The stairs went down forever.
Kael's footsteps echoed off the concrete walls. The air got colder with every step. Smelled like wet dirt and something metallic. Old blood maybe. He didn't want to think about that.
Maya led the way. She had a small flashlight on her phone. The phone was dying but it was enough. Behind her came Cruz, then Jen, then Marcus, then Sarah. Kael took the rear. He kept looking back up the stairs but the door was already a tiny square of light. Then it disappeared around a corner.
His eyes adjusted. Sort of.
"Everyone stay close," Maya whispered. Her voice bounced off the walls. "The tunnel splits up ahead. Left goes to the dungeon entrance. Right goes to a dead end. We go left."
"How do you know?" Marcus asked. His rebar scraped against the wall. The sound was loud.
"Because I already ran through here once. Before I found you guys." Maya didn't turn around. "Right side has a cave in. Left side has monsters."
"Great."
They reached the bottom of the stairs. A long corridor stretched out in front of them. Old subway tunnel. The tracks were still there, rusted and overgrown with purple vines. The same kind from the surface. The vines glowed faintly. Just enough light to see by.
Kael's map updated.
[DUNGEON ENTERED: SEWER MIRE]
Recommended Level: 5 10
Players in party: 6
Warning: Save points are not available.
His stomach tightened. No save points meant if they died, they died. No second chances. Not that he expected any.
"Check your maps," he said. "Everyone see the dungeon notice?"
Sarah nodded. Cruz grunted. Jen was already looking at hers. Marcus just shrugged. Maya didn't bother. She was already moving.
The tunnel was wider than Kael expected. Maybe twenty feet across. The ceiling arched above them. Old tiles had fallen off, exposing bare concrete. Water dripped somewhere. Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound was annoying.
They walked for about five minutes. No monsters yet. Just the vines and the dripping water and their own footsteps.
Then Maya stopped. Held up her fist.
"Movement," she whispered. "Up ahead. Two of them."
Kael activated Detect Weakness. The skill lit up two shapes in the darkness. They were human sized. But not human. The weak points showed on their necks and chests.
[ENEMY: SEWER CRAWLER]
Level: 6
HP: 110
Threat: Medium
Weakness: Neck, Eyes
"Level six," he whispered. "Two of them. I'll take the left one. Maya, you take the right."
"Don't tell me how to do my job."
They moved forward slowly. Kael's boots made soft sounds on the concrete. He gripped the bone staff tighter. His palms were sweaty.
The crawlers came into view.
They looked like people. Sort of. But wrong. Their skin was gray and slick, like wet clay. Their eyes were too big. Their mouths had no lips. They were on all fours, crawling along the tracks like animals. Sniffing the ground.
One of them stopped. Lifted its head.
It saw them.
Kael didn't wait. He ran forward and swung the staff at its neck. The crawler tried to dodge but it was slow. The staff connected. A wet crack. The creature screeched and fell over.
[COMBAT]
Critical hit! Sewer Crawler Level 6. HP: 45/110.
Maya was already on the other one. She moved fast. Faster than Kael expected. Her cleaver flashed in the dim light and took the crawler's hand off. Black blood sprayed. The creature screamed.
Cruz ran past them and stomped on the first crawler's head. His boot came down twice. The thing stopped moving.
[COMBAT]
Defeated: Sewer Crawler Level 6.
75 EXP.
Loot: Crawler Hide x1, Vile Ichor x1.
Maya finished her one. Two more swings. The cleaver was messy but effective. She stood up, breathing hard. Blood on her face.
"Six more coming," she said. "From the left tunnel. Get ready."
Kael checked his map. Six red dots. Moving fast.
"Form up," he said. "Cruz and Marcus in front. Jen and Sarah behind them. Maya and me in the middle. We need to funnel them."
The group scrambled into position. Kael wished he had a real shield. Or a gun with bullets. Or anything better than a bone staff and a rusty dagger.
The crawlers came around the corner.
Six of them. Same gray skin. Same big eyes. But these ones were bigger. Level seven. Their mouths were open, showing rows of needle teeth.
They didn't wait. They charged.
The first one leaped at Cruz. He sidestepped and hit it with his empty pistol. The gun broke. The crawler landed on the tracks and spun around. Marcus hit it with his rebar. Once. Twice. The rebar went through its chest.
But the others kept coming.
Jen swung her chain. It wrapped around a crawler's neck. She pulled. The creature choked and fell. Sarah smashed its head with her pallet wood. The wood splintered but the head caved in.
Kael stabbed one in the eye. It screeched and clawed at his arm. He felt claws rake across his sleeve. Burning pain. He stabbed it again. Again. It stopped moving.
[COMBAT]
Defeated: Sewer Crawler Level 7.
85 EXP.
Two more. Maya took one. Her cleaver was a blur. She was good. Really good. The crawler didn't stand a chance.
The last one tried to run. Cruz grabbed it by the leg and dragged it back. Marcus finished it with a single swing.
Silence.
Kael leaned against the wall. His arm was bleeding. Three long scratches. Not deep but they hurt.
Sarah ran over with the first aid kit. "Let me see."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. Hold still."
