Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 22

Chapter 22

When one thought about descending into darkness, a number of monsters related to darkness came to mind as possible opponents.  Monsters made of inky sludge or who utilized shadows similar to The Den, perhaps, or even some sort of creepy bugs that thrived in areas bereft of light; the list wasn’t necessarily endless, but there were plenty of monsters that he could imagine attacking them in this dungeon.

But none of those ideas could prepare him – despite being told about what they would face – for seeing what was actually down in the deep, dark hole.

As the stone platform passed a certain point, the walls receded for nearly 50 feet all around them, leaving what looked like a large pocket along the shaft.  This pocket wasn’t empty, of course, because that would be too easy; instead, it contained the first meeting of these monsters – and he was instantly confused by what he saw.

His vision swam as he looked at the hideous, pale-skinned, multi-limbed flying monstrosities that lifted off the walls of the pocket and rushed toward the platform.  From what he could vaguely see and what had been described to him, these things were like someone took an albino tarantula and gave it three pairs of wings, before adding three teeth-filled mouths that emerged from different parts of its potato-shaped body.

But something about them didn’t look right to him.

Even their nametags looked odd, as what was there seemed to morph into different letters and numbers and they even flickered in and out of existence as he looked at them.  It took a few seconds to even get an unobscured look at their nametags in the first place.

Deadly Mutated Dreadwing – Intermediate Minimal

Level 165 (Perceived Level: 215)

The Deadly Mutated Dreadwings immediately fell upon the prepared Raid Party, flinging themselves forward without a modicum of defense in their thoughts, and Thaden pulled his attention away from the attack to start monitoring the Health and protections of those on the front lines.  They’d already removed the Guardian Totems a few seconds before the monsters appeared, so now it was basically up to both Thaden and Sadia to replace or bolster the protections that were being worn down by the defense. 

The experienced Raid Party really knew what they were doing, however, as their efforts were barely needed.  DPS Fighters and Scouts easily slipped in to deal tremendous amounts of damage to the Dreadwings, while the Mages unleashed hell upon them from a distance, bolstered by the incredible Mana regeneration provided by Thaden and Sadia’s Superior Rejuvenation.  Even as he watched the individual groups of Guild members moving around the perimeter of the platform, spreading out from each other as the flying monsters attempted to navigate their way to the Mages in the center, they effortlessly kept them contained.  It felt a little strange to him that the flying monsters couldn’t simply flap their wings and go over the top of the defending Contenders, instead keeping at the same low attitude, but he figured it had to be something that the Fighters did to taunt them into staying where they could reach it.

In less than 30 seconds, all of the Dreadwings were dead, their corpses falling onto the platform where they could be easily looted.  The way that the members of the Raid Party backed up from the edge to make room for them on the platform told him that they’d had experience with accidentally letting them fall down the hole a time or two in the past.  Fortunately, it seemed as though every Dreadwing managed to land on the platform, and the Party looted them quickly and efficiently before getting back into position.  As the corpses all dissipated into the air, the feeling of wrongness he’d initially experienced about them only increased, but he couldn’t put it finger on what exactly it was.

“What’s wrong, Thaden?” Sadia asked, clearly seeing him struggling with something.

Not sure how to explain what he was feeling, he asked, “Did anything about those monsters seem strange?”

“Strange, how?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “They just felt… off, I guess.”  He shook his again, unable to communicate what he was feeling.

“Huh.  I don’t see things exactly the same as you, even if I can peek at your memories and mimic many of your abilities,” the giant squirrel explained as she tilted her head as if in contemplation.  “I don’t see anything strange in what I can look at, but keep an eye out and see if anything changes.”

“I definitely will, since I’ve never experienced anything like that before.  You don’t think it’s the—”

“No, I don’t believe so,” she responded immediately, cutting him off.  “There’s no reason to suspect that’s the case.”

