Into the Darkness: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Axe Druid Book 4)

by Christopher Johns

  I selected yes, and she stilled. Her streamlined figure beefed up considerably. Her form growing until she stood with her head to almost hip height on me. She had been about to my knee before, but now? Damn. The muscles in her body looked to be larger as well, including her legs and tail, too.

  She took a tentative step forward, then another before breaking into a trot around the bear. Her mind touched mine, Slow.

  “You chose this, Bea.” I grinned. The added stats were nice. Really nice. “We can get you back up to speed when you level up again. So, fight hard and smart. Understand?”

  Slow! She cried again, the scowl making me laugh as she glared at the offending legs beneath her as if they would suddenly move faster. She ran into a wall and fell to the floor, irritated at the world.

  This is going to be fun. I sighed to myself as the others chuckled at her misfortune. Where the hell were these things when Kayda was a baby? They could have helped a ton.

  Maebe had stern words for Muu and I, and even more stern words for me after that. Needless to say, that I was sufficiently cowed into not fucking about too much more when there was a serious fight going on.

  “It is not only above your station as a mentor but also as a king, you would do well to realize that your actions and the tone you set are easily picked up by your young protege.” She let me cool and think that one through for a while, but I understood what she meant.

  And that was how things went from there on for the next few levels, resting once more but not practicing as much due to the increasing difficulty and actual need for rest. Sure, things got exciting. We found a few hidden chambers with surprises and loot that was nice. But nothing really out of the norm, or what one might not expect out of a dungeon.

  There were no more crystals that we could find, at least none that Bea was interested in pointing out to me.

  Oh well. Onward to more fun. We passed through the next door, leaving this floor and heading into the unknown that was the next.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Both Fainnir and Bea leveled up a few times already on the floors above us, proving to be much more interesting if a little dull at times. But this last floor of the dungeon that we had worked our way through had taken the cake.

  A floor full of worms as long as anacondas that regenerated unless set on fire. Don’t think the movie, think factual. Like, thirteen feet, hundreds of pounds and like to eat dirt, but also flesh with rows of teeth designed to mush stone and bubbly, bulbous bodies that gave me the worst chills.

  That had been interesting to say the least, and on a couple of occasions, we’d had to step in to help our little gladiators survive. More things had also been coming directly for us, so we took them as they came.

  Bea and Fainnir grew by four levels since leaving the fourth floor, and experience seemed to be boosted for them.

  I wasn’t certain how Fainnir had managed his points, but I knew that it was going to be his job to sort that out for himself. We could only make suggestions since, in this world’s cultures, sharing your status screen was an extremely intimate thing. What I could and had been affecting was Bea. Since the Ursine Power crystal had taken effect, I had had to pump points back into dexterity so she would shut up about being slow. The boost to strength and constitution had been well worth it. Her other stats improved as well, all except charisma. I didn’t need her to be cute. I needed her to kill, which she was proving to be quite adept at. Looking at her status screen this last time around showed some promising results, though.

  Name: Bea Arthur

  Race: Gust Raptor (Juvenile)

  Level: 7

  Strength: 10

  Dexterity: 15

  Constitution: 11

  Intelligence: 10

  Wisdom: 4

  Charisma: 3

  Unspent Attribute Points: 0

  I wasn’t sure what the change from hatchling to juvenile meant for her, but I guessed that time would tell. Like I had said, she’d been pulling her weight well.

  Each of the previous floors were easier, sure, but for floors eleven and twelve, we had begun to have to step in a little more as the creatures grew steadily in strength and size. And in cunning.

  But even as I say that Fainnir had proved himself well enough that we only offered help when he asked now, unless it was too dangerous. Still, his understanding of his role and the things he had to do in order to survive had improved dramatically, and his tactical mind was almost stunning. He was clever, quick to plan, and his nerves seemed to dissipate when he was faced with a fight. I couldn’t tell you if that was the surefire cockiness of youth, genetics, or what, but the kid had balls. And he wasn’t afraid of much after that.

