14 - Absurd New Levels

She fired a two-handed blast of red light at me, and I let out a really manly, “Eep!” while cringing away from the magic. Pretty heroic, right?

Would you believe it? The magic death laser bounced right off the lamp, saving my life. Guess it wasn’t so useless after all.

The elven hybrid looked even more confused. But only for a moment. Then, with her eyes on me, she began circling the pit of babies in my direction in a very menacing fashion.

I, of course, planted my feet, pointed the spear at her, and prepared to slaughter that demi-god monster and gain some sweet, sweet levels.

Ha! Just kidding! I noped right out of there like a bat outta hell. “Fuck no. Fuck this. I’m so done with you guys.” I sprinted across the chamber, dodging babies on the floor lest it put them into even more of a frenzy than they already were. That lasted until I checked over my shoulder for pursuit and saw the elven hybrid aiming at me again. I dove like I was sliding into second base and smeared at least three baby scorpions across the floor, their guts and gunk all over my chest and stomach.

Even from across the room, I could hear the elven hybrid hiss in response. It’s not like there weren’t about five thousand more in the room, but a mom’s gotta mom, right? I could respect that. Better than parents who didn’t care. Speaking of, the ogre hybrid didn’t seem to care. He just kept yanking on those chains, forever trying to escape. I didn’t know if he was a prisoner of the elven hybrid or if she’d just found him already locked up here and was somehow taking advantage. Or maybe they were a couple. Maybe they had some bondage thing going on, and the ogre had forgotten the safe word a few hundred years ago. And she was just really, really stubborn about it.

I peeled myself off the floor, then ducked behind a stalagmite as thick as a redwood tree. Of course, the damned thing was covered in hand-sized babies crawling all over the moss as fast as they could as the treasure chamber continued to fall apart with deafening cracks and the ogre hybrid yanked his chains non-stop. But it kept me from being shot at and vaporized.

Unfortunately, the larger babies from the pit were not just spilling over the edges in their pandemonium; they were spreading out across the room. By the thousands. I watched with stupefied fascination as a carpet of them filled the cavern between me and the exit. I heard the ogre hybrid bellow something and the elven hybrid screeching. The sea of scorpions was coming closer and closer. There was no way I could fight them all.

One crawled onto my foot. I jerked my foot away, then stomped it. One dropped onto my back, and I twirled, trying to reach around and get it off. More fell on me, crawling over my robes and in my hair. They must have been shaken from the stalagmite as the cavern shook. Lightning bolts flashed and hit me from point-blank range. Worse, two momma-sized ones came out of nowhere from both my left and my right. They rushed me, pincers open. I was screwed.

I’d stopped using the headlamp when I’d first entered the scorpion room because of the glowing moss, and there’s been no need for it in the lava room. Somehow, the thing was still on my head.

I turned the light on, and I cranked the power up.

Golden brilliance flared, and even my eyes hurt. I had to stop using my scorpion vision. For the actual scorpions, it must have been so much worse. Like that guy parting the Red Sea, the scorpions all parted before me. I dashed forward, hearing cries of pain from both hybrids as the sudden light blinded them, too. I didn’t look back. I booked it for the exit. I almost made it unscathed, but one of those red rays must have gotten me because I felt a searing on one shoulder before I was in the tunnel, and the angle made me safe.

I knew the tunnel was going to be bad news, but I didn’t even slow down. I ran full-tilt. Maybe that elven hybrid was too big to follow, maybe not. Her baby horde could, though. I rounded the first bend and plowed into chaos. The shaking ground wasn’t as bad in the tunnel, but it had been enough to bring the scorpions out of their rest and into the tunnel and side chambers in panic and fear. The narrow passage was thick with them. I ran face-first into a tail so tall it touched the ceiling. A papa battling a momma. I bounced off, and as both sharply drew away from my light, I scooted past.

I continued up the incline, shouldering scorpions aside, kicking ones too close, and shoving with my spear. I tried not to drive the point into any of them, not wanting to get stuck fighting and then overwhelmed. I just needed to push through, push past. A closed pincer slammed into my ribs and drove me into the wall. All the air left my lungs, and my legs buckled. But I threw myself forward and pushed onward. Scrabbling legs tore at me. Pincers ripped the cloth of my robes. Cuts opened up on my legs and arms.

A tail smashed into my head twice, so hard I couldn’t open my right eye. When I fell, a pincer punched me in the mouth, and I felt teeth loosen. The headlamp fell to the ground. I spit blood, snatched the rock up, heaved the scorpion away, and ran on, blind until I held the rock to the crystal in my forehead. Light bloomed again, driving the creatures back.

I sensed sunlight ahead. I was almost at the surface exit!

