by A F Kay
Sift narrowed his eyes. “I promise to keep it secret. Show me.”
Ruwen pulled A Worker’s Guide to Harvesting from his Void Band and turned to the Divine Fortification Form. He showed Sift what he’d learned and how the Fortification breathing coupled with the movements. It took Sift twenty minutes to commit everything to memory.
An exit door had appeared, and Ruwen strode toward it, Whiskers by his side. He wanted to leave before Sift learned how excruciating painful the form’s movements were. Putting the book away, Ruwen spoke over his shoulder. “I’m going to shut off the group Chat for a while so you stay focused on your Fortification.”
Ruwen stopped his Refinement Streams and slowed his Core until it stopped, causing his Scarecrow Aspect to disappear. He began casting all his buffs and as he reached the door, he heard a moan of pain from Sift. Turning, he saw Sift laying on the ground, his body twitching. Ruwen quickly muted Sift from Chat.
Sift growled. “Ruwen you—”
Ruwen stepped through the doorway and missed the rest of Sift’s comment. Joking aside, he hoped Sift made quick progress. Ruwen finished his buffs by the time he’d climbed down Shelly’s leg. Whiskers had shifted into a small city cat and his fur blended with the grey rocks.
As Ruwen stepped onto the rough ground, he wrinkled his nose. The smell of rotten eggs stung his nose. Instead of pulling out his Scarf of Freshness, Ruwen channeled one Energy per second into Fresh Air, which created a two-foot bubble of clean air around his head. His Energy bar, with all his buffs, read one thousand two hundred forty, and the cost of the spell didn’t even dent his Regeneration Rate of sixty-six Energy per second.
With the spell in place, the terrible smells disappeared and Ruwen slowly walked forward, studying his surroundings. There were no trees or bushes, just barren rocks. Most of the rocks were small and jagged, but some were as big as houses and it was difficult to see very far. Oil or tar filled many of the depressions, and it gave the ground a sickly look.
Ruwen toggled on Sunburn, wanting to take advantage of any sources of Energy. Next to Sunburn was the ability Stone Echo, and he turned that on as well. His map instantly filled with yellow resource nodes. He focused on the map and to his surprise it angled upward, exposing a three-dimensional view of his surroundings. That must be a benefit of the ability Survey he’d taken. The ability had said it provided alternate map views, and Stone Echo had provided a view five hundred feet deep.
Wondering what other info his map would display, Ruwen channeled ten Energy into Sixth Sense, and a chevron appeared next to every node. Not only that, while Stone Echo only worked on solid objects, his Sixth Sense displayed resources in the air as well. Everything in a thousand-foot radius displayed on his map along with a chevron.
Ruwen zoomed his map and focused on the chevron of a resource node shaped like a column thirty feet in front of him. The pillar stretched forty feet into the air, and the chevron displayed details about the node.
Resource: Methane
State: Gas
Density: Low
Appearance: Colorless
Scent: Odorless
Purity: 87%
Any gas you couldn’t see or smell seemed dangerous, and Ruwen found a new appreciation for his abilities and spells that made these hazards visible to him.
Ruwen pictured the magnifying glass icon of the Analyze ability, and four seconds later additional information filled his vision.
Target: Methane Gas
Type: Resource
Components: Carbon, Hydrogen
Health: Asphyxiant
Alchemy: Flammable (requires 12% Oxygen)
Uses: Explosives, Fire
The gas interested Ruwen. After he found the oil he needed, he would circle back and grab some of this. He manipulated his map until he found a massive underground lake. Clicking the chevron, Ruwen expected it to be water.
Resource: Ground Oil
State: Liquid
Density: Low
Appearance: Opaque
Scent: Rotten eggs
Purity: 99%
That was exactly what Ruwen needed, and Stone Echo had also provided a map of the tunnels to reach it. He rotated his map and found the path he needed to take to reach the oil lake. Stone Echo and Survey had already provided a lot of value.
Ruwen sent Whiskers to scout the nearby area. If a threat appeared on the surface, he wanted to know right away.
