"Ugh..." She was holding back her tears, looking around their base camp. The company had barely managed to set up a safe barrier on one of the wider landings of the shield stairs. Painful moans and the beastly growls of undead striking the barrier filled the atmosphere. She could barely think straight with all the snarling and roars of monsters, thirsting for their blood.
After what felt like days in the darkness, she was looking at just over half of her guild members. Most of them were injured, many critically, barely holding on thanks to the healers. Hexhoell was completely different from what they had heard. According to reports, it was supposed to be one massive staircase all the way down, but after the first few landings its became a complete labyrinth.
Landing, big and small, appeared at random with wide and narrow staircases splitting off into different directions. Sometimes the walls bordering the stairs vanished, giving a view of a dark abyss with random stairs splitting off and leading deeper down.
They had stayed on what they perceived as the main staircase for as long as they could until it simply ended in a landing with three staircases splitting off. All the while fighting hordes of undead spawning ahead and behind them. Those kicked off the ledge of the stairs would even fall on their head from above...
Not only was the path different. She swallowed hard. She had heard that the monsters on the shield stairs were tougher, but had a lower attack power, which felt like bullshit now. Most of their casualties were among the tanks manning the front lines because the undead not only had overwhelming numbers but also unexpectedly high attack damage.
Guilt was eating her from the inside out. She had led these people to their deaths. Led by a thirst for revenge and empty bravado, she had wanted to play the hero. Now she realized that she had talked a lot without knowing what she had gotten herself and her guild into...
Had her father felt like this, too? Had he also faced this dungeon and despaired? maybe he even sat at the same landing they did at one point... But she could show it. If she fell apart, everyone here was doomed.
The best bet was trying to return. They didn't know when they could reach the bottom of these stairs and how many more they would lose on the way there. On the other hand, they knew the way back. This landing might be the last chance to turn around before they reach the point of no return.
But if they did that, all the sacrifices they had made thus far would be for naught...
"Alright, everyone, I made a decision. As this affects everyone, I decided to have a vote. The question is easy. Should we turn around and try to get back to the exit, rendering the sacrifices of our comrades meaningless? Or should we make a dash for the bottom? A last hail marry, ignoring the fact we lost most of our tanks?"
A better leader may have just made the decision, as asking for opinions had a chance of splitting the group, but she couldn't not get their opinion. Their lives were on the line, and they deserved it. She was convinced.
"What do you mean? Of course, we are getting to the bottom, right guys?" a tank, who had lost an arm and was still being treated, exclaimed with a rough laugh.
"Yeah, turning around now? We are probably more than halfway through the dungeon. Getting to the bottom may be the safer bet," another man with a fresh eye patch argued.
To her surprise, the group was not split at all. They unanimously decided to get to the bottom of this staircase. Their rowdy banter even returned some of her lost hope. Maybe there really was a chance for them to make, or at least most of them?
With embers of hope rekindled, she prepared for their departure.
...
"Hope... what a dirty, miserable venom," she thought, staring at the bisected body of Berta, the last guild member beside her. She was huddled in the corner of a narrow stairwell, after their raid party was completely split by a mini-boss dropping from the darkness above.
A giant undead, wielding a cleaver the size of a door... It was also what had gotten Berta. Nadine could no longer hold back her tears. Hot, thick pearls of water ran down her cheeks, drawing trails in the dirt on her face.
The scene kept replaying in her mind over and over. It had only been an hour since they left the landing. They arrived at a landing that was like a corner, with several side stairs and entrances to stairwells.
They were keeping a tight formation to resist the strengthened undead that constantly surrounded them when a giant hunk of rotten meat dropped in the middle of their group. The unlucky ones were instantly smashed.
Like a mountain of rotten flesh and muscles, it swung the giant cleaver like a cudgel, throwing them in all directions. Bertha had shielded her, as they were both hit by the crude edge. Without her sacrifice, Nadine would have been bisected like her.
What was left of them was catapulted into this narrow stairwell. She roughly remembered falling down the stairs with the burly woman for a while before she smashed against the wall, letting go of the already lifeless torso...
However, she didn't get to mourn for long; she barely had time to think. Empty red eyes appeared on the stairs above and below her landing. The dim light of the crystal around dead Bertha's neck was just enough for her to grasp her situation.
Looking at these cold beasts crawling closer in the shadows, rage boiled up inside her. Fueled by the desperate fear of death, she decided that she wouldn't make it easy for these pieces of shit. She swallowed her tears and snot. Using the wall behind her as support, her backup saber appeared in her left hand.
"Come at me, you bitches..." she wheezed, driven by pure spite and rage. She pointed the saber, giving off a pale blue light, at the darkness. The snarl of the undead echoed in the stairwell as they charged at her from above and below.
Nadine closed her eyes as a vial appeared in her hand, beside the saber handle. She let it fall on the ground. The next moment, the whole landing was bathed in brilliant light, burning the first wave to ashes.
"He, I was supposed to keep this for the boss fight. No use holding back now..." she mumbled. A scroll appeared in her hand, and she used the moment bought with the holy water grenade to rip the scroll with her teeth.
"I will take along as many of you as I can," she mumbled as a white golden aura enveloped her body, healing superficial wounds and smaller injuries. Her right arm did not regenerate, but the stump healed over, stopping the bleeding and pain.
The spell contained in the scroll was the Blessing of the Paladin, giving her a holy aura that not only increased her stats but could burn any undead with a mere touch. With her wound healed and energy recovered, she threw herself into the unending flood of undead pushing up the stairs.
Not just her blade left puffs of ashes in its wake. Her whole body became a deadly weapon, and the undead reacted to her touch like a vampire to the sun. She left a trail of dust, rushing down the steps, taking whole stairs at once, bouncing from landing to landing.
Maybe, just maybe, she was able to reach the final step of these stairs before the buff ran out. Hope, the dirty, miserable venom had yet to leave her system.