Pareth appeared in front of Sofia, armor ready. His weapon changed to a large shield, and he charged toward the golem. The two warriors collided, stopping each other in their course.
The [Spine of the Black Sun] appeared at the end of Sofia’s scepter. Without moving, she controlled the bone whip to lash out at the golem about fifteen meters away. The whip hit without difficulty, engulfing that portion of the corridor in an explosion of solar light.
When the light died down, everything but Pareth was covered in Rot.
The tunnel isn’t going to collapse, right? The rot shouldn’t eat at the walls too much because they’re so scarce in mana…
The golem tried its best to get past Pareth’s defenses, punching, kicking, and summoning solid mana-laced dirt projectiles. To no avail. About twenty seconds later, the rot had consumed most of the Golem’s mana and it started to consume it, eventually reaching the core, which disappeared too. Nothing was left but thin black dust.
‘You have defeated [Earth Golem - lv. 238]’
Looking at Sofia’s kill notification, Alith had a sudden epiphany. “Wait, wait. EarthGolem? I never picked this up; but EARTH Golem?”
“What’s wrong with it, I don’t really follow…” Sofia looked at Ihuarah for help, but he shook his head like he had no idea either.
“You guys… What does earth mean? Tell me.”
“It’s just another word for soil, isn’t it? Like dirt is dirt, a bunch of dirt is soil or earth.” As far as I know. I think that was mostly used by farmers…
“Speak, Alith, what may be the issue here?”
“Well ‘Earth’ is not just the word for soil, it’s the name of the planet I come from!”
“Oh hey, something like that wasn’t censored?” Curious. “But… You named your planet ‘bunch of dirt’?”
“I’m not the one who chose you know. Besides, what’s the name of this planet we’re on now? How has that never come up until now? This feels like something I should really know.”
“A name…” Sofia looked at the shadowy man for help again, “Do we have that?”
“Not that I know of. What would be the use of it? To compare our planet to another? I have never known of anyone leaving.”
Alith took a step back and crossed her arms,”Well… You do have a point. Can we really not leave though? In my old world, nobody could fly, so leaving was really not a possibility, but here… What’s to stop you from going up?”
“Where would you even go? The only things nearby are the moon and a giant ball of fire. The other stars in the night all look quite far away.” And it doesn’t look like the moon has anything interesting on it either. Not on the side we can see at least. It’s just a big smooth ball in the sky.
“I don’t know. But I find the possibility intriguing. I should talk about it to Zarrow, maybe he knows more. For a pirate he really knows a lot about many things.”
“If you say so Alith. But what about the dungeon? If you really care about the planet having a name just give it one.” Just maybe not ‘Bunch of dirt’, I can’t see many people agreeing to calling the world that. Although it kind of is.
“Right, let’s move, I’ll show you how you fight without a single skill!”
Sure. But why?
Alith stood true to her words, facing the next Golem they found at a crossing of underground streets, she ran around it, using her weapons to carve out its legs. When the golem collapsed, she changed to her ghost form and back. Just like that, she had located the core inside of its left arm, a few hits later and her mithril kamas sliced the Golem’s core in half.
‘You have defeated [Earth Golem - lv. 240]’
“Easy enough, up to you next, shadowman.”
“Can you not use my name?” Ihuarah asked in a light tone that Sofia interpreted as ‘currently rolling his eyes’.
“Sorry, but it’s a mouthful and a half.”
“How is it in any way worse than ‘shadowman’? Ah, back when I was an Apostle, my name-”
He was interrupted by the thunderous arrival of yet another golem that the noise of Alith one’s falling flat must have alerted. More such heavy footsteps could be heard coming from two other directions.
It sounds like we are going to clear this place faster than expected. “Ihuarah, you get this one, Alith the opposite side, I’ll take care of the middle lane, call me if you’re overwhelmed since Pareth is there too.”
Sofia was waiting, channeling [Graveyard of the Righteous] while Pareth used [Sanctified Grounds]. Realistically speaking, as long as you weren’t surrounded, the golems couldn’t outnumber them because of the tightness of the corridors. Unless a Golem of a much higher level showed up out of nowhere, Sofia thought this would go smoothly.
