had picked the correct first turn because he still hadn’t made it back to the starting hallway, meaning he had more than half of this place to explore still. The other thing he noticed was a tremor.

  He only noticed it because when he bent down to pick up the latest coin he had stumbled a little and put his hand down to catch himself. When he did he could feel minor vibrations in the floor. Alan wasn’t some native american tracker used to listening to the ground, and he wasn’t planning on putting his earhole on these filthy stones, but it must have been caused by something very large, or very numerous, or possibly both.

  He decided to pick up the pace a little and encountered something odd at his next deadend. There was what looked like a human from the tutorial dead in front of a chest. If he was in a campaign he would have thought up two explanations, one is that the chest was a mimic and it had recently killed a delver and then he came along before it could eat it, or two that the chest was trapped and killed someone trying to open it.

  The problem was it couldn’t be either of those explanations here. There were no other people exploring this dungeon. Alan was the only actual person in the entire zone. That meant something fishy was going on, or it was possible simply flavor created by the dungeon. He focused on the dead body to try and identify it. After a moment he felt something click.

  Undead: Ghoul (Uncommon) level 8, threat: medium.

  Somehow this thing knew the jig was up. Perhaps higher level creatures could detect when identify was used on them, or maybe he had stood there too long. Either way it scrambled up. It didn’t stand on two feet, instead it was on all fours. Now that it was moving around he could tell that its proportions were wrong for a human. The arms were a little too long and its torso was stretched as well. With it facing him he could now see that its teeth were also pointed like a piranha’s.

  There was only moments before this thing came at him and he could already tell it would be faster than the zombies, probably the skeletons too. Sizing it up he decided to go with the thonking club and fire bolt. It wasn’t rotted like a zombie, instead its skin was so pale you should just call it white and it looked paper thin. This meant there was little chance of a guts grenade if he hit it with the club. However, it was also covered in flesh so fire should still work well on it.

  The ghoul started forward and it was fast. In less than two seconds it had crossed half of the twenty meters between them. Alan shot off his largest fire bolt which streaked forward before erupting in flames. The problem was the ghoul was no longer there. It had leapt onto the wall and was running along it as if gravity was no longer a thing. He shot a slightly smaller fire bolt at it but it dodged away again, this time returning to the floor.

  Because it was closer than last time it didn’t get away completely from the flame explosion. A small bit caught his ankle, which did briefly set it on fire and then spread up its leg but those flames were soon extinguished. Alan was also unsure of his choice in weapon as this thing was moving super fast. There was no time to switch, though, as the creature was upon him.

  He tried to duplicate Simon’s style and generate force while still keeping the weapon in front to protect himself. The ghoul had other plans. As the club came down towards the undead terror it leapt up at the club rather than at Alan. This almost two meter creature somehow managed to perch itself on the club. By activating the runes to increase the weight it forced the ghoul to misjudge the encounter, however. It ended up being knocked away, but while it briefly was alighted on his weapon it used that opportunity to claw Alan with its nails. Turns out they were also much longer than a humans, about 3 centimeters and they tapered down to a sharp point. They left a series of gouges in his chest, right through his tunic.

  The ghoul had been knocked against the wall and with the last of his mana Alan fired off a large fire bolt directly into its face. Unable to dodge, it took the brunt of the attack and when the flames died its movements were noticeably hampered. This time when it leapt at him he was able to shift his attack enough that the ghoul missed its grab and took the full force in its chest. It was so powerful that he could feel ribs shatter through the shaft of the club.

  The ghoul got back up again but none of its limbs were functioning properly. Two blows later, one to an arm it flung out in defense and the second to its head, and the quick monster was turning into another lootnado that was sucked into the chest.

  Alan had five lines of flaming pain on his torso as he moved to open the loot crate. He would have to wait a little while until he could cast heal on himself. Some armor would be helpful. Once again someone was listening, but they chose to play a joke on him.

  Cervelliere (common): A close fitting iron cap that covers the top of the head. There is limited padding underneath for some comfort.

  It was armor, but not what he meant. He had been struck in the head a few times, so it wasn’t worthless, but he had been hoping for a chest piece. The irony of this helmet was that even if he had worn it against that crazy cat warrior she still would have cut his head off as it didn’t go low enough. He put it on his head anyway, and then put his hand on the floor. The tremors had increased in intensity. He figured whatever it was probably couldn’t get larger, so it was most likely getting closer.

  When he returned from the dead end he looked back the way he came and thought he saw something. Casting his small light bolt that way, he was horrified to see a mass of human zombies. It was the classic zombie apocalypse scenario except he started to pick out a few skeletons amongst the crowd as they all started running, or shambling, toward him.

