The bleed effect had been completely unlike any of the debuffs he’d seen before. Instead of a one-and-done like Death Sickness, or an environmental effect like Mana Overload, this bleed effect stacked on itself just before the first stack’s timer ran out. He was in a constant battle between lowering the remaining time and trying to catch the momentary delay when another effect re-applied the bleed.
It felt like the dungeon was cheating.
Bitter Bat had saved the fight—which Elijah had to admit had slightly surprised him—Bitter Bat had launched himself from Elijah’s shoulders and teleported behind the creature. The bleed effect prevented Elijah from focusing on anything other than preventing himself from succumbing to it.
Bitter Bat had reappeared near the ceiling and glided down onto the Wraith’s back, digging his claws into the creature’s back and tearing away at the ‘ink’. He’d felt Bitter Bat’s claws in his own flesh before—during their fight in the Dragontooth Fight Pits—and knew how damaging they could be. Most surprisingly, was how much damage the little familiar could inflict. Elijah’s own Celestial-ranked sword could only do forty points of damage to the mob even with a clean strike, but Bat seemed to tear away huge chunks of health with every strike.
The Wraith reacted to Bitter Bat and tried to grab the bat-like familiar, raking a clawed finger across the familiar’s face and sending it flying into a wall. Elijah worried Bat would succumb to the bleed effect even as he struggled to prevent the same in himself. He wasted precious moments checking on the familiar’s health, but thankfully it was holding steady.
The Wraith turned back towards Nicholas, intent on continuing the struggle, but the distraction had given Nicholas the opening he needed. He shoved his shield hard into the creature’s face before following up with a spear to the gut.
Elijah tried catching the ooze with his Reality Warp skill, but instead of locking on it felt more like his skill slid off, as if the creature didn’t exist.
Bitter Bat crawled over to Elijah, leaking dark red—almost black—blood in rivulets on the floor as he moved. His hands moved over Elijah’s chest, and he could hear his familiar mumbling worriedly over him.
“I’ll be okay, BB,” he whispered, trying to calm the creature by using a nickname.
“Boss not Dragontooth, only human. Humans not resist ink sickness.”
“You might be right about that, but I’m more than just an average human,” Elijah took his hand away from his chest, showing the creature that the bleeding had almost stopped completely. He didn’t know how to explain to Bat that his health bar wasn’t dropping anymore.
“Ink Sickness?” Nicholas rumbled, heavy footsteps coming over to them. “What is Ink Sickness?”
Bitter Bat turned and snarled at Nicholas; he was just trying to protect Elijah, even if that wasn’t necessary. “Usurper, stay back or me eat you.”
“Easy. He’s a friend, Bitter Bat,” Elijah told him, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him away from Nicholas. “Please tell us what you meant by Ink Sickness. What do you know?”
“Ink Sickness from not-dead library people. Old, old enemy of Dragontooths. Library eat humans and take bodies. King say ‘no more’ and make big raid.” Bitter Bat was speaking like he’d been there, like the memories of those days still haunted him. Elijah didn’t remember watching any streams with any kind of war between the bat-like Dragontooths and the seemingly undead Library denizens. He wished Bo was still here; if anyone in the party would know it would be him.
“Final battle take place in fort me and Boss meet in. Many die, but in end King manage seal Librarian, but catch sickness himself. Within a hand of days King is no more, just twisted form of self.”
Elijah nodded as the bat creature finished his story, pulling him into a hug. “It’s okay. Once we find Sasha, we’ll have her check Nicholas and me to make sure we aren’t carrying the sickness, okay?”
Bitter Bat looked up at Nicholas, and Elijah could see that he still didn’t trust the ‘usurper’.
“Nicholas is a friend, BB. Consider the Heartwood people and Dragontooth people allies against the threat this Library poses, okay?”
Bitter Bat nodded and helped Elijah to his feet. Once standing, Elijah reached down and lifted Bat up onto his shoulders without being asked. He didn’t say it, but he hoped Sasha could cure the ‘Ink Sickness’, assuming it was some sort of disease. If it acted as something else, such as a curse, they might have to return to Klade even sooner than expected to get help from a higher-level healer.
Whatever it was, it didn’t show up anywhere that Elijah could see with his Reality Awareness perk or Reality Warp skill.
”I guess we were wrong about what this place is then,” Nicholas pointed towards an alcove with a corpse in it as they walked down the hall. “This isn’t a mausoleum or morgue. It’s a feeding ground for the Wraiths. Just a giant larder for them.”
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The thought sent a shudder up Elijah’s spine.
He had all three bats flying and searching for signs of the Ink Wraith. He hoped that by catching it before it could fully reform that they’d be able to finish it off for good. They’d had two major fights so far in this dungeon, and neither one of them had rewarded any experience or even loot. He figured their skills were likely gaining experience, but he couldn’t find any way to check that. Even his advanced interactions with the game’s UI couldn’t crack how skills and spells leveled up.
Before long the lead bat—Larry, Elijah thought though he wasn’t entirely certain now—came to a new room. This one matched more with what Elijah had expected from a place called an Undying Library—though that was unsettling in and of itself. It was vaguely reminiscent of the library that they had found in the Dragontooth King’s Abandoned Fort, though much less chaotic. There were no bats flying around or flinging books through the air; the shelves and tables were aligned neatly and orderly, and most importantly, the books actually appeared to be books and not transfigured Dragontooth Bats.