She was a bit distracted by the noise of an explosion coming from Ihuarah’s side, so she turned to see what he had done. He used the sand from the pendant as projectiles. Whatever sand he threw impacted the golem with great force. When the golem tried to attack, the Animist simply collapsed into the shadows, swiftly moving away from the attack and reappearing in a convenient blind spot of the Golem.
Meanwhile, a Golem clashed with Pareth’s shield. Sofia didn’t want to use the rot. If multiple Golems came after one another and she used the rot too much, the walls might actually be weakened enough that the dungeon would collapse, and she did not want to risk that.
For a second, she wondered how she should deal with the annoyingly tough dirt monster without the rot or explosions. She quickly gave up and summoned the book of skeletons.
Screw fighting. I have skeletons for that.
She brought out her bone tablet with a reminder for all of her book summons, there were quite a few now.
‘1 crow (The best one) 10
1 rat 10
1 dog 20
1 soldier with bow (5rat) 50
50 crows 500
54 black turvins (Small birds) 540
100 rats 1000
25 paladins 5000
1 Saltwater Spinefish (???) 5000
1 Quetzalcoatlus 10 000
1 Soguva (not fluffy >:( ) 10 000
5 fire salamander 15 000
3 templars 30 000
1 useless hero toxic plants 30 000
1 Stone ogre 30 000
4 withered vampires 40 000
10 Dire wolf (weak for price) 50 000
5 Quetzalcoatlus 50 000
5 giant ice spider 50 000
500 Red Flailers (blood fish) 50 000
1 high priest 50 000
10 female stone Ogre 100 000
1 midenicite ingot fae? 500 000’
This is starting to be a lot to keep track of… Let’s go for a Stone Ogre, seems well suited for this, it can occupy the whole corridor fighting side-by-side with Pareth.
The book’s pages moved by themselves until it presented the one she wanted, and she ripped it off. A few seconds and some fog later, the stone ogre skeleton was up and rushing to the fight.
There we go, this is the real necromancer life. I should only fight directly as a last resort.
While the skeletons fought, Sofia made sure to stay in the middle of the intersection so that her allies all benefited from [Runeforged Overlord]’s 20% speed, and she started practicing the new version of Angel’s bolt she had seen the previous day.
The Golems died, leaving behind big inconvenient-to-fight-around piles of dirt that the next Golems could control and use to attack. The more they killed, the more came, eventually even coming from the fourth direction, behind them, which Sofia summoned the Templar trio to handle. From the center of the battlefield, Sofia had stopped trying to cast the new bolt, she got nowhere anyway, and she instead controlled her graveyard skeletons to help on all fronts.
Despite being surrounded, the group fought without an ounce of panic. Surprisingly, the side where the golems died the fastest was Ihuarah’s. He had stopped using his sand explosion tricks and he simply attacked like a shade would. The exact same kind of strikes that had once beheaded Sofia in another underground dungeon. The shadow struck from the walls with deadly speed and accuracy, cutting straight through the Earth Golems’ hardened shells.
The battle lasted for almost twenty minutes, during which Sofia’s mana barely moved at all. Ihuarah and Alith had been touched a few times, which Sofia summoned the high priest to heal since the tunnels were too small for [Heal Undead]. That had almost been the book’s last bits of fog, but she could probably squeeze out a few more cheap summons. The filter change greatly improved the fog capacity, more than Sofia had thought.
As the last golem fell, ganged-up-on by too many skeletons to fit in the tunnel, Sofia felt like she held her beloved Bookie in a new light.
This is not a one-off trick anymore. The skeletons can fight well and for long, now that I can summon a variety of them at the same time, I don’t even have to do anything.
Ihuarah joined Sofia and Alith also joined them after the skeleton priest was done healing her, the mithril armor did protect her body from direct hits, but she still suffered from the heavy blows.
“Well fought,” Ihuarah praised them.
Alith “Yeah, nice fight.”
“I did nothing.”
“No,” Ihuarah disagreed, “you did a lot, the skeletons in the walls and the healing were all a great help.”
“Hmm… It still barely felt like a real fight to me. I’m really not used to being that safe. But glad you think the graveyard crew helped, I was worried they might be a hindrance sometimes. Are we done with the golems? We even got some nice levels out of this.”
“Hard to say, but there were a lot. Definitely guarding something of value. I am starting to understand this new concept of dungeons.”
“Well well well. I want to test my new armor some more, let’s go for the boss!”
