by Max Jager
Mendelen frowned and hesitated. "I don't like splitting up... But if the water may be poisoned then you are right, we should be cautious before we all jump in. And considering how harsh the game has been so far, I wouldn't be surprised if the water was poisoned. I don't think it is, mind you, but it wouldn't surprise me at this point."
Estellese nodded "so, me and you go in Mendelen? Let the other two follow if it's safe."
Kaden nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me. You two should have the skill to take down anything that may be waiting in the next room."
"No. Me and Estell are the best fighters. Sending the best fighters away would leave you two defenseless if you get attacked." Mendelen stated. "Well, not completely defenseless, but not as safe as you'd be with us."
"But we need all our attack force to be in the front to face whatever may be in that room." Kaden stated. "Forget defending the people who stay behind. Keep the front lines strong. The back lines are less important since they likely won't face combat."
Mendelen shook his head. "No Kaden, we need to make sure the back lines are safe too. You and Estellese head into the water. Me and Zanath will wait here and will follow once you two safely make it through. Or I'll jump in and pull you out if there is any problems and then Zanath can use the potions on us."
"Wait what?" Estellese said "why do I have to go with HIM? The guy who doesn't listen and eats random potions and herbs he finds lying around. Hows he supposed to help if we find trouble?"
Kaden pouted but before he could speak Mendelen spoke up. "Estell, you will be fine, trust me. He's not as stupid as he seems."
Kaden raised an eyebrow "I am not sure whether I should be insulted or complimented."
"I'd say both" Mendelen replied, then smirked a little. "I trust ya enough to put you on the front lines, I know you can handle yourself." He added.
Kaden smirked a little "I'll take it as a compliment then." He replied. "Let's go and get this done Estell. " he added. Kaden turned and walked up to the edge of the water. He took his bag off his shoulder and dropped it on the ground, not wanting the food to get wet. Then went to sheathe his sword but realized that he didn't have a sheath. For a moment he awkwardly fumbled with the sword, trying to figure out where he could put it since he needed both hands to swim. But eventually he came to a solution, and took off his shirt.
Mendelen and Estellese gave him a questioning look, while Zanath nodded in understanding. "I'm just gonna... go..." Estellese said in a rather awkward and weirded out tone, before diving into the water and starting to swim deeper down into the water, towards the corner that was concealed behind the rock.
Kaden took his shirt and tied the arms tightly around his waist as if it were a belt, then he slipped the sword between his pants and his tied-on shirt, using his shirt to hold it in place. "See you guys on the other side" he said before he too dove into the water and swam after Estellese.
Zanath and Mendelen watched them go, then took a seat by the edge of the water, watching them to make sure they were okay. "I wanted a moment to talk to you. I just don't know what to think of Kaden..." Mendelen mused. "I mean, he does a lot of stupid things, but they always work out one way or another. Is he smart and planning these things or just plain lucky?"
Zanath shrugged. "Could go either way really. We will have to see"
"Think it was a good idea sending him alone with Estellese?" Mendelen asked
"No." Zanath replied. "I'm not concerned about a monster getting them, I'm more worried about them killing each other. They don't like each other. She hates his cockiness. He knows she hates it and is purposely being cocky to irritate her. I wouldn't be surprised if he pissed her off and she killed him" Zanath said flatly.
"Good point… Maybe I should have gone instead of sending her." Mendelen thought out loud. "But, admittedly she's a better fighter than I am, if anything is on the other side she has the best chances of beating it out of everyone here."
"You are pretty good yourself." Zanath pointed out.
"Good, yes, but not as good as her." Mendelen replied. "You and Kaden are learning and picking up on all this incredibly fast too. Which is good."
"I don't know why, I seem to just be learning and picking things up much easier than normal." Zanath replied. "Been like that ever since we entered the game."
"Huh, I hadn't noticed, but now that you mention it, me too." Mendelen mused.
Kaden swam deeper and deeper into the water, swimming towards the rock in the corner of the pool. When he finally reached the rock he peeked around to see what was making the light that was coming from behind it. He saw an opening in the wall behind the rock, into a brighter room. Not having a lot of air left he swam towards the opening in hopes that there was a place to get some air in the room it lead to.
Kaden swam through the opening and found something that struck him as odd. He was at a crossroads, the paths through the water went left and right. He wasn't sure which way Estellese went, but that wasn't what struck him as odd. The stone wall in front of him was perfectly flat, there was no way that it was natural. A natural stone couldn't be that flat and couldn't come to a perfect corner like this one did. He found it odd it looked man-made, better than man-made actually, but he was running out of air and couldn't stay under the water to ponder why this may be here. He looked down the left path, then down the right path, trying to figure out which one would lead him to air. Then he looked up and realized that the wall in front of him stopped just a few inches above the water. He could climb on top of this wall to get out of the water. "That works" he thought before he swam up and grabbed onto the top of the wall, then pulled himself up onto it. Curiously, he looked around as he caught his breath to see what was in this room.
