It was dark when Merrick woke up. He thought about forcing his mind back to sleep, but then he remembered that his boss told him to take the next few days for himself. Since that was the case, it did not matter if it was noon or midnight. He was awake, he might as well log in and figure out what exactly happened after the rush of water pushed him from the platform.
While he made his way to the living room, Merrick scrolled through notifications on his phone. He silenced the majority of them as they were updates from other games. There was only one game on his mind for the foreseeable future. Hidden the unwanted notifications, there was one that caught his eye.
It was an update to the forum thread that he had bookmarked earlier. The two players that had been arguing about the scope of the game and if it was possible to meet up with other players had found a gem inside of the upcoming patch notes released by Mouseion Entertainment. Unfortunately, the moderators were once again on top of the forums and blocked whatever they had been talking about while Merrick was still asleep.
The whole ordeal seemed strange to Merrick, why were the moderators trying to keep such a tight lid on the larger world of the game? Every time he checked the forums, it seemed like there was another blocked, redacted, or removed post regarding player interactions. Like the rest, Merrick would have to wait for the update to come through before he knew what the players had found.
He could read through the patch notes like they had, but Merrick would rather experience it for himself. After all, he was still crawling through his first dungeon in the game. He had no idea what was waiting for him and so most of what he assumed would be in the patch notes would not make sense. When he reached his play area, Merrick slid on his headset and dived into the game.
Unlike before, his surroundings loaded in perfectly. He was no longer unconscious and he had also not been returned to his spawn point in the Abandoned Library. There were three notification windows waiting for him, but Merrick looked around them to take in his immediate surroundings.
He was at the bottom of a wide, circular drainage pool. The hard stone had been worn down by the water flowing over the years. The grate at his feet was rusted but held firm. Above him there was a large opening, he assumed that was where he had come from. It was clear that he was not going to be able to go back in the same way. The hole for the opening was twenty feet higher than the top of the pool and it was located in the direct center.
Since there was no immediate threat, Merrick turned his attention back to the notifications.
Consciousness has been restored. Due to loss of consciousness during the encounter with the Pure Water Elemental, Respawn Location has been temporarily changed to Elemental Cage: Drain Center. Upon death you will be returned to this location.
Skill unlocked: Elemental Charge
Elemental Charge: In preparation for battle, you can now store energy of any particular element inside of your body. The stored energy can be released as a blast or it can be used as a shield. Depending on proficiency and availability of energy, the charge may last more than a single use.
All requirements have been met to unlock all subclasses for the Adept class. Would you like to change your class now? Yes / No
Merrick pressed no on the class change notification and once it vanished, he closed out the respawn location notification as well. He took another look around the drainage pool, his new home if he were to die in the dungeon. It made sense, the game was dynamically setting save points as he went, based on the actions he took. However, it would've been nice to be able to return to the Library if he had died.
Despite the volume of water that had carried him to the pool, Merrick was dry. He checked his gear as well and found that it seemed untouched by the water. The mage's journal that he had been relying on so far was in perfect condition and the two tomes that he brought with him from the Library were just as fine.
It seemed like the only way back was to climb out of the drain. There was some form of algae growing near the lip of the pool and it made it difficult for him to crawl out but eventually Merrick made it out. Around the edge of the pool there was a wide walkway with several grated tunnels. More paths for the water and waste to flow out of the prison, Merrick presumed.
Of all the tunnel grates, only one seemed weakened enough that Merrick could pull the grate off without using magic. It slid to the side easily and he was able to pass through. The tunnel was full of the same slimy algae that had been at the lip of the pool lined the bottom of his new path forward. Every third step threatened to slip, but Merrick took his painstaking time to reach the end of the tunnel.
There was no proper end to the tunnel. Merrick reached a grate that blocked his path forward and a small opening on the upper side of the tunnel that led to what looked more like a proper dungeon. After starting out in the prison cell, delving into the grand staircase, and then climbing up what looking back seemed like a sewage tunnel, Merrick now found himself in a rough stone hallway with torches hanging on the walls.
A pair of translucent blue slimes blocked one side of the path. They were roughly the size of a barrel and they rolled forward toward him. Thoughts of the water crystal and the lightning being shifted from his focus as Merrick easily took down the two slimes in front of him. It felt like the dungeon was taking it easy on him for the first time since he logged in. However, he soon learned that not even slimes were that easy to kill.
Merrick had hit them with a lightning bolt, but rather than popping the slimes like the bolt had done to the water elementals, it charged them with energy. Merrick watched as the light blue slimes turned purple and his lightning energy coursed through them as streaks of yellow.
Within their bodies, between the sparks of lightning, Merrick could see something that looked like a core. After a few Arcane Blasts, Merrick was able to separate the cores from the slime bodies. The bodies oozed toward the cores, but Merrick scooped them up and hurried down the hall to inspect them quickly.
Unlike the golem core that he had looted from the Sentry Golems, the slimes core was a stone with sigils engraved on it. Despite taking them away from the bodies, Merrick found that the only way to truly kill the slimes were to shatter the cores. Once he had broken both of them, the electrified goo that was trying to chase him down turned into an inert sludge on the dungeon path.
In true dungeon fashion, the slimes were not the only enemy that he faced. After a few twists, turns, and trying to get his bearings, Merrick found himself face to face with a skeletal knight.
The classic monster had tattered armor, a split shield, and a broken sword. It still charged at him relentlessly, trying to close the distance before Merrick could get off a spell. Unfortunately for the skeletal knight, Merrick hit it with an Arcane Blast that smashed its bones against the wall. The force caused all of its skeleton to break apart and fall to the ground where the bones stayed still.
Merrick picked through the fallen bones. The armor, the shield, and the sword were all lost causes. Unless he learned some form of salvaging skill, they would not help him. Even though the skeletal knight did not have pockets, among the bones, Merrick found a map that outlined the dungeon structure that he was in.
The map could be trusted, Merrick realized, because it even had the Drain Center listed. Each of the tunnels that branched off his new spawn location were shown and Merrick could follow the path he had taken, on the map, all the way to where he now stood over the skeletal knight's bones. More importantly, the map also showed the path he could take to get back to the grand spiral staircase that he had fallen from.
The map showed that he was several floors down from where the water crystal had pushed him into darkness. Between him and that floor, it seemed like there were two more platforms. The closest of them was labeled: Fire.
Upward from the Fire platform, there were three more platforms. In order of elevation, there was Earth, Water, and then finally there was Air. Going off what Merrick learned upon entering the dungeon, the pathway up to Air was blocked and he would struggle getting back up to Water as well.
If his next stop was Fire, Merrick took a second to prepare. Relying on his new skill, Elemental Charge, Merrick pulled in the latent energy around him and focused as best he could on the idea of Water. After a few seconds, a system notification alerted him that he had been successful to some degree.
Elemental Charge (Water) successful
Proficiency Increased: Elemental Charge (Water)
It felt similar to when Merrick had drank the sorcery boosting potion, but it also reminded him of when he had been near the column of crystal that housed the Pure Water Elemental. Hopefully this boon would keep him from burning when he reached the fire platform. As it was, all Merrick could do was proceed.