KRITJIK...
KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK
Now that Jeremy knew the ancient horror's name, he couldn't stop thinking about it as it entered his mind. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. He dimly wondered if Kritjik could use his mind to escape this prison for Jeremy's world, and what it would mean for his world if Kritjik succeeded.
***
KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK KRITJIK! KRITJIK! KRITJIK! KRITJIK! KRITJIK!
***
KRITJIK!
“Squeak!” Squeak shouted in his mind, fighting to be heard over Kritjik's insane roar. Jeremy returned to the present and found himself staring into one of the ancient being's mouths and down its throat. Kritjik was everything he'd expected and feared, and infinitely more. Thousands of mouths, millions of eyes, and an infinity of tentacles. He dimly wondered how long he'd been floating in the void as the boss horror's raging, laughing, screaming, gibbering mind overwhelmed his own. It chortled gleefully, anticipating its next meal.
What was he thinking? Trying to kill this thing? In that instant, he understood. He secretly wanted to die. Because if he died, he wouldn't have to go through with his insane quest for vengeance that he knew he couldn't go through with because he was just a frightened kid who couldn't kill a pack of goblins. And could he even kill another adventurer?
His last conscious action was to grasp and raise the Piff Snizzle that he'd tied to his hand and arm in anticipation of this moment. There was a struggle as the gun fought him over some nonsense about his being worthy. He pushed past this, pointed the gun down the being's throat, and pulled the trigger.
KABOOM!
The gun fired with a bone-splintering, thunderous crack that tore through the void, shattered the air, and shook the dungeon.
Kritjik let out a horrible scream, the ancient being's agonies doing further damage to Jeremy's mind and soul as the shock from the gun broke every bone in his body and hurled him against the prison wall.
There he remained, more dead than alive.
Flint and Squeak observed the bullet fired from the Piff Snizzle go through the ancient boss eldritch horror, hit the side of the spherical prison—made from the strongest material the dungeon could create—ricochet, and bounce around the vast prison many times, filling Kritjik with huge holes, eventually killing it. The bullet thankfully missed Jeremy, who was long past noticing.
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!
YOU HAVE VANQUISHED THE NAMELESS ONE WE MAY NOT SPEAK OF! TOO BAD WE CAN'T GIVE YOU A TITLE FOR THIS.
Flint observed Jeremy's stat sheet with annoyance. Jeremy's mind and soul were damaged beyond his ability to function, leaving Flint technically in charge. While this would normally have thrilled Flint, he couldn't change Jeremy's stat sheet. That was besides Jeremy's body, mind, and soul being so damaged that Flint could barely move the boy's body. Flint had inherited Jeremy's soul and body after its stupid former owner totaled them beyond repair.
Flint supposed he should be grateful there was enough of Jeremy left for him to move the body at all, and that he was not some completely powerless entity, floating impotently in the dungeon.
“Squeak?” Thanks to the damage Squeak had received from the horror, the shadow demon was a little bigger than when Jeremy had summoned it to the third floor years before. It hovered around its master, wondering what to do.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Why does Jeremy keep doing this to me?” Flint moaned, looking down at his idiot companion. He knew there were healing potions in Jeremy's storage ring, but accessing a storage device wasn't something he'd ever done. He merged with Jeremy again and tried to remove the healing potions from Jeremy's storage ring. Failure. “What did I do to deserve this? I've done nothing terrible.”
Flint tried again. There! He somehow sensed the ring and removed the two gold healing potions Jeremy had been saving for an emergency.
Without being asked, Squeak opened both potions and poured them into Jeremy's mouth, getting no response from Jeremy. Flint could feel the boy's bones slowly re-knit, but knew it would take a lot more than a few healing potions to put Jeremy back together. Flint separated from Jeremy's body.
“This is a disaster, Squeak. If I can't fix this idiot, we're never getting out of this dungeon.”
“Squeak?”
Flint sighed. “Really, Squeak, this is so unfair! I've worked hard to escape this dungeon. I may have told Jeremy a few tiny white lies, embellished a few minor details here and there, and omitted a few irrelevant facts. But it's not like I had a choice. If Jeremy knew the truth, we'd still be stuck on the first floor. I'd never have made it this far.”
“Squeak?” Squeak responded, not understanding.
“Squeak, I see one option. We need to find Kritjik's treasure and hope it has something to fix Jeremy.”
