The flickering torches, the creepy cobwebs, the rattling bones, the dirty floor, and the crumbling walls. They all worked in tandem to create a creepy atmosphere. He was back. But he couldn't celebrate just yet...
'Where am I?' That's because Ed couldn't figure out where he was at.
He was sprawled out on the floor as he carefully looked around the new room. Given his ventures all around this dungeon floor, he could safely claim he knew his way around. But he couldn't recognize the room he was in right now!
So he sat up to look around and get a better grasp of his surroundings. It was a surreal experience. Why? The reason was quite simple actually.
'Why is the room split in two?!?' The first thing Ed saw was a warped purple barrier. The dirty dungeon floor was being constructed piece by piece slowly pushing back the distorted purple barrier.
'This... is it expanding?' A room was being created before his very eyes.
The long rectangular room was expanding at a visibly slow rate. The skeletons on the opposite side didn't seem to pay it much attention though.
'Are they too stupid to care or is this a common occurrence?' He couldn't recall seeing anything even remotely close to this before though.
'Whatever, I don't have time for this. I need to get my books back.' He could always come back to try and assimilate it or something later if he so wished.
Feeling pressured by uncertainty, Ed quickly stood up and hurriedly walked towards the only entrance and exit in the room. He didn't try to use transmission on any of the other skeletons either as he went past a couple of rooms and corridors. Before finally feeling a faint sense of familiarity.
'This hallway seems familiar...' After a bit more pondering, Ed managed to figure out where he was located. If he wasn't misremembering anything, it was a hallway that he often passed by when gathering skeletons which also meant he should be fairly close to the boss room.
It took him no more than 10 minutes to finally reach one of the merging corridors. From there he just had to head straight.
'The place is a mess now...' The first thing he noticed after exiting the merging corridor was the broken furniture littered all around the area. The walls and floors were already free of any signs of battle by now, however.
Ed stopped looking around and headed straight to where he remembered placing his bag.
'It should be... here!' Ed found the bag on the floor next to some nearly intact furniture. He let out a sigh of relief after catching a glimpse of his books inside the bag. Luckily for him, the bag and all of its contents survived the brunt of the assault.
'Man... that Samuel person did some real work here...' He could only imagine how pitiful the skeletons looked after being so fiercely attacked. The way the furniture was sliced apart clearly meant the skeletons had stood no chance after his departure.
'Time to store it I suppose' He didn't bother checking if the dungeon was watching as it was a pointless thing to do.
He focused on the bag and carefully placed it inside of his mental projection of the storeroom. His eyes were forced open by the thudding sound of books. Scattered on the ground were the books previously inside of his bag.
'Well damn... I would post a formal complaint if this was a video game...' Only the bag was sent into the storeroom causing his items to fall on the ground. Fortunately, he didn't have anything fragile in there.
Ed then begrudgingly sent over all of his items one by one into the storage room. He hoped that once the skill leveled up he wouldn't have to do such a boring monotone task.
'Well I didn't have that many things anyway so I can't complain too much' He would have also loved to have such a convenient magical inventory in his previous life, it wasn't fair to complain about something like this.
After Ed made sure he got everything into the storeroom. He started to think about anything else he might be able to take. After a while, he came up with a weird idea.
'Can I... store the skeletons?' He doubted it would work but it might be worth a try. He would hate it if he went through such a large struggle only to get back some books. He had to make the most of his time here.
'But before that...' Ed looked at the boss gate in front of him, it was still exuding a creepy aura.
'I wonder if the lich survived...' While he wouldn't say he became attached to the lich he would be lying if he said he didn't care. Although he wouldn't cry if that was the case, not that he could, he would feel ever so slightly saddened.
'In the end, a dungeon mob can't pick a side' He couldn't attach himself to humans but attaching himself to the other mobs would only hurt him in the end.
'I should stop procrastinating' Ed moved towards the large gate, he placed both hands on the gate and then pushed it open.
The room was... not dark. From the moment Ed opened the door the bright torches were all lit. That could only mean one thing Ed thought to himself.
Ed walked inside the room and took a quick glance all around. With that quick glance, he was able to confirm that the grand room was entirely empty.
'Indeed. There is nothing.' There were still some traces of battle but there were no traces of life. Or non-life? Regardless, there was no boss inside the boss room.
'I am not sure if I was expecting anything...' Ed stood there for a couple of seconds before deciding to simply turn and leave. But before he could do that, something caught his eye...
'Hm? What's that?' The thing he was looking at was pretty far back inside of the large room making it seem like a black dot. But that alone made it stand out more as the room was rather well lit.
Ed walked closer to the black spot with curiosity, the black spot grew larger as he did so meaning that the thing itself was likely black. With his curiosity peaked, Ed jogged towards the abstract black spot.
'Is it a portal?' It reminded him of the portals from which the boars were summoned as it felt out of place and nonexistent as if the surroundings didn't even take it into account.
[Portal]
A black portal likely leading towards the next floor.
Ed was shocked by the short description, the portal led to the next floor! Did that mean he could go over to the orc plains as a skeleton?!?
'Wait I don't even really know if the next floor is actually the orc plains' It was the name he had come up with for the area. That aside, Ed felt that the chances of it were very high. The dungeon teleporting him across the continent for example was a very dubious point.
'But what do I do...' He felt conflicted, should he enter it?
He stopped to ponder over the matter. He wasn't sure if there was some sort of safe area which might kill him upon entry. He also had to test out storing things that could move around and think.
'I will hold off on that.' If he couldn't store skeletons inside of his mind-space, he could always try to lead them through the portal instead. Then he would have a skeleton army on the upper floors.
'But what if they won't listen to my orc form, won't that mean I need to be a skeleton?' His plan seemed to be falling apart rather quickly.
'Argh! I will cross that bridge when I get there' He was still unsure if that would be necessary. It would be for the best if he held off on passing any judgment until then.
'I think too much' He wasn't sure if he was like that in his previous life but ever since he appeared in the dungeon he had the tendency to overcalculate things. Still, there was nothing wrong with his method of trying out every possibility. One could argue it was what had brought him this far. That and luck of course.
With a basic plan of action in mind, Ed made his way out of the boss room and headed back through the merging corridors. He only looked back toward his second base for a couple of seconds before resolutely entering a new room.
'Skeletons' Ed spotted a few skeletons holding swords inside of the room, it was the usual group of six through seven that he was used to.
'Come here' He transmitted his thoughts to all of the seven skeletons as a force of habit.
[Transmission has leveled up]
The skeletons following his command, then walked over to Ed awaiting further instructions.
Or not, he actually couldn't really tell as they were expressionless as usual. The only skeleton that ever gave him a somewhat lively feeling was Kenny who was always eager to follow instructions.
Ed placed his hand on top of one of the skeletons head and closed his eyes. He started to think about his storage room inside of the mind space. He then heard a bunch of bones fall to the ground.
'F*ck! Don't tell me it worked like the bag!' Ed quickly opened his eyes afraid that he killed the skeleton. Maybe grabbing its head wasn't a smart idea!
'Eh?' However, to his surprise, everything was still intact. The skeleton's body fell to the floor as if its strings had been cut for whatever reason.
'What did I send over then?' Ed couldn't help but ask himself noticing the skeleton's still intact body.