Pareth appeared in front of Sofia, armor ready. His weapon changed to a large shield, and he charged toward the golem. The two warriors collided, stopping each other in their course.
The [Spine of the Black Sun] appeared at the end of Sofia’s scepter. Without moving, she controlled the bone whip to lash out at the golem about fifteen meters away. The whip hit without difficulty, engulfing that portion of the corridor in an explosion of solar light.
When the light died down, everything but Pareth was covered in Rot.
The tunnel isn’t going to collapse, right? The rot shouldn’t eat at the walls too much because they’re so scarce in mana…
The golem tried its best to get past Pareth’s defenses, punching, kicking, and summoning solid mana-laced dirt projectiles. To no avail. About twenty seconds later, the rot had consumed most of the Golem’s mana and it started to consume it, eventually reaching the core, which disappeared too. Nothing was left but thin black dust.
‘You have defeated [Earth Golem - lv. 238]’
Looking at Sofia’s kill notification, Alith had a sudden epiphany. “Wait, wait. EarthGolem? I never picked this up; but EARTH Golem?”
“What’s wrong with it, I don’t really follow…” Sofia looked at Ihuarah for help, but he shook his head like he had no idea either.
“You guys… What does earth mean? Tell me.”
“It’s just another word for soil, isn’t it? Like dirt is dirt, a bunch of dirt is soil or earth.” As far as I know. I think that was mostly used by farmers…
“Speak, Alith, what may be the issue here?”
“Well ‘Earth’ is not just the word for soil, it’s the name of the planet I come from!”
“Oh hey, something like that wasn’t censored?” Curious. “But… You named your planet ‘bunch of dirt’?”
“I’m not the one who chose you know. Besides, what’s the name of this planet we’re on now? How has that never come up until now? This feels like something I should really know.”
“A name…” Sofia looked at the shadowy man for help again, “Do we have that?”
“Not that I know of. What would be the use of it? To compare our planet to another? I have never known of anyone leaving.”
Alith took a step back and crossed her arms,”Well… You do have a point. Can we really not leave though? In my old world, nobody could fly, so leaving was really not a possibility, but here… What’s to stop you from going up?”
“Where would you even go? The only things nearby are the moon and a giant ball of fire. The other stars in the night all look quite far away.” And it doesn’t look like the moon has anything interesting on it either. Not on the side we can see at least. It’s just a big smooth ball in the sky.
“I don’t know. But I find the possibility intriguing. I should talk about it to Zarrow, maybe he knows more. For a pirate he really knows a lot about many things.”
“If you say so Alith. But what about the dungeon? If you really care about the planet having a name just give it one.” Just maybe not ‘Bunch of dirt’, I can’t see many people agreeing to calling the world that. Although it kind of is.
“Right, let’s move, I’ll show you how you fight without a single skill!”
Sure. But why?
Alith stood true to her words, facing the next Golem they found at a crossing of underground streets, she ran around it, using her weapons to carve out its legs. When the golem collapsed, she changed to her ghost form and back. Just like that, she had located the core inside of its left arm, a few hits later and her mithril kamas sliced the Golem’s core in half.
‘You have defeated [Earth Golem - lv. 240]’
“Easy enough, up to you next, shadowman.”
“Can you not use my name?” Ihuarah asked in a light tone that Sofia interpreted as ‘currently rolling his eyes’.
“Sorry, but it’s a mouthful and a half.”
“How is it in any way worse than ‘shadowman’? Ah, back when I was an Apostle, my name-”
He was interrupted by the thunderous arrival of yet another golem that the noise of Alith one’s falling flat must have alerted. More such heavy footsteps could be heard coming from two other directions.
It sounds like we are going to clear this place faster than expected. “Ihuarah, you get this one, Alith the opposite side, I’ll take care of the middle lane, call me if you’re overwhelmed since Pareth is there too.”
Sofia was waiting, channeling [Graveyard of the Righteous] while Pareth used [Sanctified Grounds]. Realistically speaking, as long as you weren’t surrounded, the golems couldn’t outnumber them because of the tightness of the corridors. Unless a Golem of a much higher level showed up out of nowhere, Sofia thought this would go smoothly.