“Squeak!” Squeak was on the job. The shadow demon moved back and forth, searching through the wreckage of the vast prison and Kritjik's massive body. Usually, the place to search for treasure was the monster's lair, but this giant prison was Kritjik's lair, and since there was no gravity, there wasn't really an up or down; the treasure could be anywhere, and knowing the dungeon, it would be well hidden.
Flint noticed a shiny object at the center of the spherical prison. He floated as far as he could from Jeremy and was less than halfway to the object. He returned and re-merged with Jeremy, using his body to clumsily push off the edge of the monster's prison and float towards the shiny object. “A push, if you please, Squeak.”
“Squeak!” Squeak floated up behind Flint/Jeremy, pushing them forward. Squeak was weak, having lost most of its essence, but with the lack of gravity, it was only a matter of time before they approached the shiny object.
Flint reached out with Jeremy's hand and grabbed it. He couldn't use Jeremy's Identify skill, but it resembled a dungeon star, only 100 times larger. Curious, he pulled the dungeon stars from Jeremy's inventory, intending to compare the two items. To his surprise, the shiny object pulled the dungeon stars to itself, merging with them. The object grew slightly larger. “How many dungeon stars do you suppose are in this thing?” Flint asked. “Over one hundred? With the Aptitude increases this thing can buy, even Jeremy would quit whining about being weak for a bit.”
That couldn't be all the treasure. There must be something else.
He looked around at what remained of the lair. “If I were this horrible dungeon, where would I put a treasure chest?”
“Squeak?”
“I hate to admit it, but Jeremy really was good at finding things.” Flint saw nothing that looked like a treasure chamber. His next option was Kritjik's body; unidentifiable body parts floated around the vast prison. The skull, perhaps. The location of the amorphous being's head was not obvious. He picked out one of the larger floating chunks and had Squeak push them forward.
Progress was slow.
“I don't think this is the head, Squeak,” Flint said when they finally arrived. “I think we found the other end of the monster.” Flint was glad he had no sense of smell. “We'll look around to be safe.” After looking through things he'd prefer not to think about, he concluded the treasure wasn't there. He used Jeremy's legs to push off and had Squeak take them to the next piece of the monster with the same result.
He wasn't sure how long they searched. It felt like days before they reached what he'd thought was a chunk of tentacle, the size of a city bus, rounded at one end and sharp on the other. This turned out to be a skull. They found an opening and entered. Inside, they found a world so alien that Flint had trouble orienting himself enough to see the treasure chest, though it was right in front of him. He used Jeremy to open it and found five glowing vials. “Squeak. I do not know what these are, but Jeremy needs to drink them. He's mostly dead already; if these kill him, at least we tried.”
“Squeak!” The shadow demon picked up each vial and tipped them one at a time into Jeremy's mouth.
Jeremy's body thrashed and spasmed. His eyes, nose, and ears bled; his mouth foamed.
Flint and Squeak waited with Jeremy inside the Nameless One's skull.
Nothing...
“Do you think Jeremy's better?” Flint asked, looking at their unconscious companion.
“Squeak?” Squeak didn't know.
Jeremy had stopped bleeding and thrashing but remained unconscious, showing no signs of waking up.
“Hard to tell,” Flint sighed. “One last thing to try. Squeak, help me get him into the treasure chest.”
Working together, Flint and Squeak got the three of them inside. Flint had Squeak close the chest. For a time, nothing happened. Flint was about to give up...
A black, incomprehensibly significant void. A vast eternity of nothingness...
Until... an immense, vaguely humanoid form appeared in front of them. Its enormous head bobbed up and down on a long, skinny neck; its mouth opened. In a voice so harsh and grating, Flint barely understood.
“GREETINGS.”
What was this thing? Flint saw strings connected to the form, leading up, and up and up. Those strings were held by...??
“GREETINGS WOUNDED ADVENTURER,” the humanoid form said. It reached out for Jeremy with an impossibly long, narrow arm.
Jeremy found himself in an unfamiliar place that felt incomprehensibly vast and alien. “Where am I? What's going on?”
“Jeremy. Keep your eyes closed!” Flint shouted.
“Who are you?” Jeremy mumbled, still mostly asleep. “What's going on?”
“I'm Flint, you idiot! You need to trust me. Keep your eyes closed!”
Memories of Flint returned. “Flint. But I don't trust you...”
“Well, you need to trust me now, or you'll lose what little sanity you have left!”
“GIVE ME OFFERING,” the grating voice said.