He was worried that it was the System messing with him again, as if it had finally been able to pinpoint him and was about to do something as drastic as keeping him in isolation for half a year again.  His suspicion wasn’t something that should necessarily be spoken aloud, however, which was why he was glad that Sadia had interrupted him.

The pocket in the walls disappeared after only being present for about a minute, and it was back to the tight enclosure around the platform.  Less than a minute later, Rachel called out another warning for the next round of attacks, and as a slightly larger pocket was exposed upon their descent, they were attacked by slightly more of the Dreadwings, numbering two dozen by this point, but they fell almost as easily as the previous pocket.

The persistent feeling that something was wrong with the monsters continued, however; if anything it got worse.  Every time he looked at them, they seemed more and more wrong, and even their nametags essentially morphed into meaningless garbage.  He pointed this out to Sadia, but she only responded that everything looked fine on her end; a few inquiries put toward the other Supports told him the same thing, so it was obviously Thaden’s issue.

As a third pocket opened along the wall, the Dreadwings were joined by small swarms of cat-sized, mosquito-looking horrors that flew fast, could impale one of their six, long, beak-like appendages into a victim and suck the fluids out of them.

Essence Sucker – Intermediate Minimal

Level 166 (Perceived Level: 216)

The Essence Suckers didn’t have a lot of defense other than having large numbers and being extremely quick, but a few of the Mages had area-based spells that caused large airborne explosions or froze a large sphere of space, both of which either damaged them enough that they could be picked off at range, or would freeze their wings so that they plummeted to the platform.  They would then be finished off by the Scout Classes waiting for them to drop, while also still maintaining their offensive against the Dreadwings.

The problem that Thaden was having, however, was that the Suckers also looked odd to his vision, and the abnormality was starting to drive him crazy.  By the time the Raid Party managed to kill all of the monsters, he still hadn’t figured out what was wrong, but it continued to scratch at his mind even as they left the third pocket behind.

“Still feeling strange, I see,” Sadia said to him as he stood there with his arms crossed, his mind tackling with the problem.  There was something that was off about this entire situation, not just the monsters he was looking at – and he couldn’t figure it out.

“Could be that you’re a bit more worn out than we thought after all the dungeons over the last few days?” she considered.  “Anyone else would be exhausted.”

He shook his head, knowing deep down that that wasn’t the case.

“Well, hopefully it won’t be a problem going forward so that we can complete this dungeon and get your Evolution Assignment completed.”

“I don’t think it will prevent us from completing—”

“It’s starting, everyone!  Support, keep us topped off; we need to outpace it so that we can push through and complete this dungeon today!” Rachel shouted.

Thaden’s attention was drawn to his own Health and Mana at her announcement, and sure enough, his Health ticked down slightly before being regenerated a moment later due to his Regeneration still being active; his Mana, of course, didn’t budge, but the same couldn’t be said for everyone else.  Thankfully, everyone still had Rejuvenation active, so they weren’t affected all that much, but that would only increase the deeper they went.

This effect, which the veterans of the Raid Party all called “The Drain”, was what had prevented them from reaching the Boss of the dungeon so that they could complete it.  The drain on their Health and Mana started small, only a single point every second or so, but the deeper they went, the effect only increased in severity.  By the time they had descended toward where they thought the bottom was, they were losing hundreds of Health and Mana every second, which inevitably made them turn back when they couldn’t keep up with it.  As soon as they threw the lever in the center of the platform over, “The Drain” would start to diminish, until a few minutes later into their ascent, it disappeared completely. 

Thaden made sure that everyone else still had those two spells active on them to ensure no one was wanting for Health or Mana, before he turned his attention to his other problem.  As the fourth pocket in the walls appeared, he still hadn’t come to any conclusion, so he watched as yet another wave of Dreadwings and Suckers attacked, this wave containing even more than before. 

It wasn’t until the monsters he saw attacking began to flicker in and out of existence that he began to suspect what it was he was seeing – or not seeing, as it was.  Looking at the Fighters defending against the onslaught of the attackers, something quickly became obvious – and he wondered why he hadn’t seen it before.

