Capítulo 26: Not Allowed
The floor of the dungeon, on the surface, was devoid of much, apart from a few rats and insects Loimos had hunted down, the smashed up bodies of the rodents decorated some the walls of the bleak interior as impromptu paintings.
With no bugs to feast on their carcasses, they would be certain to remain in place for a long while.
Loimos hadn't converted them into rot and left their corpses out in the open for anyone to see, he wished for anyone that came here to never be able to guess that it was an undead that was on the prowl.
He had tested if his miasma invasion was nearly as effective as it had been down there, and it wasn't, the air was much more lively here, so much so that it actively pushed back the miasma and didn't allow it to consume it.
Life was everywhere, it had been there for a long time, only an incredulous amount of potent miasma would be able to overcome it and still, Loimos could only imagine succeeding thanks to the fact that the dungeon was a mostly closed-off area.
His death mist would disperse and weaken out in the open, where life was even more plentiful and where the wind blew.
There was no need for him to speculate about it however, he had begun to delve deeper into the dungeon.
It was easy to tell that he had stepped foot in a new area, for some reason, the seemingly endless maze of straight, ancient and crumbling hallways of grey shifted into something else.
A staircase led deeper into the earth, this staircase wasn't of much use to most at the moment however, for it was flooded with impenetrable black waters, much like that of the now bloody lake.
With his dead senses, Loimos could peer right through as though the water was pristine and perfectly clear.
He stepped forward into the ice-cold water, in fact, it was much colder than it should be considering how warm the air was in comparison.
Loimos felt that it was cold, but he didn't feel the cold, he had the information but not the uncomfortable feeling, it was an opportunity for him to get better at moving under water, since he could still mostly walk at the bottom.
The scenery didn't change much once he reached the end of the staircase after a few minutes, the hallways were very much the same, just with a watery flavour added, nothing was growing and there was no sign of life.
Looking around, Loimos searched if this floor also had a crawl space above and after discovering a hole in the ceiling, which was aptly placed and sized for someone to stick their head through, he hoisted himself up there.
The crawl space wasn't flooded, somehow, allowing for a daring adventurer to catch their breath before diving back down into the cold and dark expanse.
Loimos could see from his position that many other such breathing gaps were placed everywhere at regular intervals.
When this dungeon was still active, it had definitely wanted for challengers to be able to make their way through here, but that was nonsensical, a dungeon should put its architecture toward inciting adventurers to venture in and murdering them, not escorting them through its floors.
Perhaps Loimos was missing some information.
Or maybe he was not, it wasn't the big question right now.
The real thing that was taking up his attention was the clear sign of life he was beginning to feel as he moved deeper and deeper into the flooded corridor.
It wasn't much of a labyrinth, only a few paths diverting to the sides, but all ended almost immediately with dead ends, one needed to keep on moving forward to reach the end.
Not having to do something as pesky as breathing, Loimos reached what was very much a well built in the middle of the way.
An architectural nonsense that Loimos sunk into without hesitation, the well was tight enough for him to climb back up without a problem.
Now, this certainly seemed more like a challenge for the living, not only was the well deep enough for someone to drown multiple times over even with their lung capacity doubled, they would be forced to swim down at maximum speed to hope not to asphyxiate.
Which would prove difficult considering how narrow the space was, the deeper it went, the colder it was getting too.
A true test of resilience and skill, but not for everyone, none of the obstacles could impair Loimos in the least, but undeads weren't really the sort to go dungeon diving.
His feet touched soft ground, rising particles of dirt as he found himself in a wide pocket of water, no place to breathe in, only jagged rocks for walls and ceiling, easily disturbed soil as ground.
The room was roughly the shape of a demi-circle, on the other end opposite to the undead, a sealed door stood, about the size of any regular door but most certainly made of heavy metal.
Small clouds of dirt rose not to Loimos's surprise, he had already sensed their life force a while back for they weren't even trying to conceal it.
Small sized, piranha-like fishes surrounded him, frankly seeming confused about what to do with their sharp fangs.
They were made to slice through flesh and cause heavy bleeding, what to do with a corpse? They couldn't even tell if that was an intruder or just a random skeleton that had been thrown down there.
One went for it anyway, biting Loimos's forearm and wiggling its body, trying to dig into his bone.
Instead of achieving its goal, it reached death as rot grew on the spot it was nibbling on, erupting into an explosion of blighted blood, passing the vile thing through its gills and knocking it out on the spot.
Allowing Loimos to guide the slippery fish to his jaw and bite right through it.
The rest saw this and collectively decided that it wasn't their problem, going away and burrowing back into the ground, pity that the undead wasn't going to allow that.
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