Ch3: Sanity Check

"Boss, what's that noise?" Black Agumon asked.

Red smirked at his murder lizard and rubbed an inch of grime from a window. Then, he peered at the desecrated forest. Shambling corpses walked the ground, and spirits to flesh had been bound. Crawling up from the ground was even a skeletal hound.

He licked his lips. Sweet XP seems to be coming to us this time, my friend.

"Are those people sick?"

"No, they are dead," Red said.

Agumon gasped and stared harder. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to open this window, and you'll unleash your pepper breath at the closest one. Then we're going to profit." Red said.

Red threw a thumb up and raised the window. "Beat the short black one. He disrespects you with his questions." A voice said.

He felt his head rattle a little from the harshness of the words. "Agumon, watch out for possessor types. If you hear whispering, then most likely it's a ghost." Red said.

Red smirked. He would defeat this place's evil with the power of friendship. It was the perfect strategy.

He looked around the room, and a ghost popped in and out of existence, leaving a letter on the floor. "Pepper Breath," a black ball of flame smacked into an undead that made it to the porch and burst into flames.

Level up

Red lvl2

Class: Monster Tamer lvl2 +2 Mystic and +1 Insight.

Perks: N/A

Resources

HP: 120/120

MP: 200/200

SP: 120/120

Attributes

BDY(Body): 6

RGN(Regeneration): 5

STR(Strength): 6

END(Endurance): 6

REF(Reflex): 6

SNS(Sense): 6

MST(Mystic): 10

RCT(Resist) 6

INS(Insight): 8

Skills

Lesser Tame lvl1/10

+1% MST when taming monsters

Lesser Monster Storage lvl1/10

+1% RGN when monsters are stored.

How much does taming set him back? He used the skill and winced as 20MP vanished from the use. It recovered quickly, but he needed a way to boost his regeneration.

Dungeon Quest

Survive 9 Waves

Wave 1

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 2

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 3

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 4

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 5

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 6

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 7

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 8

Reward: 1 Gotcha Token, 1 Treasure Chest, 1 Escape Token

Wave 9

Reward: 2 Gotcha Tokens, 2 Treasure Chests

It was great that he didn't have to worry about dealing with something complicated. Red looked up to see skeletal crows in the trees, and small eyes blinked open and shut on the trees. He blinked, and the trees and crows looked normal. That wasn't a good thing. The only thing to do was shatter the game as only a tamer could.

Red turned his attention to Agumon, and he was a little taller, and his teeth looked slightly longer. Oh, leveling up was great for everyone.

"Hey, big buy, let's go out. I want to capture some zombies for our forces. Think about it: if we had some meat shields, it would be easier to hold these guys back so you can pick them off."

"You had me at go out there."

"Sweet," Red said and opened the door. The deer mounted on the wall turned its head, and Red pointed at it. "We'll be right back."

"Who are you talking to?" Agumon asked.

"The dark spirit trying to manipulate my mind and make me see things."

"Shit," The spirit said.

Red turned his attention to where that whisper had originated and thrust his hand out. Green energy laced his hand, and he felt his Lesser Tame skill activate.

Success Chance 15%

Success

Level Up

Lesser Tame 2/10 Tier 1

Red stared as a spirit came into focus.

Sanity Meter 45/120

The ghost started cursing a storm as if a green line were connected.

Dark Spirit lvl1/20

Skills: Drain Sanity, Drain Energy

Ability: Regenerate Sanity

"You know I expect you to be the best partner from this point forward that you can be, or Agumon will burn you to ash," Red said.

Already, he had plans for the poor bastard. The dark spirit could make people go insane, was invisible, and could drain energy. Oh, he liked it. He liked his new ghost a lot.

Wait, Red took a good long look at his sanity meter.

Sanity Meter 50/120

If he had a luck attribute, it would have power-leveled with that one. Wait, he had a house resident who could give him information. Red was sure he wasn't supposed to be able to snatch one of the ghosts on the first wave.

"Find me a weapon that I can use," Red said.

It dove through the wall before tapping on it. "Well, blow me down the fuck is that." He punched through the wall, and black ooze poured around his hand. Red pulled his hand back with a bone knife sheathed in some buckskin in his grip.

Cursed Knife tier 1: Wounds inflicted are cursed to heal slowly to prolong the agony.

It was the weapon he needed to take care of the troll in the real world. He planned to bale after the first wave with the Escape token. Getting more loot would be cool, but he needed to save those guys in the basement.

Red-eyed the door to the basement. The cabin was much larger than he remembered. Were the walls spreading further apart, or was he imagining things?

"Boss, are you coming," Agumon said.

He smirked at his excellent pal. "Just try and stop me," Red said.

They shot out the door into a clearing flooded with undead. As more approached from the tree line, they shuffled closer to the porch.

"Pepper Breath," Agumon blasted another undead and went up like dry kindling. He glanced down at the knife on his belt. He didn't have any skills for knife-wielding. Maybe he could take control of an undead and turn them into his assassin. Red stared at the undead for a moment longer and decided they weren't suitable for it.

He watched his MP fill back up. When they closed in on the steps, he shot forward, tapped two undead on the head at the same time, and used Tame.

Zombie

Rate: 35%

One shrugged it off, but the other took the green line and turned back and forth.

Zombie lvl1

He directed it to restrain the nearest enemy, which happened to be the zombie Red had failed to capture. It held the undead first as the others approached. Red quickly stabbed down with his knife and buried it in the handle of the zombie's skull.

