Chapter 39: Darxon Hideout (7)

Chapter 39: Darxon Hideout (7)

The shadowy form stretched out one of its arms in the direction of Aegis as if reaching to grab him, but it was several meters away. Aegis wasn’t sure what it would do exactly, but to be safe he dashed to the side only to see the shadow arm shoot out into a blast of mist, narrowly missing him as it crashed into the wall behind him and dispersed.

“Not a boss.” Rakkan commented as he dashed in the opposite direction, maneuvering to get behind it, or so he thought. The shadow form rotated its body and formed a second featureless head that seemed to follow him, causing Rakkan to stop and instead backup to the wall behind him, grabbing a torch off of it and flinging it at the shadow’s form.

When the torch touched the shadow, the flames of it were swallowed up, and it fell out the other end extinguished, the dull piece of wood clattering along the stone floor.

“You’ve got to hit the orb, the shadow is immaterial, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to let you. If a torch won’t do it...” Aegis thought to himself as he pulled out a flask of oil from his inventory. He popped off the lid and flung it at the shadowy figure, spilling oil all around the room and into the shadow's form, though it didn’t land on the shadow itself and instead passed through it. Aegis followed up by using the flames from his shield to light the trail of oil. The flames burned across the floor up to the shadowy figure, but once the flames touched the shadow, they were extinguished.

“You’re new, right? Powerful shadow magic can only be dispersed with magical light, normal light won’t do anything. Use your smite.” Rakkan shouted at him across the room. It was becoming apparent that, despite the shadow creature's bulky form of mist, it was immobile and remained stationary. It took this time to release several more large blasts of shadow towards Aegis and Rakkan who dodged out of the way.

Smite was too risky, he’d lose his pacifism if it hit something, Aegis thought. But with this information he knew another way. Aegis charged forward at the shadowy form - seeing this, Rakkan charged forward as well with a battleaxe in one hand, longsword in the other.

Once Aegis got right up next to the shadow's form, it took a swing at him, slamming its shadowy fist into his flaming shield and extinguishing the flames.



You take 136 Shadow Damage.



“Minor Heal!” Aegis shouted, stretching his right hand into the shadow’s body for the cast. The glowing light of his healing spell that formed around his right hand during the cast did the trick, it was enough to radiate into the shadow and disperse a portion of it for a moment, effectively chopping the shadow body in half and allowing Rakkan to see the orb within for a second. Rakkan took the chance and slashed his battleaxe and longsword at the orb, cracking it. The orb retaliated by reforming the shadow around Aegis’ hand once the Minor Heal cast had finished, slamming him again, this time with both arms.



You take 141 Shadow Damage.

You take 210 Shadow Damage.

Skill Learned: Shadow Resistance (Beginner)

Minor Heal heals you for 181.



Shadow Resistance - Level 1 (Beginner)

Reduces damage taken by shadow-based attacks.

Shadow Damage Resistance: 1%The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.



“Minor Heal, Minor Heal! Minor Heal!” Aegis spammed the spell and Rakkan unleashed a flurry of blows on the orb, eventually causing it to crack and shatter into pieces along the floor. When it did, it released a shockwave of purple energy that dispersed the shadowy form and knocked them both backwards off of their feet. When the shockwave hit the walls of the room, the ground began to crack and tiny streams of dust and dirt began to trickle down on them from above through the seams in the stonework, tiny chunks crumbling off of the ceiling.



Lesser Orb of Suffering slain!



“Uh, bad news. We found the way down to the second floor from the first floor, it's through the boss room. We won’t be able to get to you guys unless we beat the head cultist, he’s sitting in his chamber doing some weird chanting.” Darkshot sounded visibly stressed as he replied, holding the door into the boss room shut to prevent an annoyed Lina from entering.

“I think we can kill it, then we’ll be right there.” Lina replied anxiously.

“We won’t, we don’t even have a healer, get a grip.” Darkshot groaned at her. “Is there any way you guys will manage to get to this boss room from the other side?” Aegis looked at Rakkan, then looked at the now unconscious Luryala in his arms. Rakkan stared back with a determined expression, but Aegis could tell he didn’t have any ideas.

Aegis looked over his skill list, equipment, and inventory. His new shadow resistance skill would help, but it wouldn’t be enough. He checked through his recently acquired items instead, hoping something might be useful.



Name: Manacles of Suffering

Type: Manacles

Quality: 40%

Durability: 133/150

Option 1: Deals 5 Fire Damage per second when the right manacle is attached to a creature’s wrist.

Option 2: Restores 5 health per second when the left manacle is attached to a creature’s wrist.

Description: A set of heavy dark iron manacles enchanted with dark magic, used by Darxon cultists for the purpose of torturing their foes. The enchantment will permanently fade from this item if it is not within 50 meters of an Orb of Suffering for over 12 hours.



Aegis quickly began doing math in his head. He had next to no health regeneration, but with his Rockjaw Steak buff, his stamina would be able to out-regenerate attacks from one cultist shadow assassin if he was modestly using Brace, and if he spread his heals out efficiently and allowed the healing from the manacles of suffering to offset the majority of the damage, he might be able to hold out. The primary requirement of his plan would be that only one enemy could be hitting him at a time.

“There might be a way we can fight through them all...” Aegis said as he took a few steps down the stairs and safely set down Luryala out of harm's way. “It will take a long time, and if we mess up we’ll die.”

“Tell me what to do.” Rakkan replied confidently.

“The doorway, if we hold it correctly so that only one cultist can attack me at a time, I might be able to tank them indefinitely. They’re elite so they might try something, but I’m hoping the fights with the other creatures will disrupt their organization. You’ll have to hold the doorway with me but not take any damage, I don’t think I’ll be able to heal you. So just attack from behind me as much as possible and body block anything that tries to slip past.” Aegis said as he pulled out the last of his oil flasks. He doused a section of the floor at the top of the staircase behind them, separating them from Luryala. The sounds of battle in the corridor were able to drown out their conversation.

“I’ll light this so they can’t get behind us using that shadow movement skill.” Aegis motioned to the oil, he then pulled out the Manacles of Suffering. He locked the healing manacle on his right hand, then fastened his shield onto his left arm and took a deep breath. “I’ll call them over here and try to hold them one at a time. Sorry if this fails and we die. You ready?” Aegis asked. Rakkan nodded. Aegis took a deep breath and stretched his arms as best he could, preparing for what he anticipated to be a long battle.

“Are all dungeons like this?” He mumbled as he stepped through the doorway, while simultaneously Rakkan dipped his sword down to ignite the oil, shrugging at Aegis’ question.

“Hey, Darxon guys, over here, I broke your orb!” Aegis shouted at them in the distance. The closest was a group of 3 cultists fighting a strange stony-looking centipede creature, just having finished killing it. All three of them turned and rushed at Aegis as he and Rakkan took their positions back through the stairwell doorway. They moved in their shadowy mist form but were stopped from sliding along the ceiling above Aegis’ head, due to the glowing flames burning behind him, forcing them all to materialize in front of him.