...Afraid of the Dark...
Aqua gave those who'd passed their rites, it was all a gruesome scene. "Sir, you're the one paying for this trip! You shouldn't go!" The leader of the caravan said, begging him.
"That may be so, but you saw happened to those people. It's our quest to deal with anyways so there's no reason for the others adventurers to get involved with. Too many others have died already, let us handle it." All the other adventurers were on guard after having slain the undead that had attacked them. They'd most likely been sicked on them as minions of the Vampire, why the Vampire had chosen to reveal itself to them was another question entirely.
Regardless of why, the Vampire had to be dealt with at all costs. He turned to his party, "Are you all ready?" Yunyun and Megumin were trembling with fear, Aqua looked scared and even Darkness looked somewhat frightened.
"We're as ready as we'll ever be," Megumin said.
"Then there's no time to waste, let's move." He led them out from the wagon circle and out into the badlands. Visibility was bad. The darkness was already bad, but the fog didn't make it any easier. He had to make sure none of his party wandered off, so in some cases he was literally leading them by the hand. In the end they made their way towards the light off in the distance.
They came closer and soon the source of the light was revealed, a small tower in front of an entrance to a dungeon. Shadows loomed over its entrance. "I'm picking up enemies, Aqua,"
"I got it. Sacred Turn Undead!" She let out a burst of her purification magic, a large group of undead fell from above the entrance and to the ground below before disintegrating.
"They were going to ambush us… Are undead usually this smart?"
"No, the person who summoned them usually plays a factor in how smart the undead are. So it's entirely possible we're dealing with a much smarter than usual Vampire."
"T-that isn't a very comforting thought," Yunyun stammered out.
"No, no it isn't." They had to think this through, carefully. The fact that they'd almost been ambushed just now very well meant that it could happen again, they would have to be careful. "Alright, when we're walking into the dungeon we'll need to stay in a very specific order. I'll take point. Megumin, you'll be behind me. Yunyun, you're going to be on Megumin left. Darkness, you're on her right. Aqua, you're going to cover the rear. Once we're in we'll have to seal the entrance behind us, just to make sure nothing can follow us in. Got it?"
"G-got it." All their answers were shaky, but he couldn't blame them.
They walked in slowly, passing the looming pillars of marble that stood by the entrance as they did. Quickly, they all turned as one. With the mana battery by his side, he used his magic. "Create Water!" A large amount of water sprayed forward in a wave towards the entrance.
"Freeze Gust!" Yunyun froze the water, putting in place a physical barrier.
"It'll also ruin the airflow the further down we go, which means we won't be able to stay very long. Let's keep moving, Lurk!" He used the Thief skill he learned from Chris on all of them, shrouding them all in darkness.
They kept moving down the corridor of the entrance, staying close to each other so none of them were unconcealed by Lurk or got lost. Each step forward they took, and eventually every step down when they came to the stairs, was taken with an immense amount of care. Eventually, they made it down to the first floor of the dungeon. A small gasp came from one of his party members after witnessing the scene they came across. "Those are-!"
"Previous adventurers," he finished the thought. It was a massacre, they'd had no chance. Pieces of armor and weapons were strewn about, limbs were severed and bent in odd positions and the blood was sucked out of their bodies.
The only things they could identify from their bodies were their classes. A Crusader, a Priest, a Thief and a Wizard. None of the skills they knew had saved them from the fate they'd faced. "Yunyun, do you have any ways of hiding us more? I want to make sure we won't be seen or picked up by anything."
"I-I d-do. Light of Reflection!" She cast her spell and they all essentially became invisible, but even with that they had to stay on guard and keep close. And it seemed to work, no undead creatures chased after them despite Aqua's holy aura that usually drew them like moths to a flame.
The silence was deafening and unnerving, nothing made noise down here. Then all of a sudden, there was a noise as they passed into a new room. It sounded like… a little girl crying. They kept on their guard, Aurdel having his weapon drawn with one hand and Yunyun preparing to use her magic. "S-someone! Help me!" She wailed and cried, sitting against one of the walls of the room with her head between her knees. Aurdel couldn't pick up any other beings in the room besides them and her.