Zombie lvl2

Dark Spirit lvl2

Red lvl3

Agumon lvl3

He felt another sweet, delicious level up.

Wave 1

 3 hours remaining

Wave 1 Quest 1

Kill ten zombies with a knife

Rewards

+1 RFL

Skill: Basic Knife Handling

Red tapped two more zombies and captured one while the other resisted him. That was fine; he had four under his control. When it connected, Red smirked. His two zombies went to work while Agumon dealt pepper breath like it was party favors. It was good to have a strong team.

He stabbed the zombies that didn't join him and continued increasing his numbers. No more of those nasty hallucinations appeared while his dark spirit beat back the others. It drained them and kept his Sanity Meter nice and full. Life Drain was useless, but Sanity seemed to be the currency of these dungeon monsters.

All he had to do was hold his own for a bit longer. He looked behind him and saw zombies beating on the glass windows on the other side of the cabin. He cursed. It was only a matter of time before more undead hit them from behind. Red planned to take care of that in the most basic way possible. He would have a group of his undead when he had enough shamble behind him and form a wall. What else was manpower for than to use as utter obstacles?

He smirked at that.

Red slammed his knife into his tenth zombie and felt the system's power wash over him. It was like a baptism but with cool data effects instead of water.

His mind felt complete as a skill appeared where only youthful curiosity existed. Red spun the knife in his hand, flipped it, and quickly caught the handle instead of cutting himself and getting an injury that wouldn't heal. Then, he used the skill.

Red moved like a viper with his new speed and inflicted devastating wounds on one zombie after another as he made his way through their number. Every level gave him access to more zombies to command. He hoped this place didn't mess with his perception of time.

He heard howling when he felt comfortable with his new skill and even gained a few levels in it. It was pants-shitting terrifying to see skeleton dogs held together by black sludge crawl out of the dirt around them. He looked at the timer. They still had an hour, which meant this wasn't the finale of the wave, not by a long shot.

Who ever heard of 4-hour waves anyway?

There is more to this dungeon than meets the eye.

After being whacked over the head by N2's hint, he was almost tempted to drop all his progress and go after the dungeon's secrets. The ghost that glitched into reality dropped a letter. If he hadn't been bailing after the first wave, he might have stuck around and checked it.

His zombies moved a little faster than the others. Levels had made them more challenging and made their rotten flesh go from a sickly black to a putrid green color. They were more rigid and more robust than the zombies around them but still just as slow. Maybe they could evolve at some point, but none were over level 5. The zombies were all level 1, and XP dropped off hard. Still, he clenched his fist, feeling the unreal strength within.

Level 5 zombies were something else, and then there was Agumon Black himself. His dinosaur friend had gone from a 4ft lizard to a 6ft killing machine with long black talons, the speed to cover the entire cabin in moments, and breath attacks that never quit. Black flames covered the ground, keeping the skeleton hounds from trying their luck. It seemed fire was the best way to counter the undead.

That gave him an idea. He was leaving after this wave anyway, so why not spice things up? It was only about 15 minutes until they were done with this wave.

"Hey, Agumon, burn the cabin."

The dark spirit had filled out growing black shadowy hands and chains made of shadows that it could use to snag other spirits. In the background, he was the MVP, keeping the other dark spirits away and saving their sanity meters. It waved its hands, clearly telling him to stop.

Red raised his hand before Agumon burned the cabin to the ground. "Ok, you're saying this is a very bad idea." The cloaked creature nodded its spectral hood. "Alright, I believe you. Agumon, we aren't burning the cabin down today."

"As in the first chance we get when we aren't on a time crunch, we burn it to ash to see what terrifying thing crawls out," Agumon said.

Red rubbed away and nonexistent tear. "You know me so well, buddy." He turned to his small army of zombies. "Shamble squad, bring me some hounds. I want to add speed to our ranks."

No, he wasn't a necromancer, but he was sure even a necromancer starting wouldn't have so many varied undead. Sanity attacks were brutal as hell, from what he could tell, and would be extremely useful in the real world. Maybe he could find a dungeon weak against undead and power-level his forces. That would be sweet.

Skeleton Hounds

Rate: 25%

The first batch of four struggled and bit at his zombies but only managed to scrape their teeth on their hard, undead flesh.

Red touched four heads, and the taming failed.

Lesser Tame lvl3/10 Tier 1

+3% MST when taming monsters.

Lesser Monster Storage lvl2/10

+2% RGN to monsters stored within

Limit (INS x lvl)

Red lvl5

Class: Monster Tamer lvl2 +2 Mystic and +1 Insight.

Perks: N/A

Resources

HP: 120/120

MP: 320/320

SP: 120/120

Attributes

BDY(Body): 6

RGN(Regeneration): 5

STR(Strength): 6

END(Endurance): 6

REF(Reflex): 7

SNS(Sense): 6

MST(Mystic): 16

RCT(Resist) 6

INS(Insight): 11

Monster Limit 17/48

Storage Limit 17/22

Agumon lvl5

Zombies lvl5 x 10

Dark Spirit lvl5

Skeleton Hound lvl4 x 5

Skills

Lesser Tame lvl3/10 Tier 1

+3% MST when taming monsters.

Lesser Monster Storage lvl2/10 Tier 1

+2% RGN to monsters stored within

Knife Handling 2/10 Tier 1

+2% RFL when handling knives.

The tokens fell in his hand, along with a small treasure box. He ignored the latter and stashed it in his inventory. It could wait. He used the escape token and prepared himself for round 2.