The rest of the group followed Merlin inside, everyone was wary of the ghouls. Zankoku and Alvira jumped in fear every time they heard chains rattle. They made sure to keep their distance, but even then they didn't feel safe here.
"What kind of messed up torture room is this?" Alvira spoke up again while looking around.
The room was full of torture implements, and amongst the handful of live ghouls chained up along the wall were a couple dead ghouls, they appeared to have been carved up by several of the torture implements lying around the room.
Merlin's eyes locked onto one of the dead ghouls hanging on the wall, its eyes were sunken and its chin was covered in blood. But unlike the other ghouls in the room, its skin didn't seem entirely decayed, and this one almost had a full head of hair, whereas the others were all bald or balding. Merlin's curiosity grew as he stared at this creature, it just didn't seem normal in his eyes.
Much to his party's disgust, Merlin began poking around the body. The nearby ghouls were slamming against their chains and trying to attack him, but they were helpless against their chains. Merlin inspected the ghoul's corpse, his eyes locked onto the ghoul's neck, where he saw a bruise that seemed to be in the shape of a large hand.
"Odd, why would someone choke a ghoul if they were trying to tame it." Merlin mumbled out loud.
His eyes hovered up towards its jaw which was covered in blood, and to Merlin's surprise it seemed there were also remnants of bile running down its face. After a few seconds of inspecting the corpse he realised that the jaw had been broken, and there were remnants of food left in its mouth, along with the overpowering scent of vomit. Merlin wasn't certain but the food seemed to be human remains, which made him feel sick to his stomach.
He pulled away from the jaw and inspected the ghoul once more, he thought of all strange aspects about it, and then something suddenly clicked in his mind.
"No. They aren't just taming ghouls. Someone is creating them." Merlin mumbled to himself. "They've been force fed human remains and tortured. This is some kind of sick experiment."
Merlin noticed a glowing item within a nearby pile of torture implements, and when he walked up to it he noticed that it was a knife. Merlin picked the knife up and inspected the stats on it, causing an information window to appear before him.
┌───────────────────
[Torturer's Blade. (Uncommon)]
• Damage: +6
• Chance to inflict bleeding: +14%
└───────────────────
"Oh hey, this is pretty good." Merlin mumbled to himself, he was starting to regret promising not to take any of the weapons that they looted. He walked over to Alvira and handed her the blade. "This knife fits your aesthetic pretty well, check the stats."
In the end it seemed better to give it to Alvira, he could always find better weapons down the line but he couldn't replace trust. Merlin wasn't keen on losing an ally because of his own greed.
Alvira took the weapon happily, she immediately swapped out her beginner dagger for the torturer's blade and swung it around a bit before thanking Merlin.
"What should we do about the ghouls?" Zankoku asked. He had his sword drawn and seemed to be on edge just being near the ghouls, even though they were chained up.
"All the ghouls here are most likely the people who have been getting kidnapped. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way to turn them back once they've become ghouls, it's best to put them out of their misery." Merlin instructed.
The group spent the next couples minutes killing the defenceless ghouls before investigating the rest of the room. There wasn't much else of value left in the room, but Merlin passed on anything that showed up.
The group went back into the room full of skeletons and made their way over to the left side of the room this time. Alvira decided that she wanted to try what Merlin showed her, and while laser focused on her task, she decided that there were no traps without consulting Merlin before immediately swinging the door open.
Fortunately for the party, there were no traps on the other side of the door. But on the other hand, they suddenly caught the attention of everyone within the next room.
As Merlin's light illuminated the next room, he saw four human-shaped creatures that he quickly identified to be vampires performing various tasks around the room. He also noticed that there were three ghouls that were locked away in what were essentially reinforced dog cages.
The vampires all turned around to locate the light source, immediately seeing the party standing around the door frame.
"Vampires lets go!" Alvira shrieked with excitement as she quickly made her way into the next room. The rest of the group followed with their weapons drawn, Merlin included.
Two of the vampires were using weapons, a sword and a dagger, but the other two were barehanded.
One of the barehanded vampires took the initiative, and decided to lunge towards Alvira with its claws out. But unfortunately for the vampire it leapt into the swing of a large war hammer that forcibly sent it flying to the opposite end of the room. Tiny let out a taunting grunt as he lifted the war hammer back onto his shoulder.
