Carter carefully ventured deeper into the dungeon. His armor let out tiny sounds of metal collision. He tried to minimize the motion of his body to make the least amount of noise.
But no matter what he did, the armor would always make a sound.
In the game Darkness and Bloodlust, this was communicated via the Stealth stat. While wearing any kind of armor, your Stealth will suffer a penalty. This could cause sneaking around to become extremely hard.
Normal clothing did not have this penalty. Leather armor was also the same. There were some types of special armor that excused themselves from this penalty as well.
But none of them were available in this dungeon.
Carter had no intention of switching out his metal armor. Its stealth penalty could be a nuisance, sure. But he would rather be a loud but living person instead of a dead one.
Most of the area inside the Dungeon of Darkness was darkness itself. Empty hallway that expands for a questionable length.
There was a hidden rule amongst the community of Darkness and Bloodlust. Never stayed inside a long hallway. Because if something bigger than you started chasing you, there would be nowhere to hide.
Carter didn't worry too much about that, though. As he remembered, this section of the game should not have any threat that could make him run for his life yet.
Carter went through the long hallway that connected with the collapsed entrance he came from. On the other side of the hallway was a vast hall with a large bronze statue in the middle. It was a frame of a hemisphere that had a diameter of five meters or more.
That thing was huge. And apart from himself, Carter doubted that anyone in this dungeon would be able to recognize this symbol.
Bronze hemisphere that usually had a diamond or some type of jewelry attached in the middle. That was the symbol of Alchemy in this world.
Magic existed in this world. Along with monsters, demons, and also Alchemy.
In contrast to the belief of Kintara, the Dungeon of Darkness was not the source of Ascador's connection with ancient magic and primordial forces. Instead, this dungeon was literally their secret experiment lab.
This hall was the center of all trouble. All creatures and NPCs would have to enter this hall to get to every other part of the outer layer of this dungeon.
The most common advice that Carter had given people whenever they had asked him on how to beat this level was that you never stay in this hall for too long. All rooms connected to it. All sound would travel through it.
If you were one unlucky bastard that got caught in a fight inside this hall, all of the monsters and creatures of the outer layer would hear you. That was a death sentence.
Carter looked around the hall, paying extra attention to the floor and hoping that maybe he could spot a lantern or two. But there was nothing on the ground, not even a broken weapon.
There were eight total stone columns in this hall, scattered evenly on the ground, and they held the ceiling in place. Three doors on each side for a total of six doors, not counting the door that Carter had come from.
Carter stuck to the wall and walked to the doors on the left.
These two groups of doors were hidden difficulty choices. The three doors on the left had way more creatures and dangerous encounters. The three doors on the right had very few mobs but many more traps and were especially difficult to navigate.
Even for the 10k-hour veteran Wetdog72, he couldn't guarantee that he would get out of the right section in a short time. Definitely not enough time to reach the herbalist. So even if it meant he would face more danger, Carter picked the left door.
You could never stop taking risks. Especially when playing Darkness and Bloodlust. Carter intended to adhere to the spirit of the game wholeheartedly and play it risky.
He stepped into the first door on the left. That was a broken-down prison cell with a wooden bed frame in the corner. On the ground, a deformed man was lying with all his limbs stretched to the sides. He was hairless in a grotesque way. Not a single strand of hair on top and not a single strand of hair below. The beast wore only a thin, ragged old shirt and nothing else.
The perfect representation of the theme of Darkness and Bloodlust had always been this mob, the Mutated Prisoner. It was an ugly, horrific creature with a deformed face. Its face looked like fresh meatballs sewed together with rough lines of stitches.
The handy work of an amateur Alchemist.
The Mutated Prisoner stood up when Carter entered the room. This mob had an almost perfect perception that was similar to an ordinary human. Its vision was bad because of all the deformed flesh, but other than that, it was fine.
This man was once a normal human. Through countless experiments and tortures, it had lost its mind and become this bloodthirsty monster that would attack anything that came close.
And that was exactly what it did. It ran at Carter with all its speed.
Run was an objective description. It drags its asymmetrical body toward Carter in the slowest way possible. One leg behind to balance the grotesque body and one leg in front to pull itself onward. The side effect of having such an imbalanced body.
Opposite to Minor Spider with extreme speed, Mutated Prisoners were slow. Its speed was its weakness. But Carter had no confidence in winning against it. He knew himself very well.
If he was the knight or the soldier, maybe he could take it one-on-one. But as himself, Carter Caine had no chance. So he did the best thing a speedrunner should do, he circled around the creature and went through the door to another room.
That beast was relentless. It would stop at nothing to come at him. He needed it to lose sight and sound of him if he wanted to cut it off.
That was impossible with this noisy armor.
Carter ran at his own pace. Not too fast to cause fatigue and not too slow.
The next room was bigger, almost twice as big as the previous room. This was not a prison cell. Benches stuck at the wall, cabinets in the corner, and even a big wooden locker that may contain some useful items inside. In the middle of the rooms were many human-sized tables with straps and chains on them.
The infirmary. However, it was never used to treat the residents here. It was built for a different purpose.
Carter looked down on the ground, and he smiled wickedly.