“Well, if you’d rather stay in the woods and fight level ninety manticores, be my guest.”
The healer gulped. “Demons it is.”
Eve scratched her neck. “Preston, you’re a Priestess. Shouldn’t you be jumping at the chance to kill demons?”
“Ayla isn’t exactly the demon-slaying type. That’s really Loia’s or Steilinar’s area of expertise. Sure, if one of those demons curses you, I’m your man, but actually fighting them?” He grimaced.
“Alright,” Alex thought aloud, “so Preston stays on the backline. Got it. We’ll have to wait until we know more about these demonoids to plan anymore than—”
A horrific growl from ahead cut her off.
“Is—um,” Preston stammered, “is that them?”
A blast of frigid air swept through the trees, sending a chill down Eve’s spine. She placed a hand on her morningstar.
A figure appeared in the shadows of a nearby pine. Another followed in its tracks. And another.
They were eight in all, canine in shape, but that was where the familiarities ended. Where might’ve been fur and flesh was instead a sharp and skeletal form of deep blue ice. To a beast they stood near as tall as Eve herself, prowling across the forest floor and leaving a trail of frozen foliage in their wake.
Most off-putting, however, were the eyes. Eve might not have realized their demonic nature were it not for the soulless orbs of blackest obsidian which met her gaze. She shuddered.
“Speak of the demons…” Wes let out a nervous laugh to accompany his bad joke.
Alex strapped on her shield. “Gonna need to finish this quick. I can’t keep eight hostiles away from the casters for very long. Not on this terrain.”
Eve grinned as she grasped her mace. “On it.”
She Charged!
The hellhounds dashed in, ignoring the running Striker in favor of assaulting the juicier targets before them.
Alex lowered her spear.
Eve skirted around the pack, singling out the demon at the back. Perfect.
Energy coursed through her veins as she dumped a hundred points into Mana Rush. It’d drain half her pool by the time she could cancel it, but a thousand extra Strength was no joke. Especially if it meant an extra three hundred percent damage from Fate-al Blow.
The morningstar passed clean through her target.
It shattered.
Shards of unnatural ice flew out in all directions as the hellhound dissolved under the force of the blow. Eve smirked. Damn that sound was satisfying. She let out a laugh as her momentum carried her away from the rest of the pack. She didn’t need the kill notification to confirm the beast hadn’t survived becoming a pile of broken ice.
She checked her Mana. 1291/2250
Two demons lunged at Alex at once, overworking her defense enough for a third to reach her spear arm. Frozen teeth dug into her forearm, eliciting no more than a startled grunt from the seasoned warrior. Her defensive skills and Preston’s light kept her standing as the creature tugged and twisted.
Alex held resolute, keeping her spear and shield leveled at the rest of the pack.
Eve ran in.
Another swing, another shattered hellhound.
Again, the Striker’s momentum pulled her away from the fray.
827/2250
We really do need to end this fast, she thought. Maybe a hundred per second was too much.
Eve froze as she turned back for another pass.
The demons burned.
Orange flames licked at their icy flesh, tearing through the pack with insatiable vigor. Of the six still-living demons, two already writhed on the forest floor. The motion did little good, as the blaze simply spread to consume the dry needles and branches and even the dirt itself. The other four whined and growled and yelped but kept their feet as the fire devoured them.
As if on cue, the fire mage raised an open hand to the sky. It glowed red as he clenched it into a fist.
The inferno raged. At once it flared up, the flames themselves flashing a blinding white at their center.
Six kill notifications appeared in Eve’s vision.
A warrior, a healer, and a whatever Eve was stared in silence at their muscular companion.
Preston was the first to break it. “Ayla’s tits, Wes! What the hells was that?”
Wes smirked, lowering his staff. “An old ability, actually. I’ve had it since the Burendian ruins. Makes all my fires burn hotter, but it only works if… well if I actually have fires. Since I can burn anything now, it’s suddenly a lot more useful.”
Eve opened her mouth to ask why he hadn’t told her about it, before frantically shutting it as she realized her Mana Rush was still ticking away. She canceled the skill with three hundred Mana to spare.
You have defeated Level 39 Frigid Hellhound: +1320 exp!
You have defeated Level 39 Frigid Hellhound: +1320 exp!
You have defeated Level 38 Frigid Hellhound: +1260 exp!
You have defeated Level 38 Frigid Hellhound: +1260 exp!
You have defeated Level 38 Frigid Hellhound: +1260 exp!
You have defeated Level 37 Frigid Hellhound: +1200 exp!
“Damn, those were worth a lot,” Eve commented. “We should’ve come out here sooner.”
“I’m pretty sure we would’ve died if we’d come out here sooner,” Preston replied.
“Don’t worry,” Alex said, “we can still die as we are.”
Preston paused for a moment before changing the subject. “I wonder what hell they came from.”
“One of the frozen ones,” Eve answered.
“Really. You don’t say.” Sarcasm dripped from the healer’s voice.
A wave of heat washed over the party as they talked, prompting Eve to turn towards her pyromaniac companion. “Um… Wes? The hounds are dead; you can put out the fire now.”