  The quest had made mention of hearing something coming and needing to hurry. Alan hadn’t paid it any attention at the time. Lesson learned. This hoard must be that something. Only catching a quick glimpse as his bolt flew by, it was hard to tell, but it looked like the stream of undead extended quite a ways back. He didn’t want to get stuck in an extended fight where he might get overwhelmed so he took a right turn and started moving. While terrifying in concept, the crowd hadn’t been moving too quickly so he could hopefully outpace it

  It sounded like most of the mass slowed down now that he was out of sight, but the few skeletons who had closed the distance faster than the zombies still continued forward and turned the corner to chase him. With a series of rune enhanced swings his club made short work of them.

  He didn’t bother to loot the coins they left because he needed to hurry, and they were only coppers anyway. Taking a risk on the slippery floor, he broke out into a jog. He should be able to keep ahead of them, but some of the deadend hallways were rather long. If he got stuck in one and the hoard managed to catch up to him there, it really would be his end.

  He found two in quick succession, but now that he was in a hurry, as soon as he saw the far wall signifying a dead end, he turned around and sprinted for the main passage. It was time to decide. Did he continue with the slow and sure method, or just start praying and hope he got lucky. He knew that his aura sensing skills wouldn’t help as he had scanned earlier and the walls had a uniform energy with no hint to the correct path.

  He couldn’t see the following army at the moment so he cast light on the wall next to him and then continued down the passage. For now he would stick to the plan. The current hallway ended up being rather long so he was able to check behind him for a while. The zombies entered his light spell’s radius when he was about forty meters away. It cut off soon after as he must have gotten out of range to maintain it. What he saw was encouraging as it meant he was actually increasing his lead. When he had first seen them they were as close as twenty meters.

  He saw a passage on his left but the hall continued unbroken on the right. Continuing forward for about thirty meters he got the bad news. The hallway was coming to an end. His next right turn was the left hand passage behind him. The zombies would have almost reached it by now. He turned and sprinted back but it was too late. The leading edge of the shuffling dead was just crossing in front of the passage.

  In an act of decisiveness and with nothing to lose he immediately charged forward. If Alan could take out the front group maybe he could push them back enough to make a break down the side hall. Two fire bolts led the way, one to each side of the vanguard. The flames actually spread to a large number of zombies before dying out. A couple at the front collapsed in a blackened mess, but the others were only partially hurt. Man, a fire wall would have been nice right about now.

  Alan wasn’t going to be dainty with these guys as he needed to drive them back and fast. He was swinging full force with his big club looking to make some proper zombie paste. He kept swinging high to low, low to high across his body, forming a kind of deadly x. His control with the heaviness rune by now was excellent so every impact was like a boulder falling from a mountain. Slowly he was making way. With his arms burning he finally had enough space to duck down the side passage and make a break for it.

  It was just in time too since he saw several large lumbering shapes at the limit of his vision that he could only assume were zombie bears or something even worse. He could not let himself get caught by this group again. Speed was now life so he abandoned his careful strategy. Now it was simply luck, which of course he had been having a good run of recently, right? Every time he came to a new passage, he took it. No pause or hesitation, if there was a turn off the current path, that’s what he went with. At one point he was pretty sure he made four left turns in a row but somehow there was more maze in front of him.

  He did hit one dead end, but luckily it was a short one and he had gained a lot of room on his pursuers. For over twenty minutes the chase continued, and it would have gone longer if it wasn’t for his high perception. He had noticed another dead end and started to turn before realizing something was different. It wasn’t a chest or anything like that so he took a risk and ran closer. There on the side of the hall, so it wasn’t as obvious, was a metal door. It looked rather ornate and was the only door he had seen in the place. He ran up and tugged on the handle, it opened with no resistance and he ducked inside.

  Closing it behind himself he glanced around the room. On the far side was an archway filled with shadows. That was probably the exit. Along the left side wall was a dais with three steps leading up to it. On the dais was a large stone throne and sitting upon it was a huge skeleton whose body was covered in a tattered black robe. One of its hands was resting on the arm of the throne while the other was holding up a large scythe. The blade on the scythe was burning with an eerie purple flame. It was like a literal vision of death.

  Toderack: Undead, guardian, Threat level: deadly

  Interestingly, instead of coming up as undead and then listing the type, it showed what he assumed was a name and then a race. Perhaps that meant this was a sentient creature and not a simple monster. The threat level was also very concerning. Even that cat person Afilada had only been extreme.

