Chapter 33: 33. Robbing the Dead

The caves come to an end, and we switch to a new dungeon. The system gives us each 1000 Experience for clearing the Orb Spider Caves, and we're deposited in a semi-collapsed chamber. Unlike the rough natural rock walls of the caves, this is clearly something made with craft. Columns lay at angles like fallen trees pressing against walls with bas-relief carvings (depicting erotic acts, of course). The ceiling has come down, spewing rubble everywhere and making a large section of the room impassible.

My party members begin to proceed deeper into the room to find the way out, when I receive a system message.

"Wait!" I call out to them, making them freeze in mid stride.

Damn. I'd forgotten I had the ability to detect spirits. It has never activated before.

I do a quick search on Tomb Guardians and learn they're spirits of servants or soldiers bound to a tomb and who will attack anyone who tries to open it. Ancient indicates one that has been around so long that none of their original selves are present, and they're little more than blobs of energy. One level 3 foe should be a piece of cake, but these things can only be harmed with magic and they are also buffed against magical attacks, making them very challenging. 

Everyone is looking at me expectantly, so I give them a quick run down of what I've found out.

 Vladimir says, "But if it guards the tomb, won't we be okay if we leave it alone?"

Bronte raises the lantern. "I don't think leaving it alone is an option," she says this as the light casts over a smashed sarcophagus. It becomes obvious that the collapse of the chamber has broken open the tomb and triggered the guardian. It must have been lingering here for decades waiting for someone to attack.

A ball of radioactive-green light comes darting out of a corner. "There!" I say.

"Where?" Astra asks.

Apparent I'm the only one that can see it.

It flits around above us. Too high in the vaulted room for my dance to affect it. I do my best to point it out, and Lynesse fires off a round of flesh missiles. "Suck dicks, Casper!" she screams. After firing, she looks around at us seemingly embarrassed by her own outburst.

One misses completely, but the other two hit it. I can't tell if they do anything other than make it mad.

It zips down, charging Lynesse. She gasps in shock and pain as the thing passes through her. For some reason, attacking makes it visible to everyone, and Bronte swipes it with her charged sword before it can escape back to the protection of the ceiling. But it doesn't linger there long. When another bunch of flesh missiles cut through it, it plunges down toward us again. This time it attacks Bronte, who returns the favor with another slash of her sword.

I manage to get a twirl of my dance in while it's attacking, and between Bronte's blow and my magic, the spirit is killed. Although, killed seems like the wrong word for it. But it's green energy breaks apart and scraps of it shoot outward until they dissipate into nothing.

Vladimir heads straight over to the sarcophagus. "What are you doing?" Kerda asks with alarm.

"Relax. The thing guarding it is gone. I want to see what's inside."

"Probably a corpse."

"Wrong!" Then, after a brief pause, "Well, not wrong, but there's also gold. Gold and jewels. Damn! It's the mother-lode!" He begins pulling out gold coins and other objects, listing them as he does. "A tiara or something. A necklace. A ring—examine says it's a nipple-ring. Another ring that's–" With some distaste, he says, "A labia-ring. And a... ah, fuck." He lets the last object fall to the ground. There's a sharp ring of metal, and it roles in a wide semicircle catching glimpses of the lantern light.

Morgan bends down to where it rests. "Oh! It's a golden butt-plug!"

Vladimir vigorously rubs his hand on his shorts. "Ugh! Why would they bury someone with something like that!"

Kerda says, "Serves you right, robbing the dead."

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"She's practically dust. She's not going to mind. Besides, we pretty much rob the dead all the fucking time in this game, or hadn't you noticed?"

"Hey, look at this," Astra says, examining one of the coins. "This is old—real old. It's dated 3169." The current system date was the 7th of the month of Penetratia 3482. I pick one of the coins up to see for myself. One side has a seal with an ornate F. I'd seen something similar around the counsel house in Givinghead. It must be the symbol of Fellatia. On the flip-side, instead of a portrait of a king there's a detailed design of a penis and the date in roman numerals.

Astra says, "We must be in one of the older sections of the crypt. We need to get to the most recent, since the tomb we're after was created right before the whole crypt was lost. I did a bit of research back in town, and these old royal crypts were built like towers with new levels added as the older ones were filled. They put them on boggy land so the extra weight would sink them, and they'd never grow very high. I don't think that engineering makes much sense but there's a lot of fudging of physics in Immersive Reality. Anyway, each level of the tower should be laid out like a wheel with all the burial chambers opening onto a central hub room that will have a staircase."

