Of Worse Places and Bad Ends

John and Ela caught their breath as they stood in the road. The latter had been driven halfway down the street from the alley before The Gamer had caught up to her. The creatures that they’d been fighting melted away to dust around them. Once more, stillness settled upon the darkened city. The sounds of grumbling thunder washed away any trace of the monsters’ howls.

The blonde knight leaned back on a car wreck, setting her axe aside for a moment so that her hand was free to tend to her bleeding shoulder. Soothing green mana enveloped her hand as she pressed it to a nasty gash in her shoulder. Ela hissed as her magic went to work, mending her wound until no trace remained. She pulled her hand off, watching as her suit’s fibers reached out and threaded themselves back together.

“How bad is it?” John asked, cutting into the chorus of the storm.

“It is nothing much. I have had far worse injuries before,” Ela replied, sighing, “It hurts more to realize how out of practice I am. I have gotten quite sloppy in my time away from the Order.”

The Gamer chuckled. “I mean, hey, we won, right? Any landing we walk away from and all that.”

That got a small smile out of the blonde, though she didn’t respond. With her health restored and the pain of injuries passed, the Bookworm Knight allowed herself a moment to relax.

As silence returned, John opened his UI, checking over yet another level that he’d received, his second of the dungeon so far. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the cool air momentarily before regretting subjecting himself to more of the rotting smell of his post-apocalyptic dungeon. Pinching his nose, The Gamer opened his character sheet to look over his stat points as he spun up the wheels of his unending stat debate.

So he stood, chin in his hand, pondering options for the five new points he had.

’I doubt that thirty is another breakpoint for INT,’ he thought, staring straight through his orange character sheet. ’It would feel pretty nice to even it out on top though. More health couldn’t hurt, and that’s a nice split - one in INT makes thirty, four in END makes twenty… Could alternatively go all five straight into WIS. That’s twenty as well, helps regen, and stacks up with that locket.’

The Gamer perused ability and item sheets again, checking what everything he had scaled off to see what stats might be beneficial. ’It’s mostly just those three, I think. I’d love to try out some others, but not until I’m self-sufficient. I’m still clearly squishy, and I run out of mana quickly.’

“Maybe I’m going too all-in with these options…” he muttered, looking over to check on his companion again. Ela had picked up her axe again, running her hand over the bladed edge of its bone head. Something seemed to have come over her, though John had no idea what. Idly, he wondered if an investment in charisma might help, though he quickly discarded that.

The socially inept nerd exhaled slowly. ’Maybe if I thought I could actually help her.’

Deciding that he shouldn’t waste any more of their time, The Gamer chose to split the difference on his investment plans, placing one point in INT and two points each in END and WIS. The increase in uneven numbers hurt him, but he knew that it would be dumb to make decisions about stats that needed to keep him alive based on a preference for pretty numbers. With that complete, John picked up his staff, walking over next to Ela.

“You ready?”

She turned to look at him, her eyes a thousand yards away. “Oh, yes. My apologies. I was thinking about the fight. ”

“Hey. I’m the one that’s supposed to get easily distracted,” John joked, concern briefly flashing across his face. “You’re the super cool magic knight that’s good at this kinda thing.”

That earned a giggle. “Well, I hope that I will live up to that, then. We should go. I do believe that the hospital is just down the street from here.”

“Yeah, it should be,” he replied, allowing himself to relax as his companion’s normal demeanor returned. “We’ll almost certainly have another boss to fight inside.”

The Gamer scratched the back of his head, gazing down the lane. “Assuming that’s all we find.”

“Probably… Do you want to go back for all of the drops?” Ela asked, gesturing to a green-glowing sack a few feet away. “We should be ready to commit before we enter. Just in case.”

Nodding his assent, John led his companion back down the alley they’d come from before, grabbing the last of the cash left behind where he’d impaled a canine monstrosity.

---

As they returned through the long-abandoned cul-de-sac, The Gamer looked around at the ruined buildings around them. Apartments and even small houses peppered this small cutout of the downtown area. It saddened him greatly to walk past places that people had once called home, now little more than crumbling stone and decaying metal.

At the far end of the street, they turned onto a main road, where the skyline seemed to part above them, offering a wonderfully cataclysmic view down the street towards the hospital complex they’d sought out. It sat at the split of a t-junction, surrounded by old military vehicles and improvised barricades. Like the ones they’d seen before, all were destroyed or so degraded that they offered no resistance to anyone approaching. Trees that had once served as decoration were now overgrown, swaying in the wind. The sky itself seemed to swirl above the place, the gale picking up the closer they got.

