Jay wondered what the dihexapede was doing up there, and then he remembered the other notification he got after gazing at it.
[Hidden Quest Acquired]
He opened it, hoping that it wouldn’t ask him to slay a level 133 monster.
<[Hidden Quest - Slay The assistant]>
[Slay the Assistant]
[Progress]
[0/2 Slayed]
“Assistant, singular? But it says I need to slay two of them.”
“Probably some more mysterious bullshit, typical.” he thought, nothing about helvetia or its pyramids were straight-forward and simple.
Jay looked through more notes and other loot but found nothing except more glassware, tools and inscriptions. All of them were useless as they crumbled at his touch.
This was fine though, as to Jay, getting the chimera experience was enough to satisfy him. Besides, the pyramid was still undefeated, maybe there was still loot waiting for him.
Anyway, it wasn’t like there would be some ultra-powerful, mystical magic item that suited Jay perfectly waiting in every room.
With the room searched and the specimen tanks all oogled enough, it was time to find Anya.
Jay could sense the two skeletons he had to escort her so he knew she was coming back through the passageway.
Jay waited at the corner of the passage and put his orb in his inventory, silent as he waited in the darkness.
Anyas light was coming closer, along with the skeletons which he was sensing, and finally she exited the passage.
“Hi!” Jay smiled.
Anya jumped back and held her hands up, completely startled.
“Don’t do that.” she pouted.
“Heh, sorry. Find anything interesting?” He took out his orb again.
“Ah.. I found the pit, the one from the murals? I think… It’s filled with skeletons.” she said, hesitantly. Her face was a little pale - perhaps it was from the smell, the skeletons in the pit, or from Jay scaring her. Maybe a mixture of all three.
Of course, Jay only heard ‘pit full of skeletons’. He didn’t need to know anything else as he turned to go into the passageway.
“Awesome, I’m going in.”
“Ok.. and did you find anything interesting?”
“Nope. Just a bunch of junk that crumbles when you touch it.”
“Aw ok.” Anya said, she headed towards the large tanks to see the life forms inside.
Jay walked with a spring in his step towards the pit, it seemed that he was going to be ok on skeletons for a while.
His mind was more focused on the skeletons now, so it seemed like the smell was getting less powerful.
Neither Jay or Anya could compare the smell to anything, but the closest description of the smell was like a mix of ammonia and rotting eggs with some rotting fruit undertones.
It seems that centuries had passed, and whatever was used to preserve the bodies had long since decomposed and evaporated. The rotting process began and the smell had only concentrated over time as it was locked away in this dark underground chamber.
Jay had no hesitation as he walked through the passage towards the pit, undeterred by the smell.
Finally he arrived in the room, walking out onto a semi-circle platform that overlooked everything.
“Woah…” he said, shocked at how large this chamber was.
The pit was gigantic, and Jay had to pause for a moment as he gazed at a sea of pale white bones below him.
Unfortunately, his light was not doing justice to what he saw, and most of the skeletons in the pit were still hidden in the darkness.
The pit must have been huge, because he couldn’t see any other walls in this room.
Jay was curious, and he had an idea, finding a use for one of the faded orbs.
He took the small orb from his inventory and added as much mana as he could into it.
The orb only responded by slightly glowing like a large firefly, but this was enough for Jay’s purposes.
“Ok, here it goes.” he grasped the orb and stood back.
Jay had each of his skeletons stand to the side as he backed up, then he ran forward towards the pit and threw it as far as he could with all the strength he could muster.
The glowing orb went extremely far across the room, making a whistling noise as it coursed through the wind. Jay’s adventurer strength gave his body a large boost, which even surprised himself.
What was more surprising though, was that the orb was still going. Soon its trajectory flattened out and began to fall.
It eventually went down behind something in the darkness, and Jay waited patiently as he waited for the noise of it hitting the ground.
…
*Crack!*
A loud sound and a flash of light rang out, echoing off the walls.
Jay didn’t realise that when an orb shatters it releases a large amount of light, similar to a lightning strike.
The flash of light briefly lit up a large part of the room, as well as causing a silhouette of what it went behind.
It was a mountain of corpses, skeletons, filling up this deep ravine.
This was more than simply a mass grave - this was the entire burial site of Helvetia.
Countless skeletons were piled up; the ones at the bottom of the pile were probably ground to dust from the pressure of the ones on top.
Even in Jay’s peripherals, he didn’t see the walls on either side during the intense flash of light, somehow the room was even wider than it was long.
“Oh…” he was speechless, the room really was enormous, and he was still coming to terms with all the skeletons in here.
Jay realised he had to get down there somehow, to a necromancer this was like a wonderland, a dream. One man’s corpse was another man’s treasure after all.
He did feel a strange sense of remorse for wanting to take these skeletons, but he knew that these had merely become empty vessels - the souls of the helvetians were all transferred into soul stones by now.
Even the helvetians had not given these real graves, as no one had died. This is why they were discarded here like trash, so Jay quickly stifled any remorse he had.
“Hmm.. “ Jay walked around one side of the platform, finding nothing.
The other side however had a path - and it was going downwards.
Jay had a large grin as soon as he discovered it.
“And Sedulus said there was no treasure here…” he shook his head with a smile.
Jay walked down the path, of course with a skeleton in front - who knows what could still be alive down here after all these centuries? Or what could have grown and evolved?
After walking for some time, he finally came to the shoreline of the sea of bones.
“Finally” he smiled, approaching a skeleton and raising a hand.
The ring responded to his thoughts, shifting into its second form as his beloved bones floated around him - it then began to slowly pick up bones from the skeletal sea, it was like they were magnetised by him.
“Oh yes, fuck yeah!!” Jay was ecstatic, a wide smile on his face. He hit the motherload.
At first, he had some doubts - thinking that maybe the skeletons would be part of the dungeon environment, or perhaps they would simply be too old to even be recognised as bones anymore - but that was not the case, making this prize all the more sweeter.
The bones waved, floated and clinked around him gently while more and more bones were added to the swirling mass.
“Shit,” he said excitedly “just how many can I have in this ring?”
The swirling mass of bones was starting to get huge, turning into a cyclone - and Jay had only taken a few steps forward, there was still a whole room left that he couldn’t even see the walls of.
Just how many can go into my ring?
The breeze was starting to blow now, the light wind created because of the twirling mass all around and above Jay.
He took a few more steps forward, slowly carving a path in the sea of bones.
Even Jay was now starting to feel a little tense as he looked up at the swirling bones all around him, blocking nearly all his vision. There were simply too many. If his powers suddenly gave up, he would probably even be crushed.
Still, he took another step forward, and another, and another. Something in him, deep in his subconscious, was driving him forward, enticing him to take just one more step.
“So many bones…” he smiled, shaking his head.
Suddenly, after taking more steps forward, he stepped on something - a femur. He then got a notification.
“Huh? I guess the ring got full?”
[Criteria met - 100/100 Skeletons]
[Necrotic Ring - Evolution Available]
“What?” he said, shocked that it could even do such a thing.
***Felt like being nice, so have a free chapter, on me :) -Aero182***
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