Elias opened two of the three doors, each of them led to a small corridor—as he had done several times before, he opened a door, looked inside, closed it again and then tried the others. This way, if one direction seemed unusual, he could follow it immediately rather than continually try his luck with the first door he opened.
He reached towards the final door, twisted the knob and pushed, ready for yet another empty corridor. Immediately, a stench of rot pierced his senses as an almost visible gust escaped from the room ahead.
"Eugh!" He exclaimed as he covered his mouth and kicked the door open to look inside.
As the door opened, the interior ahead filled his view; damp and discoloured carpets covered the long floor of a rectangular room that stretched backwards around thirty paces. What looked like bookcases lined the edges and several worn tables and chairs occupied the bulk of the space centrally. Each table had an assortment of decrepit books, parchments and quills or piles of odd metallic doo-dads, all deteriorated to the point of disrepair.
Towards the end of the room stood an obsidian altar. Adorning the altar was a statuette of a single obsidian wing, it was roughly a third of the size of the altar, he wasn't close enough to see any details.
"This is new…?" Hemuttered to himself as he kept his hand covering his mouth and moved into the room. "Maybe this labyrinth was finally coming to an end?" Other than minor signs of vermin and cobwebs, there was no other obvious signs of life.
He moved further in, scanning his surroundings. It was slightly darker than the other rooms before it, likely due to this being one of the first decked out with furniture. He was low on mana but otherwise felt in good shape. He should be fine with another trap or two.
Despite his own internal reassurance, he couldn't help the anxiety that grew within.
He glanced back towards the door to ensure his exit was clear, it was. "Keep walking…"
He weaved around the tables and chairs, glancing over the contents for anything of value; the ink on the papers had faded and the trinkets were plain and rusted, a thick layer of dust covered all of it.
He froze a couple of steps away from the altar—his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, something he'd missed the moment he entered the room. There were footprints in the dust. They weren't human… they looked more like paw prints? He hadn't seen the tracks before and regardless of whether he had or not, he didn't think he'd recognise a creature from their footprints alone—he might have spent years in the forest, but he was never a tracker.
"Just don't be rats…" He said as he followed the web of tracks with his eyes, the pungent smell pushing through into his covered nose.
Since the first attack on Haven's Point, Elias had obsessed over anything related to Aberrations. Whenever a traveller passed through, he would inquisitively question them about their travels, their innate abilities and their interactions with the system; despite all of this, he had only built up a limited pool of knowledge.
What he did know however, was that Aberrations could come in any shape or size; it was simply a result of corruption having been injected into their bodies. This happened in several ways: Being birthed from a corrupted, prolonged exposure to corruption zones and even wounds from Aberrations could carry the taint of corruption; this list was non-exhaustive and covered only a few of the dozens of more elaborate ways Uthred had described corruption spreading.
What relevant did that have now? Almost any living or unliving entity on Eridoria could mutate into an Aberration. Insects, sure. Birds, yes. Goblins, mmhmm. But most importantly:
"Rats…" He said with frustration.
An intense scurrying of purple-hued, matted skin and fur jarred his vision as pairs of crimson orbs blinked into view. Who would have thought that the undiluted aggression and power bestowed on entities affected by corruption would have the worst effects on such otherwise harmless species in a world watched over by the System?
Every Awakened on the planet could ignore the nipping of simple vermin—that was until they grew to three foot long and a foot and a half wide with teeth as big as fingers.
"UTHRED!" He cursed as he drew his sword.
He positioned himself at the ready, his sword held firmly in his right hand, leaving his left free. He crouched slight and positioned his body to the three corrupted rats approaching him.
As one entered a pace's distance, Elias moved; he stepped diagonally towards the side of the encroaching creature, moving his sword in an arc down towards it. His sword moved quickly, almost whistling through the air. The rat, by instinct, attempted to dart out of the swords path. Elias twisted with his entire body, urging the sword onto its target—the sword crashed down, sparking off the stone floor, a wisp of red and black coating its point, a glancing blow. The Aberration that had been struck seemed unaffected, the other two now beginning to encircle.
The sword swept through the air again as Elias frantically stepped away from the beasts. "No!" He swung once more, catching empty space for a second time. "Ah!" He gasped.
"No thank you!" he thought as he desperately tried to avoid all three of the rats lunging at him.
