Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

Dungeon, penultimate floor

Gjaki briefly considered retracing her steps and exiting the dungeon the way she had entered. In the end, she clenched her fists, with the resolve to overcome that obstacle.

For most players, it was enough to bring enough water to avoid dehydration, which was extremely simple for them. However, the vampiress needed more extreme measures.

She dressed in clothes that covered her entire body, except for her eyes. They were covered with sunglasses that didn't seem to belong to that world, but to someone sunbathing on a beach in her origin world.

Not a portion of her skin was visible, and even her hair remained hidden. That protected her from direct exposure to the sun's rays, but reduced her abilities.

Not only was she unable to use skills like Scratch, but her most powerful weapon, her agility, was significantly diminished. She couldn't move too fast, or she would risk some of her clothes being ripped.

She crossed the passage to the penultimate floor of the dungeon again, and found herself in a tunnel with one of those suns. It was the one that had burned her not long ago.

The change in temperature was abrupt, and the scorching heat made her sweat almost immediately. It seemed to her that it was too close and too bright, that the light could penetrate even her clothes.

Wasting no time, she opted for the quickest and most excessive method. She summoned a Darkness Pillar which engulfed the sun, and temporarily blocked its light.

The spherical being from the dungeon that was floating in front of her seemed to want to fight against the burst of darkness. Nonetheless, it was overwhelmed by that power, and disappeared inside it.

Gjaki sighed with relief after realizing that she could finish them off, and when she noticed that the temperature was decreasing after the being disappeared. Likewise, the dungeon had become dark again, except for a glow that was coming from a side tunnel.

"At least, it's easy to find them," she comforted herself.

She had to plan how to deal with them. In the past, at level 100, she didn't have much of a problem with those kinds of entities, but for now Gjaki didn't have the best skills to counter them.

She went into the rest area, and ate a hot soup high in garlic for dinner, which was somewhat ironic for a vampire. In fact, she had bought it from NPCs in the past precisely for this reason, as a joke, and because she wanted to check if she could really eat it.

"It's not bad, but it can't compare to Goldmi's."

Unfortunately for her, she had finished all the food made by her companion up to her level. Although tempted, she didn't want to miss out on the bonuses that could be gotten from the food, after leveling up and being able to benefit from them.

She got up and left the room, again fully covered. She approached the glow that she had discovered earlier, and eliminated the sun with another Darkness Pillar. The vampiress only had mana to summon one of them, and since she had recovered enough, she took advantage of the fact that there was one near.

Gjaki turned, went back to the rest area, and fell asleep inside the castle. She slept while cuddling a terrible stuffed spider with which she liked to tease Goldmi.

It wasn't easy to deal with those suns. One option was to use Darkness Pillar, and wait to recover the mana. It was probably the safest, but also the slowest.

It wasn't impossible to pierce them with daggers blessed with Dark Touch, but it was dangerous. The temperature rose terribly when approaching them. It could even melt some metals with a low melting point.

The best tactic was attacking them from afar with magic projectiles. It would make that immobile enemy an easy target for Goldmi, but unfortunately she wasn't there.

She tried arrows with Dark Touch, but they burned before they reached it, and the arrowhead barely damaged it.

Of course, there was the option of ignoring them, of walking past them, of simply enduring the heat and discarding the experience that could be gain from them.

As she was considering this last option, she watched as the sun moved slowly towards the arrowhead she had shot. She saw how it engulfed that arrowhead inside it, how it pulled it away soon after, and how it returned to its original position.

From a distance, she commanded her assistant to pick it up and bring it to her. The little Gjaki did it without seeming to be affected by the heat.

"Have it deleted Dark Touch?" she wondered in amazement.

She shot another arrow, that landed under her enemy, which ignored it. She repeated it again. This time, she added Dark Touch. It did move, gobbled it up, burned the wood, and left the tip behind, free of the blessing.

It had been weakened a bit from the fighting against the power of darkness. Unfortunately, it seemed she would need a lot of arrows to get rid of it. Besides, those arrows were burned, so they couldn't be repaired.

It was also evident that it didn't go far from its original place. To test that, she imbued level 1 arrows with Dark Touch and shot them at different distances. The concluding range was about five meters.

"I've a lot of level 1 arrows, but it's very slow. If it works with any darkness spell, then..." she thought, while drinking some water.

It was hot in there, even though she was about twenty meters away. She didn't want to get any closer, but had no choice but to do so to test her theory. As soon as Gjaki got close enough to it, she created a Dark Wall and moved away.

Immediately, the sun moved toward the Wall, to try to engulf it, and light fought darkness in a silent battle. Soon after, more than half of the Wall was gone, as was the bright light, and the temperature was dropping.

Gjaki smiled. Although at her current level she couldn't summon more than fourteen walls per hour, it was much more efficient than a Darkness Pillar. It might be slower than attacking enemies directly, and much more boring, but she now had the means of eliminating them. She only had to suffer the scorching heat for a few moments.

Besides, she hated those beings. As boring as it was, the fact that she could defeat them was comforting.