They would keep their distance for now, "A-are… are you adventurers?" She looked up and stared at them, tears in her eyes.
"Yes, we are," Darkness spoke, putting on a face of stoicism at least for now. "How did end up so far down here?"
"I-I was kidnapped and brought here, then I ran when I saw the zombies. I-I just want to go home, I want to see mama and papa." She tucked her head back between her knees.
"Don't worry little girl, we'll get you out of here," Darkness began to step forward.
"Don't go anywhere near here!" He made sure that she stopped in her tracks.
"A-Aurdel-?!"
"That's no little girl. Think about it, how was she able to see us when we are entirely invisible? Not to mention, our scents and the sounds of our footsteps are essentially non-existent. There was no way for it to find where we are." He didn't need to see them to know they turned their heads in sudden realization and understand. This was no little girl, this was a dungeon mimic.
"W-what are you talking about? I'm seven! C-can you please save me?" The voice and acting was convincing, but things hadn't added up.
"Yunyun," he heard her gulp after she figured out what he wanted her to do.
"Fireball!" She tossed a ball of fire at the little girl, erupting in a burst of flames. It let out a scream as it got fire, first one that sounded like a little girl's then one that sounded more like a pained, low roar. It's image too changed shape, becoming what looked like a massive fleshy mouth with the colors of a wall with sharp teeth.
"We need to move, that's bound to attract some of the undead." And so they did. His guess was also right, as over two dozen undead shambled their way through the dungeon and into that room they were just in. They heard the pained shouts of the injured dungeon mimic as it was torn apart by the undead. They were in relative safety for now.
"A-Aurdel, how can you stay so calm in a situation like this?" Megumin asked, curious and nervous.
"I've seen many things over the years. I don't know how many times I was stuck in a game of cat and mouse with an enemy I couldn't see, one I couldn't detect. No less were the things that I saw that the Covenant did to civilians, children. I'm sure that if I hadn't been desensitized to it all by my training and experience then they would've eventually thrown me into an asylum."
"An asylum?"
"It's not a happy place, to say the least. You never want to-" They heard something shatter and it echoed through the halls of the dungeon. Was it glass…? No, it was… Ice! "Something broke the barrier back at the entrance," the others were silent, "We need to keep moving." They passed through another set of stairs and descended down to the next lower level, floor two. This corridor was littered with skeletons and discarded weapons, not a promising sign. They tread carefully, he made sure to watch for any traps. When this was over he was going to have to talk to Chris about getting more of those Thief skills.
They walked and eventually they came across more undead, they hadn't spotted them yet. "Aqua, is there anything coming at us from behind?"
"No, not right now. Hopefully never."
"Alright, good. Keep watch. I'll take this group of undead but keep close, the less time we spend without being completely concealed the better." They took a few steps closer to the group of undead, then he let go of them and charged the monsters. With a series of swift strikes from Gram he decapitated three of them and bisected the remaining two. But once they were dead he quickly ran back and activated Lurk again.
"Okay, let's keep moving." The path they traveled took them past what looked like prison cells, most were empty. Not all though. Near the center of the hallway there was one cell, a man was strung up with chains on the wall and just barely breathing. They didn't know if it was a dungeon mimic or not so they waited just outside the cell door for now to see if he would notice them. No response. The man looked like he'd been tortured as scars lined his bodies, like someone had dragged nails across his body. After a few more moments they finally revealed themselves.
"Hey, in the cell, are you alive?" The man slowly raised his head towards them.
"Are… are you here to finally kill me? Bored of torturing me?"
"No, we're adventurers. We'll get you out."
"Ad… adventurers? You shouldn't have come here. He'll kill you like he did the others."
"The Vampire?"
"Who else? But he's no normal Vampire, he told me as much when he killed the rest of my crew. He is one of those cheat users."
A cheat user? That meant he was from Aurdel's own world. Why would someone from his world be a Vampire. "Tell us what it is, anything that you can do be can kill him."
"His… his ability is to stop-!" The man was cut off, as his chest violently exploded.
