A Gunslinger’s System in a World of Magic

A circle —about a quarter of the metal door's overall circumference—, jutted out of the surface of the metal door and as Henry touched it all around, he felt circular grooves that convinced him of his guess about the use of the Signet Spokes. Eloise was watching him curiously but she said nothing.

With a flick of his wrist, Henry pulled one of the Signet Spokes from his Inventory and he looked it all over. It looked like a rod and its surface was grooved with what were undoubtedly arcane symbols that Henry didn't even bother to read because he knew he lacked the Intelligence to understand them.

He placed the Signet Spoke close to one of the circular grooves and it was attracted like a magnet. It snapped in place and began to glow a dull violet color.

Eloise's curious eyes became widened in surprise,

"What's that?" She asked thinking it just too kismet that Henry had something in hand that could snap onto the metal door as though it naturally belonged there.

"From the Knights," Henry told her as he gestured behind him at the Undead Knights strewn all about the Hall floor.

"Oh. I didn't know they had anything on them," Eloise said slightly embarrassed that she hadn't thought to search.

"I'm sure you would have realized eventually," Henry said to comfort her as he pulled another Spoke from his Inventory and snapped it onto the jutting circle.

As she watched Henry retrieve Spoke after Spoke and attach them to the circle indented against the metal door, Eloise found herself wondering where he had kept them.

Due to the lack of a bag on his back like with Louis and Andor, Eloise decided it must have been with the use of a more discreet storage item which she assumed he must have gotten from Doherty's corpse. There was no other way a recent cuff-wearer would have such.

Eloise was just about wondering if this was a thought she should be entertaining —if she was thinking too little of Henry to assume his lack of ability to have anything— when he snapped on the last Signet Spoke and the entire circle now glowed subtly as though waiting to be turned.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Eloise asked with a raised brow as she watched Henry take many steps back from the Spoked circle.

"In a minute," Henry said and pulled a Mana recovery Potion from his Inventory.

"Mind if I do it?" Eloise asked.

Henry was already drinking the potion but he waved her along as though to say 'Be my guest'.

When Eloise grabbed two of the Spokes and began to turn, Henry had already retrieved Four more bottles of Mana recovery Potions to bolster his low reserves and his Mana Point tab now looked like this;

[Mana Points: 340/340]

His Mana Points were at the maximum capacity for the first time in a while and even as he discarded the empty potion bottles no one batted an eye. They had all stepped away from whatever they had been busy with and had their eyes entirely on Eloise as she began to turn the Spoked circle.

Henry looked to the side and saw Andor and Louis on either side of him looking nervous.

"I understand Andor because I worry he just came along for me—"

"I did," Andor answered immediately.

Henry smiled but continued,

"But you, Louis, you wanted this!"

"I did— I do!" Louis hurried to correct himself, "Just shaking from excitement is all."

"I don't think that's true," Henry said with a chuckle.

"It is," Louis said defensively in the most unconvincing voice Henry heard from anyone's lips.

Eloise had turned the Spokes as far as they could go and with a hard pull, the metal door pulled off the frame and slowly swung outward to reveal a purple carpet behind the circular doorway.

Eloise led the way and stepped onto the purple carpet first. Aurelius followed and he was followed by Alice and Darren, the Squires.

Next, Henry entered with Nyx trotting by his side and Andor and Louis a step behind. After them came Norbert leading the groups that had survived the battle against the Undead Knights. All looking wary.

Henry wasn't sure what to make of the scents within this chamber.

As the source of the sickly, deathly Mana that permeated the Dungeon and animated the bodies of the Many Undead, Mummies, and that one Monstrosity, he had expected a greater stench here. He had steeled himself in expectation but to his surprise, that wasn't the case.

The disgusting sickly deathly scent was certainly here but was muted somehow. Mixed and mostly overcome by a scent Henry could not quite place.

"Smells like Authority… Like Power," Louis said as he sniffed the scent.