The basic levels of discipline he had begun to show in his 'sparring' sessions with Uthred crumbled almost immediately as his mind pictured finger-sized yellow teeth in his thighs. Adrenaline surged throughout his body; his hands trembled and a mix of nervousness and excitement pulsed within.
Using his free left hand he upended a table, pushing a cloud of dust outwards as the table struck the ground on its side. It formed a slight barrier between him and one of the rats. Elias lunged, closing the distance quickly with the other two. His sword acted as blunt club rather than a deadly arc of steel as he failed to utilise his momentum, awkwardly pushing the sword toward one of them—it connected but contained no real power, a light wound appeared on the side of the rat, but that was it.
He tried to regain his footing after the awkward attack and tried to step away—instead of his regaining his balance, he yelped, "Ya-ouch!" a deep pain coursing through his nerves as the fangs of the other rat enveloped his shin.
"BAD TRADE!" he yelled.
A prompt flashed up in front of him:
[Life Points: 56 / 98]
Followed by another:
[Essence: 5/5]
Instinctively, both hands flew towards the rat that latched onto his leg, his footing and balance completely gone. Pain ignited through his nerves, shooting up into his spine.
THUMP!
[Essence: 0/5]
Energy coursed throughout his entire body, an immediate surge of power emanating from within; it laced every fibre of his being—for just a moment. Both his arms seemed to jump in time, and his perception couldn't keep up—they connected with the Aberration with a sickening crunch as his fists felt no resistance from the beast's hide. The sword that he had carried fell clumsily to the ground.
"What the fu--?!" He began, but his voice was cut off by a System Prompt blinking into his view:
[You have slain Rat – Aberration – Tier: 1 – x 1]
The mauled Aberration hung from his lower leg, its fangs still lodged firmly in his shin. The force of his own strike shocked him; the feeling of power was familiar, yet, distinct. It WAS the same intense primal force he'd experienced in the village—only it felt magnitudes weaker, it felt—His thoughts were interrupted as one of the other two remaining rats leapt towards him. He dived to the side, crashing into another table, just managing to escape a second savage maw.
He restrained his racing mind and tried to pull himself back into a 'readied' stance. Another rat lunged. He tried to dash backward but was caught in the arm as he avoided one beast to get caught by the other, the clumsy cling-on on his leg slowing his movement. He yelped out in pain.
[Life Points: 50 / 98]
[Essence: 5 / 5]
As if in a cycle, a pulse followed as soon as the pain came. His body reacted with primal force and power.
[You have slain Rat – Aberration – Tier: 1 – x 1]
He screamed internally; his body had once again instinctually mounted a defence. A second limp beast hung from his now overweight body. "What's going on with the Essence?" he thought. Every time they struck him, the essence store provided by his innate ability would fill, but it then immediately triggered some type of primal response from his own body… Nothing like this had happened during his training with Uthred.
[Essence: 0 / 5]
The last creature remained unphased by his lifeless brethren. Elias's one arm was hanging to his side and he couldn't move it. Not with the Aberrations fangs fastened into his flesh. He cursed to himself as he tried to formulate a plan to deal with the last monster; his sword was too far and his mana too low to turn the tide of the fight.
He dodged a couple more attacks by positioning the corpses hanging from him in the path of the final beasts strikes.
"Really, Elias?" He complained internally as he continued to move desperately, "That's the best plan you can come up with?!"
He gritted his teeth as he tried to mentally prepare himself. A stream of energy building in his channels—and he pushed it with his spirit, coursing it into position.
He froze mid-dodge. The Aberration lurching through the air. The mana he was channelling arrived just in time as he strained to lift his encumbered leg. The translucent orange that surged into the visible light spectrum cracked in less than a moment as the rat's fangs pierced straight through, sinking into his other leg.
[Life Points: 43 / 98]
[Essence: 5 / 5]
Confirming his intuition, primal energy coursed through him and his body succumbed to its will. His entire body squeezed together with such force that he could hear the crunch of bones from the Aberration that his own body had engulfed. Ichor pulsed from all orifices of the beast as the final notifications came into view.
[You have slain Rat – Aberration – Tier: 1 – x 1]
[You have slain a total of 3 / 3 foes – Foes killed: Rat – Tier: 1 – x 1]
He slumped to the floor; and pain wracked his body. "It worked" he thought as his lips twitched into a small smile. He had killed them. All three of them.
The butterflies in his stomach threatened to burst out of his stomach as a sense of excitement and euphoria overtook his sense of fear and rationale.