  This dungeon had been rated medium, but he would have to come to this room to escape, so he figured he didn’t have to fight the boss otherwise the rating should have been higher. The exit was thirty meters away and he could probably sprint across and leave before Toderack could get to him. But the loot in this dungeon had been pretty good so far. The zombie bear had given him a new weapon and this thing was much more dangerous. What could he get from fighting it?

  Alan hadn’t had too much trouble with the denizens of this dungeon. The bear had done a number on him, but now that he knew its weakness he felt confident in facing one again. The ghoul had also surprised him with its speed, but he still hadn’t taken many injuries. This was a skeleton so he knew to use his club. The scythe was obviously magical, but he thought that he should be able to avoid its blade with his high speed.

  What ended up deciding it for him was his stamina. All of that running had left him below 20%. He wasn’t sure how long he could stay here before Toderack would come for him, so he had to decide fast. At the moment he was sitting motionless in his throne but that might not last forever. Trying to fight this thing while almost out of juice would be suicide. Instead Alan sprinted across the floor and dove through the portal. He didn’t even take the time to look back to see if the boss had moved.

  Quest Complete: Toderack’s Maze (75)

  [You escaped the maze, but you couldn’t bring yourself to face the man himself. Reward: enchanted boxers (rare) and 75 dungeon points.]

  “I thought you were going to fight him. After your experiences in the arena it feels like you have an even greater drive to grow and improve.” Tamee told him as he stood once more in the grass of the plains. During the early parts of the labyrinth when he wasn’t being chased by zombies he had told her many of the details of his time with Dracon.

  “I do want to grow, but I also don’t want to die. I don’t think I’ll get another life like last time so I have to be smart. That just wasn’t a fight I thought I could win.”

  “Maybe there is more in that head than meat. For what it is worth I think you made the right choice.”

  “Ha ha. What is up with these boxers?” He checked their enchantment and they were both self cleaning and self repairing. That was the same enchantment on the pants he wanted. Maybe the dungeon could read his thoughts and was trying to prove it wasn’t being creepy with all the man junk.

  “I think pink is a nice color for you,” Tamee couldn’t hold back a chuckle as she delivered that line. They were indeed a bright pink and to make it more interesting they had a light green paw print pattern on them. It wasn’t even dog or cat prints, it looked more like a four toed lizard foot.

  His current outfit was filthy and tattered again, but luckily he had managed to talk his mentor into giving him another set before he left. He told Tamee to cover her eyes for a while and stripped out of his clothes. He cast conjure water and had a waterfall of cold water pour over him. Alan had never figured out how to safely conjure the water at anything but frigid temperatures. He scrubbed as well as he could but it took three waterfalls of washing before he felt mostly clean.

  He put on his new boxers, which did feel nice on his nether parts. It wasn’t a fabric he was familiar with, some kind of mix between cotton and silk. Warm and with some heft to them, but still smooth against his skin. He sent a mental thank you to the Network just in case it could hear. Then he got dressed in his clean set of clothes. He put the other filthy set back into his corpse sack. He didn’t want those touching any of his good stuff, but he figured he might want them later.

  It was time to head south again. Near the passage back to tier one he saw a clump of trees. The weird thing was that while he could see the trees on the outside of the small copse, and he could see the tops of the interior trees, he was unable to see anything under them. There were thick shadows that shouldn’t be there on a sunny day filling the space around the trunks. He realized it was another dungeon entrance. The creative appearance was appreciated.

  This time he simply warned Tamee he was going to get naked again, he couldn’t tell if she was looking anyway so he decided not to care that much. He had also decided that he would wear his filthy clothes when he explored a dungeon. If he had to deal with people he could always change back, but he didn’t have anymore good clothes and he tended to be hard on his wardrobe.

  [Warning, once you enter this dungeon you cannot exit unless you complete the quest. Threat level: high. Do you still wish to enter?]

  This was another one-way dungeon and the risk was higher. It also had a better time dilation as well, 5:1. He hadn’t taken a risk and instead avoided the boss in the last dungeon but that was because at the time he wasn’t at his best. Here he was clean, well sorta, and rested, stamina-wise at least. This was the type of chance he should take, even if the danger was higher than the last dungeon. He accepted and found himself inside the small clump of trees, except it wasn’t a small clump anymore, it was a large forest.

  New Quest: Spider Queen (100)

  [This enchanted forest has become corrupted by an ancient spider queen. Slay at least one hundred of her offspring and the queen herself to restore the forest to its former glory.]

  “Nope!”