Chương 44

Their mission now complete, Kiki disconnected Ben from the server. They walked over to the doorway and peeked out into the concrete tunnel beyond. They saw no change from before. The head of a vampire stared blankly back at them from where it rested a few feet from its decapitated body. The concrete under both the body and head were now coated in a filmy black ichor from its wounds. Oliver needed to get himself and Kiki out of the Nightmare Biome. That meant avoiding the other Vampire Elites.

They might be able to salvage a win against one other if they got lucky. Especially if they played it smart and controlled terrain. But all four at once? He didn't like those odds.

"We're in the clear for now," he announced, seeing no movement or indicator of bloodsuckers lurking nearby. A beam of light erupted from beside him. Whirling around, he found Kiki held a metal cylinder with a glass end that emitted light. It was a bit battered and definitely wasn't fresh from the factory, but Oliver recognized it in an instant.

"Is that… a flashlight?" Oliver asked in disbelief.

"Have you had that this entire time?"

"I found it in a toolbox over there." Kiki gestured over her shoulder with the flashlight, momentarily shining it in his eyes as the beam passed over him.

"Same toolbox I got the screwdriver from that opened the server hatch. My suit normally grants me thermal vision, but it's a bit bugged right now." Oliver blinked. He hadn't noticed. He wondered if he should go back and search the toolbox for anything useful, but then decided against it. Maybe if it had silver screws or something. Mundane tools would be of little use. Especially once they got out and joined back up with Ben's aerial drones.

A [Technomancer]'s arsenal no doubt far exceeded what he'd find in a mundane toolbox. Still, Oliver found himself incredibly grateful for the light as they stepped over the vampire corpse and down the hallway. As they arrived at their entrance point, they were given two options. The flesh appeared to have overcome his salt and bulged out of the ceiling, wads of it dribbling into a pile on the floor.

"Do we want to cut our way up or continue down this tunnel and see where it exits?" Oliver asked Kiki. He was also silently hoping that perhaps Ben could chime in if the [Technomancer] had obtained additional information on the castle's layout. Sadly, he remained mute on the topic. Kiki pointed her flashlight up at the ceiling as a fist-sized chunk sloughed off and plopped on the floor like melting slush from a roof.

"You think you can dig through that," Kiki asked, eyeing Oliver's shovel.

"Not easily. The only time I've ever dug straight up with a shovel before was when I got buried alive. It didn't work well. And this looks like it would work even worse."

"And, assuming we crawled out of the flesh layer, then we'd have to scale the walls up to the trap door," Kiki said.

"Unless you think the vampire torturers will toss us a rope." Without another word, Kiki strolled past the clump of jiggling flesh on the ground and continued down the tunnel. Oliver didn't love this. This tunnel was designed to give the administrator access to the server chamber. That implied that they were currently walking towards the single most dangerous entity he'd ever laid his eyes on. And yet… the alternative was an impossibility.

Getting out of the disposal pit without alerting the remaining vampires just didn't seem feasible. If the Vampire Lord did currently reside at the end of the tunnel, then there was at least a chance he would be preoccupied and Oliver might be able to slip away. Kiki on the other hand… Oliver winced as he listened to her heavy footfalls. Even without taking the newly acquired flashlight into consideration, the [Neon Samurai] wielded a glowing pink sword.

Nothing to be done about it except react as challenges presented themselves. As they swiftly walked, Oliver diligently kept an eye on his surroundings. He had no intention of accidentally stumbling into an ambush or trap. However, despite the secure location, he spotted nothing of the sort. Just a cylindrical concrete tunnel that stretched on and on. It vaguely reminded him of the few times he'd ridden a subway in his past life, though this tunnel thankfully lacked the tracks and trains.

After half an hour of traveling through the underground tunnel, they arrived at a plain black metal door. Oliver raised a hand, to stop Kiki from barreling through, then brought his index finger to his lips. Kiki took a step back and tapped her foot impatiently. Ignoring his fellow experimentee, Oliver crouched and set an ear against the door. He heard nothing within. He closed his eyes and focused, trying to activate Death Aura. He couldn't quite sense whether or not it touched any undead beyond the door.

If there was something, it shrugged off his attempt to sedate it with so little effort as to not even trigger Oliver's senses. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Next, he grabbed the door handle and slowly opened it. He was a little surprised to find it unlocked, but kept his guard up as he slipped through the opening. He carefully swatted aside a cloth barrier. Then another. And more. It was as if he was battling his way through layers of fabric.