Merlin watched as the rest of the party quickly got into position. Nora drew an arrow back and was getting prepared to shoot. Zankoku had begun sprinting towards the vampire with a sword while getting ready to strike. Tiny and Alvira were preparing themselves for the incoming attacks. While Merlin picked the vampire with the dagger as his target and began running towards him with both his daggers drawn.
The second barehanded vampire ran towards Tiny and Alvira, lunging at them with its claws out. An arrow flew past Alvira's head and embedded itself in the vampire's heart. This disrupted the vampire just long enough for Tiny to chant his heavy strike skill as he swung his hammer down on top of the vampire's skull, causing its body to bend forward and its head to collide with the stone floor at an incredible speed.
Alvira ran behind the vampire that was now face-first into the ground, and plunged her new dagger into its back, aiming for where she believed the heart would be.
Zankoku and the sword vampire had just begun clashing blades. The vampire parried Zankoku's katana and used the opportunity to claw his chest with his spare hand. Zankoku took a step backwards and shifted into a more defensive stance.
Merlin's eyes glanced over at Alvira and Tiny, and he saw that they just killed the vampire and were now moving to assist Zankoku. He also noticed that the other vampire that Tiny batted away hadn't moved yet, but it was highly unlikely that it was dead with just that.
Merlin entered combat range with the dagger vampire. Sparks flew as his goblin dagger collided with the vampire's dagger. Merlin began chanting for his heavy strike skill while getting ready to attack with the wolf's fang.
「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack will do an extra 30% damage, and has a 10% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」
Merlin barely dodged the vampire's claw strike before plunging his dagger into the vampire's neck. The vampire let out a pained grunt as it thrust its claws at Merlin once more, barely grazing his skin as he pushed away.
"I really need to get more agility." Merlin mumbled to himself while thinking he'd probably want to visit the rangers guild sometime soon.
Merlin and the vampire clashed once more, and the vampire immediately thrust its claw towards Merlin's stomach without bothering about its own defence. It seemed to have gotten an understanding of Merlin's speed and decided that this was the most effective attack it could perform.
Instead of taking the bait and going for another attack, Merlin thrust his dagger into the vampire's claw, preventing its claw from reaching his body and causing it to roar in pain. He parried the vampire's desperate attack before slashing at its throat.
Merlin sent his vines to entangle the vampire temporarily as he pulled his dagger out of the vampire's hand and plunged it into its heart, causing it to fall limp. He turned around just in time to witness an arrow piece through the skull of the sword vampire, killing it.
Merlin's attention snapped back towards the last vampire, who was fiddling with the locking mechanism of the ghoul cages. An arrow flew through the air and pierced it in the shoulder just as it ripped open the lock, causing the ghoul inside to burst out of its cage.
"Kill it before it opens more." Merlin roared out as he charged towards the ghoul.
An arrow with a red tint flew past his head, embedding itself in the vampire's heart. Merlin watched as the vampire's clothing spontaneously combusted, the fire rapidly spread along its clothing and onto its hair.
Although its skin was visibly melting and the vampire was roaring out in pain, he still worked on opening the second lock, another few arrows were let loose as it opened the cage. One hit the vampire's leg, the others hit his head and stomach, successfully killing it.
The ghoul charged towards Merlin and pounced into the air with its claws out. Merlin plunged his daggers into the ghoul's chest and wrestled it to the ground using the daggers as handholds. The ghoul clawed at his sides while Merlin was repeatedly stabbing the ghoul's chest with his daggers.
Tiny ran over to Merlin while chanting, and Merlin barely rolled out of the way as Tiny brought his war hammer down on the ghoul's skull, causing its contents to spray out and cover Merlin. It seemed as though that was the last straw for Nora, as she immediately turned away and became sick after witnessing it.
The ghoul that had just been released burst out of its cage and pounced Tiny, who hadn't yet recovered from his last attack. But Zankoku intercepted the creature, leaving a deep cut in the creature's shoulder. Alvira and Zankoku worked together to finish off the creature while Merlin cast cleanse on himself and Tiny. They killed the last ghoul that was still locked in its cage before doing anything else.
"We didn't get a vampire soul." Alvira let out a disappointed sigh as she began searching around the room for any loot.
"Well there's another room over there." Tiny said as he pointed Alvira towards a small connected room in the corner. "There's still hope."
When the group collected themselves and approached the room, they saw that there was nothing else in the room but a large double door that appeared to be made of stone.
"Well, that's definitely a boss room." Alvira remarked before sitting down in the cleanest corner she could find.
The group rested up, allowing their bodies to heal before daring to attempt the presumed boss room.
