The party froze in place, eyes centered on the revolting sight of flesh and gristle. They knew not what to do - run? Fight? They were reminded of it: of a stalker explicitly told they could not win against.
But it was the young Jack who first broke the tension. Unlike Mili and Marco, he did not seem nervous. He broke away from the group, marched forward, and raised his spear.
Splat!
He jabbed the shambling flesh with one swift motion, and although he failed to puncture it deep due to his, well, not-so toned physique, he managed to slay the creature nonetheless. It splurged and vomited a sickly stream of blood before falling still, very much dead.
“Phew…” Jack wrenched the spear out of the corpse and turned back towards the others. “Don’t worry, it’s just a mob. Remember the message window? It called this place the ‘Maze of the Horned Exile’, and I didn’t see anything resembling a horn on that… thing. We should be safe.”
Despite his claim, Mili was still a bit on edge. She carefully tip-toed over to the fleshy growth and poked it with her guitar, leering at it until she was a hundred-percent sure it was really, truly dead. “Huh, guess you’re right. Almost kinda anti-climatic how weak it was. Still gross, though. Yuck…”
Marco followed after her and crouched down onto his knees. Without any hesitation, he plunged his bare hand into the flesh - what exactly for Lucius didn’t know. But Jack and Mili were both equally horrified.
“What the heck are you doin’, big guy!?” Mili said. “Gah, that can’t be sanitary.”
Marco didn’t respond at first. He focused on his task, wriggling around inside its corpse, before eventually pulling his hand out with a squelch. “Had to know if it was safe to touch,” he said. “My skin’s not stinging, at least. I tried to see if it had a heart or any organs too, but the thing’s all cartilage. Nasty. Don’t even know how it was alive, moving and lurching around like that.”
Lucius offered him a handkerchief, which the old mobster gratefully accepted. Jack watched on with a confused look. “Wait, that was like the third one. Where are you getting all those handkerchiefs from—”
Mili interrupted him before he could finish. “Yeah, sure I guess, but did you really have to stick your whole goshdarn hand in there? Coulda started with a finger or something.”
To that, Marco chuckled and showed off his unblemished hand. “It’s fine, lass. I’ve got a recovery skill. Speeds up my natural healing. If I get hurt, a little spit ‘n grit will fix me up just fine.”
Jack nodded along and joined in on reassuring Mili. “It’s not as if they’re that dangerous in the first place. The fleshy thing only had a strength of two—” He suddenly coughed and choked on his own spit in a grand, intentionally disruptive, show. When he recovered, Jack cleared his throat and tried to act nonchalant. “Er, I mean, it didn’t look that strong to begin with. A kid probably could’ve taken care of it by themself.”
“Hm, alright," Mili relented, but not before crossing her arms and giving the two men a stern frown. “All I’m sayin’ is to be more careful next time. Just because it looks wimpy doesn’t mean it can’t have a mean bite.”
With her grievances out of the way, the party got back into formation and resumed their exploration of the maze. Jack came up with a plan to better aid their growth, saying, “If we encounter more of those things, we should take turns landing the killing blow. This way we’ll all level up at the same pace.” There was no reason not to what with the low danger encountered thus far, and so they all came to an agreement.
Further in, they descended into the halls. There were more crossroads, more twists and turns with no clear sign of actual progress. Occasionally they would come across more of the shambling flesh, but the things were dispatched in a much more casual manner now—Marco pummeled with his fists; Mili bashed with her guitar; Jack poked and stabbed. And then there was Lucius. He had his dagger of course, but the gentleman didn’t want to risk getting his sleeves dirty, so he borrowed Jack’s spear and impaled the fleshes from afar.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
*EXP + 2!
And so this macabre routine continued for some time. Unfortunately, they did not come across any other secret treasure rooms. Jack was the one who decided where they would go, taking point at every junction, but at moments he appeared confused. The young man mumbled to himself, saying “Huh? This should be the correct path…” or “Wait, is it only the general direction? Crap, that means turning here isn’t necessarily the right choice…” and even “Damnit, there’s too many different points. Couldn’t whoever designed this skill make it brighter or bigger the closer I get?” Marco and Mili didn’t hear him despite being closer, but Lucius could. He always did. A gentleman required an astute ear, after all.
To Mister Thames’s credit, he wasn’t leading them in circles. Lucius had made a mental map in his head and charted their every move: the distance, what paths they could have taken, and all the intersections. After mapping enough data, Lucius concluded that they were heading… somewhere.
If he were to be honest, this dungeon had no actual pattern. No uniformity or sense of connecting structure. It was as if someone scribbled over a piece of paper: nothing made sense, and there was no way to know where the exit could possibly be. At this rate they could be here for hours; nay, even days depending on how large this realm actually was.
But at the very least, the party collected experience at a quick rate. Soon Lucius even ‘leveled up’ or so the system called it.
*Congratulations! Lucius Rose is now Level 2.
+ 1 unattributed status point
Jack recommended Lucius to increase strength since, according to his words, “You already seem like a dexterous guy. It’s good to round out your stats and go for a well-balanced build since you’re more on flex duty.” Lucius wasn’t really the type of person to personally dirty his hands, however, so he decided to just put it into dexterity. Now it was at thirty-three! Roughly three times that of the average adult, apparently: such a nice thing for his physical prowess to be put into quantifiable metrics.
It was strange, though. The moment he increased the status point, his muscles instantly felt a bit more limber, more flexible. It wasn’t a lot by any means, but for a man at the tender age of forty-two, it was nice to have that same range of motion as when he was young.
Jack sighed and appeared annoyed at first, but his expression soon softened. “Well, I guess a min-max build can be useful. Maybe a dodge tank since you’re pretty speedy? You have a dagger so an assassin comp could also actually work out since you’re already on the rear guard and we have two frontliners and plenty of DPS as is…”
Sometimes, Lucius wished the young man would use language he actually understood.
After another one of Jack’s signature rants, the party came across something new.
It was a creature not unlike the shambling flesh, but this one actually had a discernible shape: a snout, teeth, and two hooves on which it walked like a bipedal. It looked swine-like in appearance, yet there was no mistaking its grotesque relation to this maze. Like all the others, its flesh and skin were horribly disfigured, and it was no bigger than an infant.
But something about it unnerved Lucius. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but his instincts warned him that something was wrong. It was not that the thing itself was dangerous, but rather… what would come afterwards. The consequence of slaying this feeble, defenseless pig.
It was Marco’s turn now. After glancing at Jack for confirmation, he walked up and winded his fist back.
“Mister Bernardi, I do believe we should hold off for a moment—” Lucius began, but it was too late.
The swine’s head practically exploded from the force of Marco’s punch.
“Hm?” Marco said, turning around. “Did you say something Lucius—”
Before he could finish, a loud, guttural, ear-piercing shriek filled the entirety of the hall and shook the very brick with the force of its screech. Even without a head, the swine screamed and screamed, letting loose a sound from the fleshy folds of what remained of its body. The scream traveled far past them, to the beyond and into the darkness out of sight.
It was then that the party realized the gravity of their mistake. They had done their best to remain quiet thus far, but now it was all in vain.
>[The longer you take, the noisier you are, will increase the chances of It finding you]<
Whatever It was… they would soon find out.