Only once he finally broke free did he understand exactly where he was. It was a walk-in closet. The secret entrance down to the server chamber exited the back of a closet. There were thousands of black and scarlet outfits hanging in here, accompanied by a hundred pairs of black boots and shiny shoes. He quickly scanned them with Appraisal, both seeking loot and traps in equal measure. When Kiki emerged, she found him trying on a new shirt. His old, ripped apart one tossed to the floor.

"Are you seriously trying on a vampire's threads right now?"

"Yes." Oliver eyed himself in one of the many mirrors. The collar was a bit high for his liking, but it matched decently well with the rest of his clothes. He pulled the cuffs. It was a bit more formal than his old shirt, but not so much as to be off-putting. It also held the second best enchantment of all the clothes in the room. And, unlike the best enchanted article, it lacked puffy white frills. It also fit his stature perfectly. He assumed it must be an unnoted enchantment on the shirt.

Attire of the Tormented. The original owner of this garb suffered greatly and all of his passion and emotions embedded themselves into his attire as fuel for his vengeance. Greatly reduces mental and soul attack effects on the wearer. Increased durability. Self-repair. Value - 3, 500 Mel. It was exactly what he needed if they were journeying to a haunted mansion after their escape of the Nightmare Biome.

"No need to stand there admiring yourself," Kiki said.

"It looks fine. Let's move." Oliver arched an eyebrow.

"You think I look good?"

"Yes." Kiki said immediately. Then she paused.

"I mean, relative to you. I think it suits you well. I didn't mean it as a… ugh. You look good. Just… let's move." Oliver turned his back to her to hide the smirk. It seemed he'd found a means in which to fluster the stoic [Neon Samurai]. He filed that information away for later use. He considered stuffing his bag full of enchanted clothing, but decided against it. The only articles of clothing with decent enchantments would take up too much space and limit his ability to reach the tools he stored in his bag.

As much as it pained him to leave behind so much glorious loot, he deemed his life was worth more.

"Wait here," he instructed, turning to the closet's main door.

"This should lead to the master bedroom. If the Vampire Lord is in there, we'll be in trouble. But I might be able to slip through unnoticed and signal you to follow when the coast is clear."

"Aren't we in the basement? Who puts their master bedroom underground?"

"Vampires." He cracked open the door. The bedroom was lavish, with a curtained four poster bed in its center. Lightening cracked outside, shining a burst of light through the bedroom's massive windows. Oliver stared at the windows. He had just stated to Kiki that they were underground and he felt in his gut that the statement was true. His mind tripped over itself as it attempted to find a solution to why there were windows here.

Activating Shadow Slink, he crept across the bedroom and over to the nearest glass pane. Outside was a sheer drop. No terrace, just an expanse of darkness below. In the distance, the charred remains of Ventri could be seen through the slight light let through by the heavily overcast sky.

"It seems to be safe," Oliver quietly called back to Kiki.

"Ben, do you think you could fly up here and shatter this window? It seems like this room is built into the cliff face. We might be able to simply escape through here, without the rigmarole of traversing the entire castle by foot."" Negative. I fear that my approach will be obvious and expose your location, especially since the vampires in the castle are on the look out for my drones. There is also the additional danger of lightning.

Based on the historical records from the last several hours, I believe the weather has been designed to strike down anything airborne that passes close to this area." Oliver frowned. Escape was a simple window away, taunting them with freedom. And yet, they remained as trapped as ever. Even with his current durability, he couldn't survive that fall. Kiki even less so. Scaling down the dark cliff face was just as suicidal as jumping. He reluctantly turned his back on the massive window.

Oliver watched with no small measure of exasperation as Kiki ripped apart the bed's curtains and stabbed the mattress.

"What are you doing?" he asked as she moved on to ripping out the nightstand's drawers.

"Ben warned me of a creature called a mimic," she said, jumping into the air to slice through the chandelier.

"They can disguise themselves as anything. Since I assume you're going out on another scouting mission, I want to be guaranteed my safety here while I wait."

"I've lived in this biome for half a decade and never heard of a mimic."" They are quite dangerous,"Ben interjected." I have recently acquired records that state that they exist in all biomes, though their numbers vary dramatically from one to thousands depending on the location. They can exist as anything as small as a coin to the size of a car. Their stealth is second to none." Kiki chopped through the posts of the bed like they were rolls of tatami mat.

Based on Ben's slightly bashful tone, Oliver suspected this to be a ploy from the [Technomancer] to keep Kiki occupied and distracted while Oliver investigated. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"So, your plan is to counter this master of stealth's natural abilities with your own complete lack of stealth?" Without waiting for a response, Oliver shook his head and exited the master bedroom.