Chapter 81: Chapter 80: Sin Urban & Echo

"OOOHH!! So this is the Darkland Fort!" - Black Bone

"Right, this is the first time you have come here." - Garami

"And I've been waiting for an invitation all this time, boss!" - Black Bone

Yeah, guess I should feel sorry for that...but this is Bones we're talking about. I bet some abandonment play is right up his ally.

It's the second day of operation: "Butcher those vampires!!!", but I decided to have Bones meet me on the first floor of the Darkland Fort. The reasons for doing so are two: one is because the demon vampire bat I tamed yesterday, now named Echo, loves to fly around the Dungeon, so we have to collect her here.

The second reason is that I wanted to have a look at the Dungeon theme I'd chosen. 

"...excuse me for asking, but why is there a city inside the fort?" - Black Bone

"It's because the Dungeon's theme is "Sin Urban"." - Garami

The first floor looks like a...how should I call it... A city that's both alive and dead? 

It's made out of modern buildings, but they have fallen apart to the point that only the steel beams are showing. The exceptions are a few buildings that the invaders can ransack (like the thieves they are!!) in hope of treasures, or the buildings that are used for the Facilities on this floor.

The buildings and streetlights are made out of some black metal that I don't know the name of, and the ground is made out of silver rocks. As mentioned before, their design is similar to modern buildings, but they have a gothic, or maybe "demonic", touch to them. The "sky" is dark as the night, with bloody-red stars shining down on us. There is no moon. 

"...sin, you said? I do get that feeling..." said Bones as he shrank away from the dark alleys that were covered in bloody handprints. 

"No worries. There are only the doggies and us on this floor right now." - Garami

"That's a relief...huh? Doggies!?" - Black Bone

I whistled and got the attention of some of them. Huge doggies with dark-grey fur appeared from the shadows of the buildings.

"Doggies," I said while cuddling one of the dogs' fur.

"Those are freaking Direwolves!" - Black Bone

"Duh, I know that." - Garami

"...wait, hold on just a sec. Didn't you say this place was a Demon Dungeon?" - Black Bone

"Something like that." - Garami

"Then why do you have something that obviously should be in some sorta beast-type Dungeon!? And keep those things away from me! I'm scared of the looks they are giving me!" - Black Bone

Tch. Sorry, doggies. You won't be getting any bones today. Bye-bye.

"It's the "Common monster-line"." - Garami

"The what-line?" - Black Bone

"Common monster-line. Shorten to the Common-line. Every floor of the Dungeon has one Monster-line that uses a specific type of monster and one of the Dungeon's elements and spawns 4 types of monsters that fit both criteria. 3 elements can use the same Monster-line, and one can have at most 12 elements." - Garami

"So that means...you can have at most 12 floors with different "populace", is it?" - Black Bone

"Almost. Because all Dungeons also have their Common-line. The criteria here are not an assigned element or Mon-line, but the Dungeon's type and theme." - Garami

"Oh, as in "Sin Urban Fort" for this place!" - Black Bone

"Correct. The Direwolves were obtained because they're part of the evolution line to a certain C-rank monster that can live in this environment." - Garami

"C-rank?" - Black Bone

"All the spawned monsters need to be chosen from the C-rank, then one monster from all the lower ranks of the same evolution line will be added to the poll." - Garami

"There can be C-rank monsters wandering around here!?" - Black Bone

"Don't joke. The spawned monsters are limited by the Dungeon's stats and how deep into the Dungeon they are. Right now, even spawning D-rank monsters is a herculean task." - Garami

"Damn...and what monsters are those haunting hounds gonna turn into when they grow up?" - Black Bone

"Cerberus." - Garami

"How's that freaking "common"!!?" - Black Bone

I think the Cerberus is pretty common in Dungeons...

As for the other monsters of this line, I've yet to decide on them. I know I want some goblins, dark elves (demonic-ish elves), and some giant bats. The problem is that they have so many evolution paths, so I'm stuck choosing which. 

Oh, but the two Demon-lines, Darkness and Crystal, are using the same demons as before. I could change them, but I like the current setup. 

"So, can we leave now? I think I'm hearing dogs breathing in the corners..." - Black Bone

"Tch, fiiiiine. ECHO!!" - Garami

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"I don't think you can make an echo here in the city." - Black Bone

Not that... Wonder if there's an echo Facility.

I was about to check the list of the possible Facilities when Echo the bat came flying to us. Time to go.