"Authority doesn't have a scent," Aurelius said with a frown from a few feet ahead, "Neither does Power."

Henry had to disagree. He would not have made the call himself but now that Louis mentioned it, that was exactly what it smelled like. Which was weird because, as Aurelius said, Authority and Power shouldn't have a scent.

They had walked ten feet now and as one, multiple lamps sparked alight along the walls and lit up an otherwise dim hall. It was the brightest lighting Henry had seen provided since he had been in the Dungeon and it revealed every inch of the chamber in its entirety.

It looked like a Throne room and while there were so many intricate designs that adorned it all over —Like the intricate grooves and faintly glowing symbols on the columns that connected to the high ceiling above— only one thing caught the attention of the Dungeon Raiders.

In a Throne hewn from bones in the same abominable construction that made up the Monstrosity that had been such a pain to deal with, sat a skeletal figure that lacked any flesh whatsoever.

Its bones were black but gleamed with a luxuriousness. It had in a purple robe and on its skeletal frame, the robe should have looked weird —sunken in areas lacking the body mass to fill it— but somehow seemed just right.

Within the skeletal figure's black skull, the eyeholes were each occupied by a tiny violet light and yet, when he looked into them, Henry felt more fear than he had felt when he had stared into the more violently glowing ones on the other Undead he had met outside this Chamber.

The impossible scent of Authority and Power was prevalent now and was so clearly wafting off the Skeletal figure that had not yet acknowledged their presence in the Chamber.

Its black bony hands were gripping armrests made up of a collection of tiny skulls and as Henry stared at those skulls, his stomach churned because he knew the creatures the skulls must have been harvested from. Or at least he guessed and the guess was far too horrific to consider.

"So, you made it here," the Skeletal figure finally spoke in a voice Henry remembered clearly from the most recent Undead Woes he just went through,

"How disappointing."

"Shit!" Eloise said and Henry looked into her face to see her eyes widened in an expression of fear he had not seen her make against anything else he had seen her face. She had not even had that expression against the Monstrosity.

Henry frowned and although the look on Eloise's face worried him, it also spurred him on to act. He edged past those in front of him with both his Normal revolver and 'The Hydra's Sting' in his hands.

"Henry wait!" Eloise cried out but Henry was already aiming.

He fired a shot from his revolver first and infused it with <Guiding Shot>. The strategy was to make the first ordinary shot to ensure to success of the magical one.

Henry expected the Skeletal figure to react and was prepared to fire as many shots from his Revolver as possible but the first hit because the figure did nothing but stare at him.

The stare unsettled Henry but he pushed past it, pointed 'The Hydra's Sting', and fired an <Acidic Combustion> shot.

Again, the figure did nothing to avoid or intercept the shot.

The bullet struck powerfully and the green veins of the magical shot spread until an entire half of the figure's skeletal body was gone in an explosive Bang!

But then, as the acidic explosive gas that resulted from the combustion fizzled away, the Skeletal figure remained seated in its bony Throne as comfortably as before. As though losing part of its body was not even an inconvenience.

"That's why I told you to wait," Eloise said with a sigh. She didn't sound disappointed. Just wary like a thought she had had and hoped was wrong had been proven right.

"What are you talking —" Henry was about to ask Eloise without looking at her when he saw the part he had destroyed on the Skeletal figure's body begin to mend itself.

The bones regrew and in barely a minute, the creature was whole again. Skulls can't smile but Henry was sure the expression it had was a mocking one.

"So eager," the Skeletal figure said and then glanced at the one thing on its body that had been destroyed by Henry's shot but had not mended.

"You ruined my robe."

It sounded upset but like it was just an annoyance it didn't even care enough to be animated about. At least not yet.

"What is this?" Henry asked, tempted to shoot again.

"Henry it's a Lich," Eloise told him gravely and she must have seen Henry's confusion at the term because next, she said,

"It's immortal and can't die."

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