I can't help feeling a little dumb since I never even considering researching our mission when I had the chance. At least, I teamed up with someone better prepared than I am.

I got really lucky when I happened upon Astra's camp. A slightly different route, and we would have never met. Were would I be now without her? Still with Dwayne? Ugh! No thank you! I shake my head not even want to think about that and go back to contemplating Astra and how fortunate our party is to have her as a leader. The idea of her being my leader gives me a weird tingly gooey feeling. I quickly put those thoughts away and turn to more practical matters.

I suggest we divide up the treasure before getting going. The labia-ring turns out to be magical, and I'm certain it will have some property that's only beneficial for me, but it turns out to give an attack bonus. It's decided that Kerda should have it, and she seems quite pleased. Based on the value of the items everyone should get 4 gold each in coins or jewelry. We draw lots to see who gets what, and my wonderful luck holds true, and I get the butt-plug. Luckily, it just goes into my treasure bin of my inventory and not in anywhere else.

The doorway to the central chamber must be on the side of the room that's crushed with rubble, so there's no getting out that way. But we come across a crack in the wall that's large enough for us to squeeze through, and we're able to get into the next burial chamber. 

This one isn't wrecked as badly. A square block sarcophagus sits in the center and four tall pillars extend outward from it like an X. The room is slightly pie-shaped, narrow on one end and wide on the other. On all but the narrowest of walls, there are four shelves each containing a simple stone casket. I take it in, and I realize the carving on the walls details the life of the entombed person. Apparently most of their life was spent engaged in orgies. He's a brawny bearded guy who may have been a warrior or a barbarian warlord but who was more often stuffed with cocks than not. 

Kerda sighs, "Ahh, the life of royalty."

The door to the stairs is in clear view, and we head straight for it. But a system message comes up, and I scream, "STOP!" But it's too late the spirit trap I was warned about gets triggered as Bronte steps into a wide circle surround the sarcophagus and the first row of pillars. The room begins to rumble, and my first thought is that the whole thing is about to come down on us, but it doesn't. Instead, the coffins on the walls crack and crumble into shards, spilling out twelve skeletons armed with swords and rusty breast plates.

We're immediately surrounded and outnumbered nearly two-to-one. I'd been dallying behind the rest of the group, so race to take on the four coming up from the back wall since I'm the closest. They've caught us by surprise so the room is full of the sound of confusion, but we easily over match them, and it's over in three rounds.

But before we can cheer our victory, the big sarcophagus splits open, and a skeleton larger than any of the rest emerges. We rush it before it can get it's bearings. I use my life steal, but the thing has magical resistance and is such high level, I only snag 5 points.

We hammer on it with everything we have, but it barely seems to affect it. The monster roars up and swings a massive two-handed great sword, striking several members of the party.

This undead royal is practically boss level. He's at least five times stronger than all his "guards" put together. All we can do is chip away at him as he swings his eight-foot long blade back and forth, slicing us to ribbons. Morgan has to back off and start providing healing because the creature is bring many of us down to the brink of death. I hold my own, but barely.

We finally—wearily—prevail, but it's as though we've fought a horde and not just one strong skeleton. A few are still low on Life and Mystic Energy is nearly depleted across the board.

"Shit," Vladimir says, speaking for everyone. This dungeon isn't going to be a joke.

Kerda says, "I was really hoping Lynesse's dicks would've tame it. He seemed to really like them in life. But no suck luck."

Bronte goes over to the monster's coffin and kicks the slabs of stone away revealing the contents. Before anyone can ask about her motives she tells us, "We deserve every penny of this."

There are 11 gold coins again. It must be some sacred number or something. The great sword is Tier 5 but no one can wield it, so it's stored to be sold. He also had a gold circlet like we found in the first grave and a gold cock-ring. Because of course he does. 

The group starts heading for the door, but Astra has a feeling we should rest first, even though we haven't been awake for all that long. And it's a good thing she convinces us to do it, because when we do finally leave (fully restored), we encounter our first Lich of the dungeon and things go to shit.

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