In front of him was a creature with the lower half of a snake, and the upper half of man. It stood as tall as him, its tail nearly twice the length of its height. It stared at Evren with serpentine eyes that showed a level of intelligence he hadn’t seen in the monsters so far. Its tail coiled up and it sprung at Evren with a speed he wasn’t used to. It swung at Evren, first with its right sword, then with its left, scoring a hit on Evren’s shoulder, cutting his armor and drawing a line of blood.
Evren hopped back and frowned at the pain, but the snake-man didn’t give him the opportunity to recover. It swept in, both swords crossed in front of it aiming at Evren’s neck. Evren raised his sword, knocking both swords upwards. The snake-man bent forward to bite Evren, and Evren pushed up on the snake-man’s chin with his left hand. Evren saw the swords coming in at him from the side, so he stepped left, into the snake-man’s arm and cast ‘shield’ on his sword arm, blocking the two swords, forcing him back a step.
Evren pushed his right arm outward to drive the swords back and ducked his head under the snake-man’s right arm, stepping through the space opened up there, and was struck by the monster’s tail. Evren rolled back on the ground and to his feet as he saw the monster charging at him. Evren cast ‘wall’ between him and the monster, which the monster ran head first into, dazing it for a moment. It focused on the wall for a moment, then started to go around the wall to its right.
Evren decided to go on the offensive this time and swung at it with a series of blows. Each time the snake-man was able to block, but a chip would appear in its swords for each strike. The snake came fully around the wall, its tail whipping around to strike Evren in the shoulder, knocking him into the wall, and giving the snake-man the chance to switch back to the offensive. Evren rolled back against the wall to his feet where he took a couple steps back to try to distance himself from the monster’s charge.
He blocked the sword coming at him from the left and tried to drop his elbow down to block with the shield, but didn’t make it in time, and the sword sliced his stomach in the seam between his armor and belt. As the monster swung at him again with its right sword, Evren stepped in, grabbing the monster by the elbow, and swung downward at the sword approaching on his right, cutting deep into the monster’s blade. The monster’s tail came whipping at Evren from the right, with Evren diving and rolling out of the way.
When he got to his feet, Evren pointed his left hand at the snake-man and cast ‘skewer’, sending the stone spear towards the monster. It dove to the right, catching the spear in its right shoulder, but the monster didn’t flinch, instead sweeping upwards towards Evren with its left sword attacking from the bottom. Its right sword a slight delay later from the top. Evren stepped forward towards the snake-man’s left sword and swung upwards on his own, finally slicing the blade in half.
When he stepped past the snake-man’s sword, he swung his sword down at the approaching tail, putting a deep cut in it, but almost losing his sword from the impact. He staggered backwards and saw the snake-man toss away its broken left sword and approached with its right sword held in front of it aggressively. When it reached Evren, it swung down on him from above its right shoulder. When Evren blocked it, it then swung down on him again from its right shoulder, repeating these strikes again and again until the blade came off, almost striking Evren in the top of his head.
The snake-man looked at its sword and threw it to the side, coming at Evren with its claws now. Evren retreated a step and raised his left hand, pushing the snake-man back sharply with a telekinesis blast in its chest. This was enough of a gap for Evren to stab forward with his sword, impaling the snake-man in the chest. He stepped forward with his left foot and kicked off the snake-man’s abdomen, leaping backwards to prepare for his next attack.
The snake-man held the wound on its chest with its left hand and slipped forward to attack with its right. Evren swung down at the outstretched hand and sliced it off, mid forearm. When the monster then tried to attack with its left arm, Evren swung his sword upwards and to the right, cutting deeply in to the monster’s stomach and chest and slicing through two of its fingers.
It fell to the ground weakened, still trying to reach out to grab Evren. Evren said, “You’re quite tenacious, aren’t you?” as he stabbed the monster in the eye, ending its life. Evren dropped to his knees and set his sword on the floor, unlatching his armor. He slipped it off over his head and looked down at the abdominal wound he had received. He held it closed with his left hand and took a deep breath, “Heal deep cut” he casted and watched as the cut began to close itself. It didn’t close fully, so he cast it again, this time sealing the wound. He looked to his shoulder where he got cut and used, “heal cut” on it, closing it off quickly.
