Chapter 253: Alone in the Dark II

I wandered through the hallways, lighting them up as brightly as I reasonably could with [Lantern]. The rocks were glossy, and did a bit of reflecting, doing some trippy bending. Nothing I couldn’t handle - it was more neat than anything. I remember the dwarves mentioning something about the “Below levels”, and I was hoping I wasn’t there.

Light was tricky. On one hand, I needed light. On the other, it potentially gave away my position to monsters… or drove them away, since they spent their entire lives down here without a single ray of sunshine.

That’s what I was telling myself.

I tried to trace my steps back, to climb back out of what I was calling the “melted levels”, but failed. The tunnels had shifted around me, and finding my way back was just as hard as finding my way forward.

I’d occasionally hear voices echoing down the corridors. People talking. Monsters with a clever lure.

I avoided them. Early on, I’d tried to approach them, but after three near-misses in a row, I now avoided them. They were either orcs, who I couldn’t talk with and seemed fairly aggressive, monsters that mimicked speech, or dwarves, who had tried to capture me. It was possible, likely even, that they were dwarves from somewhere else - but seeing a strange creature down here, they might shoot first, and ask questions later, given the tension and state of war they were in.

Plus, like, I was inclined to think everything I bumped into down here was hostile. I couldn’t blame them for thinking the same.

Most Rangers I knew would also be inclined to shoot unknowns in hostile territory.

I did try to follow the sound of their voices at times, but the sound played tricks on me as often as it led me to a narrow crack where the noise came through.

I wandered for hours.

I’d grab water from the ever-present pools of water, the soft drip-drip a constant background noise to the rest of the noises from the mines. I was getting used to the noises in the tunnels, the different clicks, plinks, plonks, and clangs music to my ears. I knew when they were right, when everything was orderly and normal, and I could tell when there was something new, something close.

I discovered that the spiders did, somehow, know when I was around, and would scuttle over to me when I rested or slept. However, as long as I was in [Mantle], they’d only crowd around, seemingly confused by the barrier. They also wouldn’t come if I slept with the lights on, avoiding the light.

In other words - easy, disgusting food when I needed it.

I wandered for days.

While there were monsters down here, they were rare. Light didn’t make it down this far, which meant plants didn’t easily grow. The foundation of any ecosystem just didn’t exist, which made the entire area food-scarce. Clearly, the spiders and some other monsters were finding something to eat, but I could go hours without seeing another creature.

Days.

I did find some dead orcs at one point. Their arms were like skeletons, flesh pulled taut against bone, while their collarbones jutted out. I could count their ribs without even trying, and whatever monster had killed them had only bothered to eat their organs. It looked like they were in the middle of starving to death when they encountered some monster that took advantage of their weakened state.

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Or more likely, they’d tried to bring down a monster for food, and failed because they were starving.

What did that say for the rest of orcish society? Were these just two orcs who had gotten lost, or were the orcs as a civilization being starved to death? The Khazardian dwarves tactic of sealing up every exit to the outside took on an ominous tone, and it forced me to re-think and re-evaluate the war that was going on between the two.

I suspected there was more to it than met the eye.

Either way, I was out of it for now, and I had no intention of getting back into it.

At the same time, I wanted to avoid their fate. Bone marrow was nutritious after all.

I wandered for weeks. Months?

Most monsters didn’t want to tangle with whatever I was. I smelled of metal, with burning light at my fingertips. An unknown, an oddity, down this far. Most predators hunted for their lunch, with a strange unknown not being the top choice to hunt down.

Not unless they were desperate, or starving.

With that being said, the most memorable encounters were with the ones who weren’t most. I’d barely escaped alive from those encounters, and it was only a matter of time before I fucked up hard enough to die.

Heck. I wouldn’t even need to screw up. It was possible to make no wrong moves, and still get eaten. That was life.

I locked eyes with some sort of beetle, large enough to mostly fill a tunnel itself. It was high level - over 700 - and clearly knew I was there.

But it was a monster, having never encountered whatever-I-was before. For all it knew, I was over level 1000. A lack of [Identify] gave it pause. I was strange, weird, and not aggressive. I wasn’t acting like food, and I wasn’t acting like a predator.

I didn’t turn my back on it and run. No, watching it, heart in my throat, I slowly slid into a crack in the wall, praying that there were no tiny spiders that would crawl into my long, matted hair.

I threw my [Mantle] across the crack. It wouldn’t stop the beetle trying to eat me, but it made me just a hair harder to detect. Skills, for example, couldn’t easily penetrate my [Mantle], which included detection skills.

The beetle lumbered off, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the first level 500+ monster I’d bumped into down here, and wouldn’t be the last. I was a believer in the Below Levels now, having seen the occasional monster come up.

I wandered through another tunnel, idly checking my status.

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 20]

[Mana: 327390/327390]

[Mana Regen: 260367 (+273193.2)]

Stats

[Free Stats: 34]

[Strength: 862]

[Dexterity: 1250]

[Vitality: 9246]

[Speed: 9246]

[Mana: 32739]

[Mana Regeneration: 32816 (+27319.32)]

[Magic Power: 15553 (+244959.75)]

[Magic Control: 15553 (+244959.75)]

[Class 1: [The Dawn Sentinel - Celestial: Lv 375]]

[Celestial Affinity: 375]

[Cosmic Presence: 286]

[Solar Infusion: 110]

[Center of the Universe: 375]

[Dance with the Heavens: 375]

[Wheel of Sun and Moon: 311]

[Mantle of the Stars: 375]

[Sunrise: 198]

[Class 2: [Butterfly Mystic - Radiance: Lv 333]]

[Radiance Affinity: 333]

[Radiance Resistance: 333]

[Radiance Conjuration: 333]

[Lantern: 261]

[Nectar: 333]

[Sun's Heart: 333]

[Scintillating Ascent: 287]

[Kaleidoscope: 333]

[Class 3: Locked]

General Skills

[Long-Range Identify: 368]

[Pristine Memories: 210]

[Sneaking: 211]

[Bullet Time: 299]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 315]

[Sentinel's Superiority: 375]

[Persistent Casting: 290]

[Passionate Learning: 358]

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