ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 28: Trials of Ascension: Stage II

Chapter 28

Trials of Ascension: Stage II

Alexa hopped through the dungeon entrance. However, before she did so, she did the equivalent of looking into a mirror and yelling “Beetlecreper, Beetlecreeper, Beetlecreeper.”

This time when she entered, she could already feel a strand of fate pulling her forward. This time, she immediately chose to enter a RED difficulty dungeon. With that, she followed the path and was greeted with a familiar listing of warnings and notifications.

You are now entering a Tier II RED dungeon.

Know that in a RED dungeon run, rules change. For the sake of this run, this dungeon is no longer considered a Trap only Dungeon, but will be a hybrid. This means a few things. First and foremost, monsters can appear on every level. The further down you go, the stronger the monsters will get.

Special Conditions: You can opt to Stay at your current difficulty, or opponent type if you feel you are weak against them. This is performed by say the word Stay at the end of each floor. Note: Staying can only be invoked a total of ten times during a single dungeon run. To get more, you will have to leave, resetting all your current progress, then return.

WARNING: There is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of summoning a dungeon with a dragon as the sole boss.

Note: At any time, you feel you cannot compete against the monsters summoned to fill the trap dungeon, you can exit at any time. Be advised that exiting in such a way will prevent you from being able to return to this same Tier II dungeon for a month.

Then as soon as she exited the portal, she saw a scene straight out of a history book. Two sides of regimented soldiers squared off against one another.

There was a magnificent tower of gold and ivory. That was the side the elves were in and had their forces surrounding for support. Then to the right were hundreds of thousands of orcs in different regiments, ready to siege that tower. At the top of the tower was some sort of power source.

Seeing this, it was the classical siege mission. Alexa seeing the thousands of orcs and elves ready to square off, realized her own personal objectives for this mission clearly.

Go in, kill all the commanders for the orcs and elves. Storm the tower and claim the power structure. It was important that she make sure that neither side gain that source.

Even though this was the past, or an approximation of the past, Alexa felt there was something that would happen should either side gain full control over the source. While she didn’t know what exactly would happen, she felt that it couldn’t be good if two species that seemed to secretly despise all humans gained full control over the tower.

This was the joy of being in a dungeon. So many things were just intuited by the delver. So many things didn’t have to be said, instead there was just an understanding to trust your instincts. At least that was how it was for Alexa.

Here there was no ambiguity, she just came and understood.

It was like the world was some bad dream, where nothing ever quite made sense. Then she would escape the world in a dungeon and gain insight. Insights and the ability to feel.

Quest: Choosing a worthy successor: You have come across the ancient battle of Mythandor. The Elves have just found and gained access to the Tower of Prophecy. Choose a side and help write out history.

Conditions: Either the Orcs or Elves must occupy the Tower of Prophecy by the end of the night.

At that, Alexa’s eyes glowed wide, as she realized this would be a long-drawn-out battle.

Mentally preparing herself for a brawl she looked around and found a few soldiers who were already dead. Their weapons seemed to be clearly staged. Again, part of this Alexa realized was just dungeon pageantry, while the rest was likely retained from memory or a stylized depiction of event in question that the dungeon was meant to portray.

Everything was designed to make both sides look larger and more intimidating that possible. That was what clawed at Alexa’s mind. There as a sort of forced reverence in her mind that she did not like one bit.

That was why she instantly began making her side clear in this whole process.

Just like last time, she was on team Alexa. Or as she was now mentally referring to it, team human.

Picking up the spear with her dominant left hand she hefted the spear, before hurling the spear forwards at the line of elven magi.

Then just as the spear began gaining its optimum speed, she used her Wind magic to push the spear forward.

Swoosh!

The spear flew forward and pierced dozens of elven spell casters. This wasn’t much, but it was enough to remarkably weaken the right flank of the elven army. Enough so that the orcs on that side took advantage of the lull and began surging forward. While the orcs surged forward, Alexa used this time to cut through the weakened Elven lines. Making sure to take out the healers and other casters first.

The glows of the casters were easy for her to distinguish by now, as she had been so used to practicing with those very sources of mana.

Absorber Class Material Found: Would you like to absorb essence of Elite Elven Healer?

That was exactly what Alexa had been hoping for, she would fight the elves making sure to take down their Healersfirst.

Of course, this was only the first step. Take out the Healers, then the orc generals, then the elven generals. Then storm the tower while both sides tried to establish balance in the chaos.

Wind Blades.

Ten blades of wind struck out piercing the robed Healers.

Wind Blades.

Ten more blades of wind struck out piercing the robed Wind mages.

Wind Blades.

Ten more blades of wind struck out piercing the robed Nature mages.

Then with that, over thirty elven mages and their guards dropped in various heaps along the ground.

As they fell, green lights of energy began to infuse Alexa’s body.

“Necromancer!” The Elves cried out, seeing the glow. But at this point, Alexa was already well into her feeling of being alive. She fought, over and over.

She killed dozens and dozens of dungeon monsters.

Her speed kept increasing, as she was infused with the essence of her slain foes. Alexa made sure to stay just a few paces ahead of the orc waves. If anything, it would appear that she was just the vanguard of the orcish horde, an assassin sent to kill key enemies and to disrupt enemy lines.

When she took damage, so long as she could get away, her Regeneration would kick in. If a wound was particularly bad, she would Heal herself. She used Wind and Nature magic to sever enemies, or to cut off enemies from flanking her.

