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.

dead-end paths, traps, and hallways that would make you walk in circles for a few hours, if not days, while heading straight for

this was the only one he had bothered entering, which leads back to the original question… why was he so sure the key was in this room

Intuition.

advantages. His intuition had told him this was

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

and potentially even blow it off the tower, but things did not go as expected. The second the arrow

over fifty Skeleton Mages stand and channel with their staffs, led by a Captain also holding a staff. The barrier extended up from the ramparts but did not cover the gate leading below, making it quite apparent you were meant to through there and not use ranged attacks from afar. In essence, Minaga wanted to force them

to go through each rampart individually,” the Sword Saint said, having seen Jake’s failed

to bombard the barrier until it breaks,”

it will be faster to just go through directly,”

with the swordsman; trying to destroy each barrier individually is a waste of time,” the

join his party that was already charging the first rampart. When they got close, the mages stopped channeling energy

groups clashed. One with hundreds of skeletons twenty to thirty levels above their opponents, and the other three humanoids, a bird, and a Unique Lifeform.

of water cut bones apart and sent limbs flying, arcane explosions bombarded all the skeleton mages as

distance, nearly a hundred Skeleton Marksmen released a rain of arrows, but the attacks were all met with a green whirlwind that scattered their attack. Without even bothering to make sure they finished off all the skeletons, their party moved forward while staying close to each other

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

remaining skeletons seemed to get some kind of buff. The Captains around the boss also seemed to get stronger as they

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

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

battle for several minutes as the Sword Saint failed 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

Saint both, they managed to push back the Bonelord despite it constantly healing and getting empowered for every skeleton that died around them. It was 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

as the King had the remaining skeletons handled, they finally managed to get the decisive blow, and soon enough, the Bonelord stopped regenerating and died. The second it fell,

flashing and disappearing. Jake faintly saw that

was. As they made it back to the hallway and into it, the disembodied voice of

go, and you can open the gate and continue. You got lucky once, but I shall still wish

room with the second key in hand, a crumbling volcano, and hundreds of dead elementals of the lava and earth variety in their

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

unlikely happening two times is a coincidence, but three 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

things are supposed 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, could do one of these things, that would be one thing, but both? Really? Isn’t that a bit too much?

way back towards the gate that required the four keys at a brisk pace as they listened to Minaga complain about their group. It had to be noted that he only complained. There was