The Third Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  “What are the abilities of the purifier monster?”

  “It emits Earth essence, consuming all other types of Mana and giving it the Earth attribute. It decreases the power of all attacks that are non-Earth-attribute spells and attacks. If one is within five meters, the Mana they absorb will have the Earth attribute, slowly blocking one’s Mana channels and decreasing the power that they can draw upon. It also moves rapidly, but it cannot see. It relies on the smell of other attribute Mana and movement to find its prey.”

  “Weaknesses?”

  “Anything that is Metal attribute, it has a great weakness to.”

  “What level is it?” Rugrat asked.

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “The gargoyles—what are their abilities?” Erik asked.

  “They have toughness, can attack multiple targets at once with their wing bash and claws. They also have Boulder’s Touch.”

  “What is Boulder’s Touch?” Matt asked.

  “It is an area of effect attack. Staying within three meters of a gargoyle, unless one has a high enough constitution, their body will slow and then become rock. The effect stacks: the more gargoyles or the closer they are, the faster the person will turn to stone.”

  “How fast are they?” Rugrat asked.

  “Slow once they get on the ground. Their speed comes from when they glide from their perches,” the statue replied.

  “Check your gear, then we’ll move,” Erik said.

  ***

  Rugrat was in the rear as they walked through the corridors, reaching the stairs that led upward to a large door.

  Erik checked it. It led out of the dungeon and back into the swamp.

  Rugrat heard the buzzing of the greenflies before he saw them shooting down the long hallway at him. “Cast Hallowed Ground!” he yelled to Erik as he raised the shotgun to his shoulder.

  He fired, releasing his homemade Dragon Breath Brew. The hallway lit up as the greenflies were caught in the flame from the shotgun.

  Erik cast Hallowed Ground as Matt summoned his lightning beast.

  The lightning beast unleashed a blast through the hallway, as greenflies the size of a man’s fist dropped to the floor, filling it.

  Rugrat felt the Experience entering him as they were all level twenty-five creatures. The hallway they were in left nowhere for their targets to run, but it also blocked them all in, giving them nowhere to hide as they were blasted apart by the party’s attacks.

  The buzzing in the hall stopped after some time as Rugrat reloaded his shotgun.

  “All right, on to the pit trap.” Erik took the lead, with Matt clicking on the massive amount of tombstones, taking everything from them.

  “What do we get?” Rugrat asked.

  “Variant Earth cores, Greater Mortal cores as well as stingers and venom sacks,” Matt said.

  “That’s not much,” Rugrat said.

  “There are like two hundred dead greenflies! Two hundred variant Earth monster cores—that’s at least twenty-seven thousand gold. Earth monster cores in the alchemist realm are not cheap!”

  “Fuck—we’re in the money, let’s go!” Rugrat laughed.

  “Head on straight. We’ve still got farther to go,” Erik said.

  They tripped the spike trap and then went into the first room. There was nothing in it and they defeated the second trapped door and entered a corridor. At the end of it, there was an archway, leading into the second room.

  Erik went around the archway and moved into the room. He had his rifle in his arms as he opened fire. “Target right!” Erik called out.

  Matt was hesitant, but Rugrat pushed him forward into the room.

  The purifier monster looked like a slime monster made from shifting sands as it rushed forward. The monster was already wounded. The ceiling was caved; burn marks could be seen around the room.

  Where the purifier monster had been, a glow appeared as a wave of fire hit the monster in the back.

  A wolf with broken wings was trying to get on its feet. Its body was badly wounded. It attacked the purifier monster from behind. Its attacks were weak and the purifier monster barely felt them as the attack dimmed once entering its five-meter-radius purified zone.

  With Erik, Rugrat, and Matt pumping metal into the creature’s body, it was starting to fall apart tho.

  “I’ve got it.” Rugrat got the creature’s attention with a body shot. He ran to the side as the others moved their point of aim, hitting the purifier monster as Rugrat pulled it away from them. He had to use all of his Agility to keep away from the creature as he dodged its claws that formed from its sand body, one after another.