"Holy crap!"' he shouted as he dove and rolled to the side. Barely getting out of the way before a massive axe slammed into the ground where he had been, the loud clang of metal and stone clashing echoed through the room and the ground shook. Kaden looked up to see an eleven foot tall hulking mass of pure muscle, with the head, legs, and tail of a bull but the furry torso and arms of a human, and two hooves for legs. A Minotaur, carrying a massive axe that had a blade bigger than Kaden's torso.
Kaden quickly glanced around the room, trying to see what he had to work with, what scenery he could use, what else he had to fight in here, what hazards he could use against the beast. A quick glance around the room revealed that he was standing on a perfectly flat platform that was surrounded on all sides by the water he had come out of. There was nothing on the platform aside from himself, the minotaur, and a treasure chest on the opposite side. Kaden knew he couldn't touch the chest with the Minotaur bearing down on him, and there was nothing here to help fight the beast. It was an arena, clearly built to force the players to face the Minotaur head-on. But how?
The Minotaur stepped towards Kaden to close the distance, slashing its axe horizontally for Kaden's torso. Kaden jumped backwards, landing on the edge of the platform and narrowly getting out of the reach of the beast's axe to dodge the swing.
He looked over the beast, trying to analyze the creature. Starting at the head, he noted the horns and knew that bulls had incredibly hard skulls. He crossed that off the list of targets, it was too tall to reach its head anyways. He then glanced at the torso, huge and muscular, so much muscle that he probably wouldn't hit anything vital if he attacked there, crossed that off the list of targets. He glanced down to the minotaur's legs, they were hooves and were not quite as muscular as the rest of the creature. He narrowed his eyes at the bottom of the minotaur's hooves, unlike a foot the hooves were smaller and round, like walking on stilts. Kaden smirked widely "... Peggy..." Kaden murmured.
"What?" Estellese's voice called out from behind the Minotaur. As the Minotaur charged at him again Kaden glanced behind the beast to see Estellese pulling herself out of the water and onto the platform to help. She must have swam around the platform instead of climbing right ontop of it.
"I have named him Peggy! Because he
has peg legs!" Kaden shouted out as the Minotaur ran up to him and pulled its axe back to swing it at him again.
"Those are hooves you idiot!" Estellese shouted back as she ran at the Minotaur from behind. Unsure of how she was going to attack the beast.
As the Minotaur swung its axe horizontally at Kaden again he quickly ducked underneath the axe. It swung over his head with so much power that the gust of wind it left behind messed up Kaden's hair and almost knocked him off balance. Then, Kaden rolled backwards into the water and dove deep down, out of sight.
The Minotaur glanced down into the water, and not seeing Kaden anymore it turned to Estellese and swung its axe backhanded at her, the blade was only on one side of the axe so swinging it backhanded would hit her with the blunt side.
Estellese turned and grabbed the handle of the axe as quickly as she could, trying to hold it back. But the Minotaur was too strong, she was knocked onto her back and was sent skidding across the stone floor. Since it was a backhand swing and not a full power swing she almost stopped it, and got away with just a few scrapes and bruises. She quickly climbed back onto her feet, hurt but okay. "Kaden! Where the hell did you go?" She shouted out.
The Minotaur marched towards Estellese, axe in hand, the hulking eleven foot tall beast would be intimidating to most people, but Estellese was not bothered by it. She marched right back towards the beast, determined to take it down even if Kaden wasn't going to help.
As the two neared each other the Minotaur swung its axe down at Estellese, who quickly sidestepped the swing. The axe slammed into the ground and cracked the stone floor, sending tremors and the echoing sound of metal hitting stone through the room. As the minotaur's axe hit the ground Estellese looked up at the beast that was twice her size, then jumped up and slammed her fist into the minotaur's stomach. The beast was so tall that that was the highest point she could effectively reach with a jump.
The Minotaur grunted in pain and stumbled back, but was otherwise unharmed and promptly swatted Estellese out of the air with the hand that was not holding the axe. The blow knocked the wind out of Estellese and broke two of her ribs but she grabbed onto the beast's large arm to prevent herself from being launched across the room from the sheer force of the attack.
The beast was not of high intelligence, feeling something stuck to its arm it raised its arm up closer to its face to see what it was, and in that moment Estellese let go of its arm, and jumped at its face, grabbing onto the beast's horns as she slammed both of her heels into the minotaur's eyes. The minotaur roared out in pain and stumbled backwards, but Estellese didn't stop. She kicked it hard in the side of the head, then slammed her other knee into its snout, then kicked it in the chin with her first leg again as her second leg pulled back to slam another heel into its throat, then raising both of her legs to drive her heels into the minotaur's eyes once more before she just started wildly and fiercely kicking, kneeing and slamming her heels into it's face as fast and hard as she could.