  I had to admit, I was damned proud of how far he’d come.

  “So, as soon as we’re all rested, we head down into the thirteenth floor, but something’s been bothering me,” I said, and the others glanced up.

  “Is it the serious lack of humanoid enemies?” Muu huffed from where he sat tanning a hide that we had collected from one of the previous floors. I’d taken a large, flat stone and imbued it with the ability to assist the tanning process. I’d used what he told me of the tanning process, concentrating the heat of a fire to act as heat from the sun, then amplifying it a bit to work faster. It took the majority of our last rest together to really get it down, but the item was useful, at least. It wasn’t instant by any means, but it would work, for now.

  “Yeah, that’s been bothering me too.” Yohsuke frowned and eyed our surroundings. “A dungeon with cunning creatures? Sure. I’ll buy that. But one with no humanoids whatsoever? Not going to go for it. I think we’re coming up on some, and it’s not going to be cool.”

  “We’ll need to be cautious,” Balmur spoke as he worked in his spellbook.

  I glanced over to the dome of shadows where James worked with Fainnir on his meditation techniques while Maebe guided him through extending his consciousness into the earth around him. The concept was the same as me pushing mine into the shadows, and Pebble was there to let him know if it was working. He had made great strides toward getting the hang of it. Even Pebble was impressed.

  On some of the floors, we had been able to find some more metal. This time, metal we were used to dealing with and that Jaken knew how to work with. So, some like copper, iron, mithril, and other semi-precious metals like silver and gold.

  Before he had joined them, I’d had Pebble build us a makeshift forge, a simple construct that I could use to heat the metal that Jaken worked. He had lugged out his portable anvil and went about beating the metal into submission after we had formed ingots out of it. With my ability to superheat metal by adding mana to it, I was pleased to see that the results worked well.

  And I wasn’t really worried about enchanting because it was my mana in the item, to begin with. Nothing to worry about. If someone else were doing the enchanting, I’d worry.

  After a good couple hours of work from Jaken, with me heating the metal, we had the beginnings of a decent axe head. Bokaj took measurements from Fainnir earlier and we had his axe on standby to act as a model for the shape and feel. Bokaj would make the haft from a portion of the special tree we had found earlier, and Muu would provide the leather grip for it from his own work.

  After the third hour of hammering, Jaken quenched the axe head in oil that we had in a bucket. The sizzling popping echoed into the chamber around us, and a small bit of flame bubbled to the top of it. While the metal cooled, I looked at the haft to see if I could add anything to it.

  “This wood is really weird.” Bokaj scratched his head after he handed me his work. The finished product was beautiful. The slight curvature of the haft where the axe head we had designed would fit had been executed flawlessly. It was smoothly sanded, the finish applied with a dark lacquer to protect the wood that had a sort of matte brown to it which didn’t reflect the light Balmur had given us to work with overhead. I loved it.

  “Why do you say it’s weird?” I held the wood up to my
eye, but since it wasn’t part of an item yet, I had no idea what it was or the type of wood it had been made from.

  “Because it’s ridiculously magic absorbent—” he held up his hands when I glared at him. “I meant to tell you sooner, but honestly, it’s taken me this long to figure out. This is the first item I had the chance to make with it that I could bring out its full potential, and even that I’m not certain of. I’d love to get some to Sarah to see what she could do with it. I have the heartwood and all so that she can work it, I’m not that good yet.”

  “How can you tell that it’s magic absorbent?” I kept trying to see if the wood would show me its secrets to no avail.

  “A test we do.” He took the wood and closed his eyes. “We touch it with our mana, and if the mana disappears, it has absorbed, and if it just bounces off, it isn’t. Simple, I know, but there’s really no other way that I’m aware of.”

  “Okay, cool.” I relaxed a little. I found it odd that it had been in a dungeon we found a tree like this, and on such an early floor, too. And how had I known it was worthwhile? Maybe it was time to have a chat with Momma Nature and see what she had baking for us in the oven? “I really appreciate your hard work, man, thank you.”