The sound of sharp feet tapping stone came from behind. Pincers snipped and cut right through my right buttock. Sliced right through my ass.

I screamed and fell. I dropped the rock and just had the presence of mind to roll onto my back and defend myself with the spear. The scorpion seemed furious, relentless. I could barely keep it away by kicking and jabbing the spear at it while I frantically dragged myself backward, toward the light. One bloody inch at a time, sobbing from the excruciating pain, my right leg useless. I got lucky. The scorpion blocked a thrust, but it ended up directing the thrust right into its own face. Bronze plunged into the creature’s mouth. It shook its whole body and finally backed off.

Sobbing like a wounded soldier fleeing a battlefield, I crawled out of the cave and onto sand again. Terrified the monster scorpion was going to pursue, I swam up the side of the pit outside the entrance and up to the desert proper, into afternoon light. Looking back, I saw it sitting in the shadows, watching me. So I kept crawling away, all the way to the oasis.

I barely made it. I found a hole near the water I’d dug before with a palm frond parasol near. I eased into it, barely able to think straight from the pain. My robes were soaked with blood, and I’d lost so much that I was growing lightheaded. Looking back, I’d left a streak of red across the golden desert. I felt my strength leaving me, and with the adrenaline finally winding down, the pain and exhaustion ate away at my soul. Why did I keep enduring this nonsense?

“No. Fuck you. I won’t give up.”

Grinding my teeth together so hard they might crack further, I fumbled the robes off. I wrapped my ass as tight as I could, hoping I wasn’t bleeding to death. Muscle and tendons had been completely severed, and I couldn’t use the leg at all. My whole body was a mess of injuries and blood. I felt like that mad run through the tunnel had been through a blender. Despite that, I blacked out.

I came to in the evening, the sun only a sliver on the horizon, the sky dark. Blinking through a crust of dried blood in my eyes, I saw large forms in the distance. My vision gradually cleared, and I saw the scorpions hunting me. The desert was thick with them, and for some reason, they weren’t attacking each other.

Hatred boiled within me. Why couldn’t the fucking things leave me alone? I was so sick of scorpions! I glared at the bitch-ass motherfuckers and growled, “I will not give up. I will not let you get me.”

Dragging your bloody ass into water with open wounds is dumb. But the scorpions wouldn’t swim out to get me. So I did it. The arachnids scuttled all over. They fought and killed the assassin spiders coming out of the trees. Every other creature in the area died a pitiless death. At one point, a red and white snake as long as a city bus slithered by and drew every scorpion around into an epic battle. The snake would rear, hood flaring like a cobra, and its poison was devastating. But it could not hold out. The sheer number of enemies wore it down. Thankfully, the meal distracted them until sunrise, when the scorpions vanished back under the sand.

I’d been able to wait the night in the shallows. Which is good because I was too weak to swim. With the last of my strength, body cold from loss of energy and blood, I made it halfway out of the water before my strength gave out. I was at my limit.

I lay there on my side, water on my legs, dry sand under my chest. The rising sun peeked over the horizon and began its climb. The dark blue of the night sky turned pale blue. A glint on my hand caught my eye. I looked at my fingers, lifting them off the sand. It was my ring. The writing glowed like coals from a bonfire. “Whoa.” I’d levelled up. I recalled the fact that levelling healed. Too bad I hadn’t thought of that before, but I was relieved to have it now. I activated it.

The holo screen appeared. Numbers flew by in a blur.

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

“Fuck…me.” I’d gone up to level 42. “How—?” The lich! That was insane.

Then 27 level-ups worth of healing rocked me from within. I screamed at the sky, back arching. Flesh, bones, teeth, and skin knitted back together. It took forever. When it ended, I flopped back onto the sand, completely restored. I lay on my back, staring upward, feeling better than I had since I’d gotten to this world. I let out a big breath in surprise, then laughed at the craziness of it all.

I turned the ring off without looking at it further. I just couldn’t handle choosing skills or whatever at the moment. I needed a break. Just a few minutes without all the craziness, blessedly without pain for the first time in so long. Man, it felt good. I just let the warming desert air flow over my face and enjoyed not immediately dying. Which is when I became aware of the object pressing into my leg.

It took a moment to remember that I still had that damn lamp. It had been tied to my sash, and even after using the bloody robes to bandage myself, it was still kicking around. I pulled it out from under me and tugged the sash out of the handle, freeing it so I could study it in the light for the first time.

It was an ancient brass oil lamp, exactly like one out of some Aladdin story. Maybe as long as my forearm. Heavy. I shook it, but there was no oil or rattling. It had a little lid on top, but it was stuck shut, maybe welded that way if it was only ornamental. The brass was scratched in many places. There were a few dings, now that I could see it in the light.

