System Change

“Am I ready? To run a golem dungeon?” Derek asked with a smile. “I’m kind of a golem exterminator. I’ve probably destroyed more golems than anybody on this continent. Just ask Brandi how many cores I brought her back.”

“Then, you’re ready?” she asked again with a chuckled.

“Of course I’m ready.” Derek snorted.

“Great!” Alanah said, then reached out and placed her hand on the dungeon orb. “Let’s go.”

Derek followed right behind her and placed his hand on the orb, too—even though he didn’t need to do so since he was already within the area of the orb’s influence. His hand was instantly stuck to the orb while he waited. It took a while, but he soon received the notification he was waiting for.

Dungeon Countdown Timer Depleted

Participants: 2/6

Alanah Swan: Level ???

Derek Hunt: Level ??? Please Choose an Option Below

View Dungeon

Enter Dungeon

Leave Dungeon

It had been a while since he had to wait for a dungeon countdown timer because of his Solo Diver Achievement and the fact that the raid dungeon had the maximum number of people participating in it. “Do you have the Solo Diver Achievement?” Derek asked Alanah.

“I do,” she answered.

“That’s a shame,” Derek said. “It doesn’t look like we can just instantly start it up, even though both of us have the achievement. That’s going to add a lot of time on each run…”

“It’s not too bad,” Alanah said with a shrug. “Maybe there’s another achievement we can get for just the two of us—a Duo Diver Achievement.”

“Let’s hope so. That’s like… thirty seconds or something that we can’t get back… Which, now that I think about it… really isn’t anything,” he replied. “Okay. Apparently, I’m just impatient.” Derek shook his head, then mentally selected ‘View Dungeon.’ Another notification popped up in front of him.

Dungeon Status

Dungeon Level

250

Dungeon Type

Rock/Elemental

Dungeon State

Approaching Instability

Dungeon Rewards

Potion

Max Participants

6

“Oh,” Derek said after viewing the status. “It looks like we came just in time. We can complete it before it becomes unstable.”

“There is plenty of time, actually,” Alanah said. “Even if it was unstable, there is still a long time before it reaches overflow,” she explained, and Derek nodded. “Anyway, are you ready?”

Derek nodded, then another notification came.

Participants Ready: 1/2

Alanah Swan: Ready

Derek Hunt: Ready

He took in a deep breath, then:

Entering Dungeon in 3… 2… 1…

A blinding white light washed over the duo—causing Derek to instinctually close his eyes—then, they disappeared.

Derek let out his breath as the light faded, then he opened his eyes. Whew, he thought. I’m not in a room with a weird elf and a reclining chair this time.

Quickly, he looked around to get an idea of his surroundings. They were standing in the middle of what looked like an arena—except without any audience stands or walls. There was nothing but flat, hardened dirt beneath them, stretching a long distance in a sort of circle or oval. Weird, he thought, as he didn’t see any type of safe room. Maybe this is just a safe space, and the golems will come when we… he was thinking, but he was soon interrupted with another notification.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Wave One Incoming in 3… 2… 1…

“That’s unexpected,” he said as he held his arm out and summoned Harbinger. “I wasn’t expecting it to just… start.”

“That’s level 250 dungeons for you,” Alanah said. “Many still have the same safe spaces that the earlier dungeons have, but not all.”

Once the timer reached zero, another blinding white light appeared all around them in the distance. When the light dissipated, what was left was a bunch of completely built up golems. No assembly required, Derek thought with a chuckle. Before, he was used to all the stones that built the golems laying on the ground then forming the golem when he got close—that apparently wasn’t going to happen this time.

Wave Two Incoming in 5 Minutes…

“How do you want to do this?” Alanah asked from the side as her rapier appeared in her hand.

“Looks like we got five minutes,” Derek said. “Let’s take out the majority of them, then do some experimenting. What do you think?”

“That sounds like a plan,” the siren replied. “Start there…” she pointed in front of them. “I’ll work my way left and you work your way right.”

“Okay,” Derek said, then kicked off the ground until he was in the air. Next, he used a much more controlled Powerstride to end up in front of the first golem. As soon as he appeared, he was hit by a jet of boiling water and dozens of razer-sharp leaves. It’s a mix of a bunch of different element types. As he held his free forearm up in front of himself for protection, he studied the surrounding golems. He saw a golem with the typical blue water core, one with the usual red fire core, and one with what looked like a green nature core.

That’s cool, he thought. The last golem dungeon was water, fire, wind, and earth golems. He’d been in this level 250 dungeon for less than a minute and he’d already ran into a golem with a different element. Brandi’s going to love this. Mentally, Derek marked the nature cored golem as the ‘experimental’ golem.

Derek used Void Steps to jump higher into the air away from the attacks, then, with a flick of his wrist, a potion appeared in his hand and gulped it down—it was one of the skill potions he’d been… awarded for all his hard work. As soon as he drank the potion, he felt a sort of Zen-like feeling of calm wash over him and he smiled.