With his updated map, Ruwen quickly found the entrance to the underground tunnels. He didn’t have the Keen Senses ability any more to warn him of danger, so he waited and studied the entrance for a minute, giving his Peripheral Vision time to find any hidden enemies. His Perception, with his Cultivation Stage, cloak, and Emissary’s Shout, had reached seventy percent, which should really help at finding hidden enemies.
Ruwen pulled the hood forward on his Hooded Pacifist’s Cloak of Wandering, adding ten percent to all his senses. When nothing appeared, he entered the tunnel, activating Detect Temperature and Owl Eyes for the extra ten percent night vision.
Calling it a tunnel gave the passage too much credit. It looked more like a natural crack in the stone, with some rougher edges smoothed flat. Using his enhanced map, he quickly navigated down to the gigantic cavern that held the lake.
The entrance into the oil cave had partially collapsed, and Ruwen stopped to study the cavern. Like the tunnels, the cave appeared as if the stone had cracked and the oil had seeped into the resulting wound like black blood. The oil lake stretched three hundred feet across and at least a thousand feet from side to side. The depth quickly narrowed but extended down past the thousand-foot range of Sixth Sense.
With a massive sixty-six Energy per second Regen, Ruwen knew he could easily hold his Void Band open ten feet. If he walked along the shore and dragged that through the lake at a steady walking pace, he calculated it would only take about five minutes to collect a million gallons. He would be out of here in no time.
Detect Temperature confirmed everything in the cavern had the same temperature and Ruwen didn’t see any danger, so he moved the thirty feet toward the oil lake’s edge. As he approached the liquid he triggered Analyze to get details on the oil. Four seconds later, information appeared, but it looked different than the data he’d gotten when analyzing the methane gas.
Target: Enormous Tar Sludge
Type: Creature
Strengths: Absorption, Malleability, Adhesion
Weaknesses: Fire, Cold, Alcohol, Low Intelligence
Disposition: Hostile
The lake surface near Ruwen rose into the air, and his Perception triggered.
Name: Enormous Tar Sludge
Deity: Not aligned
Class Type: Fighter
Level: 24
Health: 717
Mana: 0
Energy: 1,264
Spirit: 0
Armor Class: 504
Ruwen dived backward, but the Enormous Tar Sludge stretched its body and enveloped him.
Chapter 16
Everything went dark as the sludge surrounded Ruwen. Pressure from all sides made it hard to breathe and something rough rubbed his skin. Even though the sludge pressed against his face, his spell Fresh Air allowed him to breathe. Adrenalin surged into his system and Last Breath triggered, speeding his thoughts and slowing the world around him. He turned on his Worker ability Glow and his skin emitted a soft light.
Thin hairlike bristles covered the bottom of the sludge and they rubbed against Ruwen’s skin, trying to break through. Each filament looked like a three-inch tube worm and they thrashed against his face and eyes, but his Gold Fortified body resisted the attack. The one hundred fifty Health point shield on his Hooded Pacifist’s Cloak of Wandering triggered, and the cloak stiffened.
The sludge likely killed its prey almost instantly between the extreme pressure and the invasive underbelly, but it had made a terrible mistake in attacking Ruwen. He was a Worker, a Class designed to handle things like an oily creature that differed little from a
giant stain.
Ruwen channeled ten Energy per second to Scrub. A second later his hands vibrated and turned white. He pressed his palms against the Enormous Tar Sludge and whatever he touched dissolved. He couldn’t see how much damage he did, but the creature shuddered and withdrew, causing the surrounding pressure to lessen. No longer able to reach the sludge’s body above him, he threw himself against the “floor” and let his hands sink into the soft flesh at his feet.
The sludge spit him out, and wet oil pressed against Ruwen. All five of his Coiled Lightning Rings sent painful shocks into his arms, but they couldn’t damage his Fortified body, and Last Breath kept the pain away. He’d felt movement, but now he knew the sludge had taken him into the lake. And by the pressure against his ears, he had already dropped significantly under the surface. He rotated the map, Survey giving him a side view of his location.
Stone Echo remained on, and it displayed more than just the surrounding resources. Now that the Enormous Tar Sludge had moved, the ability showed the creature on his map. It lurked fifteen feet above him.
