Chapter 4: The Debt of Bone
The darkness of the collapsed grocery store was absolute, a thick, moist blackness that smelled of spoiled produce, mold, and the new, acrid scent of goblin. Rocky paused just inside the entrance, letting his eyes adjust. His Skeletal Hound, Kline, stood motionless beside him—he'd named it moments ago, a clinical label for a tool. Its twin violet lights cut faint beams through the gloom, illuminating floating dust and the jagged edges of fallen shelving.
The sounds were clearer now. Up ahead, around a corner formed by a collapsed freezer unit, light flickered—the unstable orange glow of a torch. Panicked voices echoed, sharp with fear.
"Keep it back! Aim for the eyes!"
"I'm out of mana! The heal's on cooldown!"
"There's too many!"
Goblin chatter, a cacophony of high-pitched shrieks and clicks, overlaid the human voices. Rocky filtered the noise, isolating the data. Four, maybe five human voices. At least eight distinct goblin vocal patterns. The acoustics suggested a chamber about thirty feet ahead. The entrance to the deeper pocket, where the Shadowseeker and the chest would be, was likely behind the goblin swarm, past the trapped party.
He could wait. Goblins were cowardly. If the party fell, the survivors would loot the bodies and likely retreat to their deeper lair, sated. He could then mop up the wounded, claim the chest. Efficient. Clean.
But time was a resource. And the party's desperate struggle was a useful distraction. A living, fighting distraction was more valuable than a corpse.
He moved forward, Kline gliding silently beside him. He peered around the edge of the broken freezer.
The scene was a tableau of amateurish despair. The chamber was a former stockroom, now open to the main store through a collapsed wall. Five students were backed into a corner, surrounded by a jittering ring of nine [Lesser Cave Goblins - Level 2]. The goblins were small, green, and vicious, armed with rusted kitchen knives and sharpened bone clubs.
The party was a mess. A boy with a buckler and a mace [Apprentice Defender] was trying to hold the line, his blocks clumsy. A [Novice Archer] girl was frantically nocking arrows, her hands shaking so badly she'd already missed twice. Two others—a [Novice Mage] and a [Novice Healer]—looked drained, their mana pools spent. The fifth was a [Rogue Scoundrel], trying to flank but getting pushed back by the press of bodies.
They were losing. The Defender's HP was at a third. The Healer was crying, useless.
Rocky analyzed the geometry of the fight. The goblins were focused on the meat—the Defender and the frantic Archer. Their formation was a crude semicircle. The path to the cracked-open service door at the rear of the room—the likely path deeper—was momentarily clear, guarded only by a single, scrawny goblin picking its nose.
His objective was beyond that door. The party was an obstacle between him and it. But they could be repurposed.
He didn't announce himself. He gave a mental command. "Kline. Draw attention. Left flank. Hit and fade."
The Skeletal Hound melted into the deeper shadows along the wall. A moment later, from the left side of the goblin pack, there was a dry crunch and a gurgling shriek. One of the goblins dragging a knife along the Defender's shield spun, its throat a ruin of bone shards, and collapsed.
The goblin pack screeched, confusion breaking their formation. Three of them peeled away from the main group, chattering in rage, and lunged into the shadows after Kline.
The pressure on the party eased instantly. The Defender gasped in relief, shoving a goblin back. The Archer finally landed a shot, taking a goblin in the shoulder.
Now, Rocky stepped into the flickering torchlight. He didn't draw a weapon. He held only the jagged padlock hasp.
"You," he said, his voice cutting through the noise. He pointed at the Rogue, who was closest to him. "The scrawny one by the door. Now. Silent take-down."
The Rogue, a wiry boy named Leo whom Rocky vaguely remembered from math class, stared at him, eyes wide with the shock of recognition and the absurdity of the order. "Yun Chen? What are you—?"
"Do you want to live?" Rocky asked, the same flat, undeniable tone he'd used outside. "That goblin is isolated. Your \[Backstab\] multiplier works on distracted targets. It's distracted. Kill it. Clear the exit."
