Rexus ~ Chapter 20!

When Jaxon stepped through the door and saw what was waiting for them, he instantly tried to turn around and go back. That didn’t work; the dark film over the door preventing retreating. Jess stepped through and grimaced at their foes, nodding at his reaction. “Oh, ew. Good call. Let’s try not to let them touch us if possible.”

Jaxon blinked at her and looked back at the fluffy kittens slowly and cautiously coming toward them. “Your reaction confuses me.”

“Well, I mean… I’m not a huge fan of touching those things, but I feel like I could take most of them out even if I were alone, so this should be pretty easy with the two of us.”

“Jess, I can’t kill those! I would never be able to forgive myself! They are far too cute,” Jaxon sputtered as she rolled her eyes at him.

“Sheesh, I knew you were into weird stuff, why am I not surprised that this is what would get you squeamish? Fine, I’ll take care of it,” she muttered to herself as she moved towards the cats, only stopping after she had crushed the first under her boot. “They are hostile, Jaxon! We can’t get to the door without doing this!”

“I… I can’t even begin to…” Jaxon watched in horror as body after body was crushed or smacked away by Jess. He didn’t lift a finger to help her, simply gaping until she had finished them all off.

“Jaxon! What the heck, man?” Jess snarled as she stalked over to him. “I had to kill, like… three dozen rats by myself!”

“Rats? You were stomping on kittens!” Jaxon almost gagged as he spoke. Jess smacked him lightly across the face to snap him out of it.

“I did not! My combat log says I just killed thirty-six ‘tiny beasts’. There must be some mind-altering stuff going on here.”

Congratulations, Challengers! You have set the speed record for the third duo survival room! Rarity of final reward increased by 5% for completing the second duo survival room with a record.

“I bet there is something that made those rats super cute to everyone who came through here. I’m glad my perception is high enough to ignore it, or we would’ve never set that record.” Jess smugly strutted toward the door, Jaxon trailing behind with an uncomfortable expression on his face.

They entered the fourth room with a grimace, knowing that it would be much harder to win than the previous room was. At least, that was the assumption. Jaxon had to reevaluate his thoughts toward this dungeon when he saw several large sharks thrashing around on the floor. They were already starting to suffocate, but the fact that they weren’t already dead told Jaxon that their opponent was added to the room right as the challenger entered. While this was an interesting development, it didn’t stop him from charging forward and landing a hefty punch on each of the sharks.

“Jaxon! What are you doing?”

“Getting experience!” Jaxon looked back at her with a bloodthirsty grin. “These things are huge and, I’m betting, high level. Not my fault that they can’t breathe, but I see no need to be wasteful.”

Jess didn’t even wait for the explanation to be complete before she was attacking the sharks as well. Their rubbery hide didn’t sustain much damage, and frankly, the blunt attacks they were able to make with their bare hands wouldn’t allow for any lasting damage to any part of the predators. None of that mattered, though because in a few minutes, all of the sharks had suffocated.

Congratulations Challengers! You have attained a ‘David and Goliath’ record for defeating enemies more than double your level in the fourth duo survival room! Rarity of final reward increased by 85% for completing the fourth duo survival room with a record. Minimum reward rarity set to Rare.

Exp: 360 (1,800 * Giant Shark x4 * .05 Kill Contribution).

“Good lord, those things were worth nearly two thousand experience each?” Jaxon smiled happily as he reached for the sharks, ready to tear them open and learn about them but stopped just before he touched the rough surface.

Jess had been watching him the whole time, and she had seen him do something similar with the plants in the first room. “Alright, I need to know what the heck is going on here. You keep wanting to do something, then holding back. Are you wanting to eat them or something? Are you worried that I will lose respect for you or something? I don’t think it’s possible, so don’t worry about that.”

“Oh, that’s very sweet of you! I didn’t realize that I rated so highly in your mind.” Jaxon kept speaking even as Jess tried to interrupt him for some reason, “No, I was told that completing the temple using only skills for your class or ones you want to enhance was the best way to go. Anything else could make the rewards offered vary wildly, so I am being careful not to accidentally use some kind of harvesting skill.”

Jess looked thoughtful, nodding slowly in realization. “That at least explains my last run through. One of my reward options was an occupation change… alright. Let’s get through the rest of this place as fast as possible.”

As they walked toward the next room, Jaxon blinked a few times. “Why the rush? There isn’t a time limit as far as I could tell.”

“Yeah, actually, why did it take so long for you to get out of there the first time? I was on the ground for two hours as we waited for you.”

“I took a nap between most of the battles. I was trying to get a meditative skill or something that would be useful for my personal recovery.” Jaxon tossed his hands into the air in frustration. “It seems I cannot make it work for me, no matter what I try.”

“You were taking naps?” Jess seemed stuck on that point, and Jaxon felt that there would have been an argument or something if they didn’t walk into the next room at that exact moment. “My face was being pushed into the ground for hours and you were taking n–”

“Whoa. Those guys are big and ugly,” Jaxon spoke the words before he could stop himself and had to wonder once again where all of his self-control had gone. He looked at what was waiting for them once again and shrugged. At least he hadn’t lied, and it seemed that Jess was firmly distracted.