---

Later, we jumped across the rooftops of vampire town. 

*Land*

*CRASH!*

"...can't you land a little louder?" - Garami

"Then don't drag me with this freaking web!" said Bones with a voice lower than you'd expect from an angry skull. 

Hey, it's your fault for not being able to jump from roof to roof. Be glad that my evolved webs can carry you across.

"And is it safe following the bat around?" - Black Bone

"More than you'd guess." - Garami

For real. After I got a look at Echo's status page, I couldn't believe how great of a find she was. 

Skill List:

Attack Skills:
Active Skills:
Passive Skills:
Perception Skills:
Elements: Monster Skills:

Title List:

Trait List:

This girl's a searching/healing genius! The only downside is that Echo becomes as good as useless under the sun because of her Traits, but night missions and areas like the Darklands or this ghost town where the sun's blocked out. 

The Ability skills were obtained by a crash course of class quests with Echo yesterday before I logged out. Regarding Echo's skills which I haven't seen before, they can simply be described in this fashion:

• [Life Fang]: Inflicts Life-type damage when attacking with one's teeth. It doesn't heal, as opposed to what one would believe. 
• [Sound Wing]: Inflicts Sound-type damage by slapping people with one's wings.
• [Bloodline Recovery]: A recovery skill from her Vampiric Medic class. It's a vampiric skill, apparently, but I can't see any difference between it and other recovery skills I've heard about.
• [Scrap Collecting]: A skill that makes it easier to collect and store low-quality items. From the Scavenger class. 
• [Detect Humanoid] and [Detect Path] are of the same nature as my [Detect Monster]. [Detect Path] comes from the Pathfinder class. 
• [Echolocation] is a Sound-type skill that's the same as the stuff one can find in nature. Echo is a bat after all. 
• [Flight] is obvious. It lets you fly around. I can't get it, and I don't think I'll ever will. Jumping from the rooftops is fine, but I feel like flying would be too scary...
• [Drain Bite] is a skill similar to Nyx's [Dark Drain]. It's classified as a Monster Skill because it's vampire-restricted. 
• [Vampire's Concealment (Crude)] is a stealth-type skill like [Lurk], but without elements. 
• [Vampire's Alter-Ego (Crude)] creates copies of the user. The copies have 0 attack power, but they work as a distraction. 
• [Devouring Vampire] passively boosts drain-type skills. Unlike Nyx's [Devouring Demon], which grants extra recovery to MP, this skill gives extra HP.

Yeah, Echo's not able to do the same job as Nyx and Nala. But a scout that maybe can use shadow clones in the future is nothing to sneeze at. 

...just need to find a way to make her something like a "daywalker"...

"Echo, start looking for a safe path into one of the fancy buildings." - Garami

Echo saluted with her wing. Feeding her cotton candy from the Sweets Stand Facility on the 1st floor seems to have captured her heart.

Following my request, Echo started to look over all the nearby buildings before pausing on one of them. I dragged the (silently, impressively enough) screaming skeleton with me to that building and was about to use the newly bought lockpicking tools on the window before I noticed that someone had trapped it. Clever, but I'm an expert on this subject~. 

It took some time, enough to let Bones recover from the jump, but I managed to crack the trap and the lock. When we got inside, we found ourselves in some sorta storeroom. What do we have... Bingo. 

"This is the first time I've ever seen a real iron maiden," said Bones as he looked at the blood-soaked, rusty old chamber of death.

"If this doesn't belong to a malevolent vampire, then I don't wanna know the true owner." - Garami

"I don't want to know who owns it either way! And I'm all bones!" - Black Bone

"Shh. Be quiet and start looking for some clues." - Garami

Our search went silently and steadily, but it got cut short when we heard footprints outside. Two of them, I'd guess from the sounds of the steps.

Bones held his breath (as good as he could) and hid behind some furniture while I hid behind the door, ready to cut down whoever came into the room. Luckily for us, they passed by without entering. Due to my position so close to the door, I overheard them talking about something.

"The ritual...soon..."

"Worthless...our rightful..."

"The town...blood..."

"The god...exterminate..."

"The sacrifice...tonight..."

"All hail...dess..."

It's fragmented, but I can piece the broken sentences together. Ritual, sacrifice, and god. Words that are obviously not good to have in the same sentence. Or discussion.

Just as the footsteps had disappeared, something new popped up. Something damn foreboding. 

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