61 Payout of Deceit
Galahad was losing his mind waiting on the moral dilemma Arkiu was having with his team. He had nine minutes left before the poison ran its course and he felt his body starving. So instead of letting them have the option to decide and play heroes alongside his false death, he starting confirming the window in his mind to consume.
Three orb popped loudly around the mound and started rising in a blue smoke. The adventurers were broken out of their stares and watched the wisps rise into the air, witnessing Galahad using his skill was a shock and a terror at the same time to them. On top of the swarm about to tear them to shreds, the mound was now getting encased in lethal gas.
Arkiu turned watched as Galahad was reaching out for the smoke, wanting to obtain it as quickly as possible. To Arkiu though, it looked like he was activating the skill with his hand gesture and mind. The masked stranger was forcing them to leave or die with them, the choice and guilt was taken from them.
Soon everyone was activating their Karmic plates as the time it took to escape by the return spell needed his distraction. Galahad was didn't care and was rapidly activating all the orbs around him as quickly as possible. He didn't bother to read the names or EXP they gave him, he just let his hunger drive the list down till it hit zero.
When the white light of the five spells were about to peak, the swarm jumped after Galahad despite the growing cloud of blue smoke. He had lied about the type of distraction he could provide with the orbs, but none of the adventurers could see it happen as he was enveloped by the blue smoke that would kill anyone of them.
All they could do was watch him disappear, dying in mist with their faces of horror flash away as Galahad was consumed by the monsters. After a second of blindness, the rest of the adventuring team finally arrived to the surface.
They were greeted with questioning looks of concern from people assembled in the pavilion, the magician that left earlier was still filling in the guild staff about what was happening.
As they walked off the crystal in what felt like a numb daze, the magician saw them and pulled them over to meet with the medical team on the side. All the other adventurers in the pavilion were giving them space to walk through.
Mostly everyone in the spire knew about half of what was going on and were waiting in suspense to see the rest of the team and the supposed stranger wearing the black mask. The stranger wasn't among them so some disappointment was met across some of their faces.
Medical workers were already off to the side with a Stem running through Elldry's mouth and antidote being applied and bandaged wrapped around the heavy cut along Tern's arm.
He seemed a bit pale and tired looking, but the quick response of medicine and treatment made the process faster and less intense. The entire time he was sitting there, he kept Elldry's spear leaning against his knee and his vision fixated on her face.
When Tern looked up to see Arkiu approaching, he was just staring back at him blankly. The lacking expression told Tern exactly what he predicted had happened. The stranger they met that night was trapped in a angry nest of Vesplugs and no way of keeping himself alive.
It felt like everyone from the little neighborhood of Simla street had let a man condemn himself to death just because they were curious about what he was doing.
*****
The jumbling mess of Vesplugs were still clattering on top of Galahad in the center of the larva mound and with the blue cloud growing from the pile, it was certainly one of the strangest sights to ever occur in the dungeon.
Galahad had hoped the giant cloud of mana orbs was going to irritate the monsters, but sadly it had no effect on them. His distraction indeed worked to get the other adventurers out safely, but his lie about repelling monsters would stay a lie.
As the overwhelming number of monsters toppled onto him, Galahad hid his armor back beneath his skin. The last thing he wanted was the armor to be torn to shreds and all he'd be left with on the surface was a torn up under armor clothing.
Beneath the dog pile of angry pincers, Galahad was feeling chunks of his back, shoulders, head, and limbs being bitten off and occasionally stung. Pain was hitting him from every direction while he cowered in the yellow slime, yet he managed to focused on confirming every orb on the list to be consumed.
He hadn't stopped since the first ones forced Arkiu, Tass, and the rest back to the surface. The list was well over eighty orbs between lvl. 3 to lvl. 11; Galahad couldn't afford to let a single one go because each one would put him closer to his goal.
He barely finished the last ten before everything started fading to black, the pain forced his body to go unconscious. All he was greeted with was the chilling feeling of being forcibly shut down by his own body.