He blinked, jerking his gaze away from the growing inferno. “Oh. Right.” With a wave of his hand, the flames petered out, leaving a wide circle of charred earth in its place.
“Well it looks like we’ve managed to burn away our chance at loot,” the Striker commented, “but at least we earned exp. I got almost an entire level from that, so I’m sure you’ve all leveled.”
An uncharacteristic string of curses echoed through the quiet woods, setting three pairs of eyes staring at the normally professional Survivor.
Preston spoke with a gentle tone. “Is—um—is everything okay?”
“Did you not level up?” Eve asked.
“Oh I did,” Alex snapped. “I should’ve leveled up twice. Key word should. Fucking look.” Her eyes flashed blue, prompting the others to lean in to see the reflection of her status screen.
Exp: 5243/5244
Eve snorted. Preston clamped a hand over his mouth to mask his snickering. Wes laughed outright.
“That,” he managed through loud guffaws and gasps for breath, “has gotta be the shittiest luck I’ve ever seen.”
“One exp out of five thousand,” Eve chuckled through the words. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
“That’s the worst part,” the warrior sighed. “It has to be. Exp is all math, scholars determined the formula years ago.”
Wes collected himself at the mention of math. “Right right. Take the thirty base exp of these hounds, multiply it by double their level minus your level, and you get…” He inhaled for a moment as he calculated. “You were one thousand, one hundred and seventeen exp towards level thirty-two when we started?”
Eve rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to show off. We all know you’ve got a lot of Int.”
He flashed a cocky grin but didn’t reply, maintaining his air of superiority as he dove back into his own notifications.
As the only one without level-ups and ability upgrades to distract her, Eve approached the fuming warrior. “You have to admit, it is kind of funny.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Alex sighed. “I know. At least it’s just a random level-up. Could you imagine if ther
e was a promotion on the line?”
Eve laughed. “I’d hold off on getting that one exp for as long as I could. Gotta take every chance at a rarer class, you know.” She placed a hand on the warrior’s shoulder. “Where we’re going, that’s not gonna happen.”
Alex nodded. “If there were eight of those things just wandering around outside, we’re bound to see a whole bunch once we find the place.”
“Good,” Wes joined in as he finally shut his status screen. “We came here for exp, after all. Once we find that dungeon and kill us some more demons, we’ll be leveling up like hell.”
A chorus of groans rose up in response.
“Come on, that was a good one!”
Eve held her head in her hands. “Alright, Wes. That’s enough demon puns for one day.”
“Please, we’ve got a whole dungeon ahead of us.” He winked. “We’re just getting started.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Nightlight
THE GROVE GLIMMERED with silver light, the darkness of night kept at bay despite the thick canopy above. Eve had first watch. Her eyes flicked between the shifting shadows in the distance and the black remains of their campfire, every once in a while jerking to the motion of one of her teammates rolling over in their sleep.
It wasn’t until Wes let out a groan that she realized they were, in fact, very much awake.
“Damnit Eve. I’m trying to sleep.”
Preston squinted. “It’s too bright. Can you turn it down?”
She furrowed her brow. “I don’t know.”
Wes rubbed his eyes, furiously blinking as he tried—and failed—to look directly at her. “Then cover it up? I have a blanket here somewhere…”
Eve sighed, looking down at the brilliant white with which she shone. “I can cover my neck, but I can’t do anything about my eyes. I can’t exactly keep watch with a blindfold on.”
Preston opened his mouth to speak when a sharp tearing sound rang out. Three adventurers turned as one to watch Alex tie a piece of torn fabric around her own eyes. She muttered something, but all Eve managed to catch was the word “idiots.” Fair enough.
“Get some sleep,” Eve directed the boys. “I’ll wake you when I get tired.”
Wes nodded as he wrapped an entire blanket around his head. “At least we don’t have to worry about anything sneaking up in the dark.”
Preston snorted. “And on top of that, all this light means I get a perfect view of how ridiculous you look.”
The mage’s voice came back muffled through the layers of cloth. “You just don’t recognize my genius. It’s like a built-in pillow!”
Eve rolled her eyes. “Go to sleep.”
Less willing than Alex to deface a piece of his clothing, Preston tied two socks together to create his own makeshift sleeping mask before himself retiring. Wes followed suit.
Eve exhaled as the evening dragged on. She yawned, more from boredom than anything else. Hells, she wasn’t even tired. If she was going to start staying awake half the night, she’d need to come up with something to actually do.
She considered stepping away for a bit of practice, but she didn’t want to risk waking the others yet again. Training seemed like a great way to trick them into thinking they were under attack. She shook her head.
Nearly twelve minutes into her watch, Eve was about to start training anyway when a different idea struck. Preston had mentioned reducing the light she emitted; figuring out how sounded like as good a task as any.
She sat up straight, shutting her eyes and crossing her legs in that uncomfortable way the mystics and mages in the old stories always did. She breathed. Truth be told, Eve had absolutely no idea what meditation had to do with Mana, or even how to go about doing it. She thought to turn her focus inward, but for the life of her the Striker couldn’t fathom what that actually meant.