The logic was irrefutable. The command was absolute. Leo, propelled by survival instinct and the sudden appearance of a plan, nodded. He ducked low, using the commotion as Kline led the three pursuing goblins on a chaotic chase through the debris, and slithered towards the lone goblin at the door.
"You," Rocky pointed to the Mage. "You have \[Frost Flicker\]. Not for damage. Aim at the floor in front of the three goblins on the right. Create a slippery patch. Now."
The Mage, a girl named Anya, blinked. "But it does no damage, it's just a slow—"
"Now."
She flinched and cast. A wash of pale blue energy sprayed across the stained linoleum, coating it in a thin, greasy layer of ice. The three goblins trying to advance on the Defender immediately lost their footing, skidding and falling in a heap.
"Defender, push forward. Archer, focus fire on the downed ones. One arrow each, head or throat."
"Healer, conserve. Your next heal is for the Rogue, after his strike."
In ten seconds, he'd assumed tactical control. He wasn't fighting for them; he was directing a resource. The party, stunned by his clarity, obeyed. Leo reached the lone goblin and drove his dagger into its kidney with a critical \[Backstab\]. The goblin died with a squeak. The path to the service door was clear.
Meanwhile, the Defender, empowered, roared and shoved forward, his mace cracking the skull of a prone goblin. The Archer, with a stable target, landed two clean kills.
Kline re-emerged from the shadows, the three goblins that had chased it now lying broken-necked in its wake. It trotted to Rocky's side, unblemished.
The remaining goblins, seeing half their number dead in moments, their formation shattered, broke. They dropped their weapons and scrambled back into the deeper darkness of the store, chattering in terror.
Silence fell, broken only by the heavy panting of the students. The stockroom was a charnel house of tiny green corpses. They stared at Rocky, then at his skeletal hound, their expressions a mix of awe, terror, and profound confusion.
"You… you saved us," the Defender, a boy named Marcus, wheezed, leaning on his mace.
"I utilized you," Rocky corrected, his gaze already on the now-open service door. Beyond it, a steep, rough staircase led down into deeper blackness. The air from below was colder, carrying a faint, phosphorescent glow and the scent of wet stone and something… metallic. "The debt is paid."
"Debt?" Anya the Mage asked, confused.
"You distracted the swarm. I provided direction. The transaction is balanced." He began walking toward the service door.
"Wait!" Leo the Rogue called out, nursing a shallow cut on his arm. "Where are you going? It's dangerous down there! There's a bigger one, a shadowy thing… it took Jax's whole party earlier!"
So, others had come and failed. Good. That meant the chest was likely still unopened.
"I am aware," Rocky said, not stopping.
"Then don't go! We can… we can group up!" Marcus said, a desperate hope in his voice. They had seen his effectiveness. They wanted his protection.
Rocky paused at the top of the stairs. He looked back at them, his face illuminated from below by the eerie glow. "You are wounded. Low on mana. Your group cohesion is non-existent. You would be a liability." He stated it as a physical fact, like the temperature or the time of day. "Return to the Safe Zone. Loot the goblins. Sell the materials. Recover."
He turned to descend.
"At least… what's your class?" Anya blurted out, the question burning in all of them. "How do you know all this? What is that thing?" She pointed a trembling finger at Kline.
Rocky didn't look back. His final words floated up from the descending darkness, followed by the soft, clicking steps of bone on stone.
"I am the solution to problems. It is a tool. That is all you need to know."
Then, he was gone.
The five students stood amidst the goblin corpses, the adrenaline crash leaving them cold and hollow. They had survived, but they felt inexplicably smaller. They had been instruments, played by a master, and then set aside.
---
The stairs descended into a natural cavern system the collapse had revealed. The walls were slick with moisture, glowing with patches of faint blue bioluminescent fungus. It was cold. The air hummed with a low, predatory silence.