Then in the darkness, he could still see his window open in his view. The letters turned white to contrast the void around him.
[ All mana orbs confirmed for consumption. ]
[ Extensive Damage Detected: Commencing Repair and Absorption. ] [ 17% ] . . . [ 44% ] . . . [ 79% ]
Galahad waiting in the dark silence for something he didn't entirely understand. Did he take on so much damage that his body needed some kind of hard reboot? He didn't know, but patiently waited till the percentage hit 100% and another bell chimed.
[ Excessive amount of Mana Orbs Consumed: New Title awarded ]
[ New Title: Gluttony (2/2) ]
'Well that's just demoralizing and somewhat insulting.' Thought Galahad as he watched the windows flash across his view. He was about to make the system in his head display the description of the second title he had achieved, but stopped when he felt a pair of eyes starting to watch him. It was if someone else was clearly there and their presence was making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
'I am inside my own head, how the hell does someone manage that?'
Galahad whipped back around to see what was behind him, but there was nothing in the darkness. It was a blank slate that held nothing but himself and the reconfigured Karmic system.
'Maybe that's just insanity creeping further into my brain.' He thought as he turned back around, looking back at the window. The bits of fear that danced around in his mind then felt silly to him soon after looking. 'I mean, this is my own head. I shouldn't be startled by whatever the hell shows up in here.'
Then the feeling of an ice-cold hand grabbing the back of his neck changed that last thought. Somehow there was nothing there, but it could still grab him and start speaking to him in a coarse whisper.
Another voice, much more raspy and deeper than his own spoke. "Sssometimes the worsssst thingss we experience . . . isss in our head." Each word was an emphasized syllable that Galahad did not feel he needed to hear practically in his eardrum.
At that heart pounding scare, Galahad felt himself getting pulled back to consciousness and opened his eyes back up to deal with the Vesplug nest.
*****
Outside of the pile of monsters, the shiny and light-blue cloud had expanded to nearly the entire cavern. The shiny blue of the gas mixed with the flaky gold in whole rainbow of reflective colors.
When Galahad opened his eyes, the cloud stopped moving and began retreating back to the center. As if a vacuum was inhaling all the blue from the air, Galahad felt all of the mana funneling into every cut and bite exposing his body.
For the very first time, Galahad felt the hunger driving his emotions and irritation finally being sated, followed by a burning sensation across the surface of his whole body. Fingers were regrowing missing ends, muscles were reattaching severed sections, and skin was encasing bleeding wounds. His body was repairing the damage faster than it could be received, eventually he was fully healed and a familiar swelling sensation of leveling up began.
He exploded in a bright flash of yellow light and sparks that caused the Vesplugs to pull back in fear of the unknown. Galahad stood up from the divot he was buried into from the weight of the monsters pressing down on him, he had an enormous smile on his face as he knew what was about to come next.
He exploded in another blast of yellow sparks as he leveled up once again. When the sparks flew everywhere, Galahad took that as a cue to dash forward with Arkiu's knife still in hand. He practically jumped out of the shell of sparks and emerged covered in red flames.
His now physically boosted body dove under a Vesplug too confused by all the changing lights and sparks to understand its prey had just slid underneath it.
Galahad rolled onto his back and brought the knife straight into the connection of the thorax and head, he repeated the quick stabbing along the neck two more times before rolling out from underneath the monster. He carried onto the next one as the Vesplug he just attacked starting wobbling and eventually toppling over.
Even with Fury and Fyre activated, Galahad felt another level up swelling inside. The explosion of sparks provided him another smoke screen of sorts as he changed directions to confuse the demons around him.
He jumped on one's back when it tried fly away, they wanted to escape the sudden threat that was in their territory but he wasn't having it.
The Vesplug few a few feet off the ground, before Galahad jammed the knife into one of the flittering wing joints. He felt multiple snaps of tension beneath the surface of the insects skin and one of the wings on the left side stopped buzzing.
