Chương 37

Rather than jump into the stinking pit under the torture chamber absolutely blind, Oliver and Kiki came up with a plan. It was based on his experience traveling through the secret tunnels. They removed Ben's drone communication chunk from Kiki's bag, requested that Ben turn the lights as bright as possible, and dropped it into the yawning abyss. Created with a high level [Technomancer]'s skill, the complex mechanic needed more than just gravity to destroy it. It slammed into the ground, about twenty feet below.

It didn't bounce or roll, instead remaining completely flat, as if it had fallen in mud. It was far from a perfect display of their destination, but at least now they knew how far the fall went. The lights showed off a pale pink floor, though the exact color was difficult to discern with the drone's yellow lights. This was the exact sort of situation his fairy ring was perfect for.

Unfortunately, he'd used it immediately before ducking into his coffin and the ring required an entire day to recharge after every use, regardless of how long the fairy was in effect.

"Is the ground… red?" Kiki asked, squinting into the hole.

"And is the drone sinking? Or is that a trick of the light?" Oliver opened his mouth to reply. A keening wail cut through his words.

"Pretties! Pretties! I smell pretties!" a high-pitched voice called out.

"No, no, no," another, deeper voice replied.

"Uglies, uglies, uglies."

"Everything's pretty, or everything's ugly! Why the dichotomy? Reductive, I say!" a third, monotone voice said. The three voices argued in circles as their voices came closer. Oliver activated his Shadow Slink skill and peeked out the doorway. There were five total individuals marching down the hall. A thin woman with clearly vampiric features. A short, gaunt man who held a leash that led to two large hounds, one black and the other white, both with scarlet eyes and long teeth.

And finally, in the back, a large man, twice the height and five times the width of a normal human. Every step he took shook the dungeon's hallway. He used Appraisal on the five opponents. All of them were some variant of vampire between level 60 and 70. There was no way Oliver and Kiki could handle this challenge alone. His Uncanny Sight also activated when he focused on the dogs, showing him a ghostly, mangled humanoid form next to a common greyhound.

He assumed these were the results of a few of the more successful vampiric experiments. The party of vampires were distracted for the moment, meticulously checking each of the cells as they traveled closer. Oliver realized with a shiver that they were looking for him and Kiki. Something had given away their presence. And this dungeon hallway led to a dead end. Oliver rushed over to the trap door.

"We need to go, now."

"What did you see? A strong opponent?" Oliver could practically hear the mad grin behind Kiki's helmet.

"Five of them. All stronger than our last opponent. Unless you have a means in which to pick them off one by one, we'll be corpses if we don't escape."

"We can take them," Kiki said, taking a step in the direction of the doorway. Suddenly, Oliver deeply regretted tossing Ben's drone down into the pit ahead of them. The [Technomancer] seemed to be the only person with the power to talk reason into this mad woman. Oliver quickly went over his options. Then he chose the one that seemed the most likely to get them out of this alive. He grabbed the [Neon Samurai] from behind and locked his arms around her in a tight hug.

Kiki, caught by surprise, didn't have time to dodge his grapple. Her high Dexterity meant she'd be able to squirm out of his grasp if given time, so Oliver acted quickly. He threw his entire weight to the side, dragging them both into the disposal pit. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. His Resilience could take the brunt of a twenty foot fall without issue and he was trusting that Kiki's armor would keep her in one piece as well.

Only as they fell, did Oliver realize the fatal flaw in his plan. Time seemed to slow as he stared up at the hatch leading into the torture chamber. The open hatch. Anyone entering the room would immediately know exactly where they escaped to. The impact struck softer than anticipated. It was like falling on a pool full of pudding, his body folding and sprawling him out on the surface. He felt his back stick to the ground. It was warm too, like a heated bathroom floor from his life before the Nightmare Biome.

Squirming, he found himself unable to turn over onto his side. He was stuck, staring straight up. Above him, the silhouette of a person appeared in the light of the trap door.

"They jumped in!" a woman's gleeful yell exclaimed.

"They actually jumped in! Look at this!" Rather than another silhouette, the entire trap door disappeared from view. A deep, rumbling laughter shook the room. The sticky floor under Oliver jiggled.

"Do we go down and retrieve them?" the woman's voice asked.

"No," the big man replied. Even from twenty feet below, Oliver heard the woman snap her fingers in understanding.

"After the room does its work on them, we go down and peel off their corpses! Excellent. Much less work. We can find a [Necromancer] to reanimate them. We still have that human in the west wing? The one with the dead birds?" Oliver couldn't make out the third voice's words. It was too far away from the trap door. Whatever it said, it prompted the two others to step away. Since they were distracted with yapping to one another, Oliver decided he needed to move.

He strained every bit of his Strength to get himself into a sitting position. The floor under him released him with a squelch and a pop.

"Oooh, one's getting up! The other's already sunk a bit. And what's that metal thing beside them? Did they throw in an anvil?" Now with a bit more mobility at his disposal, Oliver took in his surroundings. Two feet to his left was Kiki, face down in the floor. She squirmed and wiggled a few inches, but lacked the raw power he used to free himself. He hoped her helmet would filter in air for her to breathe. On his right was the drone piece they'd used as illumination.

It was barely still present, having sunk into the soft floor. Now closer up, Oliver noted that the room's entire floor was a deep red color. Not the soft pink he'd first believed it to be. The coloring expanded beyond the ground and up several feet of the walls as well.

"Close it. We'll pick them out of the mass in an hour or two." Oliver debated taking a shot there with his blunderbuss. They weren't too far away for his accuracy. Likely a three in four chance of landing the shot so long as they didn't dodge. But… what would be the point? They were vampires so that meant he needed to either behead or burn them. No, better to save his loaded bullet for now. There was a grunt of agreement and the trapdoor above them closed with a bang.

The flat top of Ben's drone, the only bit still exposed to open air, blinked with a yellowish light. It illuminated the area in short bursts. Oliver pressed one hand down into the floor and used it as leverage to peel his butt out of the grasping floor. His hand sank to his wrist as he righted himself. Then, with every ounce of Strength he could muster, he pulled his hand out. Unfortunately, all that effort ended with his ankles both buried. No matter how much struggled, his boots were buried in the floor.

Laces tied tight, it sadly wasn't a matter of simply slipping his feet out the boots for freedom. His shovel remained strapped to his back, he wondered if he could dig his feet out. While Oliver debated over his predicament and examined Kiki struggling, still face-down, something in the corner of his eye moved. He reached for his blunderbuss. Only as he touched his pistol grip did he realize his hand was gooey from contact with the floor.

The sensation reminded him of a time he'd fallen through a coffin lid and into a freshly rotting corpse. His eyes widened with the comparison. This was known as the disposal pit. And it reeked of rot and death. And yet, there were no corpses to be found. Only a floor that could be described as… fleshy. The room shuddered and the flesh at his feet quivered as it crawled up his boots to grasp at his knees.