  “Happy to oblige, and you know….” he paused for a second as he pulled a small hunk of the wood out of his pocket, no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, but as wide as it was long. “If you wanted, Balmur and I could try to come up with a design for a ring made of it and see what it can do as an accessory. If it absorbs magic really well, maybe you could come up with something interesting for someone in the group?”

  “That’s a great idea man.” I smiled at him, getting more than a little excited at the prospect. “I used to love watching videos of people making rings at home. Let me know if you need any help, okay?”

  He nodded and left me with a grin and a reminder to come get him when we were ready to fully attach the head of the axe.

  I took my mana and pressed a familiar image of a certain popular hammer into the haft of the axe, then fed it mana with the intent that whenever willed, the weapon—the haft and everything attached—would return to the wielder’s hand. To keep the weapon more streamlined and augmenting the strength of the haft in case it had to take a blow, I decided to use some fairy iron shavings because it played well with magic and was just pretty amazing.

  It took a whopping 759 MP to enchant the haft by itself, and even the enchantment wouldn’t show since the item wasn’t fully formed. This was going to be tricky. It was interesting because I knew that the enchantment had taken. I could feel it, and I could see it in the green engraved hammer where the leather would cover.

  I blinked and shrugged, motioning to Muu to come over with his glue and leather strips.

  “This should be fun, as I’ve never really done this before,” he grumbled as I held the haft out toward him. “Is that Mjolnir?”

  “Yup!” I grinned at him as he snorted and slowly wound tan leather strips around the bottom of the haft. It was a process, that was for certain. We made sure to cover a decent portion of it, at least enough to make sure that if Fainnir decided to hold it in both hands, he’d be able to comfortably. We made sure there was a small nail that we hammered in to keep it firm in conjunction with the glue.

  After that was finished, I set the haft in my lap and began to go through the process of engraving the axe head itself. The double-headed axe head looked fantastic, almost like it could have been wings that flared up as far as they did down, the tops almost meeting. It almost looked like one solid cutting edge. Beautiful work.

  Rather than only engraving one side or doing a shallow engraving on both, I decided I would push the engraving all the way through to the other side so that it would look perfectly the same. That had taken about 506 MP, but it would be worth it.

  “Yo, Jaken, you still have that obsidian?” I called over to the paladin as he cleaned up his makeshift forge.

  “Yeah!” He reached into his inventory and pulled out a large chunk of it, something that was almost as large as his head. “How much you need?”

  “Maybe a quarter of that?” He grinned and tossed it onto the ground, took his hammer, and tapped it until roughly a quarter of the bulk lay in chunks on the ground before tossing them to me. “Awesome. Thank you.”

  “Happy to help.” He flashed his tusks and went back to work.

  I took a clean handkerchief and began the process of grinding it into powder and smaller chunks as best as I could with my metallic claws. I found that I could crush some of the smaller pieces if I squeezed hard enough, which helped a lot. By the time I was finished, I had long since recovered all my mana and focused my intent and will.

  I pulled the mana from my mana pool, mentally taking it through the channels of my body up to where the elemental tattoos resided on my skin. I circled the mana around the diamond-colored mountain that represented my blessing from the Primordial Earth Elemental. Then I brought it back down through my arms and into the axe head. I wanted the earth to have the same elemental affinity as the wielder, and that would require that I use the magic I had available to me for it.

  Rather than waiting until the halfway mark to add the obsidian component, as I might normally, I started a quarter of the way into my mana infusion, sprinkling it at a slow and steady rate. I couldn’t have told you why I did it, but it felt necessary as if I had been inspired to do so.

  More than a thousand mana later, the process was finished, and I still had no idea what I had made. However, the engraving was beautiful. Winding paths of black obsidian formed mountains on both sides with small lines leading to each other and out onto the cutting edge like the veins of precious metal in the stone of the world.