She poured something on the cuts. Rubbing alcohol maybe. It burned like hell. Kael gritted his teeth.
"We need to keep moving," Maya said. "There's more. A lot more. The dungeon entrance is two hundred meters ahead but there's a big room full of them."
"How many?" Cruz asked.
"Maybe fifteen. Twenty. Hard to count."
Kael looked at his party. Cruz was limping. Jen had a cut on her forehead. Marcus had bite marks on his arm. Sarah was exhausted. Maya looked fine somehow. Like she'd been doing this her whole life.
"We can't fight twenty at once," Kael said. "We need a different plan."
"Got any ideas?" Maya asked.
He thought about it. The old games. The ones where you had to clear a room full of enemies without dying. There were always tricks. Environmental hazards. Exploits.
"Are there any lights in the big room?" he asked.
"Flickering ones. Old fluorescent tubes. Why?"
"Electricity. Water on the floor?"
Maya nodded. "Yeah. The whole floor is wet. Dripping from the ceiling."
Kael smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "We're going to electrocute them."
"How?"
He pulled out the rope he bought from the Shop. Ten coins. Best money he ever spent.
"Give me your chain," he said to Jen.
She hesitated. Then handed it over.
Kael tied the rope to the chain. Then he tied the other end to his bone staff. "Conductor. The chain is metal. The staff is bone. Bone doesn't conduct electricity. I can hold the staff and swing the chain into the water without getting shocked."
"That's insane," Sarah said.
"Probably. But it might work."
They walked to the big room. Kael peeked around the corner.
The room was huge. Old subway station. The tracks ran through the middle. The platforms on both sides were cracked and covered in vines. Water pooled everywhere. And crawlers. At least twenty of them. Maybe more. They were crawling all over the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Like ants.
The lights flickered overhead. Fluorescent tubes. Some of them were broken. Some were still working. Sparks jumped from the broken ones.
"If I can get the chain to touch one of those sparks," Kael whispered, "it'll carry the current into the water."
"You'll die," Marcus said.
"Not if I'm holding the bone staff. Bone doesn't conduct. It's like rubber."
"Bone is not like rubber."
"Close enough."
Maya grabbed his shoulder. "You're crazy. But I like it. I'll draw them to one side. You do your thing."
"How will you draw them?"
She smiled. Then she ran into the room screaming.
The crawlers turned. All of them. Twenty pairs of big eyes locked onto Maya. She ran along the platform, jumping over debris, leading them away from Kael.
He didn't have much time.
He ran to the other side of the room. The flickering lights were above him. One of them was sparking badly. A shower of blue white sparks.
Kael swung the chain. It was heavy. Hard to control. He missed the first time. The chain clattered on the floor.
A crawler turned toward the noise.
Kael swung again. This time the chain hit the light fixture. The sparks jumped. The chain glowed blue for a second. Then the current ran down the metal and into the water.
The crawlers screamed.
All of them. The electricity shot through the puddles. The creatures convulsed. Their bodies jerked and twitched. Smoke rose from their skin.
[COMBAT]
Massive environmental damage. Sewer Crawlers x18 defeated.
1,800 EXP. Loot pending.
Kael dropped the chain. His hands were shaking. The bone staff was warm but not hot. It worked. It actually worked.
Maya was standing on a dry patch of the platform, staring at the carnage. "Holy shit."
"Yeah."
Cruz, Marcus, Jen, and Sarah came running in. They stopped when they saw the room. Dead crawlers everywhere. The smell was awful. Burnt meat and chemicals.
"Did you just kill eighteen monsters with a chain and a light fixture?" Sarah asked.
"Nineteen," Kael said. "One got away. But it ran."
He checked his map. The last red dot was fleeing. Heading deeper into the dungeon.
"We should follow it," Maya said. "The exit is past that tunnel."
They walked through the room. The water was still warm from the electricity. Kael's boots splashed. The dead crawlers floated.
His level up notification appeared.
[LEVEL UP]
Kael Chen Level 7
5 HP. 3 MP. 2 Unassigned Stat Points.
He put one into VIT and one into AGI. His HP went up to 165. Better.
The others had leveled too. Sarah was level 5 now. Marcus level 6. Jen level 5. Cruz was still level 4 but close to 5.
Maya was level 8. Kael saw her status when she wasn't looking. She had high AGI and VIT. A runner build. Made sense.
The tunnel narrowed. The walls were closer now. The ceiling was lower. Kael had to duck in some places.
They found the last crawler at the end of the tunnel. It was cornered. Snarling at them. Its eyes were wild.
Maya walked up to it and put her cleaver through its skull. Quick. Clean. No hesitation.
[COMBAT]
Defeated: Sewer Crawler Level 7.
85 EXP.
The crawler slumped to the ground. Behind it was a door. Old metal door. Rusty. A sign said "EXIT TO STREET LEVEL 200M."
Kael pushed the door open.
Sunlight. Real sunlight. Not the purple sky. Regular golden sunlight.
They were in an alley. The safe zone marker was fifty meters away. He could see the shimmering barrier.
They had made it.
Kael leaned against the wall. His arm hurt. His head hurt. Everything hurt.
But they were alive.
"Let's go get the others," he said.