Vitality 14

  Capacity 15

  Fortitude 8

  Nimbleness 17

  Might 8

  Wisdom 24

  Awareness 10

  Riley inspected his stats, humming behind the confines of his mask. He had found a few more miners lurking deep within the cavern, after dealing with that brief roadblock, and by the time he had finished he had managed to accrue a rather large stockpile of Essence. Enough to raise a few stats across the board.

  The amount he needed to increase his levels was rising gradually and by degrees. Soon he’d need to start killing bigger fish if he wanted to be able to level up efficiently.

  A worrying prospect, but already Riley could feel newfound power welling in his body. If he were to fight Klaus now, he was reasonably sure he could win that fight and only die once, if even.

  From a chest at the very end of the cavern, he retrieved two more bits of plunder. The first was a long black coat with a breastplate and a fur-lined collar. The armour rating was higher than that of his current robes, and he didn’t need to bolster any of his stats to use it.

  Inquisitor’s Jacket.

  An armoured jacket, worn inquisitors loyal to the Imperial Cathedral. Designed for practicality, with resistance to the elements and weaponry alike.

  Inquisitor’s roam imperial territory far and wide, and are often tasked with sniffing out Chaos and destroying it before it can take root. They are not always successful in this, but inquisitors always choose death before surrender.

  The second piece of plunder he found was a scroll, covered from one end to the other with alien writing. Even as it was translated before his very eyes, the contents of the scroll made little sense to him on its own. As before, he checked it in his Inventory.

  Spikes

  Earthen wizardry tied to Rohll, lord of stone and soil. Shifts the ground to generate explosions of shrapnel a short distance from the caster.

  As the tendrils of Chaos grew vast and deep, the Empire dispatched mining wizards to pull rare minerals from the ground to fuel the war effort. These individuals were not immune to corruption.

  “Would you like to learn this sorcery?” Arubis asked from over his shoulder.

  Riley blinked a few times. “Really? I can learn magic other than plague stuff?”

  Arubis nodded. “Plague wizardry will be far stronger than any magic you absorb. But, provided you have the aptitude, I can impart the power of any scroll into thine mind. For a pittance of Essence. Unlike plague magic, which you can absorb for free if your body has the aptitude.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Riley swallowed hard. He had little over a thousand left, after his levelling splurge. But he was glad to take any chances he could get. He checked Spikes in the Inventory again, and found no indication that his stats were off. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

  Arubis nodded and waved her hand. Golden light trailed after her palm, arcane runes shimmering in the light. The scroll, in an instant, dissolved into vapour that was promptly sucked into Riley’s body. He had a flat two hundred Essence left now.

  He rose up and moved from the chest and gripped his staff. He focued on Spikes and swept his staff forward, kicking up a small explosion of stone just a few paces in front of him. The rocky shrapnel pinged off the tunnel walls, carving chunks from the surface.

  He frowned. It wasn’t a particularly strong spell, but it was a more directly offensive option than his first two, and the strain of casting it was mild at worst. He could make use of it. Most importantly, he told himself, he needed to keep an eye out for any other scrolls he could make use of.

  “Thanks, Arubis.”

  She smiled warmly at him. “I live to serve.”

  A sudden tremor shook the ground, causing Riley to sharply whip around. A wall to the far side of the chamber began to crack and crumble, and then collapsed outward from a sudden shove of force. The dust parted, revealing Kim with one hand outstretched. Scarlet light shimmered from her palm and faded just a quickly.

  “Oh, there you are!” Riley could almost hear her smile behind her helmet. “Fancy that. I only noticed this wall was kind of flimsy and figured I’d bust through, in case there was any treasure behind it. Looks like you beat me to it. Sick threads, by the way.”

  “You... know magic?” he asked.

  She shrugged her armoured shoulders. “It’s only a basic Impact spell. Short range concussive force. Has its uses but, generally,” she motioned to the blood dripping from her claymore, “I prefer sticking to my sword.”

  Riley nodded stiffly. “Seems you’ve picked up some handy tricks.”

  “Like I said, it’s basic. Picked it up not too long after I started. But, hey, seems you’re already learning important lessons of plundering any chest you see. Only...”

  “Only...?”

  “Well, since you’re so cavalier about it I guess you haven’t had anything nasty happen to ya so far. So, as a general rule, be careful when you open chests. Give ‘em a good poke with your blade to see if there’s any reaction. And lift the lid good and slow. Just in case there’s a tripwire of any kind on the inside.”

  “Why... should I poke it with my sword?”

  “In case it comes alive. Duh.” Kim turned on her heel and motioned for the others to follow. “Well, come on. I think I’ve found a route to the lowest levels of the mines.”

  Riley obliged, stiffly tailing her. He'd rather not stop to imagine what a 'living treasure chest' would look like. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”

  “Probably just some patient zero. A guy who got crippled with Rot, growing larger and viler with the passage of time.”

  They ventured deeper inside, following the winding tracts of carved tunnels into the bowels of the mine. The pathway grew larger, more jagged, and it seemed clear that parts had been excavated by something far more savage than a mere mining operation.

  The Auspex on Riley’s belt began to pulse. Gently, at first, and then with greater insistence as they plumbed the lower depths. Oily tar seeped from the ceiling and smeared along the walls. Riley couldn’t smell much through the herbs that had been stuffed into his mask’s beak, but he could almost feel the rank miasma that permeated their surroundings.

  “Damn,” Kim said, gripping her sword tighter. “Corruption is really taking root around here.”

  Riley frowned to himself, sparing a stray glance to his Auspex. The pulsing was growing more and more pronounced. “This... seems more serious than just some random monster?”

  “It might be,” Kim reluctantly admitted.

  The tunnel abruptly opened out into a massive chamber, the walls of which had been thoroughly excavated. Swathes of stone had been meted away, reduced to rotting sludge by spews of feculent black slime.

  Kim froze as her gaze fell upon the hulking figure at the center of the room, who had surrounded himself with the frozen corpses of several miners. What stood before them was not human or living in any way. He was a mass of stone and soil with pseudo-limbs of granite, held together by lashings of pulsating black ooze. It knuckled about, like a gorilla, a great tentacle-shaped ‘head’ whipping around to stare at the to Wardens.

  “Holy shit,” Kim hissed, drawing her blade in a flash. “Riley, get your ass in gear and run!”

  She inched back, nearly dragging Riley with her. “W-what is it?!”

  The great beast turned and started pounding their way, shaking the cavern with every step.

  “A lesser avatar!”