The building itself was a modern, angular piece of architecture, several stories tall. A large section of the upper floors on the right were composed of what once must have been an intricate windowed atrium, though now its framework had collapsed inward, streaks of muddy reds and browns running down from it. It gave the building a look as if a giant hand had come and scooped off a huge chunk. Ooze leaked from assorted windows elsewhere, staining the chipped and fading white paint.

A chill ran down John’s spine as they crossed the first barricades on the outside. Small specks of water began to land on his face. Thunder roared and cracked above as the sky began to weep. The pair jogged forward to the front entrance, up a set of stairs leading under a cracked concrete overhang, hoping to get out of the oncoming downpour.

They approached the heavy set doors, thick slabs of steel, and found them immovable. Something or someone had barricaded the doors from the inside - from the faint clattering he heard, it sounded to John like someone had even chained it shut. He attempted to check the hinges, but they were on the inside, leaving nothing to try and mess with.

“We should go around,” Ela stated, turning to look over to the left, around the side of the complex. “There have to be other entrances and exits - at least a loading area for ambulances.”

The Gamer nodded. “I’ll follow you.”

Pivoting to the side, the pair dashed out from under the overhang, running along the face of the building, searching for another way in. Every door they tried had been sealed shut, just like the first. The ground floor windows had likewise been boarded over and blocked. Taking a right around the corner of the hospital, the two found a small sidewalk, crumbling and stained.

Growing rainfall pelted the aged concrete. Lightning flashed through the clouds above. Blues and whites and reds crackled across the sky, blinding lights offering painful contrast to the ever-muted darkness they’d grown used to. Near the back end of the structure, they finally came upon what they were looking for, an old ambulance garage, whose folding metal door had once been welded shut. Now, it lay in pieces, having been ripped apart, torn open like a tin of food.

They carefully navigated the sharp remnants, making their way into the loading area. The room was surprisingly small, and devoid of the expected vehicles. In their place were smashed boxes and crates - old medical supplies stored away. Bands of steel, once bolted to the folding door as reinforcement, lay scattered around, sliced to pieces. An interior door, leading to the rest of the hospital, had been torn from its hinges on the far side of the room.

Rain began to fall in torrents outside. Thunder crashed outside their shelter. The wailing of winds echoed through the opening they’d found. From the ceiling inside, a single lightbulb flickered and sputtered, offering respite from the darkness beyond.

’How is there power for this thing?’ John wondered as the pair cleared the room.

He turned to his blonde companion. “Ela, what do you make of this? The light’s on!”

“There was power to the lighthouse still, was there not?” she said, coming to stand next to him below the struggling light.

“I… guess so, yeah.” John shrugged. “I didn’t really think about it, honestly. Feels strange for something to have power when it’s all ruined, doesn’t it? There’s no way the actual power grid is working.”

“I had assumed that it was the result of your magic. Perhaps this dungeon has added lights where it would be necessary to explore,” she mused, leaning on her axe for a moment, “or, the survivors may have managed to rig something together.”

“What, like a generator? Where would they get fuel?”

She shrugged. “It could be a mana-powered generator. Such things exist in the Abyss.”

“Mmm…” John trailed off into thought, wondering what all the survivors were capable of.

“I am more worried about this,” Ela said, kneeling down to inspect the remains of the door. “This was not opened by brute **** or acid. Look at the edges. This was cut open.”

“Well, the first boss I fought, what was left of the Lighthouse Keeper, was able to use a weapon. We may be dealing with something similar.”

“It is not just that,” she replied, shaking her head. “The **** required to cut through steel is tremendous, even with magical assistance.”

“OK, so we’re dealing with something heavy on physical power, then,” John said, stretching his neck. “Also, probably armed. Wonderful.”

The blonde knight smiled. “We handled the last boss; we can handle this one.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He returned her smile. “We’ll figure it out.”

As they gathered themselves to head deeper within, John’s UI flashed green. He’d forgotten about the “current objective” text that had hidden itself away. The “reach the hospital” goal shimmered, then faded away. A new line of text typed its way across his vision, and he noticed Ela paused, looking at the same place.

Current Objective: Reach the Executive Wing.

“Executive wing?” John mumbled, reading again as the text slid off underneath the health bars on his far left.