The minotaur roared out in pain again and again, trying to shake her off. Her hard blows to the face were making it stumble backwards and its arms flew out to the sides as it struggled to keep balanced on its hooves. Until finally with a roar of rage it regained its bearings, grabbed Estellese with its free hand, then yanked her off its own face and threw her across the room. She hit the wall on the opposite side of the room with a shout of pain and fell into the water, but right away she pulled herself out of the water and back onto the platform, badly injured but refusing to stay down. Her forehead was bleeding and bruised from where she hit the wall. She glanced up at the minotaur, its face was covered in blood that was pouring out of its eyes and nose, its eyes were shut and not opening, it was thrashing about and blindly swinging its axe in the general direction it had thrown Estellese but wasn't even coming close to hitting her. But, other than being blinded and a bit bruised, it seemed unharmed. She took a deep breath to steady her heavy panting and wiped the blood off her forehead, preparing to go after it again, glaring straight into the minotaur's closed eyes..
It was then that the minotaur roared out in pain and suddenly collapsed to the ground. Estellese was a little confused, what had happened? Her gaze shifted from the minotaur's head back down at the ground and saw Kaden standing behind the fallen minotaur with a bloody sword, and noticed that the back of the minotaur's legs had been cut and were now bleeding quite badly. Then, she realized that Kaden was carrying a few small miscellaneous items in his free hand, all of them were stacked up on top of each other and balanced carefully on the palm of his hand. She turned to see that the treasure chest the minotaur had been guarding was open and empty now. With an irritated sigh she turned to Kaden. "Did you loot the chest while I was fighting that thing?"
Kaden's eyes shifted to look around the room and he hesitated for a second. "... Possibly…." He replied unsurely.
"What the hell! I could have died you idiot!" Estellese shouted at him as she walked over to him, ignoring the minotaur that was now flailing on the ground. Kaden had sliced the tendons in the back of the beast's legs, paralyzing both of it's legs and rendering it unable to get up.
"I thought you would run… I don't know why you stayed to fight the thing. It has peg legs, we can out maneuver it." Kaden replied.
Estellese grabbed the miscellaneous items that Kaden took from the chest out of his hands and looked them over. A book, five scrolls, and four vials with red liquid which looked like the healing potions they found in the store.
"Hey! I found them, and I killed the beast. Well, with your help, but I got the treasure, knocked the creature down and incapacitated it myself." Kaden protested. But as soon as he finished speaking Estellese answered him simply by taking the book and thumping him over the head with it, knocking him onto the floor. With that and the irritated look on her face, he promptly stopped asking for the loot and instead went to examine the minotaur.
As Estellese sat down and opened the book to start skimming over it, the sound of something moving in the water could be heard on the other side of the room, and a moment later Mendelen climbed out of the water. He looked around the room with an amused expression on his face, noting the bloodstains on the floor and wall, the small craters in the floor from the minotaur's axe, the incapacitated beast flailing on the ground, and that Estellese was battered and bleeding. "Nice. You okay?" He commented with an impressed look on his face. "anything in the chest?"
"A spell book, what appears to be more healing potions, and some scrolls I haven't looked at." Estellese answered. "And yeah, I'm fine." She said despite her broken ribs and badly bruised body.
"A spell book?" Mendelen asked. "So we can use magic... Can I see?" He asked as he sat down beside Estellese and tried to read the book over her shoulder. But he frowned, the pages were blank. "Erm... The pages are blank Estellese."
"No they are not." Estellese replied. "It is a detailed instruction manual on how to use a fireball."
"It's blank" Kaden stated as he stood behind her and leaned over her shoulder to look at the book.
"No seriously. It is not blank" Estellese stated. "Look" she said before she took a deep breath and held out her hand, then she started to focus. A few seconds passed and nothing happened, until suddenly there was a spark of flames in her palm. Just a brief spark before the flames died. "Damn, it's harder than it looks" she muttered.
Mendelen shrugged. "Well, you got a spark. Maybe only you can see the book for some reason. What's on the scrolls?" He asked as he picked one up and opened it to read it.
As he did that, the sound of water moving could be heard again and Zanath pulled himself out of the water and onto the platform.
"Oh there you are Zanath." Mendelen said. "You were right behind me when I swam into here. Where did you go?"
"Followed the left and right paths to see if there was anything else under the water. It is a circle, well, a square technically. Nothing else down there." He answered, looking over the struggling Minotaur with a puzzled expression. He
grabbed his sword and walked over to the beast, being careful to avoid its flailing arms, then he slit its throat in one swift swipe of his sword. "Shouldn't leave it alive. Don't want it surprising us when we are not paying attention. Plus we don't know if they heal when not hit for a while like normal NPCs in games do." He stated.
"We also don't know if they respawn, and it respawning on top of us would be bad" Kaden added.
"Good point" Zanath nodded.
"Alright, guys." Mendelen spoke up. "These scrolls seem to be spell scrolls." He said. "The instructions say to touch the scroll and then focus on it, and it will cast the spell for you."
Estellese raised an eyebrow and looked up from the book. "If magic can be cast that easily, what is the use of this dumb book? It goes through this complicated process to cast a spell." She questioned. To which Mendelen shrugged.