“No way. Those are straight out of mythos! Those are Lemure! They are a type of animalistic demon that rely on strength and clubs to destroy their opponents!” Jess was geeking out pretty hard, so Jaxon spoke up to remind her of the situation.

“I thought lemurs were small monkeys? Listen, I’m glad you are excited, but… we are their opponent here, right? Any weaknesses that you remember?” Jaxon’s words had the same effect a pin had on a balloon. She deflated visibly and attempted to remember anything that would help them. 

“No, unless you have holy magic, we are going to have to beat them to death or try to get out of here as soon as possible.” Jess was leaning toward the second option, that much was obvious. It didn’t look like they were going to get a chance to debate and make a choice; the demonic beings were charging at them with looks of malicious glee. 

Jaxon darted forward and met their headlong rush with his own, slipping around the massive beings with timely uses of his dodging skill. The solid stone floor shattered wherever their weapons hit, even with the lightest of strikes. Jaxon knew for sure that if he were to take even a glancing impact, the result would be his death, if not from the first hit, then from the next one when he was on the floor gasping in pain from all the broken bones. 

*Wham* 

Jaxon dodged the attack, but the shattering ground sent shards of stone into his face, and he flinched away. He tried to do a backflip to get away from whatever attack would be coming next, but he was hit by a club and sent sailing like a homerun. The wall came closer, closer… then everything went black.

Momentarily.

You have died! Calculating… you lose no experience. Time remaining until respawn… Variable.

Your partner has completed the survival room! You will appear in the room with your health capped 50% lower. Arriving in 3… 2… 1… 

Jaxon came back to life shouting, “Ow! That hurt, and how on earth did you win? I’m not doubting your competence, only your odds of survival.”

“You are welcome. I didn’t fight them. I ran for the exit while you kept them busy. Sorry you had to die for it, but if it makes you feel any better, we got another five percent on our reward rarity for setting a speed record.”

“That actually does help me feel better, thank you.” Jaxon looked around, trying to gauge what the threat level they would face here could be. “Do we have invisible enemies?”

“No, just tiny ones.” Jess pointed at the floor, and Jaxon leaned down to get a better look. “Snakes. I’m assuming poisonous ones since there are so few and they are so small.”

“How many in total?”

“Nine. At least that I can find. So be careful where you step,” Jess pointedly ordered him.

“Jess, let’s be serious here. I only saw this one because you specifically pointed it out for me.” Jaxon stood straight again and cracked his neck. Tell me where to walk, and I’ll take care of the snakes. I freakin’ love snakes.”

He took a step toward the snake that had been pointed out, moving his arms in undulating patterns as he moved. The snake got into a tiny coil and stared at him, flicking its tongue uncertainty. Jess shoved Jaxon forward, and a nearly invisible snake arced through the air where he had just been standing. The snake Jaxon had been focusing on saw this as an attack and used its coiled position to launch into the air at the human’s face. Jaxon caught the tiny reptile gently, sending it to the other side of the room with a flick of his fingers so it couldn’t bite him.

“Let’s hurry through here. I don’t want these perfect specimens of healthy spinal columns to accidentally get hurt.” Jaxon moved to the left just as another snake passed his neck.

Luck +1.

“Can I intentionally hurt them?” Jess grumped at him. “Seriously, I don’t know what is going on with this place. It either gives us enemies we don’t want to hurt, can’t hurt, or can destroy way too easily. Why not something that is a fair fight? Ouch!”

Jaxon looked back and saw a tiny snake thrashing around, having locked onto her throat. Foam flecked her lips as she spoke the last words she could manage before dropping to her knees, “Jaxon. Run!”

She spasmed once more and fully collapsed. Jaxon wasted no more time flipping backward and skipping at full speed to the exit. His sporadically swinging body made the surprisingly speedy snakes miss their subsequent series of strikes. Jaxon shoved open the door and slid through.

Congratulations, Challengers! You have attained a ‘Beneficent Human’ record for not killing your opponents, even while you easily could have killed them without taking damage. Sixth duo survival room completed! Rarity of final reward increased by 20% for completing the room with a record. Minimum reward rarity set to Unique.

“Nice!” Jaxon told Jess the happy news as she appeared next to him. Then he looked around the room, and his smile faded a little. “Well, Jess, I think we had a good run.”

“What are you…” Her face paled as she took in the opponents arrayed against them. Six… creatures were staring at them through beady eyes nearly hidden by their shells. They were heavily naturally-armored quadrupeds, somewhat lizard-like, with their heads making up two-thirds of their total size. One of them opened their mouth and opened and opened it. Its jaw was open wide enough to engulf Jaxon with a single chomp, and he wanted no part of that action. There had to be magic involved for these things to exist, otherwise they would simply topple over due to their unbalanced bodies.

The massive beast in the lead moved back a bit, then launched forward at a speed that should have been impossible, somehow leaping with its heavy body nearly a dozen feet toward them. It landed as the humans tried to dodge, catching them off-guard and bowling them over. The others jumped and landed, forming a massive dogpile that crushed both humans to death.

You have died! Calculating… you lose no experience, but you have been barred from reentry to the Temple of Tempering in the solo and duo areas! Time remaining until respawn… Variable. Reward must be chosen before respawn. Please choose your reward now.