With the potion active, he focused his attention away from the nature golem and on the water one. Seems like the perfect time to work on my accuracy, he thought as he reached out with his free hand and made a grasping-like motion. Damn, just missed. He watched as the small box representing his Spatial Collapse skill took out a portion of the golem’s torso just to the left of its core. I’ll get it next time.

Derek kicked off a void ripple to dodge another jet of water, then winced as a huge explosion threatened to knock him out of the air. He looked over to where the fire golem was and saw Alanah floating above a pile of rocks. That was fast, he thought. Alanah then disappeared from sight and reappeared in front of another golem. Derek brought his focus back on the water golem he was fighting and continued.

This time, he didn’t miss. With a swipe of Harbinger, he activated Spatial Rend and a small space opened up directly in the center of the golem’s torso, where its core was. The next instant, a portion of the core disappeared, and the core began to glow brightly. More and more cracks spread out through the core like spiderwebs, then the bright light shot out of the core like a laser before a deafening explosion of blue light and shrapnel rang throughout the arena.

Derek batted a couple of pieces of stone down with his free hand as he waited for the dust on the ground to clear. Once it did, all that was left was another pile of rubble and a crater in the ground. Now she has one and I have… he began to think but was interrupted by another explosion in the distance. Like I was saying, now she has two and I have one.

He chuckled, then focused on an earth golem in the distance—leaving the nature golem for later. For the next two minutes, he used Powerstride to move between golems, and used every unleveled skill he had when it came off cooldown. Because there weren’t a ton of enemy golems, he took his time so he would have more opportunities to use his skills. This included Spatial Rend, Spatial Collapse, Chain Lightning, Multi-Strike with Whirlwind Slash, and even Chain Lightning—which, unfortunately, didn’t seem to do much to any golem other than water-based ones.

It would be dumb to defeat all the enemies quickly—without getting everything he could out of them. After all, each wave was timed and the next wave wouldn’t start just because they defeated all the other enemies.

With two minutes left until the next wave came, the entire area began to rumble as another golem—this one at looking to be at least three times the size of the others—rose from the center of the arena. Once the rumbling stopped, and Derek was able to make out the extremely bulky enemy, he saw that it was a giant, earth-based golem boss.

Derek licked his lips and prepared to launch himself toward the new threat, but before he was even able to activate a skill, he saw the cracks begin to spread out through its core as it prepared to explode. What the hell, Alanah? He clicked his tongue as the green-haired half elf appeared above the golem and she shot Derek her widest grin.

With the boss of the wave defeated, there were only two golems left standing—the nature-based one that Derek had kept alive, and what looked to be a lightning-based golem that Alanah had found. Derek finally set his sights on the nature golem, but before he went to fight it, Alanah appeared next to him.

“I want to watch how you do it,” Alanah said when he looked at her questioningly.

“Fine by me,” Derek replied before kicking off a void ripple and launching himself at the golem. The next instant, Harbinger disappeared back into his body and he began channeling as much void into his fist as possible. A moment later and Derek was directly in front of the nature golem’s core.

He activated Multi-Strike, then, with as much strength as he could muster, he struck out with his fist. His fist landed directly on the middle of the core and it began to glow. Dammit! He inwardly shouted as the core prepared to explode. Quickly, he moved his void energy to his other hand and struck with a palm. A second after the palm hit, the core glowed brighter, then dimmed.

The nature golem then lost all form, and the stones fell to the ground with a muffled thud. Derek breathed a sigh of relief as Alanah appeared next to him. “That took more than I was expecting,” he said as he let the void energy fade away from his hand. Next time I’ll try channeling the void into both hands and activating Multi-Strike, he thought. When he was sparring against the instructors of Thomas’s academy, he’d found out that he could easily split and channel the void into both hands because of his high wisdom and intelligence.

“Interesting,” Alanah said from beside him.

“Do you think you can do it?” he asked.

“I don’t know, maybe,” she answered. “I don’t have any delayed attack that… it looks like… hit the inside of something?” she both said and asked at the same time.

“Something like that,” Derek said. “I’m actually still not sure how it all works.” He shrugged. “I just know that it does.”

“Interesting,” Alanah said again. “That’s something you should look into. If there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s that you need to know the ins and outs of your own power.”

“It’s not like I don’t try,” Derek said as he watched the lightning-cored golem zip at them from across the arena. He looked at the countdown timer and they still had a short amount of time before the next wave. “Void is just…” He sighed and shook his head. “It’s a mystery, really. At least I know a bit more about it after some recent fights, but I feel like I’ve only just touched the surface. But I’m definitely trying.”

“Well…” Alanah shrugged. “At least you have a goal,” she said. “Now, let’s see if I can match what you just did.”

After that, she vanished from Derek’s sight, and when he saw next, she was hovering right in front of the lightning golem’s core. From the distance, he watched as she spread her arms out like she wanted to give it a giant hug, then she swiftly pushed them forward until they were resting on the front of the core.

“What the hell is she doing?”