The Bug Room

If i was such a terrible person would I have continued with this dungeon even though I'd gotten a full rank out of it?

I mean sure I still needed the money, and I still needed the dungeon gone, but... okay fine. There was nothing altruistic about continuing this play.

Let us push on.

The challenge was 'The Bug Room' As far as I could figure it was a tiny black room with another pedastool sitting at the end of it. Even if the vampire hadn't warned us about the bugs, I like to think we would have figured it out on our own. You could hear their skittering from a while away. We couldn't see anything the shadows were so deep, but I didn't need to.

"I got this." I say digging through my bag for an alchemist flare, only to find nothing. "Fuck! Cyrus!"

"We've already been through this boss, I used it."

"Fuck me."

Melli held her glowing staff up and cautiously peered into the room with the help of it's light.

There's an absolute carpet of bugs in there. It's a grotesque scene. The walls, the floor everything is moving is loud skittering waves. The sound is that of a thousands shells being scrapped against eachother.

"Scarabs of some kind." Melli says taking a step into the room. The insects are driven away from the light quite effectively. "Easy enough, she says taking another bold step in.

"Hold up."

Cyrus and Elizabeth dig through their packs and light up their own torches.

"It's going to be the exact same thing as the last room." I tell Melli. You're going to get to the treasure, then a shadow is going to swallow you, followed shortly by a million bugs. We should take them out now."

Melli nods, and looks to either side of me. "I can only case flame wave once, I don't think it's enough to take out the room."

"Maybe if I had my Alchemist Flare!" I snarl at Cyrus.

He ignores me, and wanders into the room himself, finding that the torch light is also enough to scare the bugs away.

"Huh." Elizabeth enters next, and I stick close to her. "Maybe if we produce enough light in this room, we can just drive them out entirely, disperse them through the dungeon. Seems like they'll seeks shadows as best they can."

"Got it." I snap my fingers, and decide to test out my first ability. I hold my hand out to the center of the room. "Darkness - 1 Star." I say aloud. In a puff, a cloud of completely darkness fills the center of the chamber. I can hear the bugs eagerly enter the cloud, seeking it for shelter.

"What are you doing?" Melli scowls backing away from the dark cloud.

I light up my own torch. "If we each take a corner, the entire room will be lit up. They'll have nowhere to go but this cloud, then Melli can cast her spell and take them all out at once."

"Smart." Elizabeth says, before she remembers who said it.

"If we're all in the corner, then when I cast my spell I'll hit the person across from me." Melli warns. Dammit I thought of that. "So we should place the goblin in that spot."

"What?" Cyrus cries, and looks to me for support.

"Melli what the fuck, we're not sacrifing Cyrus!" I cry. "He's part of the team!"

"He's a goblin, he's going to end up betraying all of us."

"Nuh-uh. I'd take Cyrus over the two of you any day!" I snarl.

"You really mean that boss?" Cyrus looks on the verge of tears. "Oh I knew you cared!" He drops his torch and runs to me for a hug.

I sparta kick him in the chest back over to his torch. "Get off me."

"The shadow doesn't have to be in the center." Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "Idiots, just wait for it to die out, then place it again in a corner. Then there's no friendly fire."

"Oh." Melli and I both look at eachother. "Yeah okay."

So we wait.

The darkenss spell only lasts for a minute, so soon enough it dispells, vomits up it's collection of scarabs, and we reposition, and I cast another round of darkness in a corner.

As flawless as my idea is, there's till shadows within your armor and clothing...

"Ow fuck!" I slap down at my ankle, and hit a bug that doesn't crunch." I Pull the my robe up my leg and see one, two no three of these iridescent little bugs have latched onto my calf. Even as I watch them they swell up like water balloons on my blood. Each growing to the size of a fat gold coin. Half panicked I smack one again, this time it's engorged enough with blood, that it explodes, but I have to rip it's broken body out of my leg. I smack the other other two feeling a blind rage take me over. Neither cracks open, but both decide that caution is the better part of valor and scurry off with their meal. "Burn them all!" I cry with genocidal zeal.

I look up to see my other team makes dealing with the same problem.

"Fuck!" Melli throws her back against a wall and I hear a defiant crunch from beneath her robe. She also snarls and waves her staff towards the cloud of darkness in the corner where the enemy waits in the thousands. "Wakeem's Wave of Flame!" She roars. In a split second I notice her staff aimed slightly to the left, sligtly towards Cyrus.

Fast as I can I lunge towards her wrist with an open hand and yank it to the side.

Then I feel something well up inside, of me and transfer to her.

The Witch King - Activated - All spells cast by female spellcasters are enhanced.

A supernova of heat and light explode out of Melli's staff. I, she, all of us recoil and protect our eyes. I don't even know what happens I just hear what sounds like a thousand screaming lives, and smell complete char. When I can see again, there's nothing left of the scarabs but ash in the corner. Even the stone of the chamber seems to be melted.

Melli looks down at her stff in awe. "I did that..." She gasps, then looks up at me. "You did that." She says slowly, new found respect, or perhaps new found value glimmering in her eyes. Melli +5CP (5 Corruption)

Elizabeth grunts, bangs her chest, and squashes another scarab. "Little fuckers." She shakes her head. "Can't imagine having to fight a swarm of those things." She looks at me almost like she's thinking of paying me a complement, but turns away. Elizabeth +1 CP (51 Corruption)

Cyrus trundles over to the pedestal and pulls the gym free. Sure enough the chamber fills again with a shadow that we can't penetrate. Those bugs would have been all over us.

We all grope blindly at eachother until we're out of the chamber.

Star Acquired!

Inventory: Scarab Drain- Type: Passive- Effect: Any bleeding effects caused by the user, have their potency increased.

Challenge: Blood Bank - Drain 100 Gallons of Blood (0/100)

Great more blood stuff.

Actually, what was that vampire one?

Vampire Bite- Type: Attack - Effect: The User is able to grow their teeth into deadly weapons, and when used on a bleeding enemy is able to drain the life **** from their very body.

That's a combo right? Am I crazy?

I'm draining blood from an opponent, so this would make it so I drain more blood, like one of those stupid bugs. Which would lead to more healing.

Well that's kind of interesting.