The Dungeons Endless Predicament - Volume 1 Chapter 20 First Monster And Learning More.

After a two week walk through the great ruins John and Liz finally had arrived at the edge of them. Beyond the ruins was a forest of giant trees that looked like red woods but were a dark grey with leaves that had blue veins.

The forest was filled with the sounds of insects and the rustling of leaves from the chilly wind. The forest floor had a large number of ferns and moss on the ground with many large rocks placed every few hundred feet from each other.

“These trees look similar to some that exist back home but the color is different.”

“Really are the giant murkwoods in your home not grey?”

“Well back home we call them giant redwoods. Why are they called murkwood?”

“They get called that because of how they spread seeds. Every ten years pods will grow on the branches. After about a month they will expand and shoot many tiny seeds into the air. When the seeds are first shot out they come in many colors and it is an extremely beautiful sight. Their are so many seeds that the air becomes murky like a pond that had its bottom disturbed. All the murkwoods around the world do that at the same time and it is considered one of the greatest mysteries of the natural world.”

“We should come back to see it when it next happens.”

“OK, when we get to the village we can check how long its been.”

As they were talking John felt a chill and looked around. The woods had gone quite and only the sound of the wind could be heard.

“John be careful. I think a monster is watching you.”

“What should we do?”

“I can feel that it should be about 50 feet from us and to our right. It feels like its only at the 2nd level of the mortal stage. The same as you.”

“So does that mean we’re lucky or unlucky?”

“Lucky. Do you want to try and fight it?”

“What, why?”

“Combat experience.”

“… OK I’ll try but stay close just in case.”

“Don’t worry with me here it won’t even have a chance to do any real damage.”

Liz jumped off of Johns shoulder and retreated into a near by bush. John readied his mace. After a few seconds a growling came from a bush in the area Liz pointed out. From the bush came a figure with brown skin and on all fours. It had tusks and four inch claws. It’s proportions resembled a human but it had neither a nose or eyes and a rotting smell came from it.

(I was expecting something more animal and not something that looks like it came out of a horror movie.)

The monster began to run at John in a jerky motion and at an incredible speed like a professional sprinter. John summoned his stone armor and jogged forward. Right as the got within ten feet the monster launched itself forward. Startled John stuck his mace outward. He hit the monster upside the head.

The beast landed a few feet away and quickly got to its feet. It tried to circle John and lunge at him from behind but he turned just in time. This time his blow was not at good and he hit the abdomen. The monster clawed his arm and broke a few inches on Johns left forearm but he pulled back just in time to avoid a cut.

This back and forth went on for three rounds. The monster had gotten itself two new gashes and a broken front leg, or was it an arm? John on the other hand had lost some armor on his leg and got a nasty cut on his left arm but other than that he had suffered only scratches on his armor.

As John thought the fourth round would begin the monster tried to turn and began to run. Seeing this John launched himself forwards. The beast couldn’t move even half as fast as it could earlier so John caught up to it in only a few seconds.

He raised the mace above his head and brought it down onto the things head. It stumbled and fell only to try and get up again. John didn’t give it the chance and landed hit after hit onto the beasts head. Finally after nearly 15 hits it stopped moving. The dirty brown blood of the monster littered the ground around were it died and its corpse had the look of rotting ground beef above the shoulders.

John stayed there panting and then finally looking at his work promptly ran to the nearest bush. After throwing off his helmet he naturally vomited his breakfast off dungeon brick out.

“Nice job you killed that small ghoul with relative ease.” Liz’s cheerful voice could be heard from behind John and a claw could be felt gently stroking his back.

Liz(I had expected him to do much worse with how he seems to come from a pretty peaceful place. Not only did he not do bad he actually did well considering how much training he has. His decision to kill it even though it was running away will make for a good habit to since monster will often try to alert others of their kind when injured. Good thing he aimed for the head.)

After a minute John wiped the bile from the corners of his mouth turned to Liz with an expression of disgust.

“If you could please tell me what the monster I’ll be fighting next is. Seriously how does something like that even come to be?”

“Well ghouls and other undead only come to be when a corpse is left unburied in a place with lots of negative energy like battlefield or grave yard. A battle must have happened nearby about a month ago going of how human the ghoul still looked.”

“You can tell how old a ghoul is by how human it looks?”

“Yep a fully matured ghoul will have black blood and worse looking skin. After it reaches that stage you will have a hard time telling the age but in general you can tell it’s strength b the color of its tusks. The more red the stronger the ghoul.”

“Thanks for the trivia on ghoul biology but I really don’t want to get the chance to use it again.”

“OK, but you might want to heal that cut on your arm. Even with your healing ability it will still take an hour for a complete heal.”

John looked at his arm and could see that the wound had already long clotted up blood. After using the VHT the wound was gone in only a minute. Feeling tired more from mental stress than physical John and Liz took a rest a bit away from the corpse. Before they left Liz went to the corpse and pulled out a black cor from the chest region of the ghoul. John helped her onto his shoulders and they began walking deeper into the murkwood forest.