  Rugrat got a clear look at the other creature in the room. It was a wolf with wings. It had a determined snarl on its face even as it was broken, its body shredded.

  Rugrat thought of his old dog George. The thought came and went as he moved out of the way of another attack and the firewolf attacked the purifier monster.

  Rugrat braced himself and fired three times at the creature. It stumbled but started forward before an arrow went all the way through it and Erik’s round blew its sand-formed head off.

  The monster dropped to the ground, turning into a pile of sand.

  The firewolf looked at the others now, limping back into the corner. It roared at them, its blood covering the floor.

  Rugrat held out his arms. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rugrat said, trying to placate it.

  There seemed to be intelligence in its eyes as it looked at Rugrat. It snarled even as its wing moved in an aggravated manner. It had been torn apart by the purifier monster’s claws and brought the creature great pain to do so.

  “Rugrat, what are you doing?” Erik demanded as he saw Rugrat’s actions.

  “Reminds me of my old dog George. Just bear with me.” Rugrat put his weapon away. A sachet of healing powder appeared in his hand and a raw piece of meat in the other. He clearly put the powder in his mouth and swallowed, then put it on the meat. He tossed it forward at the beast.

  It bared its fangs at Rugrat, who backed up several paces.

  The wolf stopped snarling and moved toward the meat, smelling it while still staring at the three others.

  It quickly snatched up the meat and tore it apart. After a few seconds, it let out a stunned noise as its body started to heal slowly.

  It moved forward, seeing that the meat and powder were related to its recovery. It let out a short growl.

  Rugrat pulled out more meat and poured more powder, tossing it to the wolf. He did this a few more times, then the wolf stopped testing the meat and caught it out of the air.

  It was large, nearly four meters long from snout to rump with another two meter long tail and with wings nearly three times that size.

  Rugrat continued feeding the beast as it got more comfortable with him and healed.

  It moved to a corner and lay down as its wings were repairing, eyeing them suspiciously but not with outright hostility.

  “Can’t see a dog in pain,” Erik said.

  Rugrat shrugged and looked at the last door, where the dungeon core was supposed to be—and the gargoyles.

  “If we lure the gargoyles out, use ranged attacks, Hallowed Ground on them, should wear them down?” Rugrat said.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.” Erik checked with Matt, who nodded.

  “I’m with you guys.”

  They moved to the door. It had been blasted open with fire and there was one dead gargoyle at the door.

  Erik threw in light stones, showing two gargoyles on their perches.

  Erik cast Hallowed Ground at the door’s entrance. He bolstered it twice, increasing the damage instead of range. Erik fired at one of the gargoyles.

  They let out a high-pitched squeak and jumped down, gliding to the floor. The other followed as they dropped to the ground and had to hobble forward on their short legs toward the door.

  They entered the Hallowed Ground, everyone holding their fire.

  As they were abo
ut to exit, Rugrat fired, hitting one and sending it back into the Hallowed Ground. It had a chip on its body but it seemed unaffected by the heavy round.

  Rugrat used Explosive Shot as Erik used his Mana Bolt, tossing the gargoyles back into the Hallowed Ground.

  Rugrat made to fire but his gun jammed.

  Matt was firing with his crossbow but it didn’t have the power to toss the gargoyle back.

  Rugrat yanked on the cocking handle, trying to pull out the messed-up round as the gargoyle made it out.

  Erik threw a blast at it, but it pushed it in the wrong direction.

  A fireball shot across the floor as the firewolf hit the creature and put it back into the Hallowed Ground.

  Rugrat pulled the round out and looked at the firewolf. It was looking away, as if it hadn’t done anything, lying down as if it were taking a nap.

  So it went on: the gargoyles tried to attack them and they threw them back into the Hallowed Ground. They might be tough, but the flames from the Hallowed Ground attacked them directly. It was blunted by their bodies but when flames covered one’s mouth, eyes, and nose, how could they be easily ignored?

