"God damn it….." I said to the dungeon more than anything.
'Can't even give me a chance to celebrate my victory, nope. Writhe on the floor in the blood and brain matter of your enemy….' I sat up in disgust as I tried to remove bits and chunks off my body.
At least I understood why it hurt so much, it seemed that absorbing large amounts of essence at once is painful. Though it might just be from enemies deemed 'boss level', their essence is a different color after all. It also might be a mixture of both.
Something odd happened after I got my bearings, my body began to smoke. I began patting myself down in confusion before noticing where the smoke originated. The ogre's corpse. Soon I was clean and the ogre's body completely turned to smoke that gravitated to the other side of the arena, guided by a light breeze that shouldn't exist in an underground bunker like this.
It began lumping, then coalescing into a familiar shape. Orgnar the Undying proved true to his name as he was whole again, kneeling in the same place he stood when I entered the area. Though his color was off and the angles of his body were too rigid. Like a stone statue.
My video game nerd senses began buzzing as I turned around to where its corpse was, and there was something there.
A thin leather bag, a golden string sewn to close it, and a symbol painted on it that resembled a black fire. It wasn't large by any means, it fit perfectly in my hand and was about a foot tall. As I picked it up and looked it over I noticed the ethereal green glow I'd been accustomed to.
There were few uses an enchanted bag could have, the obvious and most useful being a bag of holding. I wouldn't find out until I looked up the name in the mortal arc but that was only a minute or so walk away.
I gave one last look at the huge ogre before I left and went to the stands. My leather armor refitted then fastened my bolt quiver and headed back to the ladder.
It gave me a chance to reflect on that 'battle', obviously if I was touched by that ax even once I'd die. But it felt... too easy? Or maybe it was due to how passive I played the fight, I either dodged or ran until I saw a single sign of weakness.
Sure I was shaking and my knees felt weak but I didn't feel that sense of dread I'd expect from staring down a monster almost twice my height and three times my width.
But the fact remained that without my wyrmling gauntlet that fight wouldn't have ended like that. It would've turned into a battle of attrition where I used my spear to try to whittle away at its health and hope for a few bleed effects.
It was obvious now that I thought about it, my gear carried me.
Surely I wasn't complaining about that fact, but the question remained. How long would it?
I sighed as I reached the ladder and looked up. The runes I would've sworn taunted me were now listless, a light glow persisted but it was obvious that they were inactive.
A sure reminder to not just climb down any ladder I saw.
'Despite everything, it was fun.' I admitted to myself as I climbed the ladder. Taking a modicum of satisfaction when I punched the cellar door open.
Surprisingly the fire was still burning strong, if I had to guess it's been around an hour and a half. I only lit one log and only the bottom half of it has turned to ash at this point.
I kicked the cellar door shut and walked over to the mortal arc, the leather bag in my hand.
Though I was slightly skeptical about putting something as flammable as leather in a fire I figured it would be fine, it was an enchanted item after all.
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{Uncommon Grade Bag}
Bag of Arcane Holding
Type: Tool
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That was interesting, an 'arcane' enchanted bag. My first guess would be that it was surely a spatial storage device, but if it was truly just that wouldn't the name just be called the 'bag of holding'?
I felt that there was some type of limit on what it could store, the 'arcane' name led me to believe it could only store enchanted items. Luckily this was something I could easily test.
Retrieving the bag from the fire I was surprised when I dropped it, my hand stopped working. Stuck in a position that resembled a T.rex arm, it was when I tried to turn it around with my other hand that the pain hit me.
I almost collapsed to a knee when I got a look at my right palm, blackened skin, burnt almost to a crisp. The only thing I could say to explain this was adrenaline, it seemed the 'moderate' resistance to fire damage was just that.
It made sense, I fired four fireballs in an enclosed space, but dammit did it hurt now. I prayed that I didn't burn the nerves away and tried to brainstorm an idea to fix this new problem. Becoming crippled this early on was not something I needed to happen.
I obviously didn't have a lot of options, it wasn't like I ever received a potion of healing or even a pair of bandages. The only resource I had was Essence.