Ruwen’s map also showed him dropping steadily, with the sludge staying near. It was probably waiting for him to either pass out or get crushed by the pressure as he sank into the depths of the lake. The oil would make it hard to swim to the surface, and he figured the sludge would interfere with that anyway.
Oil didn’t weigh as much as water, but Ruwen had no intention of seeing if he’d survive the pressure at the bottom of this lake. He’d come here for oil, and he planned on getting it. Opening his Void Band, he used his wrist and fingers to shape it into a ten-foot circle, which he angled upward.
While the first foot of Void Band diameter only cost one Energy per second, every foot after that cost six. So Ruwen’s ten-foot opening drained fifty-five energy per second, still safely under his current sixty-six per second Regeneration rate.
When Ruwen had been in the lake with the Shocking Pony of Terrors in Blapy, he’d used two Energy per second to propel himself at a fast swim. But his Void Band opening had only been one foot, not ten. It only took him a few tries to figure out each extra foot of diameter cost an additional two Energy per second to get the same result. So moving at a fast swim with his ten-foot opening, he needed to channel another twenty Energy per second.
That consumed seventy-five Energy, nine over Ruwen’s Regen rate, which he wanted to avoid. A nine-foot opening did as well, so he settled on an eight-foot opening costing forty-three Energy and his propulsion adding another sixteen.
Ruwen shot upward, pulling in over two thousand gallons of oil a second. He lost a little of that oil as he expelled it to push himself forward, and with this smaller opening, he calculated it would take eight minutes to reach one million gallons.
The Enormous Tar Sludge followed, and while Ruwen had hoped the creature couldn’t match his fast swim pace, it easily did. His map displayed the walls and creature’s location, but Ruwen wished he could see in this inky blackness.
As soon as the thought finished, distant yellow areas appeared. Ruwen looked over his shoulder and the sludge, ten feet behind him, appeared as a mass of short yellow lines. He realized Survey had overlaid map details gained from Stone Echo in his vision, and the distant yellow areas were the walls.
The sludge moved alongside Ruwen, easily keeping pace as its body rippled through the oil. The creature looked massive on his overlay, like a hundred-foot blanket. He would have to fight or chase it away. The surface was fifty feet above him, and he wanted to be near the surface when he fought. As he moved upward, he cycled through his abilities, spells, and inventory.
Harden wouldn’t work on organic things. Ruwen had twenty cubic feet of Minor Acid left, but from Alchemy class he knew it wouldn’t really affect an oil-based creature. He had some rusty spears and swords left over from his fight with the Hill Goblins that had protected the Mist Wraith Talker, but anything shot from his Void Band would almost immediately lose all its momentum.
The Analyze ability had mentioned fire and cold as weaknesses, but Ruwen didn’t want to start a fire down here, and his level one Greenhouse ability would only affect the temperature by ten degrees.
The sludge, seeing Ruwen near the surface, turned and with a burst of speed, slammed into him. The blow didn’t do any damage, but it knocked his left arm to the side away from his center, and his Void Band jerked him to the side.
Ruwen stopped propelling himself as the sludge struck again. Spinning through the darkness, he felt a little dizzy. No debuff appeared, probably because of his high Mental Resistance, but he still thought he might puke. Would that stay in his Fresh Air pocket, stuck there until he stopped and recast the spell? He swallowed hard, determined not to find out.
Immense pressure surrounded Ruwen again, and his stomach grew light. From Survey’s overlay, he could see the sludge rapidly pulling him deeper into the lake. The creature probably thought it had stunned him.
Scrub really was his best option. He just needed to compensate for its tiny effective area by increasing how quickly he moved to new locations. And he had an idea for that.
Using the Void Band as a weapon launcher wouldn’t work in this fluid, but Ruwen could turn himself into a human spear. The sludge hadn’t been able to compress the Void Band opening, which gave his left arm some mobility. With a thought he decreased his Void Band opening to just a foot, angled it toward his feet, and channeled ten Energy to Scrub while propelling himself forward with twenty Energy.