  The firewolf watched and helped out here and there, but it would turn away as if it had done nothing when the party looked over.

  Finally, the gargoyles fell down and tombstones appeared.

  “Fuck dungeons,” Erik said as he released the tension in his body. He had to be completely focused on the gargoyles and their actions to make sure that they didn’t get out of the Hallowed Ground and rush them.

  If just one of them was caught in their area of effect, being turned slowly into rock, it would be hard to save them and still defeat the gargoyle.

  Erik gathered up the tombstones and shared the loot list with them.

  ==========

  Sand of Earth x7

  Gargoyle’s eyes x7

  Lesser Earth Essence x3

  Mortal-Grade Earth-attribute Monster Core x9

  Lesser Mortal-Grade Monster Core x3

  ==========

  TAKE/TAKE ALL

  ==========

  There were no more threats in the area, just the firewolf that Rugrat was watching.

  Erik went into the dungeon core room and then came back out. “You need to see this.”

  Rugrat moved into the room and looked around and looked up.

  The silver-peak tree had a healthy brown trunk to it, with green, brown, and silver leaves that moved around. The branches groaned with their heavy movements. Instead of being scary, it was relaxing; as one breathed in the air, they felt refreshed. The silver-peak tree was not just a tree of the Earth attribute—it was one of life.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it, but it must be one of the legendary trees.” Matt looked at it.

  The room was filled with its roots. Creatures moved in its leaves, glowing bugs that tended to nests and slept in the tree limbs.

  It stood fifteen meters tall but the tree’s powerful aura made one feel as though they were looking at a tree that had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms, stretching up into the skies and looking upon the world impassively, as if time were a breeze through its leaves.

  “It’s not only an Earth-attribute tree, it has Earth, Wood, Water, and Metal attributes,” Rugrat said. His Mana channels might be damaged but his senses toward Mana were highly accurate.

  Rugrat thought for some time before speaking.

  “It makes sense, when you think about it. The tree was here; the dungeon core below it supplied attributeless Mana, but the tree supplies four attributes: Earth, Wood, Water, and Metal. The Mana creates energy like fire, creating Earth, then the tree bears metal leaves. But there isn’t any metal around, so there is no way for this attribute to be reinforced. The metal tries to collect water, but we’re underground and the swamp is above us. So no water, and wood can’t exist because no water. This tree, buried in the ground, is contained by earth and thus Earth-attribute Mana must’ve bounced all of that together, creating the creatures we see and this place. If the swamp water was able to get in here, or more metal was present in the ground, then this area might have been reinforced with the four elements coexisting in harmony, with the fire, or energy part of the elemental equation being solved by the dungeon core’s attributeless Mana.”

  Erik looked over to Rugrat, shocked.

  “I read books, too, you know, and the five elements here are the law of the world. Plus, dealing with magic, I thought it would be good to look into them. So now I’m talking about a tree in a dungeon.” Rugrat lifted up his arms as if he didn’t know how they had reached this stage in their lives.

  “Basically, a pressure cooker of Earth attribute and then the Elkta cracked it open, and so did that firewolf,” Matt said.

  “Yeah, he probably wants to be around it because with him protecting it, then he could create a harmony with it, increasing both of their power. Also, Mana is one hell of a drug for monsters. Enough Mana or valuable resources and time, they can awaken their bloodlines, increase their Strength and increase in level,” Erik said.

  “So, what we going to do? Keep it or break it all down?” Rugrat asked.

  “Well, we’re out in the middle of nowhere. There are creatures all around and we need a monster core. If we can take this tree back with us as well—I don’t know what it’s capable of growing right now but just being close to it, my Alchemy senses are tingling. We could add it to the garden just to increase the density of different attribute Mana types as well,” Erik said.

