The three moved into the room as Dave jumped down where the stairs were supposed to be.
It’s a control room—it has to be, with all the connections to the teleport pad. I need to get a better look at the surviving runes. If this is what I think it is, then it could be incredible!
Dave pulled out a rod from his pocket and aimed at the left staircase. It transformed into a short bow, an arrow in his hand, as Deia aimed for the opposite staircase.
They let loose their arrows at almost the same time as kobolds started to appear. These ones were all above level 130.
The metal golems melded over the balconies, settling to positions above the stairwell, unseen by the kobolds.
Dave’s steel rod exploded as its soul gem went critical, tearing into two kobolds, but not taking them out. They were a lot stronger than the ones he’d faced previously. They took twenty percent damage, yelling out their anger as they charged. Deia’s arrow exploded into green fire that stuck to everything.
The kobold miners were having a hard time of fighting the flames as the Air and Earth mages didn’t wait for it to fall from their Mana barriers as they started unleashing wind attacks and Earth golems started to form. They weren’t as well controlled as Suzy’s, though if you’d just told one of them to go and destroy whoever was attacking its master, it wasn’t dumb enough to stare at you blankly.
Malsour and Induca took care of the growing golems as Anna danced. It was the first time that Dave had seen Anna fight with her Air Blade Dancer abilities and it was as terrifying a site as it was beautiful.
Her blades sliced through the air, turning the mages’ wind attacks into soft breezes. They were just throwing thin and concentrated wind around. Deia was forcibly using her sword to conduct her attacks. They might be a higher level than her, but they didn’t have her control.
Dave stopped watching as Deia let loose her second Fire arrow.
Dave conjured an arrow and let loose as fast as he could see a target. He was not only shooting better; he was also able to understand what the kobolds were going to do. He heard a ting of his notifications, but ignoring it as he continued to fire and dodge Earth lances flying in his direction.
The kobolds advanced in the room, headed right for the three melee fighters closest to them. Fifteen had turned into fifty; it looked as if the entire level had come to fight.
The mages were the last to make it out of the stairwells, to their demise. One Earth mage looked up as the five metal golems turned into porcupines. Their metal stabbed through the nearest kobolds as they formed on the ground, stabbing and hurling spears into the kobolds’ backs. Malsour’s shadows latched onto two miners, draining them of Health and life.
The mages got them free, but they looked to be three times older than when they started the battle.
Dave ducked a shovel, turning his bow into a great sword as he swung to meet a pickaxe. The great sword cut through the wooden length of the pickaxe, the head bouncing off Abscondita’s passive Mana barrier. Dave brought the blade back across, his muscles straining to counter its momentum and redirect it as he sliced the kobold open.
Dave took a hit on his shoulder. He turned, shifting the great sword into a warhammer as he kept the momentum going, spinning around and landing the great hammer into the kobold’s chest, taking off twenty percent of its Health.
Higher levels couldn’t stop all of physics as the kobold went flying and slammed into a balcony. A metal golem finished it off before it could start to recover.
Dave transformed his hammer into a shield and a sword, but he wasn’t quite fast enough as he was hit with a tornado. While it was enough to knock him flying back ten feet, it only scratched his Mana barrier, but couldn’t breach through it. Anna’s sword cut through the tornado, nullifying the attack.
The tornado of sharp wind blades disappeared, channeling into Deia’s armor.
Anna jumped into battle. Her first-generation Abscondita armor made her stronger and faster than their opponents as she left a trail of destruction behind. Malsour attacked the kobolds from the other side using shadows, metal traps, and curses in their midst.
Dave got back to his feet, feeling the worse for wear but knowing his party needed him. He threw his sword, changing it in mid-air to a dagger. It slammed into a kobold’s shoulder up to the hilt, stopping its blow from hitting Deia.
Her left sword took off its arm as she relieved another kobold of its head.
“Recall!” Dave said. The dagger turned back into a sword as he blocked a shovel coming at his head. The sheer strength of the kobold pushed him back a few feet as Dave felt the blade return to his hand.
He stabbed forward, putting what seemed to be a white blade through the kobold.
Dave could see the creature’s shock, knowing that Dave had been unarmed just seconds ago, yet now he’d pierced its side with one.