None of them were taking any physical damage.  Not because of any protections they had on them, or because they were simply too powerful to be hit by an attack; no, it wasn’t anything to do with the spells cast upon them or their own abilities.  Instead, it was because they weren’t actually getting hit.

The monsters they were fighting were illusions.

They weren’t real.

As this revelation clicked in his mind, two things happened simultaneously.  First, his Psychic Resiliency Competency kicked in at full blast, pushing away what he could best describe as a fog across his vision.  It cleared within a few seconds, revealing what some effect upon his mind had been keeping from him.

The second thing that happened was that his assumption that the monsters weren’t real was immediately turned on its head.  The monsters were real, alright, though they weren’t anything like what the illusions had indicated. 

First, the Dreadwings and Suckers were the exact same monster masquerading as something more intimidating, but in reality they were much smaller and relatively non-threatening in appearance. 

Mindbender Wisp – Intermediate Minimal

Level 165 (Perceived Level: 215)

Mindbender Wisp – Intermediate Minimal

Level 166 (Perceived Level: 216)

The Mindbender Wisps were spherical floating orbs that sucked in the light, like miniature black holes, and were only about a foot in diameter – much smaller than any of the monsters they portrayed.  Even as he watched them approach the front line of Contenders waiting for them, he could see the weapons and spells strike all around the illusion they presented, with only a few lucky hits actually reaching inside to damage the Wisp.  It didn’t seem to have any means of attacking or defending itself other than its illusions, which was strange, because the illusions couldn’t physically hit anyone.

But that wasn’t quite the whole story, however.  Every once in a while, he saw a member of the Raid Party’s Health drop slightly as they took damage, but it wasn’t from a physical hit.  Instead, it almost seemed like some sort of psychic or mental damage, because while the illusions weren’t real, the Contenders believed they were.  Somehow, the belief that they were being hit, even when they were not, was enough to do damage to them. 

It was bizarre and didn’t make a lot of sense to him, but he couldn’t deny what it was he was seeing.  At the same time, he discovered that his own Health had stopped twitching downward every once in a while, which meant that “The Drain” was completely mental in origin.

Which was where the second type of monster came in.  Scattered along the platform were dark-colored, 3-foot-long and 6-inch-wide worm-like monsters that suddenly appeared when the fog over his mind lifted.  They weren’t actively attacking anyone, however; instead, they seemed to be avoiding everyone on the platform as much as possible. 

Mind Absorber – Intermediate Minimal

Level 170 (Perceived Level: 221)

A second or two after he first perceived them, he noticed another 4 of the Mind Absorbers launch themselves off the wall of the pocket and land along the edge of the platform, sneakily dodging the Contenders as they moved to defend against the mental Wisp illusions, before congregating where there was empty space on the stone platform.  Once they were there, they stopped and seemed to start throbbing, sending out an invisible aura that he could somewhat feel, but only because he was actively trying to sense it.

The additional Mind Absorbers increased “The Drain” by two full points, meaning that everyone was now being drained of 3 Health and 3 Mana every second.  Well, everyone but Thaden now, because he was aware of it and his Psychic Resiliency stopped the drain on his Health.

This dungeon is devious.  No one would even know these things are there unless they had a way to combat the mind-warping being done.  They would either have to discover their presence, which isn’t as common an ability as my Competency makes it seem, or simply try and push through The Drain to beat the Boss at the end.

While he would still probably be able to keep everyone alive and topped up with Mana all the way to the end, now that he knew about these Mind Absorber monsters, there was no reason to even risk it.

Now all he had to do was convince everyone else that there was a bunch of invisible monsters on the platform sucking away their Health and Mana through mental attacks, so that they could kill them. 

If that didn’t work, he might be able to stomp on them to death, but that would be a last resort.

“Hey, Rachel!  Sorry to interrupt the fight, but I think there’s something you need to know…”