Chapter 161

Levi snapped his eyes closed and took quick stock of his situation. Unable to move, but aware of the battle once again.

Something was attached to his face, claws gripping each side of his head. Between the closeness of the creature and the tightness of the Soul-Seeker's tendrils wrapping around his body, he found he was panting for breath as he strained against the restraints holding him immobile, barely able to get enough air.

"Tink?" he managed to gasp out.

The object pressed into his face made a vague sound of agreement.

“Need… li’l space.”

Tink slowly eased back. and took as deep a breath as he could - still not as much as he wanted, but more than before.

"Thanks. You saved my life."

He mentally called up his stats. His health was at 14, and he'd never been so relieved to see such a low number. At least he wasn't completely helpless yet. And he'd managed to recover some stamina and mana while mentally incapacitated.

He felt battered and weary, drained both physically and emotionally. Much of it was due to the lingering impacts of the nightmare imposed on him, the memory of what he'd just experienced felt more true and solid than his actual memories. Parts of it had been copied directly from the first timeline, but exaggerated and warped.

With a shudder Levi shoved the images away. Ideally he'd have time to process and escape from the immediacy of them, but when you had nothing left to do but fight, then you fought.

Tink’s claws eased their grip on his skull gradually, then the sprite released him and fluttered away to again hover near Levi's shoulder.

For a moment he lay still, sending out a series of focused mana pings to feel out what was going on around him, but apart from ‘wrapped up in soul-seeker tendrils’ there wasn’t much he could ascertain. The ambient aura of the dungeon was so closely matched to the creatures within it that all he got back was a vague sense of 'yes, mana is present in every direction'.

"Levi! You're alive." Gordon's words carried an almost hysterical edge. "Are you okay?"

"How long was I out of it?"

"I don't know, feels like forever."

More than a minute or two. Levi glanced at his minion list. Shadevine was dead, no surprise there, but to see Skarm had also not survived his lapse riled him.

Gordon's voice began to calm, clearly relieved, if a bit tremulous still. "But it's okay now, you're awake, we can do this."

"Who do we still have?"

"You, me, Plus..." Gordon trailed off.

"And Tink."

"Skarm?"

"Didn't make it."

"You still want to tame one?"

"No, I want to tame both. Tink, which one is more injured?"

Tink tapped Levi's left shoulder.

Levi twisted around, dragging the resisting Soul-Seeker through the air until it was between him and Gordon. "Gordon, head toward me and you'll be positioned perfectly to attack it from behind. Tink, signal when it's within dismay range."

Levi himself stood held between the two soul-seekers, each trying to both attack him and escape. He did his best to conserve stamina, letting his pools regenerate as much as possible in preparation for taming.

While he knew they couldn't afford to be complacent, part of him already considered the fight won. They'd proven their supremacy, survived the best this dungeon had to throw against them, and would not be slowed or stopped.  Not now, not at the end.

Tink tapped Levi's arm, and Levi called out to Gordon, "Now."

"Dismay."

Levi was forced to use stamina again in a quick surge to resist the creature's frantic attempts to tug its tendril free of his grip. It would delay things, but then this would be a slow process whatever happened at this point.

Another tap; Dismay, resume.

"Do you think it's ready? I'm almost out of mana."

"Keep going. It's only been four, we need it to be certain." They'd eventually discovered that the cost of taming a creature was multiplied by its level; insignificant for level 1 or 2 creatures, but it added up fast at higher levels. Levi would need 25 mana and stamina to Tame one of these, and if they had less than 25% chance of success that would delay things far too much. "Rest if you have to, but keep going."

The final stages of the fight were long, slow, and the kind of annoying that was tedious without being truly painful. Soul-Seekers were really bad at actually harming their opponents, but they were also pretty tough to damage.

What had begun as a frantic, overcrowded, and desperate fight devolved into a slog. More time was spent waiting for their mana and stamina to regenerate than actually fighting. Tink was the main saving grace of the fight, his immunity to mental effects allowing him to run interference to prevent the second Soul-Seeker from finishing off Levi. If not for the fact that at this level they were still pretty limited in their abilities to do harm, Levi knew they wouldn't have survived.

Gordon, for his part, chopped away at the bosses' health without complaint.

It took another twenty more minutes of back and forth, but they finally succeeded in taming themselves a pair of giant floating eyeballs.

Levi was well and truly exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally. There was only so much conflict, loss, and desperation one could weather in a day without it all demanding its toll.