From time to time she peeked, both to check if her glowing had subsided and to maintain some semblance of keeping watch for monsters in the woods. Nothing happened.
Eve sighed. She doubted the glowing was necessary to live. It if were a part of the Mana her body ran on, shouldn’t the jagged streaks of light be all over her body instead of just her chest, neck, and eyes? She shook her head.
If she couldn’t directly sense the Mana within her, perhaps she was supposed to imagine it. Eve created a figure of herself in her mind’s eye, complete with pulsing Mana running through it. She envisioned it reaching out to travel along her skin in the affected areas like so many arteries spreading the brilliant Mana from its source at her heart.
But her real veins weren’t on the outside of her chest. They were within.
Eve imagined the Mana withdrawing from the network upon her skin, continuing its circulation where none could see.
As her eyes popped open to check if she’d been successful, she found not the gleaming white of Mana, but the tacky blue of notification.
You have learned the basic skill Mana Manipulation!
Through mediation and understanding of the Mana within your soul, you’ve taken the first step on the path of magic.
Eve snorted. It was the first basic skill she’d found since learning Appraise, and it seemed just as useless. The first step on the path of magic? She already knew four spells, for hells’ sake. Sure, they were all modified versions of Stamina skills that had switched to Mana with her race change, but they were still spells.
More interesting to Eve, however, was the mention of her soul in the skill description. She had no Mana in her soul. A quick check confirmed her Spirit stat still rested at a grayed-out zero. Was the skill description wrong? She supposed the description would be accurate for anyone else. Perhaps her new race really was unique.
The Striker shook her head, dismissing the message. It wasn’t until she noted the still-glimmering state of her upper body that Eve realized her lapse in focus. She closed her eyes and tried again.
Once she finished re-envisioning the Mana retreating from her skin, Eve made a point of keeping the image in her mind as she allowed her eyes to flick open. The shadows loomed.
A grin spread across the Striker’s face as she held a hand up to her neck, noting the dim illumination that struck it. Not perfect, but better. Unless she missed her guess, the lines would be completely invisible in full daylight. She hoped.
Eve made it three minutes before her concentration failed, and the light returned once more. Still she smiled. At least now she had a skill to practice while the others slumbered.
When at last the first light of dawn pierced the thick canopy, it landed upon a party of four, distinctly human-looking adventurers.
* * *
The cave entrance was almost painfully nondescript.
Where the party had finally left the woods, the “foot” of the mountains was more of a fifty-foot sheer cliff. The vertical wall of limestone left Eve reeling as she looked up to watch the clouds float over it, but at least the geographical feature made their search easy. They only had to walk along it for a few hours to find their destination.
It was more a crack in the towering rock than a proper cavern. Sure, the only cave Eve had ever seen had been the carved arch marking the way to the Burendian Ruin, but she’d always imagined dungeon entrances as grand openings into the deep. They might’ve missed the open crack were it not for the gust of frigid air it emitted.
Alex gulped as she took the first step in. “This is it!” she called back. “But I’m afraid it’s more than just a few rogue demons.”
As Eve squeezed in after her, she found the source of Alex’s concern.
You have entered the dungeon: Temple of Garaxia! Fight well.
Wes had to turn his body sideways to fit through the narrow entrance. “Does—um—anyone happen to know who Garaxia is?”
Preston took up the rear. “Archdemon of some sort? Do you think he’s here?”
“Is Ayla in your cathedral?” Eve asked.
“Right, right,” the healer said. “So what’s there to worr
y about?”
“If it’s a temple,” Alex explained, “there’ll be worshippers. I don’t think this is a place some wild demons holed up in. They were summoned here.”
“Does that change anything?” Eve asked.
“I’d say we need to be careful, but that should’ve been the plan from the moment we left.” Alex sighed. “I doubt any cultists we find will be much higher level than the hellhounds we’ve already fought.”
Wes chimed in, “If there’s worshippers, do you think they have relics? Sacrificial daggers or golden altars or anything we can sell?”
Eve laughed, “As long as you don’t set them all on fire. It’s hard to loot a pile of ashes.”
“That’s enough,” Alex quieted them with a harsh whisper. “We don’t need to announce our presence to the entire dungeon.”
The companions nodded, allowing the conversation to die out as they inched through the narrow passage. A few minutes of silent scraping later, the crack widened out into a proper cave.
Alex shivered as icy air struck her. Preston huddled up to Wes for warmth, the fire mage ever flush with heat to spare.
For her part, though goosebumps popped up along Eve’s exposed skin, the chill itself never pierced beyond the surface. She wondered if the extra heat cost her Mana, but the rate at which her supply depleted from regular activity was too inconsistent to properly measure.
Either way, she was more than happy to escape the unpleasantness of the frigid cavern. Apparently temperature regulation was one of those bodily functions made more efficient by the use of Mana. Eve smiled, suppressing the urge to brag about it to Wes. Now wasn’t the time for banter.
The web of lines along Eve’s skin lit the way, their ethereal glow casting a thousand sparkling dots upon the walls as a layer of frost reflected her light. The party walked together through a cavern of stars, if a particularly cold one.
This Quest is Broken! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 1) Page 29