Rocky moved with absolute silence, Kline a ghost at his heel. His senses, sharpened by hyper-awareness rather than stats, scanned the cavern. The main chamber opened ahead, a dome of stone about forty feet across. In the center, atop a crude dais of rubble, sat a battered iron-bound chest.
And between him and the chest, standing perfectly still in the deepest shadow of the chamber, was the guardian.
[Goblin Shadowseeker - Level 6 (Rare)]
A goblin shaman mutated by proximity to unstable spatial mana. Can phase through solid shadows. Wields curses and psychic strikes.
It was taller than its kin, emaciated, its skin a dark, mottled grey instead of green. It clutched a gnarled staff topped with a stolen human skull. Its eyes were pools of shifting darkness. It hadn't seen him yet. It was gazing at the chest, muttering in a guttural tongue.
Rocky's mind raced. A Level 6 Rare. Phasing ability. Curses. A direct fight was borderline suicidal, even with Kline. His health was still at 65 from the Badger fight. A single curse could cripple him.
But he hadn't come for a fight. He'd come for a catalyst. And he had just acquired a new, earth-aligned component.
He retreated back around the bend in the tunnel, out of sight. He pulled the [Ring of Minor Earth Affinity] from his pocket. It felt cool and heavy. He then retrieved the [Necromancer's Finger Bone] he'd taken from the cave days earlier. The two items hummed in his hands, a discordant note—earthy stability and necrotic potential.
He had no crafting skill. But he had the God of All Professions understanding of synergies, and the Sovereign's instinct for binding forces. He wasn't going to craft an item. He was going to perform a crude, forceful attunement.
He placed the ring on the ground. He held the Finger Bone above it, focusing. He didn't try to merge them physically. He willed the earth affinity in the ring to anchor the death-aspected power in the bone. To give it a locus, a foundation. He poured his intent into the act, the icy headache returning, a sign of his unconventional power use.
The ring' dull grey glow brightened, then flowed upward, encasing the yellowed bone in a thin, stony shell. The bone vibrated, and a pulse of dark violet energy shot into the ring. For a second, they resisted, then, with a soft click felt in his soul rather than his ears, they harmonized. The stone shell cracked, but held, veins of violet light now running through it.
Crude Synthesis Successful.
Item Forged: [Earthy Sepulcher Bone].
Type: Catalyst / Focus.
Effect: Can be used to anchor necromantic rituals to a physical location. +10% stability to undead creation within 10 yards of this focus.
It was ugly, imperfect. But it was his. And it was the key.
He crept back to the edge of the chamber. The Shadowseeker was still there, pacing now. Rocky's eyes scanned the floor. There. Near the wall, a patch of total darkness cast by a large stalagmite, connected by a long shadow to the dais.
He held the newly forged bone. His target wasn't the goblin. It was the shadow.
He focused on the deep patch of darkness, then on the bone in his hand. He issued a new decree, a bastardization of the \[Shadow Fetch\] principle, but amplified and anchored by the catalyst. "Not a fetch. A snare. A pit. Here, in this shadow, I claim the earth's memory of gravity and the void's hunger."
He channeled a massive 50 Stamina and a sliver of that sovereign will. The icy pain spiked, making his vision swim. He thrust the [Earthy Sepulcher Bone] forward, and it vanished from his hand, not traveling, but appearing already embedded in the center of the targeted shadow.
The shadow deepened. It didn't move, but its two-dimensional plane seemed to drop away into infinite depth. The air above it warped.
Trap Manifested: [Grave-Shadow Snare].
Duration: 1 minute. Any corporeal entity stepping into the affected shadow area will trigger [Umbral Quicksand] (Movement reduced to 10%, constant minor damage) and [Soul Anchor] (Cannot use teleportation or phasing abilities).
It was a one-shot, area-denial trap. A direct counter to a phasing enemy.
Now, for the bait.
He looked at Kline. "Aggressive approach. Draw it. Lead it to the snare. Do not engage. Survive."