Ruwen held his right hand out in front of him, and the sludge dissolved. It only took a moment to break through the thin creature and, using Survey and Stone Echo to track it, he angled his Void Band to navigate through the oil and bring him back to attack.
When fighting the Octorse in Blapy’s lake, Ruwen’s goggles had been ripped from his face and he’d struggled to keep his Scarf of Freshness on. But the bubble created by Fresh Air kept his eyes and mouth free of any oil.
The Enormous Tar Sludge had dragged Ruwen over two hundred feet deep, but his Gold Fortified lungs resisted the pressure and allowed him to breathe. The sludge hurtled toward him and he accelerated as well, maxing Scrub at twenty Energy per second.
Ruwen never felt a collision. Instead, he passed through the sludge, creating a hole as he passed, like a spear through wet paper. Quickly turning, he struck the sludge again, angling to strike the creature from the side and maximize the time he spent in contact with it.
When Ruwen turned to attack again. His overlay showed the creature had flipped on its side and it looked like a gigantic oval twenty feet in front of him. He wondered if he’d killed it. A moment later his overlay turned completely yellow as thousands of the worm like tubes launched from the sludge’s underbelly and struck him, surrounding him like a net of snakes.
The black inkiness just outside his Fresh Air spell turned yellowish and his skin felt hot. The worms were exuding some sort of acid and he felt his clothes dissolving. An intense vibration on his right hip made him look down. The Fastidious Blade’s sheath had dissolved, and when the oil touched it, it had reacted violently.
With Stone Echo, Ruwen watched the dagger slice through the worm net on his right side and then drop away. He held out his right hand and cast Retrieve. His Mana dropped by fifty, but the dagger floated back toward him. Not trusting himself to hold the violently shaking dagger, he used some Energy and a thought to open his Void Band.
Scrub had kept his hands free from the worm net, and with another thought and some Energy he enlarged the Void Band, pulling the dagger into his Inventory. His belt had dissolved and only the worm net around his waist kept his Baton of a Thousand Uses there. He dissolved the stringy worms holding his baton, and it dropped into his Inventory as well.
Ruwen’s cloak, Bracer of Freedom, and jewelry were the only things that had survived. Even his Feather Boots of Grasping had dissolved in the intense acid. He caught a glimpse of the creature’s stats.
Health: 596
Mana: 0
Energy: 431
Spirit: 0
Armor Class: 504
Each of Ruwen’s attacks had caused around forty damage. The creature was just too large to fight any other way. But his attacks had been effective, and that’s what mattered. Unlike the sludge’s normal prey, he could stay down here and pick away at the sludge until it died.
It had also lost two-thirds of its Energy. That meant either the quick pace it kept had cost it Energy or this acid attack did. Either way, Ruwen would soon have an even easier time.
Ruwen channeled ten Energy to Scrub and ripped through the remaining tendrils holding him. He broke free from the sludge’s net and began dropping again. As he fell he noticed something odd at the very edge of Stone Echo, five hundred feet below him, and seven hundred feet from the surface.
It looked like a tunnel.
Chapter 17
The Enormous Tar Sludge withdrew its thin tentacles as Ruwen dropped out of the acid. The acid must be incredibly powerful to disintegrate his clothes so quickly, and he felt bad for losing his boots and Clapper armor. The boots he’d gotten from Bliz at the Worker’s Lodge on his Ascendancy Day, and the Clapper armor had been some of his best loot from Blapy.
Ruwen’s high Resistances and his Gold Fortified body had kept him safe, however. Opening his Void Band, he stopped channeling Scrub and pulled a pair of underwear from his Inventory. Regardless of his body’s strengths, fighting naked, or mostly naked if you counted his cloak and bracer, didn’t appeal to him, and he pulled on the underwear. He knew it was stupid as the cotton cloth had no Armor Class, but it made him feel less vulnerable.
The sludge used Ruwen’s clothing issues to attack. From Survey’s overlay, it looked like the sludge had rolled itself into a cone. He channeled twenty Energy to Scrub just as the tip of the cone struck him. The creature had hardened the end into something like a spear tip, and it used its momentum to push and then smash him into the wall.