...The World…
They all stared in horror as the man they'd just been speaking to died, it was like someone had punched straight through him. "It's useless, I told him that if he tried exposing my power that he would be killed. But he didn't listen," the voice came from down the hallway. It was the Vampire. If he knew they were there then there was no point in trying to conceal them. Aurdel openly drew Gram, Darkness her sword, Aqua her staff and Yunyun a concealed wand she'd been carrying. "But he wasn't wrong, though I doubt you'll all live long enough to figure out what my ability is. Zombies, kill them!" The doors of what they thought were previously empty cells swung open as undead corpses rose from the ground, bursting through.
"Lightning!" Yunyun cast a bolt of lightning from her wand, Aurdel intercepted it with his sword and arc'd it to the closest undead on his side.
"Sacred Turn Undead!" Aqua cast one of her purifying spells at the Undead on her side, vaporizing then.
"H-how are we supposed to defeat a cheat user?!" Megumin stuttered. "Especially one that's a vampire!"
"Nothing is invincible, you just need to know what you're going up against. Aqua, do you know which cheat user he's talking about and what power they have?"
"I don't have any idea, there are too many cheats that involve stopping something! Sacred Turn Undead! And there isn't anything that turns them into a vampire either." She purified another group of undead that came to her.
"That isn't good, we're effectively running blind here. We need to find out what his power is or we'll just end up like those other adventurers," he decapitated another two undead.
"But we can't let him hide and assault us like this either!" He took the shield off of his side and held it in his arm, "We need to follow him!" Aurdel charged down the hallway and physically plowed through the undead, the others chasing after him. The amount of monsters there were was innumerable, but they pushed through and descended further down into the dungeon by another level. But the next room they entered after that was like any of the others they'd gone into. Instead, this room was a large wide open space with tall stone pillars dotting the inside.
"What kind of dungeon is this?" Darkness asked. They all looked around.
Then suddenly, the room lit up. All over the room torches became ablaze and illuminated the entire area. Something that was only revealed to them now was the presence of stadium-like seating surrounding the room they were in, every row was filled with some form of undead monster. The doors slammed hard shut behind them. "Good, I thought you would never make it." They turned, they could see the face behind the voice now. The Vampire was a tall man, at least around six foot six, with blonde hair and red eyes, not to mention extremely well built. One could easily assume he was a bodybuilder. Then again, how many bodybuilders are vampires?
"You don't know how long I've been waiting for this, to fight someone from the other world." He pulled out a knife and licked it slowly, as if savoring it. "And by the looks of it, you're rather strong if not extremely powerful. I have to thank you Aqua for bringing me such a worthy opponent."
"Oh, I remember this guy! He's a total geek, he liked this series called Jojo. He dyed his hair so he could look like one of its characters, and it looks like he even became a Vampire just so he could be closer to him." The Vampires stark confidence was suddenly shattered as Aqua began revealing essentially everything about the man,"That's why he picked the ability to stop-" Aqua was suddenly sent flying back into one of the pillars, crashing headfirst.
The Vampire was much closer now. How had he moved without Aurdel noticing?! He'd been training his eyes on him the whole time. "Shut up you blue bitch!" The Vampire was angry, but collected himself again. "Then again, even if you are strong it'll be useless to fight me. Useless! Because compared to me, DIO, you're all just monkeys!"
"What kind of character is named God?" Aurdel asked, with some confusion but still making sure to stay on his toes.
"Not God, DIO! DIO from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure!" If it wasn't for his helmet, Aurdel would have scratched his head.
"What year did you die in?"
"Twenty twenty one." ...Yes, that'd do it.
"Well I did in twenty five fifty two. Whatever you're talking about doesn't exist anymore."
"Doesn't exist?! How?!" All composure was lost again, this time replaced with astonishment.
"It's been over five hundred years, the world has moved on from whatever you're talking about."
"That's…. This is impossible!" He shouted, "Then everything I've worked towards has been for nothing! There's no one that will understand what I'm referencing! Then it doesn't matter anymore, I'll kill you and then I'll take over this world!"
"Yunyun, stay with Megumin! Darkness you're with me!" The two of them charged forwards with their swords towards the Vampire.
