The Primal Hunter

”Lucky bunch! Found your way to the first room right off the bat without encountering any dead ends! Now to find the key… if there even is one here!” Minaga said with his usual glee as Jake and company walked out of what looked like a wall of fog and entered a massive chamber. As their host had explained, these large chambers did not have any of the usual mist, and it felt liberating to finally be free of the restrictive environment.

On second thought, merely calling the chamber they had entered massive was a bit fallacious. It was pretty darn humongous and seemed to be at least a good hundred kilometers deep with a width of about two kilometers. This narrowness was heavily used, as what appeared in the distance was a derelict-looking massive castle with plenty of defenses in front of it.

In front of the castle, a dozen rows of ramparts went from wall to wall, with every one of these walls filled with creatures. Taking a deep breath, Jake could practically smell the death energy emanating from the chamber, which made sense considering the enemies he saw on the ramparts.

Using Identify, the theme was pretty damn obvious.

[Skeleton Swordsman – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Spearman– lvl 240]

[Skeleton Marksman – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Mage – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Captain – lvl 245]

“Skeletons, huh,” Jake muttered. ”So original.”

He and the others waited for a few seconds, but nothing came. Jake looked at the ceiling of the chamber, wondering if their dear host had decided to leave, but he still felt them being observed. Maybe he didn’t talk while they were inside the chambers?

“I assume there is some kind of boss here,” the Sword Saint said.

“Let me check real quick,” Jake said as he jumped and summoned his wings. He flew all the way to the ceiling in little time and peered past the many ramparts towards the castle. There, standing on a large tower atop the castle, he saw a large skeleton in fine ivory armor surrounded by several Skeleton Captains.

[Skeleton Bonelord – lvl 250]

”Found it, level 250 at the central castle. Likely the one with the key. If not, it should be easy to find if we make it to the castle,” Jake said through the golden mark left by the King.

Now, why was Jake so sure the key was there in the room?

Finding the room itself had been pretty simple using his Pulse of Perception. Throughout the last fifteen months in Nevermore, Jake had to use far more Pulses than ever before, allowing him to slowly build up more and more resistance to the point where he could now do it pretty comfortably at regular intervals without getting a headache.

traps, and hallways that would make you walk in circles for

In fact, Jake spotted four during their run, but this was the only one he had bothered entering, which leads

Intuition.

cheats. He also had all his other totally balanced advantages. His intuition had told him this was the room to check out, so even if Minaga tried to muddy the

out his bow and took aim as he began charging an Arcane Powershot. He saw no reason not to rush through this room and move on quickly, and on the way there, he and the others had agreed to do things fast. Jake wanted to get a good opening shot on the boss,

go of the string, releasing an explosion of arcane energy as his arrow of destruction surged forward. Jake had expected it to soar toward the boss and potentially even blow it off the tower, but things did not go as expected. The second the arrow appeared above the first of the many defensive ramparts leading further into the room, a barrier sprung up,

with their staffs, led by a Captain also holding a staff. The barrier extended up from the ramparts but did not cover the

each rampart

the barrier until it

many… it will be faster to just go through directly,” the old man

swordsman; trying to destroy each barrier individually is a waste of time,” the Fallen King agreed. “It isn’t like the alternative

his party that was already charging the first rampart. When they got close, the mages stopped channeling energy into the barrier to face them in combat as nearly a hundred melee-focused skeletons stood in

clashed. One with hundreds of skeletons twenty to thirty levels above their opponents, and the

sent limbs flying, arcane explosions bombarded all the skeleton mages as

their attack. Without even bothering to

the entire wall was torn apart as the Fallen King released a golden beam of energy to blow away all the skeletons guarding it. Jake, not wanting to be outdone, went ham at the sixth one as a fully-charged Arcane Powershot one-shot the Captain of the skeletons while blowing up several more skeletons unlucky enough to stand too close. Joining in on the fun, the Sword Saint went in first on the seventh as he used his Rainblade and released a torrent of slashes, killing dozens of skeletons within a minute while also taking down the Captain. Sylphie and Dina didn’t get to take down a rampart solo

the boss also seemed to get stronger as they all jumped off the tower

arrow before it had even gotten a quarter of the way, with a second getting embedded by a substantial wave of force. The Bonelord seemed angry and jumped off the tower, too, as it pulled out

never even got close as the Sword Saint met it mid-air, and after a brief exchange of blows, the Bonelord was forced back with a few cuts on its otherwise pristine armor but was otherwise unharmed. What little injuries it had taken rapidly healed as it released a dense white aura of pure death energy. All around it, the death mana from the many slain skeletons began

to ever get any substantial advantage, even after he made slight use of his boosting skill. Jake ended up joining in as the constant army of skeletons storming out from within the castle started to die down, and Dina handled all those chasing after them from the earlier ramparts. Sylphie and the Fallen King would also soon be done with the Captains

burning through energy at a ludicrous pace as Jake counted himself blowing off the Bonelord’s head at least ten times. It kept fighting with its

the Bonelord stopped regenerating and died. The second it fell, the wisps of deathly fire burning within the eyes of all the skeletons were also snuffed out as they crumbled like marionettes with their strings

saw that a small tattoo of the same rune had

as they rushed out of the room towards where the next key was. As they made it back

that was pretty damn good! Made it look easy. There was even a key for you! Three more to go, and you can open the gate and continue. You

and hundreds of dead elementals of the lava and earth variety in their wake, their dear

say, you are quite a lucky bunch! Straight from one room holding a key into the next! Almost makes me think you found a way to circumvent all my checks and balances and aren’t just getting extremely lucky, but that can’t be, right? Nah, definitely not, so

times? Now, that is a pattern. Then again, some people are really just that lucky, you know? Even I cannot get around some of the more intangible aspects of this world, and I guess it is entirely possible you merely have increased luck or perhaps some kind of reality-bending skill? Though my mist would stop that… hm… I guess there is also that… Nah, that is too

to work, and you clearly found a way to not only be aware of the layout of the labyrinth but also correctly determine which rooms hold keys, which is honestly impressive. See, if you, my dear guests,

be noted that he only complained. There was no interference or even direct questions posed to any of them. It was more like he was