It cried out in pain as it came crashing down with no way of controlling the descent. Galahad jumped and rolled off the monster at the moment of impact, when he was standing up on his feet, all the armor on his body reappeared.
At that point, only four Vesplug's remained after his leveling up stopped making sparks. At the same time, he revealed the armor he kept hidden away inside his body when first getting attacked.
He had the privacy to hide or reveal his armor at will now, but didn't want any of it obliteration during the angry stampede ripping his back to shreds. He could completely be himself at that moment, giving Galahad the opportunity to do what he needed to in order to consume the cavern.
*****
Once the fighting was over, Galahad watched a whole list of [ +XP ] flying down his side view. Above he could see the progress bar flowing up to the top and resetting after every completed fill. His level up's we're finally catching up to his system and showing off the numbers he always like to watch go up.
[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 12 ] Attributes points +3
Mana orbs lvl. 10 or below can now be consumed.
Fury and Fyre Skill [ +0:03 seconds ]
Health Points +10
[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 13 ] Attributes points +4
Mana orbs lvl. 12 or below can now be consumed.
Fury and Fyre Skill [ +0:02 seconds ]
Health Points +10
[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 14 ] Attributes points +2
Mana orbs lvl. 10 or below can now be consumed.
Fury and Fyre Skill [ +0:03 seconds ]
Health Points +12
. . .
The list kept going until he finally reached lvl. 17, no more sparks or lists of [ +XP ] were showing up, so Galahad went to work on finishing up the cavern.
He spent five minutes tearing apart the monster corpses that were taking too long to melt for his time frame and eventually gathering up a solid list for the future.
[ Please select Mana Orbs for consumption. ]
[ Giant Golden Vesplug lvl. 19 ] [ + 160 XP ]
[ Giant Golden Vesplug lvl. 20 ] [ + 170 XP ]
[ Giant Golden Vesplug lvl. 19 ] [ + 160 XP ]
[ Giant Golden Vesplug lvl. 19 ] [ + 160 XP ]
[ Giant Golden Vesplug lvl. 21 ] [ + 185 XP ]
. . .
The list was made up of the eleven remaining Vesplugs that didn't die in Galahad's tunnel trap and by his hand in the cavern. Once he had their eyeball-sized mana orbs stashed away, he started activating the return spell on the Karmic plate in his pocket.
When the glowing array starting writing itself on the backside of the crystal, Galahad watched another one writing itself out in sync and in the center of his vision. The circle completed on the crystal and in his vision before the light wrapping around him went white.
*****
Galahad returned to the surface via the Return Spell twelve minutes after Arkiu's team went up. That was all the time it took before he finally finished his business in the dungeon. He blinked the blinding light of teleporting out his eyes and felt himself back at the pavilion, the scene played out exactly as he expected.
Everyone who was in the pavilion gave him a brief look, but lost interest because he wasn't wearing the black mask the magician spoke of. Galahad had wiped off as much of the Golden Vesplug flakes as he could and had his mask stay hidden. To everyone in the room, he just looked like on guy wearing normal leather armor that was returning a bit late with some other team.
Everyone was still more fixated on the medical team coming in and going up to the second floor of the pavilion. They were arriving to apply more extensive medical aid to the team already moved off to one of the basics medical treatment rooms on the second floor of the spire.
The spire of Diagon was so much larger, that a medical center was built inside for the efficiency of time and treatment. Galahad made his way up to the second floor as well, casually following to find the team he was just fighting alongside.
On the second floor was a nurse station where a few curious eyes were looking to see what was happening and were kicked out right after. Galahad was about to be one of them until he showed the nurse pushing people out his leg, a hole in the back of his knee protectors and a busted stinger in his hand.
"My apologies, but I am one of the few coming up here to receive an antidote. I hope that means you won't be kicking me out" He said with a joking smile that made the nurse roll her eyes in annoyance.