Kline's eye-lights flared. It shot out from the tunnel entrance, bones clattering loudly on the stone floor.
The Shadowseeker spun, its dark eyes fixing on the skeletal intruder. It hissed, a sound like tearing velvet, and raised its skull-staff. A bolt of condensed darkness, a [Psychic Lash], shot toward Kline.
The Hound, following its command perfectly, didn't attack. It sprinted in a wide arc, the dark bolt scorching the stone where it had been. It was leading the goblin on a chase, circling the chamber, heading towards the stalagmite and the hidden snare.
The Shadowseeker shrieked in rage. It preferred ambush, not pursuit. It lunged, moving with unnerving speed, its form blurring at the edges. It began to phase, its body turning smoky as it prepared to teleport through a shadow directly behind Kline.
It chose the long shadow connecting the stalagmite to the dais.
The moment its phased form touched the area of the [Grave-Shadow Snare], the trap activated.
The deep shadow erupted. Tendrils of solidified darkness, mixed with grasping, spectral hands of earth, shot up and coiled around the Shadowseeker's insubstantial form. It was violently wrenched back into corporeality with a sound like a scream being stifled. It was trapped, waist-deep in what looked like black, sucking tar, its phasing ability completely locked.
Target Afflicted: [Umbral Quicksand].
Target Afflicted: [Soul Anchor].
It thrashed, howling, trying to cast a curse, but the snare's damage was constant, disrupting its concentration.
Rocky didn't cheer. He moved. While the Rare monster was helpless, he sprinted across the chamber, not toward the monster, but toward the chest. The dais. He reached the iron-bound box. The lock was simple. A heavy rock from the floor solved it. He threw the lid open.
Inside, on a bed of moldy cloth, lay three items: a small pouch of coins, a \[Lesser Healing Potion\], and a single, long, curved fang that gleamed with a sinister purple light.
Item Acquired: [Shadow Fang].
Type: Weapon / Catalyst.
A fang from a creature of the umbra. Can be used to craft daggers with armor-penetration, or as a high-grade catalyst for shadow or death-aligned classes.
The true prize. The class-specific catalyst. But for him, it was something else. It was a key, a component, and a weapon core all in one. He snatched all three items, stuffing them into his spatial inventory.
A furious, gurgling shriek reminded him of the monster. The [Grave-Shadow Snare] was fading, the [Earthy Sepulcher Bone] crumbling to dust as its energy spent. The Shadowseeker was pulling itself free, wounded, enraged, its HP down by a third from the trap's damage.
It saw him at the chest. Its eyes blazed with hatred. It raised its staff, ignoring Kline, and a wave of palpable dread, a [Curse of Weakness], washed toward Rocky.
He felt it hit—a chilling lethargy, a sapping of strength. His muscles felt heavy. A debuff icon appeared.
Afflicted: [Minor Curse of Weakness] (All stats -3 for 5 minutes).
Troubling. But not fatal. He had what he came for.
"Kline," he commanded, his voice slightly strained. "Harass. Do not let it cast."
The Skeletal Hound charged the hobbled Shadowseeker from behind, snapping at its legs. The goblin shaman was forced to turn, swatting at the undead with its staff.
Rocky didn't stay to fight. He turned and ran, not back the way he came, but down a smaller, narrower tunnel he'd noted earlier—a likely escape route for the goblins. It would loop back toward the surface somewhere else.
He fled, the sounds of combat fading behind him. He'd exploited the trapped party, created a tailored trap with scavenged components, secured the objective, and was now disengaging from a superior foe. No glorious battle. No wasted effort. Pure, efficient predation.
As he emerged into the late afternoon light from a sewer grate two blocks from the grocery store, the \[Curse of Weakness] making his limbs ache, he checked his inventory. The \[Shadow Fang] pulsed with cold power.
He had the catalyst. He had the experience. He had a loyal, if simple, weapon.
The foundation was laid. It was time to build his throne.
[End of Chapter 4]