Levi finally opened his eyes and stared around at the carnage, the remnants of their most challenging encounter yet. It was a relief to be able to look around properly again, even if what he was looking at wasn't exactly reassuring.

Plus crawled over toward Gordon, having miraculously survived the whole fight unscathed at 100% health. If a faceless shadow rope could look smug, Levi would say Plus looked so. Gordon knelt down to pick him up, his eyes looking as vacant as many others Levi had seen over the years. While Levi surveyed the battlefield assessingly, Gordon looked with a sort of helpless fatigue.

There wasn't much left to see, all the slain enemies had vanished into the dungeon, leaving only the remains of their own team and the two newly-captured Soul-Seekers.

Levi tried to think of something he could say to lighten the mood, but his imagination failed him. Instead he simply put a hand on Gordon's shoulder, lingering just long enough to communicate silent camaraderie and support, then moved across the vast empty space to begin collecting their minions' bodies.

Pierce was too big to move. They'd have to wait out Levi's revive cooldown or else leave him behind, and Levi would rather spend the next five hours pacing an empty dungeon than leave behind their most powerful and versatile centipede.

Drok was likewise too heavy to move, but they could at least drag him onto Pierce's back with the giant centipede's help if they could revive him. Though the ogre's weight did tend to slow Pierce to a crawl...

Yeah, they'd have to spend the night here for sure.

Fighting blind was something Levi hadn't practiced much. Control dungeons were generally considered not worth it in the future, and he was beginning to understand why. If even a level 5 could almost overwhelm a much more powerful group like Levi's, he wasn't sure he'd want to even enter a level 50, let alone 150 variety.

While they suffered regular losses of a few minions in the other dungeons of this level, this was the first time since fighting Pierce that they'd come even close to a full wipe.

Levi looked over the Soul-Seekers' stats, hoping they were worth it. They'd lose most of a day here, waiting until they could revive enough minions to get on the move again.

Unnamed: Level 5
Soul-Seeker +
Strength: 3
Health: 25/315
(+5/min)

Psyche: 2
Mana: 48/270
(+12/min)

Spirit: 0
Stamina: 2/40
(+2/min)

Unnamed: Level 5
Soul-Seeker +
Strength: 1
Health: 31/305
(+3/min)

Psyche: 3
Mana: 22/390
(+15/min)

Spirit: 1
Stamina: 4/45
(+3/min)

Levi hadn't seen such a wide disparity between similar creatures since they tamed Ward and Elmire. And their stats were ridiculous for their level. No wonder they'd taken so long to tame. They had more health than even Drok, and he was a level higher and built for tanking. Their mana was unquestionably the highest he'd ever seen in a minion.

Strength: +5 Health, +1 H-Regen   
Psyche:  +120 Mana, +3 M-Regen   
Spirit:  +5 Stamina, +1 S-Regen

Levi had to double check he was reading that correctly. Soul-Seekers gained over a hundred mana for every point in Psyche?

Before this, the highest he'd seen were Maggie's +40 mana, Tink's +45 mana, and Drok's +50 health. This was nearly as much as all three put together. The sole reason for the mana pool disparity between the first and second was only stat distribution.

Soul-Seekers were the most powerfully magical creature he'd ever seen. No wonder their mental attacks were so strong, with that kind of mana strength. Stamina was lacking to an extreme across the board, but that explained their low ability to deal actual damage.

A quick glance over their abilities further differentiated them. The first was defence-focused.

Soul-Seeker Abilities

Controlling Gaze: Adversaries that meet your eye may be subjected to your mental assault directly.
Mana cost: 25 every 10 seconds.

Rubberhide (3): Body gains a protective layer, making it significantly more resistant to physical attacks.

Interesting to see how high the mana cost of their Controlling Gaze was. It must be an activated/triggered effect instead of a perpetual one.

The second had different abilities as well as its different stat loadout.

Soul-Seeker Abilities

Controlling Gaze: Adversaries that meet your eye may be subjected to your mental assault directly.
Mana cost: 25 every 10 seconds.

Blade Lash (2): Turn tail into thin sharpened lashes for temporary melee combat. Longer duration further amplifies the blade effect.

Command: Able to temporarily override control of weaker minions in the vicinity. Non-allied minions may have a chance of resisting.

Looking at that last ability, he was quite glad they didn't have anyone left too low level. A formidable pair indeed. 

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It's that time again! If you've got a name to suggest for either or both of our new additions, please sound off in the comments below. :) I'm really hoping to get a third chapter out this week, but we'll have to see how it goes. At least it didn't take until saturday this time! xD