  I looked over the work and figured it was good before hailing Bokaj and the others. “It’s time, guys. Let’s see what we’ve made.”

  Before putting the axe head on, Bokaj quickly measured the width of the hole in the head and how deep it would sit, then took a saw and made a cut into the top of the haft where the head would attach.

  “What’d you do that for?” Jaken’s worry and frown made me smirk as his head poked over the smaller man’s shoulder to see better.

  “It’s to place the shim that will help hold the axe head in place.” Bokaj attached the axe head, liked what he saw, and pulled it back off before pulling out some wood glue, and began applying it to the outside of the haft and replaced the head. Once that was done, he took a small wedge of the same wood and slathered it in wood glue as well, before slipping it most of the way into the slit he had made. “Well, if the head of this thing wasn’t so damned badass, I could get a mallet in there to set the shim.”

  “Here, see if this will work,” Balmur offered Bokaj a small hammer that he used for his crafting.

  Bokaj took it with a smile and a nod before tapping the shim fully into place. A little still stuck out, but that was okay. We heated that with Balmur’s touch and sanded it down before Bokaj had Muu take some strips of black leather and applied them around the head of the axe in the center. Nails went in to keep the leather, still and an X-shaped pattern saw the head fully seated and firmly placed.

  When they finished, a muted pop and flash of light emanated from the weapon, and I lifted it from Muu’s hands.

  Behemoth

  + 16 to attacks, +13 bonus damage to earth aspected spells

  Added Effect: Returns to the wielder’s hand when summoned up to three miles apart.

  When crashing stone lays low the land and chasms split the skin of the world, the creature who stares out of his nest of stone and bones sees only you, wielder, and pray you be worthy.

  Axe created by adept smith Jaken Warmecht and craftsman woodworker Bokaj and enchanted by adept enchanter Zekiel Erebos.

  “That just boosted my woodworking up to level 32,” Bokaj whispered in wonder. “It had been at level 29.”

  Jaken grinned. “That’s awesome, man! It put me up by one, but that’s still nothing to sneeze at. L
evel 43 smithing, yes!”

  I smiled at my friends, deciding that we should collaborate more like this. “Put me up to level 45 enchanting as well.”

  A rumble of earth under my feet sent me tumbling onto my ass, and Pebble reared out of the ground.

  “You have been summoned.” He reached out toward me with his misshapen hand and tapped my shoulder.

  “What?” I grunted, and as soon as I blinked, my surroundings had changed.

  I stood in a large, brightly lit cavern, carved of stone all around. Dark, almost jet-black stone with shocks of metals and gems shot through. Veins of diamond, mithril, sapphire, ruby, iron, jade, and other precious metals and jewels stood out in stark relief against the backdrop of earth.

  Tiny druid… A rumbling pressure grated against my mind, not unpleasantly, really. Like having tectonic plates grinding against each other inside the ol’ brain housing group.

  “Stoneheart, Keeper of the Magics of Earth and Stone,” I greeted him formally but glanced about hoping I would catch a glimpse of his corporeal form in his realm. The other elemental primes that I had met had been so vastly different from each other. Fire, a wall of burning flame, kind of lame really, but it had been intimidating as shit, let me tell you. And water had been human though her age had been fluid, first an old woman, then a lovely lady, a girl, and a baby. Each of their realms had been as different as those who reigned over them.

  A small fissure in the stone opened before me, wider and wider until a gargantuan version of Pebble stepped through. Jet-black stone made up his body with visible veins of gold, platinum, and precious gemstones plainly visible throughout his form. He was magnificent.

  I wanted to thank you in person for taking my champion in and being so diligent with him. All of you. Though I do not watch at all times, my child, ‘Pebble’ as he has been dubbed, reports to me the goings-on he deems worthy of my attention.

  “I’m glad to help a friend.” I smiled up at the twenty-foot tall creature, who knelt so that he could regard me closer. Earth had always been supportive and kind to me and our cause, and I would always appreciate that about him.