  Rugrat nudged Matt. “See, might not have a plan when he starts, but he can pull one out on the fly.” Rugrat grinned.

  Erik rolled his eyes and moved up to the tree. A screen appeared in front of him.

  A glowing light could be seen moving through the tree before it opened. One could see that it wasn’t a single tree but three of them wrapped around one another symbiotically.

  The dungeon core appeared in this opening.

  “What kind of grade we got?”

  “One Greater Mortal-grade dungeon core, a grade higher than the one we got from the desert dungeon.”

  “That’s not bad,” Rugrat said.

  “We’ll rest here. There are some more beasts in the dungeon but we’re controlling it now so none of them will attack us. We’ll be able to work on our gear, check our loot, and consolidate our Experience and skill gains,” Erik said.

  Chapter: New Task

  Delilah patted the soil back down around the purple-stemmed plant she was tending to. She checked its leaves before she stood up fully.

  There were a few other alchemists and farmers moving through the Alchemy garden. It had now taken over a full growing field. It was Mister Fehim’s masterpiece. Each of the plants were arranged in a formation to increase their speed in growth and vitality.

  When one entered the garden, there was a freshness in the air but there was also a heaviness in their Mana channels with the heavily concentrated attribute Mana.

  Delilah saw Fehim talking to a group of farmers, before they went off to tend to their fields.

  Fehim was a farmer originally, but the intricacies of the alchemical ingredients interested and drew him in.

  He saw Delilah and walked over to her. “The amount of time you’re here, people will start to wonder if you’re an alchemist or a green thumb like me,” Fehim joked.

  “I find it peaceful here. I worked on the farm as a kid. Here I can take my time, come to understand the plants and increase my Alchemy knowledge and enjoy the peace and quiet, what’s not to love?” Delilah smiled.

  Fehim nodded and smiled, sharing a look. They both understood the satisfaction that came from raising a good harvest. There wasn’t a need to rush, just learn and adapt; the dirt and plants would tell them what they needed.

  “There is still time for you to join the group that is going to Vermire to man the medical school there.”

  “I have enough work to do here and I don’t feel like going back to cities too soon. I want
to learn how to grow ingredients. Erik told me that I must learn from the ground up. I have even started to concoct a few things,” Delilah said.

  “Well done! Which powders have you made?” Fehim waved for her to join him on his walk.

  “Just the Stamina powder so far. I have read over Erik’s notes and read through the books, but reading and doing are two different things. I know it won’t be an easy path, but the more items I know in the Apprentice level then the easier it will be for me to reach into the Journeyman level. At least that is my hope.”

  “Slow and steady wins out in the end,” Fehim said, reassuring her.

  “The group that went to the battlefield dungeon—they haven’t returned yet?” Delilah changed the subject as they moved through the stunning plants along paths that divided out the distinct Affinities and the sub-Affinity gardens.

  “Not yet. But Egbert is watching over them, so nothing bad should have happened to them,” Fehim said. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Setsuko is a strong girl.”

  Delilah laughed.

  “She might be my daughter but she has her mother’s fighting spirit!”

  “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your day. I need to detox and clean out some of the Mana that’s filled my channels,” Delilah said.

  “Ahh, the true reason comes out.” Fehim laughed.

  With all of the impurities in the garden, it blocked up and made Mana move sluggishly in humans. They had found that circulating your Mana while over a Mana Gathering formation to the dungeon core would pull out the impure Mana, feed it into the dungeon core to grow and also temper their bodies; their Mana would become purer than before and allow them to take in more of the attribute Mana.

  “One should try to take advantage of every benefit they can find.” Delilah smiled.

  Fehim smiled and she walked away.

  “Don’t be scared of the cities. Not all of them will be like Taeman. Don’t feel like you have to just stay here—there are many other good places to visit,” Fehim said, stopping her in her footsteps.

  Delilah paused before smiling back at him. “Thanks, Fehim.”

  He simply nodded as she once again continued on her way out of the Alchemy garden.