"It's useless!" The moment they came close he disappeared from sight, "Die!" He struck Darkness hard and ragdolled her into another of the pillars.
Damnit, they were going to be slaughtered this guy! "Fireball!" Yunyun threw a larger than usual ball of fire in the direction of the Vampire, but when it came close he was suddenly at its side rather than being directly impacted by it. It harmlessly flew past him and smashed into the wall. It was almost as if he was teleporting instantaneously to avoid any attack, but that didn't make any sense. Aqua and the man earlier that'd died said his ability was to stop something, but what? To stop any attack from hitting him? That wouldn't explain how he could adeptly dodge everything.
"Man in the green armor, I don't need to see your face to know the fear you're experiencing."
He grit his teeth, he had to put on an act at least. "Fear? I would know what that meant even if you spelled it out for me."
"Then come, try and strike me down!" He had no other choice except to oblige, so he ran at him with Gram. But the moment he came near the Vampire disappeared and Aurdel felt a swift and strong blow hit his back,, "Damn, your armor is strong." So not only was he able to avoid attacks instantaneously, but he was also able to attack instantaneously? He really needed to find out exactly what Vampire's power was. "I'll go after the blonde Crusader instead, she should make for a fine slave."
He saw Darkness stand up, but now that she heard that he planned to make a slave out of her the fear she'd felt was gone and replaced sudden perverted interest. "Come at me if you dare you foul Vampire, I'll show you the true strength of a Crusader of Eris!"
Darkness charged the Vampire with her sword and before he knew it, she was already in his hands. "Such… Such strong beastly hands! Grasping my throat with such intensity, as if you're ready to choke me with one and strip me with the other!"
"Are… are you enjoying this?" This situation gave Aurdel a little more time to think, how could he figure out his power?
"O-of course not! I'm a Crusader, I would never give in to a vile, monstrous, primal Vampire like yourself!~" If he wasn't teleporting, could he just be moving really fast?
"You're giving me mixed signals, a slave isn't supposed to enjoy their duty." If so, he just needed to track his movement to confirm it. And that would be easy enough.
"I-I'm not enjoying it!~"
Enough, "Create Water!" He sprayed a large amount of water at the Vampires, who stayed still.
"Fool, you think water is going to harm me? Water may be the weakness of normal undead, but not to a Vampire like me!" He threw Darkness to the side instead of opting to feed her perverted desires, now he began to charge Aurdel.
He was sorry that he had to do this, but he had to temporarily sacrifice one of his party members to figure this out. "Megumin! Use your Explosion spell!"
"Explosion?! Down here?! That'll-"
"Just do it!"
"Are you insane?!" The Vampire shouted, he turned his attention to Megumin.
"Explo-!" Megumin was suddenly cut off and sent flying, Yunyun shrieked as the Vampire was now in extremely close range to her. But this had given him all he needed. He looked at the floor in the direction of where the Vampire had gone, it was covered with water. So he really hadn't teleported, he still had to move normally like anyone else!
"Earth Shaker!" Yunyun cast off a spell reflexively so she'd be able to get away from the Vampire. The entire room shook as what felt like an earthquake hit the dungeon, Yunyun scrambled away from the Vampire. Chunks of rock fell from the ceiling and pillars around him came crashing down.
"Your power, it's to stop time! You're using it to stop time and avoid all our attacks, then moving in closer to attack us!"
"Hmm… I never thought you'd figure it out. It won't do you any good though, you'll die long before you have a chance at killing me."
He had a relative plan now, he just needed to corner the Vampire. "Yunyun! I need a wave of fire!" Aurdel threw the end of his scarf that was still wrapped around his neck and along one of the walls of the dungeon.
"Fool! Fire won't kill me!'
"Inferno!" A huge wave of fire shot out from Yunyun, and in the way they were positioned the only way the Vampire had to move to avoid being hit by it was backing towards one of the walls of the dungeon. Suddenly the Vampire appeared next to the wall. Next to the scarf.
"Drain Touch!" Aurdel still had one hand on the scarf. But he wasn't trying to take mana from the vampire. No, he was giving mana to him.