She was a bit distracted by the noise of an explosion coming from Ihuarah’s side, so she turned to see what he had done. He used the sand from the pendant as projectiles. Whatever sand he threw impacted the golem with great force. When the golem tried to attack, the Animist simply collapsed into the shadows, swiftly moving away from the attack and reappearing in a convenient blind spot of the Golem.
Meanwhile, a Golem clashed with Pareth’s shield. Sofia didn’t want to use the rot. If multiple Golems came after one another and she used the rot too much, the walls might actually be weakened enough that the dungeon would collapse, and she did not want to risk that.
For a second, she wondered how she should deal with the annoyingly tough dirt monster without the rot or explosions. She quickly gave up and summoned the book of skeletons.
Screw fighting. I have skeletons for that.
She brought out her bone tablet with a reminder for all of her book summons, there were quite a few now.
‘1 crow (The best one) 10
1 rat 10
1 dog 20
1 soldier with bow (5rat) 50
50 crows 500
54 black turvins (Small birds) 540
100 rats 1000
25 paladins 5000
1 Saltwater Spinefish (???) 5000
1 Quetzalcoatlus 10 000
1 Soguva (not fluffy >:( ) 10 000
5 fire salamander 15 000
3 templars 30 000
1 useless hero toxic plants 30 000
1 Stone ogre 30 000
4 withered vampires 40 000
10 Dire wolf (weak for price) 50 000
5 Quetzalcoatlus 50 000
5 giant ice spider 50 000
500 Red Flailers (blood fish) 50 000
1 high priest 50 000
10 female stone Ogre 100 000
1 midenicite ingot fae? 500 000’
This is starting to be a lot to keep track of… Let’s go for a Stone Ogre, seems well suited for this, it can occupy the whole corridor fighting side-by-side with Pareth.
The book’s pages moved by themselves until it presented the one she wanted, and she ripped it off. A few seconds and some fog later, the stone ogre skeleton was up and rushing to the fight.
There we go, this is the real necromancer life. I should only fight directly as a last resort.
While the skeletons fought, Sofia made sure to stay in the middle of the intersection so that her allies all benefited from [Runeforged Overlord]’s 20% speed, and she started practicing the new version of Angel’s bolt she had seen the previous day.
The Golems died, leaving behind big inconvenient-to-fight-around piles of dirt that the next Golems could control and use to attack. The more they killed, the more came, eventually even coming from the fourth direction, behind them, which Sofia summoned the Templar trio to handle. From the center of the battlefield, Sofia had stopped trying to cast the new bolt, she got nowhere anyway, and she instead controlled her graveyard skeletons to help on all fronts.
Despite being surrounded, the group fought without an ounce of panic. Surprisingly, the side where the golems died the fastest was Ihuarah’s. He had stopped using his sand explosion tricks and he simply attacked like a shade would. The exact same kind of strikes that had once beheaded Sofia in another underground dungeon. The shadow struck from the walls with deadly speed and accuracy, cutting straight through the Earth Golems’ hardened shells.
The battle lasted for almost twenty minutes, during which Sofia’s mana barely moved at all. Ihuarah and Alith had been touched a few times, which Sofia summoned the high priest to heal since the tunnels were too small for [Heal Undead]. That had almost been the book’s last bits of fog, but she could probably squeeze out a few more cheap summons. The filter change greatly improved the fog capacity, more than Sofia had thought.
As the last golem fell, ganged-up-on by too many skeletons to fit in the tunnel, Sofia felt like she held her beloved Bookie in a new light.
This is not a one-off trick anymore. The skeletons can fight well and for long, now that I can summon a variety of them at the same time, I don’t even have to do anything.
Ihuarah joined Sofia and Alith also joined them after the skeleton priest was done healing her, the mithril armor did protect her body from direct hits, but she still suffered from the heavy blows.
“Well fought,” Ihuarah praised them.
Alith “Yeah, nice fight.”
“I did nothing.”
“No,” Ihuarah disagreed, “you did a lot, the skeletons in the walls and the healing were all a great help.”
“Hmm… It still barely felt like a real fight to me. I’m really not used to being that safe. But glad you think the graveyard crew helped, I was worried they might be a hindrance sometimes. Are we done with the golems? We even got some nice levels out of this.”
“Hard to say, but there were a lot. Definitely guarding something of value. I am starting to understand this new concept of dungeons.”
“Well well well. I want to test my new armor some more, let’s go for the boss!”