“Management offices,” Ela clarified. “Probably on the top floor.”

“Guess we’re looking for stairs then. Or maybe a map.”

With that the pair headed inward through the sundered doorway, into the unknown of the darkened hospital.

—

The pair first headed towards the front of the building, in search of a front desk that might have any guidance through the structure. They were slowed considerably by the half-collapsed state of the building; two side staircases that they’d come across had fallen in on themselves, leaving no way upward. No enemies stood in their way, but neither could shake the feeling that something was watching them.

The halls of the hospital painted a horrific picture of its final days. Screens smashed, doors cut in half, reds and blacks painted in streaks all along the walls. Skeletons lay strapped to beds where once they’d needed care. The storm echoed through the walls, mighty thunderclaps shaking the whole building. The few struggling lights above did little to dissuade the darkness, only just offering respite from absolute shadow.

Most disquieting, the floor was covered in a thin sheen of black ooze, perfectly even and still. Neither footsteps nor magic seemed able to break the pristine surface, so shiny it was reflective. Not even sound escaped it, muffling their steps completely. Its immaculate, inky blackness consumed all.

’This place is freaky,’ John thought, as Ela hefted a fallen door out of their way. ’What is this stuff?’

He paused to gaze into his own eyes, reflected in the floor, before following her into the next room - the reception area they’d been looking for. Quickly, they scanned the room and confirmed it was empty of undead. It was a fairly simple, if spacious, entryway, with a desk area for a receptionist and space for chairs. Three hallways branched off it, including the one they’d entered from.

“John, check the front door and see if you can get it open,” Ela said. “I will look for a map in the desk.”

The blonde headed immediately to a desk in the middle, rifling through it in search of information, while The Gamer moved to the doors they’d tried to enter earlier. Not only were they closed and locked and chained shut, but someone had attempted to fold a metal pipe over the handles. Other strips of scrap had been hastily welded on, turning the doors into a makeshift wall.

With [Reshape Matter], John was able to unwind the pipe easily enough, though the lock and strips of metal were more than he could take apart without much more time and focus.

“All this effort to seal the doors, and something just got in through the side eventually…” he muttered, running his hands over the rusty lock. “It would take me quite a while to try and break this all open.”

Returning to where his companion was doing her investigation, he said, “I won’t be able to get that open unless we want to wait around for a while. They really wanted it stuck shut. Any luck on your end?”

“Nothing,” she said, frustratedly tossing a moldy folder onto the ruined desktop. “It is all ruined.”

“OK. So I guess we explore the old fashioned way?” John grimaced.

“There is not much else we can do,” Ela replied, picking her weapon back up. “I suppose it would have been too easy if we always knew where we were going.”

The Gamer offered a wry smile at that. “Yeah. This way it’s an adventure…

“Anyway, if I had to hazard a guess, we probably ought to look for an interior staircase or something,” he continued, stretching his neck. “All the ones near the outside were wrecked, but maybe something better insulated from the storm has held up.”

Ela nodded. “The door behind me should head inward. We can start there.”

---

Again, the pair set off through winding halls, in search of a way upward. They passed room after room of ruin and long-passed ****. The unnatural quiet caused by the muffling ooze set The Gamer on edge, unused to the lack of auditory feedback for his actions. The chill on his neck never left, nor did the constant feeling of being watched. Soon enough, however, they had found what they were looking for.

Near what John estimated was the back middle of the building, they found a derelict elevator, accompanied by an old staircase off to its side. The shimmering goo seemed to flow from above, silently washing over each and every step. From the bottom, The Gamer could just make out that it led up to the carved-out room that he’d spotted from down the street. The remains of its metal framework and the open sky above was a dead giveaway.

Even the falling raindrops were muted by the coating on the floor.

Silently, Ela and John exchanged a look, confirming their intent. Cautiously, the blonde adjusted the duffel she was carrying so that it was tightly pressed to her back before starting up the staircase, axe readied for an ambush. Warily, The Gamer followed, prepared to draw upon a spell at a moment’s notice.

Together, they emerged at the top. John had guessed correctly before; the room they now found themselves in had once been some kind of atrium or lobby area, though the intricate wall and roof of windows had fallen, the frame resting in pieces all around. Couches and chairs had been stained with blood and left to rot. Another staircase on the far side of the room led to a balcony above, and further to the top floor.