"Wryyyyyy!" The Vampire shrieked as the holy mana that he had stored in the mana battery flew outwards from the scarf and was absorbed into it. The Vampire fell to the floor, glowing from the energy but slightly fading.
"Stop him from moving! Create Water! Freeze!" Aurdel doused him in water again, but this time he froze it. His arms were frozen to the ground.
"Ankle Snare! Freeze Bind!" Yunyun stopped his legs from moving, then encased all of his body minus his head in another layer of ice.
"No! This is impossible! I can't lose!" He quite obviously tried to thrash around, but he couldn't break free.
Aurdel ran up to him and placed a hand on the Vampire's head, making sure the scarf and battery wouldn't activate this time. "Drain Touch!" The Vampire shouted as Aurdel began sucking all of the mana out of him. He continued violently thrashing around, even stopping time a few times visible by sudden movements of his head. But they slowed and eventually the Vampire was near death and Aurdel felt almost hyper with the amount of mana taken in. Then he put his hand back on the scarf. "Drain Touch!" Now he wrapped the scarf around the Vampire's neck in a tight grip, then sent holy mana flowing through it again. The Vampire faded, then disappeared from existence.
The dungeon continued shaking as rocks and pillars fell. "Yunyun, grab Megumin and run above ground! I'll get the others!" Yunyun nodded and ran off, Aurdel ran off towards where Darkness lay on the ground. "Darkness, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, but I think we need to get out of here."
"Agreed," he picked her up and began to run with her. He lept over rubble, "Are you able to walk?"
"I should be able to, but…" She seemed to drone off for a moment, "Wait, where's Aqua?" That's right, where was she?!
"Damn, I think she still out cold!" He put her down, "Get above ground, I'll get her!" He ran back down the stairs he started going up and left Darkness to run away.
When he came back to the arena like room he found Aqua lodged under a fallen pillar, "You may be a good for nothing Goddess but I'm not going to let you die here." He put both his hands on the bottom of the pillar and lifted it up, it easily weighed at least a ton. Straining a little, he threw it up and off to the side where it crashed and crushed another pillar. Then he picked Aqua up and clutched her close to him as he ran. He ducked under a fallen column, the arena room collapsed as he made it to the stairs and began running up. Rocks tumbled down the steps, so he had to dodge and weave as they came down.
Undead stood scattered and tried to assault him as he ran, but he just charged through them. "Ehhhh?! Aurdel, what's going on?! Why are you carrying me?!" Aqua finally woke up as he kept running, they were on the second level now.
"Because we're escaping, this dungeon is collapsing."
"I knew you wouldn't be able to do anything right without me! I shouldn't have let you lead this party!"
"Oh be quiet and let me focus on saving you." He shoulder checked an undead with a battleaxe, stopping it from hitting him and Aqua as they ran. They ran past the cells where the prisoner had been, it was a shame that they weren't able to save him but there was nothing they could do.
He ran past the room where they'd encountered the dungeon mimic, the entrance was essentially within sight now. A swarm of undead covered the entrance, "Aqua!"
"Sacred Turn Undead!" She vaporized the undead easily. The ice barrier they'd left behind had indeed shattered completely, there was nothing left of it.
"Come on you two!" Darkness shouted, the other three were already waiting outside. Even from here he could see that the fog had completely cleared. He sprinted for the entrance as fast as he could, the dungeon was collapsing behind him as he ran.
A large rock he hadn't noticed before lay on the ground and he ran straight into it, tripping and sending Aqua flying out of his arms and out the entrance. He only was partially out when it collapsed. "Fuck!" A huge rock fell on top of his left foot, completely crushing it and part of his leg. The others came running over to help him, and they lifted the rock off of him.
"Heal!" With Aqua's spell, his foot and leg felt as good as new.
"Well, we did it," Darkness said.
"I feel like the only thing we accomplished here was get our collective asses kicked, it'll be too soon if I have to see a dungeon again. Aqua, how good are these hot springs?"
"Oh they're really good! You'll just have to wait and see when we get there!" And so the five of them walked off back towards the caravan. Really, he just hoped there wasn't any trouble when they got to Alcanretia