I Built This City Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Read chapter 22 of I Built This City by ThePudding on NovelPedia.

Adventurer Ellen The spear creaked loudly as the jaws ground the teeth into the seasoned wood haft. Ellen struggled, regretting her decision to skip on armor for now as she felt the claws dig into her stomach, trying to find purchase to tear into her. The pain was intense, and she could see death coming for her within an instant. Then the weight on her chest was gone, her spear wrenched from her grasp. Ellen gasped for air, panting heavily as she heard the sickening thud of the horrifying giant stoat slam into the wall nearby. EXPERIENCE AWARDED: Assisted in defeating a threat For assisting in the defeat of a [ Giant Greylan Stoat ], you have gained 80 Experience. An additional bonus of 80 Experience has been applied from the dungeon aura. An additional bonus of 80 Experience has been applied from the Bloodline Rival Trait. FIRST TIME AWARD: Killed a Greylan Stoat. For performing this activity for the first time, you have gained 300 Experience. FIRST TIME AWARD: Directly assisted in combat For performing this activity for the first time, you have gained 50 Experience. FIRST TIME AWARD: Wounded in combat For performing this activity for the first time, you have gained 100 Experience. Ellen mentally brushed the notifications away and groaned softly, but she didn’t even have time to complain before Vincent was there. The large man was already yanking her shirt up to expose her belly, and she felt the soothing cool flow of magic stitching the claw marks in her belly closed. “I’ll be the first to admit that normally I’d be screaming about incompetent newbies,” Miriam said from behind Ellen. “But this is actually strange. It just ignored us and went straight for the new kid. Does she smell like rabbit or something?” Edmund was visible, rubbing his stubble and staring at the dead stoat. “The spiders did the same thing. Is this dungeon targeting the lower level people on purpose? We’ve never had that happen, but maybe older dungeons don’t do it.” Ellen blushed as Vincent lifted her shirt higher, but the stoic man didn’t remark on what he saw there. He simply tucked it back down and looked upward, giving a quick nod to the others. Ellen reached down and slid fingers into the blood-soaked holes in her shirt, feeling where her stomach had been opened up. The faint ridges of fresh skin were there, still scabbing over and not fully healed. Even healing magic couldn’t heal everything immediately at her Level… it took energy from the target as well as the caster, so healing her all the way could just knock her out. Miriam stepped into her sight and offered Ellen a hand up. She accepted graciously, hauling herself to her feet and swaying unsteadily as her vision swam. The mage kept hold of her until her balance steadied. “Careful. Even after healing you can be a little dizzy.” The mage frowned. “Was that the first time you’ve been hurt that badly?” Ellen nodded to her, then looked around for her spear. “I guess I’m getting a lot of experience, but this is really getting concerning.” Edmund swept up her spear with his foot, catching it in midair and handing it to her. “It could be coincidence,” Edmund mused. “After all, we don’t know a lot about new dungeons. I’ve heard a little about them but Miriam and Vincent are the real experts. Maybe they just locked onto her for some reason we don’t know?” “Then we’d better find out.” Miriam glanced aside at Ellen. “I’ve never heard of dungeon monsters targeting anyone specifically…” Vincent normally kept quiet, but he cleared his throat now. “There was the one dungeon that tried to attack women first.” Miriam made an annoyed noise. “That’s true. I think that one had it on the entry message, though. Ellen, do you have any strange Status Effects on you that might clue us in?” Ellen looked up from her examination of her spear. The teeth marks didn’t look nearly as bad as she’d thought… stoat teeth were sharp but narrow, and not designed to crack through wood. She looked at each of the three in turn, chewi