The group took a brief moment to compose themselves, ensuring they all had enough mana to continue, however with the past week the four of them had all increased their aura capacity considerably, with the help of Niss, who was passing onto them Nyx's advice, the girls and Curt had all reached the bottle neck of second stage and were close to breaking through to third like Niss already had but they were struggling a bit still since they didn't have such direct guidance in their minds like Niss had. He tried to explain things the best he could but without feeling where their issues were it was very hard to help them, it was something that had to be done by themselves.
Since the courtyard was cleared out they advanced forward looking at the interior part of the castle they saw that most of the doors were blocked off by debris, fallen stone or wood beams but the entrance to the great hall was left slightly open and clear from any rubble.
"Well, we can easily tell these monsters are using the great hall of the castle, but whatever the monster that became the dungeon boss is, it definitely is hold up deeper inside, I think we clear the next area and then take a break before pushing onward." Niss spoke calmly in an even tone as he mostly thought out loud to the group.
'Niss, being third stage your mind is considerably strengthened against mental attacks, however your friends are still pretty vulnerable. I am warning you because artificer class monsters usually have some sort of mind control abilities paired with them so they can better control their constructs.'
'Hmm, should I face it without them?'
'Comparing your current strength to that of the first constructs, you are leagues ahead of them, however they do not represent how strong their master is. It would be foolish to assume you can take down a third stage boss monster on your own.'
'Fair enough, I will just pass on the warning then.'
"Hey, I just uhhh... remembered something. Most artificers have mind control spells too, so you guys need to be extra careful." Niss said to his friends.
"Yeah I knew that already, that's why I have a sanity stone with me." Lys responded flatly.
'Like why is he acting as if I don't know what I'm doing? Is he getting full of himself after helping us with our auras all week?' Lys thought. 'No, no it couldn't be he is too kind and sweet and handsome to ever act like that, what am I even thinking.' Lys just stood there with her cheeks turning red as she looked away from Niss.
'Hmmm, Nyx would a sanity stone protect them?'
'Yes it will, it protects against mind attacks in a ten meter radius.'
"Oh, my bad Lys. I didn't know you carried such a useful thing, that's pretty smart of you." Niss smiled at her but she just kept looking away from him.
'Why is she being all shy, did I do something?'
'Not really, just get on with the dungeon why don't you.
'Jeez, alright, I'm going.'
.....
The group headed into the largest portion of the castle, the great hall. This part of the castle was central connecting to many other sections and used as a meeting place and grand dinning room or for large events like a ball.
It was very much in a ruined state, the fancy things all faded and broken, the long table that ran down the center was fairly rotted wood and the tapestry adorning the table and walls were all faded beyond recognition, however one section of the table had been cleared of the random objects and dust and instead had many different things than the rest of the room strewn about, making it stand out like a sore thumb in the ancient room.
"What is all that?" Curt asked, pushing up his glasses trying to get a better look at the table.
Chunks of flesh and sections of metal were all over the place, lose bolts and rivets, sheets of metal, a glass jar with eyeballs of various kinds and several vials of gray blood right beside it. The area was clearly being used by the artificer to craft these unholy creations of his.
"Well that is downright nasty in every way." Lys was pinching her nose, looking at the rotting yellow flesh everywhere.
"Yeah, and since its not here we should get moving, hopefully we can catch it off guard, whatever it is." Niss said.
...
Deeper in the castle an abomination of a creature was being constructed, what looked to be the body of a dire bear at least four meters tall on all fours was covered in the feathers of an owl, it had sharp vertical slits in the eyes on its head, however these were not its only eyes. The creature had large and small eyeballs strewn about its body in various random locations, on the left flank of the creature their was the entire head of a goblin that looked to still be alive, it had metal clamps forcing it's eyes open at all times and it's mouth stapled shut. The feathers of an owl draped over it's head and covered the whole beast besides the areas that eyes poked out.
The maw of the beast was no longer that of a dire bear, instead replaced by a vicious sharp beak. The claws of the dire bear however, were very much intact, in fact they were reinforced by metal brackets that attached to it's feet running up it's legs and drilled into the bones of it's legs for support. The monstrosity was truly a disgusting work of art. For the creature that assembled it, it was it's greatest creation yet.
"Oooooooohhhh eye can not wait! eye finally get to test this creation even sooner than eye hoped! hehehe! eye was going to sick it on those useless constructs from my early attempts but even better prey has presented it self to meeeee. Heh. Heh. Heh. This world will know my constructs far and wide after today, the great artificer Grelll will be know to all! Heh. Heh. Heh."
....
The group had a strange chill run down their spines as they wandered past the great hall, Siarra even sneezed and wiped her face on her red robes before they came to another chamber entrance that had been cleared, it was a grand doorway about five meters tall that led into a massive hallway that branched out in three directions with smaller rooms on each side of the halls.
Once the group made it into the hallway however, they heard right away the heavy foot falls of some large beast, except, this was not the usual heavy thud one would hear from a beast, it was like the clanking of heavy metal against the stone floor of the hallway. Looking straight ahead of them, they all finally saw the source of this horrifying sound.
A massive Dire bear that had been modified drastically, even having a sharp and curved beak where it's mouth would be. It had owl feathers and eyes all over it, metal rivets and braces holding things in strange ways, binding metal to flesh and making for a truly disgusting sight and a powerful construction.
"That thing looks insane! What a monstrosity!" Niss couldn't help but be shocked by the shear existence of such a beast. Never had he seen anything like it or even heard about anything like it for that matter.
"What. The. F**K." Lys blurted out.
"Heh. Heh. Heh." a voice from behind the monster echoed forward towards them. "Eye see you like my new construct. You will be it's first victims, what an honor eye bestow upon you!" The voice traveled down the hallway in a terrible way leaving the group completely disgusted and annoyed.
Niss felt a sense in his head like the one speaking was trying to invade his mind but it simply failed, looking back at his friends he noticed the same expression, seemed Lys's sanity stone protected them.
'Good.' Niss paused for a second, 'Trust your friends. Don't get distracted. Protect yourself first. Don't be stupid. Keep an eye on the artificer, and take down this bear.' Niss was saying all this to himself, he had become more aware of his failures after thinking over all his fights, he wanted to better himself and learn from his mistakes, you could have all the power in the world but if you were a moron when you fought then anyone could take you down. He needed to train his mind just as much as he trained his body.
"Let's go! Don't lose track of the artificer, we take down this bear first!"