POV Kidnappers:
,m Shadows moved through a broad, dark street, with only faint flickering light radiating from a few windows. The buildings on both sides of the street were quality built, three stories high, all made of stone, with highly decorated facades.
A few shadowy figures quickly moved in the darkness, their black mantles fluttering behind them. Their steps were quiet, making almost no sound as they ran through the stone-paved road. There were three of them. They quickly vanished in the shadows of the sidestreet.
They stopped only when they reached the backyard of one of the buildings.
Their faces were hidden behind the shadows and masks covering them. The eyes of one of them, who had a horn-like protrusion growing out of his head, suddenly flashed in a golden light as he looked at the back doors to the building.
He quietly whispered, his voice muffled by his mask, “Shit, there is some magic on the doors, likely some alarm. We will go with plan B, just in case.”
One shadow threw a long rope with a shiny hook towards the roof. He pulled a few times, the roped moved, but the hook remained firmly stuck on the crevice of the roof.
The horned figure immediately gripped the rope leaning with their feet on the wall as they briskly climbed up. He stopped before a small window on the second floor, and the golden light once again flashed in the mask’s eyeholes, briefly reflecting in the glass.
Suddenly a bright orange flame ignited around his finger. Then he steadily moved the burning finger towards the window’s glass pane.
The glass immediately started to melt, the hot liquid dripping down. He carefully moved his finger along the window’s frame, the orange flames melting glass in its path.
The glass pane fell out. The masked shadow briskly moved his second arm, catching it between his fingers. The flames immediately enveloped the whole glass pane melting it, with the blazing hot liquid raining down to the backyard.
The black figure leapt through the window, landing with a thud on a wooden floor.
He was in a simply furnished room with plain stone walls. There were only a large wardrobe and a bed covered in dust, making it look like it wasn’t used for a long time.
He carefully made a step forward. The floor creaked, and the figure stopped in panic.
“Is somebody here?” a female voice came from outside of the room, a step quickly approaching the room.
The figure froze in his steps, panic sending shivers down his spine. The steps quickly approached the room. The old doors started to creak in their hinges as they slowly pried open.
‘Wait, why am I even panicking? I am not here to steal but to recruit, so it is good that my targets just walk to me.’
The shadow quickly moved, jumping towards the doors at such speed that he looked like a black blur. He violently swung the door open, revealing a woman looking like she was in her twenties. Her face was immediately malformed in horror as the brass mask stopped just a step away from her.
A powerful hand grabbed her, with the second one covering her mouth. The muffled sound came out of her throat as she started to shake, kicking and punching, trying to get out of the man’s grip.
It was useless. She felt like punching a wall; the man didn’t even hinge, his grasp firm. Her hand rummaged through her belt in a panic until she gripped a small vial. With all of her focus and strength, she crashed the vial against the man’s mask, its content entering the eyeholes.
The liquid splashed on her, a feeling akin to burning to spread out of it, with steam rising up.
The man staggered back, smoke rising from behind his mask, together with a disgusting smell of etched skin.
“Perverted cultist!” the woman shouted as she gripped with her healthy hand a dagger from the backside of a belt and stabbed towards the cultist’s chest.
She stabbed with all of her strength, the dagger digging through the black robes but stopping on the man’s skin, its tip unable to penetrate it.
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon hovered above a burned and destroyed tree, thick clouds of smoke and ash whirling around him.
Suddenly a sound akin to a shattering glass resounded through the whole dungeon. The black void swirled and moved, massive cracks spreading through the dungeon. The whole burning hill started to collapse. Huge boulders rolled down its sides, with the soft soil sliding down, taking all of the trees with it.
Ding!
//
You are now level 43
All stats increased!
+5 stat points
+1 ability point
//
Ding!
//
You are now level 44
All stats increased!
+5 stat points
+1 ability point
//
Ding!
//
You are now level 45
All stats increased!
+5 stat points
+1 ability point
//
A bright rainbow-filled oval shape of a portal opened behind the dragon, a bright light radiating out as the dungeon started to dim down.
Vesuvius flapped his wings, his whole black body with patches of magma and the crystal spikes on his back dived into the portal.
The scenery around him immediately changed with the tall white peaks around him. Vesuvius remained flapping his wings, hovering without moving from his position as his heart kept beating like insane from the mix of adrenaline and excitement.
He knew that the system wasn’t stupid and that there was only a tiny chance that it would again make the mistake of giving him speedrunning challenge. Still, he was delighted, his whole body shivering, ‘Three levels just in fifteen minutes, without any danger.’
He got out of his stupor and rose towards the sky, his body becoming blurred as he launched towards the horizon, ‘With this, I should have all of the materials that I need.’
He kept accelerating, his body itching for him to return home as soon as possible to open his mystery boxes.