Still, she found herself growing tired quickly. This was not a sustainable pace, and she knew it. That was when she decided to come up with an alternate plan.

Fortunately, Alexa’s active mind was showing her a few key details. While there was supposedly a battle going on all around her. There seemed to be a limit to the number of monsters that could be generated at any one time.

Alexa counted and figured that the maximum number of soldiers whether Elven or Orc could only be a maximum of fifty. This would normally be too many for anyone, But Alexa had a plan.

Using her control over Nature magic, she created a funnel that the enemies would push through. Then from there, she would chop off the legs of incoming attackers with Wind Blades. This did multiple things, first it took out the front lines of the forces. Causing the lines at the back to climb over their comrades. Alexa then Healed the stumps of the warriors shut.

From this point on, it was a mad dash.

She darted around frantically, creating holes, advances. Making sure to only cripple, never kill. Then finally after an hour of constant fighting, she was done. She stood over a pulsing sea of monsters. Alexa was correct, there were fifty monsters at most that were allowed to be generated by the dungeon at one time.

Looking off in the distance, Alexa could see others, but those hadn’t been rendered.

With that, Alexa let out a breath then collapsed.

She had managed to do the first step of her plan.

The entire process did come at a cost. Her uniform was a wreck. Her sash was in tatters. She put the remaining pieces into her backpack. Then, covered in so much blood, she took out her water and began eating her rations.

Now that the initial rush was over, Alexa went through and made it, so the monsters of the dungeon had no arms, nor legs. Then most importantly, she made sure to heal them. Not enough to let them regrow limbs, but enough to ensure they would not die before she was done with this challenge.

They wiggled around. Screaming in their weird languages. But Alexa just took her time. Looking up into the sky, she realized there was still time. Supposedly this experiment was supposed to end sometime after midnight.

That means that Alexa still had time to move around and try out more things.

Using her control over Nature magic, she began creating rooms that separated the two groups of combatants from each other.

Looking at the layout, Alexa figured she was supposed to run forward with a particular group, meaning that twenty-five of the spawned warriors would be on her side. Then the other twenty-five would be on the elven side.

She half expected this, with the way the orcs always seemed to appear right at the end of her assault. Or just in a position to take advantage of her relentless assaults into the elven side.

She had been tracking all of that with her enhanced Perception. But now, she had to test out her theory. Once she was no longer feeling dizzy from constant combat, she went over to an elf, then killed him.

Within ten seconds, a new healthy elf appeared off in the distance and came charging forward.

“Shah’thaluk.” The elf called out, as it raised its sword high.

Wind blade.

Now that Alexa had the trick, keeping pace with the one enemy spawned at a time would be easy. The only problem, killing one enemy at a time would not be fast enough.

Realizing this, she counted to five and then killed a second.

The first replacement spawned and charged forward, followed shortly thereafter by the second. The more she killed, the more she recognized one key detail. The more she killed, the closer the tower came into view. Finally seeing the logic behind this dungeon, Alexa continued killing the monsters over and over. At one point increasing her speed from not just two, but four elves all at the same time.

She killed monsters over and over, all while her body filled with the glowing energy of her foes. She fought, time and time again.

She kept moving her way closer and closer to the tower, until finally she reached it.

The moment she did, she was met with a system message.

Quest Complete: Choosing a worthy successor. You have come fought your way through the ancient battle of Mythandor. Lead a force to the Tower of Prophecy. Choose a side and help write out history. Now that you have led the forces and are first to step into the sacred halls of the past. It is up to you to choose which race you will bless with the power of Prophecy. Reward: Choose a race to bless from those assembled.

A feral grin filled Alexa’s mouth, as she knew she had achieved something that should have been impossible. It would have, unless she came up with the cheat of disabling the over spawned enemies to make their numbers more manageable.

In the end, she figured the final count was based on how many Alexa herself killed and not how many were supposed to have been killed. Finally, after hours of constant fighting, she stood victorious and said the only word she could. The only species she wanted to help from those who were gathered at this mythical battle.

With a loud thunderous voice, she called out clearly, “Humans!”

Reward Species Accepted.

At that, Alexa just collapsed to the ground. As she looked down at her waist the silver cord that had tied her to this dungeon slowly dissolved back into the aether from which it came.

Congratulations: You have completed the second stage of the Trials of Ascension proceed to the next stage when you see fit.

Alexa paused for a minute, gathering herself, before standing up turning to the portal. Then with a defiant glare she once again called out a word that was quickly becoming a synonym for her work ethic.

“Stay.”

Once again, with her will accepted, she walked through the portal and once again came out to see a giant battle unfold. One where she was once again forced to witness the battle of Mythandor.

***

Back on the other side of the portal an entire class of students shivered in fear. Mr. Lambdis and all the students of his class could feel the connection of fate. A cold connection of fate that tied them to the portal.

Just looking at the portal was enough for them to feel their own impending doom. Doom caused because that one crazy girl tempted fate.

The group waited on with fear clearly etched in their eyes. Then just before midnight, a miracle happened. The silver tether that had been binding them to the dungeon and their deaths disappeared completely.

“What? What just happened?”

“Did she die?”

“She had to have died, right? But we are safe?”

“Oh, thank the gods.”

So many of the students who had almost given up the hope of ever dungeon delving again, suddenly let out sighs of relief.