He pulled one book off the shelf, letting it open to a random page and scanning the text. It was a thesis, like what Elijah would expect from a doctoral student, on the nature of Elven magic. The script was long and flowing and reminded him of something out of the Middle Ages. Many of the words didn’t make sense to Elijah, but he got the gist of it from what little he did understand.
“You think reading will do any good here?” Nicholas asked. He wasn’t mocking Elijah’s curiosity; instead, he seemed genuinely interested in whether or not Elijah actually thought it would be useful.
Elijah closed his eyes and focused his senses on the scout, Larry’s, vision. The bat was lazily circling overhead, far above the tops of the bookshelves. Through the scout, Elijah could see there was no obvious exit other than the one they had entered through.
”No way out unless we want to go back. Figure the clue to go forward could be in one of these books.”
Nicholas shrugged his shoulders and took another book off the shelf and cracked it open while Elijah put the book on Elven magic back on the shelf.
As Elijah went through different books, Bitter Bat got curious himself and reached out to take a book. Elijah stumbled from the familiar, shifting his weight, and Bitter Bat lost his balance, causing him to drop the book.
He wasn’t sure what keyed him off first, whether it was the big red warning text in his Reality Awareness vision, or the gut-wrenching panic coming from the instinctual version of the perk. Either way, Elijah darted around the corner of one shelf just in time as the book hit the ground and exploded. The shockwave knocked him to the ground and sent Bitter Bat through the air—flapping his arm wings wildly to control his flight.
Nicholas came sprinting at full speed, shield at the ready, as Elijah was examining the area of the explosion. There was no visible damage to the shelf or book, and upon closer examination he realized that the book that Bitter Bat had pulled from the shelf was back in its original place.
“What the hell was that?” Nicholas asked, concern etched all over his face.
Elijah couldn’t help but laugh. “The books are trapped, or enchanted. Bitter Bat dropped one by accident, and it exploded. My bet is there is a spell on them to stop them from getting damaged.”
“Right,” Nicholas agreed hesitantly. “Good to know. Don’t drop them.”
“Boss?” Bitter Bat called from around the corner, causing Elijah to rush back over. Bitter Bat was standing there with a book in his hand in front of a bookshelf.
Except the bookshelf wasn’t one anymore; there was a massive swirling portal that appeared to lead into another room. Glancing in, Elijah could see it was a prison cell, and the bones of its previous occupant lay on the ground.
“You’re a genius, BB,” Elijah whispered. “Let me see that book. I’d be willing to bet it’s different from the others somehow.”
Bitter Bat cautiously handed the book over. The cover could have been mistaken for any of the other books in the library: dark brown with the name embossed into it in gold leaf. The book seemed to be some kind of romance novel based on the name, but the key here was what lay beneath the title. A literal key symbol.
Elijah returned the key book to the shelf, and the portal closed. He tried taking it off and putting it back several times to see if the portal led anywhere else, but each time the portal revealed the same prison cell.
“We need to spread out and look for other books with key icons like this one.” He showed the symbol to Nicholas and Bat before putting the book back. Nicholas began scanning the nearby shelves, but Bitter Bat looked up at him with confusion.
Elijah sighed. “If we find the right books that will let us find and save our friends. Your brothers, and my travelling companions.”
Bitter Bat’s eyes went wide at Elijah’s explanation. “Me find and save pretty healer lady?”
The three of them started pouring over the shelves, each portal accentuated with a strange suction sound as it opened. Bitter Bat had moved to another section and was opening portals faster than Elijah and Nicholas combined. Each one was punctuated by him asking, ‘Pretty healer?’ followed by a sad sigh and the sound of a portal closing.
Elijah’s mind wandered as he looked over the books for any keys. It shocked him how quick Bitter Bat was; possibly it was because the familiar couldn’t read so wasn’t getting distracted by titles like Elijah and Nicholas were.
“You not pretty healer lady,” Bitter Bat’s voice carried through the library.
“Wait, you—” A voice Elijah knew called out before the sound of the portal closing drowned it out.
It was Benjamin.
Elijah rushed over to the section that Bitter Bat was working his way through, but the familiar was already opening another portal.
“That was Benjamin! Which book was it?” Elijah asked as Bitter Bat shut the next portal with a growl.
“Me no know. Not pretty healer, ugly mage. Not care about ugly mage.”
Elijah’s eyes scanned quickly over the books that he figured Bat must have checked. It took two tries before he found the correct one.
“Elijah!” Benjamin called as he practically jumped out of the portal and hugged Elijah.
Elijah put the book back on the shelf before he accidentally dropped it. “Glad to see you are safe, Benjamin. Sorry about—”
A screech from Bitter Bat cut Elijah’s words off. “You not pretty healer, you ugly goblin.”
Elijah was in motion, grasping for the book in Bitter Bat’s hand even as Bitter Root launched himself through his portal and tackled Bat.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as the book knocked free from his familiar’s hand, spiraling into the air.
Sci-fi ? Telepathy ? Psychics
The technocracy will fall. And my powers started it all. Oops.
- Straight & queer romances. (No harem.)
- Seven-book interconnected series.
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