I sighed. All that treasure. All those potential riches. Not that I cared about being rich, but if I ever found my way to a civilization of some kind, it would have been nice not to starve to death on the streets. I would have loved to examine some of those weapons, hold an actual magical sword. And all those spellbooks and scrolls! Oh, man. Can you imagine actually being able to use magic, like some wizard? That would have been very cool. But no, no jewels, no weapons or artifacts, no books, all I’d managed to drag out of that secret place was a single piece of junk. Ruefully chuckling at my clumsiness and misfortune, I carelessly discarded the lamp to the side. It landed in the sand and half buried itself a couple of paces away next to the huge treasure chest from the lich’s chamber.

I shook my head. Well, maybe I would eventually find some other treasure. After all, if all that stuff had existed down there, then it must also exist up here, right? There must be other people, cities, that kind of thing. If I could find a way to get out of this desert, maybe I’d be able to learn magic one day…

…next to the huge treasure chest from the lich’s chamber…

My head jerked up.

The great big treasure chest sat only a few paces away, badly burned and disfigured. The lid cracked open. Two large eyes looked out at me from the darkness within.

It let out an ominous giggle.

“Whoa!” I leaped to my feet and backpedalled away. “No way. How the sandy shit did you get up here?”

“Hehehe…” The chest’s teeth, those that weren’t missing now, shone in the daylight. There were still a lot of them. Seemingly with some effort, the chest rose on dozens of tiny little legs and tried to come at me. But it must have been really weak because it almost instantly plowed into the sand, unable to go further. But that long, snake-like tongue emerged. Like part of the side of the chest, the colours on the tongue seemed wrong, as if it was still damaged from that rainbow light. Prismatic beam! Or something like that. The name just came back to me.

I was easily able to dodge the tongue. The monster was very weak. In fact, as I backstepped out of range, it sagged with disappointment. The tongue half-retracted. I picked up my spear. It would be easy enough to finish it off. I couldn’t believe the mimic had somehow made its way out of the cave and survived its way here. It must have changed form at some point, maybe flown, if it could. But like I’d recently been at the edge of death, that’s where it was now, too.

The mimic looked at me with sad, hungry eyes.

I looked back.

It whimpered. The tongue curled. The left, charred side of the chest began losing cohesion, trembling like overused muscles, and then melted like a candle. It whimpered again.

I stared at the monster. And I felt bad for it. How long had it been down in that chamber, alone, sleeping? I’d woken it, caused it all that pain, and now was about to kill it. With a frustrated tsk, I stabbed my spear into the ground. “For the love of— Ugh. Yeah, this is why adventurers are jerks.” I bit the inside of my cheek in thought. Then I looked around the oasis for ideas. I spotted the papa-sized scorpion still on the shoreline.

Yanking the spear from the sand, I strode over to the corpse. It felt really, really good not to be sick or in pain anymore. Even my stomach was better. That was going to change when I started eating and drinking again, but for now, it was nice. I used the spear to cut off one of the very large pincers from the arm behind it. It had been far too tough for me to eat, but maybe the mimic could? The rest of the corpse was going rotten, and I didn’t know if the mimic would be able to eat it or not.

Hauling the pincer over, I stood in front of the guy. Girl. It. I wasn’t about to look for signs of gender, if it even had a gender. “Hey. I feed you, you don’t try to eat me. Deal?”

The mimic only looked at me.

Spear at the ready, I dragged the pincer close. The tongue curled around it and tried to bring it into the mouth, but either the meal was too heavy or the mimic too weak. I had to assist. The pincer went in and the tonue with it. The lid closed, though not completely. The tip of the pincer stuck out one side.

The mimic gurgled. Maybe in contentment?

I watched it. It…didn’t really do anything more. It just sat there. Digesting. That was probably gonna take a long while. Good. I didn’t want it trying to eat me, too. Seeing the lamp next to the mimic, I reached down and snagged the junk, not wanting the mimic to decide to eat it for some reason. Unfortunately, the mimic had bled or drooled on the thing, so I rubbed it off, then wiped my hand on the robes that no longer needed to be tied around my waist and ass. They did, however, need to be seriously washed.

The lamp pinged in my hand.

I looked down. “Huh?”

The lamp vibrated.

“Uhhh…”

The lamp twitched, bounced, and trembled with growing energy. Before I could get another word out, a stream of dense blue smoke shot out of the spout like it had been fired from a cannon. With it came the primal, unending scream of a woman in bitter rage, so loud, it was going to shatter my eardrums. The smoke went on and on, and it billowed out, a cloud of blue that grew to the size of a car, then a house in seconds. Then it was three stories tall. The furious scream stopped.

Two evil eyes appeared far above, so large they seemed to fill the sky, and they glared daggers down on me. “YOU!!”