He then picked up his armor and looked to where it had been cut on the shoulder and cast ‘mend’ a few times until it looked as it had before. His armor hadn’t been cut at his stomach, but his shirt had. It was also covered with blood, so he removed it, replacing it with a ‘clean’ one from the wagon. He then put his armor back on, cinching it in place, and retrieved his sword from the floor.
He went to wipe the blood off the sword, but when he was about to, he noticed there was no longer any blood on it. It had dissolved when the corpse had. Evren looked down to where the corpse was and picked up the slightly larger green mana gem and put it into his pouch. The pouch was getting full, and he was going to have to empty it soon, but for now, it was fine. He used his sensory field to find that some of the caverns had two or three snake-men together and he thought to himself, “This floor’s going to take a while.”
There weren’t any patrolling monsters nearby, and in the next room there were two of those snake-men, both only holding one sword. Evren took his bow from the wagon and strung it, grabbing only one arrow. He approached the room cautiously, and as soon as one of the snake-men came into view, he launched an arrow at it, striking it in the throat. Evren set the bow down and drew his sword, charging into the room. The one snake-man who hadn’t been hit yet, looked to his fallen comrade, and then to Evren charging at it, and it launched itself at him like a cannon.
When the two met, a fierce exchange of blows was traded between the two. This one was more skilled but didn’t attack with its off hand like the previous snake-man did, which made things easier on Evren. Evren had to make the fight quick though, he could tell there was another snake-man coming from ahead. Evren wore the snake-man down with strikes to his arms and body, and as the patrol came in, moving in a hurry because it had heard the sounds of fighting, Evren had finished the snake-man he was fighting by cutting off its sword arm and stabbing it through the chest.
The snake-man that entered the room was carrying a spear. It stabbed at Evren with a series of quick thrusts. Evren’s blade was held before him, and as the spear came forward, he would push the shaft to the left or right, depending on which side his blade was on. If the spear was aimed low, the tip of his blade would dip down to defend against it. He could keep the lizard-man at bay because when it stabbed with the spear, Evren’s parries would aim towards its hands.
The snake-man thrust forward, letting go with its lead hand to extend its range. Evren deflected the approaching spear to his left hand, where he caught the spear, and slid the tip of his sword down towards the snake-man’s hand. It let go of the spear and swung its tail around to hit Evren in the back. Evren rolled away from the tail, using the hit as a means to get away quicker.
When Evren stood, he threw the spear with his left hand, which was a little awkward, and augmented the throw with telekinesis. The snake-man moved to grab the spear, but instead opted to get out of the way. Evren followed the spear to the monster and swung at it. The monster guarded with its arm, which Evren sliced through, and deep into the neck, killing it. Evren picked up the three green mana gems and retrieved his arrow, heading back to his wagon, picking up his bow along the way. He left the bow strung for now and continued on his way.
It took most of the day for Evren to get through the level, because he had been moving blindly. When he got to the ramp down, unlike when he stops after a boss room, there was no door behind him to keep him safe, so Evren headed down the ramp a ways before turning the wagon towards the wall. With one corner of the wagon against the wall, and the opposite wheel blocked, he felt like he had secured the wagon sufficiently. There he took his break to end the day.
Evren slowed considerably once he reached the snake-men’s floor. What previously took him one day would now take four or five. He was sure that when it gets to the point where it’ll take more than one day to traverse a single level, he would be facing a challenge. But he couldn’t get ahead of himself. The dungeon was getting tougher, and he needed to learn how to fight better with a sword. Fortunately, better equipment made for a slight advantage.
The next day, after Evren descended to the 17th floor, he stood in the first room and expanded his sensory field. Every room that had a snake-man in it, had a second or third one with it. There were single unit patrols, which wandered from room to room, but to get to those, he had to go through the snake-men teams. He would be able to thin their numbers with his bow, but he had two more levels following this one before he reached the boss on the 20th floor. The only thing he could do at this point, though, is to move forward.
