**Authors note**
*Finally after much lead-up! I give you LEVEL 2! We want death! We want death!*
The pair said their final goodbye to Pops and got ready to leave into level 2. Athena made sure Vain had most of the knowledge she knew and gathered throughout this time.
After another day to completely make sure that they were both ready for their new journey, the pair finally left to go through the door to level 2. M.E.G. has a public door to level 2 with a small charge of 10.5B per person. If a person was new that amount would be costly, but Vain and Athena had earned a decent amount, having 435.7B on Vain's card and 76.8B on Athena's card. They had also given half of whatever they earned to Pops throughout the journey.
Paying the fee Vain and Athena held onto each other and walked in.
*
The surroundings had changed into a hallway with Pipes covering the walls looking almost randomly placed. There was a vent that was just above Vain's shoulder in height. The vent was dripping some type of black liquid while also making some type of dragging sound, as if someone was dragging a dead body along a metal floor. The lights above were dim making it the darkest level so far.
Taking a good look around the pair made sure that nothing was around them so as not to be attacked. Only after a good minute did the two finally calm down.
This place gave an eerie feeling. The place was damp with a quiet dripping sound that echoed loudly. The walls had a liquid that wasn't always the black liquid that appeared to flow through the vents. The air itself was slightly damp, but it wasn't that warm.
The pair nodded to each other and began moving in a random direction.
Quickly after a few moments, an entity had already shown itself. Their first encounter was a small group of three skinless humanoid figures. The figure had no lips or eyelids or anything that would originally protect a human from the elements.
The figures showed their red muscles everywhere, that appeared to be rotting. All the creatures had sharp yellow nails. One of the creatures had its' brain showing with part of its' skull missing, but with the brain undamaged. Some of the creatures had some scraps of what used to be clothing.
Both Vain and Athena were ready for such creatures to appear so they shot at them almost immediately after seeing them. Soon two Wretches fell and the last entity screeched loudly and moved as fast as any hound. Vain knew he wouldn't be able to pull his bow safely in such a situation, so pulling out his shortsword out of his sheath he swung and quickly beheaded the Wretch.
Athena couldn't help mutter quietly how disgusting Wretches were, but those first shots weren't enough to instantly kill the Wretches that they shot, just immobilized slightly. This was the first creature that they had met that didn't die to a single shot to the head. Athena reloaded her crossbow while Vain ended the lives of the Wretches.
Wretches or Insanities, are known for being the thing that humans turn into if they lack; food, sleep, water, or/and sanity. Are about the same amount of difficulty compared to a Skin Stealer.
The pair had already trained enough to know how to act after attacking entities, so quickly after killing the entities they left within the minute. A scratching sound was quietly heard coming from the direction that they had just left. Hearing such a sound the pair quickened their pace to avoid such a fast entity that was so hard to hit.
Their peace didn't last long and they met a strange entity that was truly nothing like any other entity. There was a mass of veiny flesh. The mass had both human hands and legs sticking out of it. For every leg that was there, there would be four more hands. The entity was trying to get into the vent above. This also showed how ridiculously long their limbs were.
Vain and Athena clearly remembered what this was according to Pops. A Clump. They like tight spaces and are hard to kill since they will also split into several different entities if they get attacked in a critical place. Their range is deceptively long since most don't expect the length of the arm to reach two meters.
They can even move extremely fast even in their weird shape. The Clumps will drag their prey to the mass of flesh that is their body and reveal their sharp teeth and mouth similar to a starfish, but with sharper teeth that appear more random, but will tear more easily than expected.
The Clump was also making a sound of breaking bone and an uncomfortable crunching. The sound was almost wet as well. Looking past the Clump there was another corpse of a dead woman that was being dragged along with one of the arms.
Knowing that they were trapped the pair listened in case they heard the Scratcher was moving closer to them, or if they could wait it out until the Clump disappeared through the vents. They also knew that they couldn't bet on this thought, so they kept looking for any door that could be unlocked so that they can just run through enemies that aren't a complete nightmare to kill.
Luckily they knew that they had went past by four doors which only one of which is too close to the Scratcher that they couldn't check. Looking through the doors the pair only found one door that was unlocked which inside the door was a long winding hallway similar to this level. The only problem with it was that there were no pipes going along the walls and ceiling making this level 3 which is much more dangerous.
The pair were left with only two options. One is to go back to the Scratcher and shoot at it, hoping to hit the thing. But if they miss, death is assured. Two, is wait for the Clump to go through the vent and hope it is satisfied with its' recent lunch, because if not, it will attack them. This is actually the safer option since if they do get attacked, the limbs can be cut off until it becomes an easy-to-kill ball of flesh.
Although the situation might seem like a no-brainer, the Clump has, eight arms, two legs, and is extremely intelligent. Depending all on how much experience the Clump has, Vain and Athena could end up fighting either an extremely hard battle against a creature that is learning over time, or an impossible battle that will lead to an inevitable death. This creature had also obviously just succeeded in killing another group just before they had arrived, so it is more likely to be an even harder battle even if it was just a newborn a few hours ago.
There is only one other way to attempt to deal with such a creature which is just to shoot until it leaves them alone. The only problem is that to accomplish such a thing is to shoot at it inside the vent, but that would require that they could get close to the vent without getting pulled into it by the Clump's reach.
After about five minutes of talking it out and waiting for the Clump to leave, the pair decided to take their chances with the Clump rather than the Scratcher since they believed that if they could use themselves as bait, Vain would use his sword to cut off any limb coming in his direction. They also noticed that the scratcher wasn't moving in their direction, but that didn't mean it hadn't just stopped moving in general.
Using a bait and retreat tactic until either all limbs are cut, or the clump retreats is the final plan, unless the Scratcher is found to come, which would then force them to take their chance to hope to hit the Scratcher lest they get attacked from both directions.