Stone pillars supported the standing half of the room, now overgrown with the same kind of flesh as had been in the subway. Four strange stalks of bone poked out from assorted places around the room, bulbous, meaty heads aglow with deep red. Gusts from the tempest above battered the area, sheets of rain pouring from above.

A thunderclap shattered the sky above, the flash of lightning blinding for a moment. John blinked to help his eyes adjust, and, as he did, he found an enemy standing across the room. Ela stepped in front, focused in.

In front of them stood what was undoubtedly the boss monster, its squirming flesh writhing in the rain. Its legs were all but bone, strung together by metal chains and strings of meat. Its arms were thick and muscular, tightly packed sinews straining against a relatively lithe frame. It had no head. The Gamer had to hold down vomit as he looked over the abomination’s torso.

At the center of the creature’s chest was a girl’s body. She had been impaled upon its ribs, then enveloped within it. Flesh had overgrown from the monster onto her, draining away any mana or sense of life remaining. A new set of ribs had emerged overtop and now lay interlocked over her like bars of a prison, forever entombing her within it. Dried blood ran down from her matted black hair into tears of blood.

The mystery girl had worn armor with a similarly salvaged aesthetic to the equipment John had found, though with clearly more time given to refining it. The metal had been painted black and accented, which he imagined must have looked impressive when polished. Now it too had fallen into disrepair, bearing the scars of her final battle.

The freakish monster that had half absorbed her body wielded a matching black sword and shield. The blade was the finest he’d seen so far in the dungeon, medium length, with a beautiful blue gem embedded in the crossguard. The shield was a large kite, bordered with copper, strapped now to the thick forearm of the boss. Both appeared to be in immaculate condition.

Anger welled up within John, looking at what lay in front of him. Swallowing that rage, he cast [Observe], hoping to gain what intel he could before the fight began.

’What the hell? Five?’ he wondered, quickly processing what he could. “Ela, there’s probably some gimmick going on here. The boss only has five health!”

“If it is anything like a game, then it probably has something to do with those bulbs,” Ela said, turning to him for just a moment. “I will try and get its attention. You-”

The monster was already behind her, its sword in motion. Neither of them had even heard it begin to move. Awful thoughts ran through The Gamer’s head as he tried to form the words for a warning. Green light danced in the blonde’s eyes as she threw herself forward, narrowly avoiding ****. She rolled with her momentum, scrambling back to her feet scarcely in time for the creature’s next move - a thrust straight at her face.

She barely pivoted to the side in time as the blade cut her cheek open. Her eyes erupted with green and grew wide. Ela’s suit flexed as she poured mana into it, **** for all the speed and agility she could muster. The boss had successfully pinned the blonde between itself and The Gamer, leaving him unable to cast anything safely. John dove sideways to try and get behind it as his companion moved and twisted around an unending ****, unable to strike back.

A cut to her side. Another on her leg. Her shoulder again. That same shoulder. The Bookworm Knight only just managed to catch a second swipe at her side on the handle of her axe, almost being knocked from her feet by the ****. As she tried to recover, a mighty bash from the shield crushed the air from her chest. Ela wheezed, **** for air as she was lifted on the boss’ shield and thrown back down the stairs.

John screamed from behind the boss as his blonde friend’s head cracked on the stairs, sending her and her axe rolling into the darkness below. Gritting his teeth, he let loose a [Lesser Air Burst]. Amber radiance pierced the darkness of the storm and flew at the Living Prison, its back turned. Verdant mana, fueled with rage, sought retribution for the creature’s actions. With a satisfying pop, holy fire exploded atop the monster, momentarily engulfing it.

Nothing.

The shield-bearing creature flashed red as it moved back through the spell, undeterred. It whirled on The Gamer, who barely had time to muster his [Lesser Frost Wall] in time to keep himself from being bisected, sword steel embedding itself deeply in the slab of ice and snow. Out of other options, John took the only action he could think of and ran. He hastily broke out to the monster’s side, pre-casting another two ice walls as cover as he dashed to the stairs.

Just as he reached the top, the boss broke through his walls with a hefty cleave, carving into The Gamer’s side. His blood sprayed down the stairs. Fear and pain threatened to overwhelm John as he stumbled, but he bit his lip and willed himself to keep moving, adrenaline surging as he leapt down the stairs, casting wall after wall of ice and frost behind himself, praying to every deity he could imagine that the monster wouldn’t follow.