Although they may not have the intelligence of the goblins I had in mind, these things were plenty cunning in their own way, and they had the advantage of being undead. So I'm guessing if they wound or bite me, I could become one of them.
Like the zombies. Maybe that's what happened to them?
I opened the barrier lightly to let some air in, then I closed it so they couldn't pick up a scent.
What should I do with them? Thus far, I've had to kill all the monsters on every floor in order to leave. So I can't just run past them and go somewhere else. Or can I? These hallways seem to be winding and might have dead ends.
Forget it. That has too many risks. Running probably isn't an option here either.
What should I do? Kill them all and leave?
Where would I go?
Maybe…there's like some door at the end of this labyrinth and I just have to figure it out as I go. My best plan is to kill everything here without drawing attention. Who should I start with first?
Zombies or Goblins?
No freaking way. That's actually. That's devious, but it could work.
I looked back at the zombies and said a silent prayer for them. Sorry guys.
A goblin sniffed and caught two of its favorite scents. Meat and fire. Someone was cooking!
It grinned and bumped one of its companions with an arm. It tittered and raised its pointy nose in the air. Its glowing red eyes widened, and it ran towards the dead end along with its brothers.
Several bodies smelling of meat scrambled away from a bonfire. The smoke carried the irresistible scent of death. The goblins attacked them and took greedy bites of the meat that was thrown at their bodies. The zombies roared and attacked the approaching foes with equal ardor.
Hidden in a corner was a certain someone who was fanning the flames and occasionally kicking a zombie towards the fire. The zombies groaned but caught on fire and started walking away. The goblins looked at each other and tried to run.
Not so fast.
A certain black-bellied elf cast a barrier on the entrance and tried to maintain her own at the same time. The goblins screamed and pawed at the barrier to no avail. When they realized they were trapped, they turned and fought harder.
Their swords clashed with the bones of the enraged zombies and eventually…
The goblins died horribly. Bitten to death by their comrades who munched on their rotten flesh with much rancor. Several zombies had fallen in battle, and Miseria paid attention to how. Not many died from the fire. Instead, they died from blows to the head or from too many amputations. Amputations to the neck, waist, or torso.
Head wounds, fire, and amputations. I can work with that. While they were distracted, Miseria creeped up and picked the ones still alive off one by one. She cast a barrier around one and used the club of a fallen goblin to bash it upside the head.
[+300 EXP]
[+500 EXP]
The higher the level, the more experience points she got. Until finally she received the treasured notification and dispatched all the zombies.
[Level Up!]
Sighing, she refreshed her status and smiled with satisfaction. Nice work. Yuck.
It smelled like roasted corpses, dried blood, and death in the hallway. Although I am desperate for food, I don't think I'm going to take meat from any of these things. Just their weapons. Luckily, the goblins are practically my height.
I picked out a couple of swords, a shield, an axe, and some clues from the bodies. Although most of their clothes were burnt, bloodied, or ruined. They did have backpacks or other accessories on their person that were a little more resistant to fire.
Careful not to touch anything sticky or sickening. I pulled out a couple of books, personal effects, and coins from their bodies. Gold, silver, bronze, copper, and stone coins.
Yippee!
The books seemed to be written a couple of different languages. The only four I could read were in Elvish or the language of spellbooks. Two diaries and two spellbooks.
[Dooler's Journal]
[Waller's Diary]
[A Healer's Guide]
[Suppression Theory]
"Hmm…"
I used my three-hour break to leaf through all the books. After I was done, I had a pretty good idea of what happened here.
These zombies. They were adventurers who were looking for gold hidden in the unexplored and unclaimed dungeon connected to this place. Unfortunately, they underestimated their enemies. After a fierce dispute that led to two casualties, they used an experimental teleportation spell and ended up here. They started in the same place that I did and even drew a small possible map depicting the dungeon.
"Huh? You can map a dungeon like this?" Pleasantly surprised, I read a little further.
Hmm. So it's less of a tower shape and more of a hallway. Or a maze. In this scenario, I'm going to imagine a large, multilayered maze. Once you come through the entrance, you have no choice but to move like a small metal ball towards the end.
"So where's the end?"
I started in the first room or floor right here. I marked the place where a small picture of a skull inside a V shape was drawn, and then I entered the rabbit room right after. Which is why my journey is a little different than theirs. It looks like there are several 'doors' in each hallway.
Each door opens up to a different room.
So maybe once you've gone through enough doors, you'll reach the end.
So far, they recorded visits to nine areas. They entered the forest after the undead battlefield and worked their way out from there. They noted in the corners of the pages in small writing about encounters with yetis, undead trolls, lichs, ghosts, specters, and the undead battleground where the elves fell victim to a human army.
One of the members of the party was a cleric and an elf. She defeated the army by healing them with light magic and found a page from the diary of a soldier in the war.