Dave slammed his shield into the creature and attempted to stun it.
Its higher levels came into work. With Fire damage coursing through its body, it still managed to dodge and swing its shovel around, hitting Dave in his sword hand.
“Fuck,” Dave grunted. His hand tried to release his sword in a spasm of pain.
Kobold Miner
Level 178
Dave saw a hex land on the creature, reducing its speed. Dave accessed Abscondita, increasing his own speed by forty percent, the highest he could go before it’d start damaging his body by the effect.
The kobold finally seemed just a bit slower as Dave raised his shield above his head, taking the incoming shovel’s overhead blow as he went to his knees while slicing his sword across the kobold’s inner thigh.
The creature cried out in pain as it stumbled back. A green glow surrounded it as Dave continued to attack, changing his attack. A kobold mage pushed Dave up with an earth platform, making him unstable.
Dave saw the Earth mage looking at him. In a burst of rage, jumped into the air as his right hand turned into something never seen before on Earth or Emerilia. It took three seconds for the circular device around his wrist to charge, different parts spinning as the front emitted a green glow, with lightning arcing around its front end.
“Pull back!” Dave landed to the side of the battle, facing the middle of the kobold group.
Deia and Anna jumped to the far wall as a green overlay coated the ground, showing the AOE.
“Eat suck, suckface!” Dave yelled as green light blinded him. A blue orb of flickering power shot out from his hand contraption; lightning arced away from it. Anything in its path that was alive was turned into grounding rods as hundreds of thousands of volts raced through them.
It crossed the space in seconds, losing its charge with every creature it hit. Dave, in the meantime, was launched three meters backward, embedding himself into the wall.
Some of the electricity struck the runes around the room, a faint blue glow emanating from them.
Chapter 6: Secrets of the Aleph
“Dave? Dave?” Deia ran over to Dave, who was embedded about three feet into a wall. Any kobolds that weren’t hit with the lightning ball screamed out in agony as their eyes, unused to sunlight, had been bombarded with more light than they had ever seen in all their lives.
Deia cut down three on her way to Dave, trying to blink away the image that was imprinted on her eyes. “Dave?” She reached the wall, tears falling down her cheek.
Dave gave a weak cough. “Did I get them all?”
“You idiot. What if you died?” she demanded.
“I’d be revived in SC,” Dave said, trying to get his butt out of the wall.
“You dolt! I only just became a Player. I don’t think like that!” Tears fell down her face.
“Babe, this is the way Players are. We can take massive risks because we always come back afterwards,” Dave said in a calming tone.
“I know, but I guess I never realized it,” Deia said, trying to rein in her emotions.
“Did you finish off the remaining kobolds?” Dave aske
d.
Deia’s eyes went wide as she looked around. Anna was killing the kobolds in quick strokes. The remaining metal golems helped her; two had been in the lightning ball’s range of attack.
You know better than that. In the middle of battle, you need to stay focused. Getting all scared and emotional could get you and the rest of your party killed.
“Could you help me out?” Dave asked.
Deia pulled him free of the wall.
“Thanks.” Dave sounded sore from being planted into the wall.
“We still need to clean up the remaining kobolds, and then you can tell the rest of us just what that attack was,” Deia said. She’d deal with her emotions later. Right now, there could be more kobolds on the way.
Deia moved toward any kobolds that were still standing, quickly cutting them down with her swords. Dave’s tattoos on his right side lit up before the cylinder on his arm contracted and turned back into a rod and then a sword.
It took five minutes for them to clear out the remaining kobolds.
“I’m not picking up on any more kobolds coming up.” Dave moved to the rough half-circle at the front of the room.
***
“This is crazy,” Dave said to himself. His Touch of the Land stretched out, making sure that no more kobolds would get to them undetected. He was simultaneously focusing it into the circle he stood on.
“Dave, what the hell was that lightning thing?” Suzy jumped down from the balcony and moved toward him.
“Oh, that? I just held a ball of water and then charged it up with lightning, made a mini thunderstorm and fired it in a direction. Took the idea from Metroid,” Dave said absently as he inspected the different runes, moving around the room and kicking bodies out of the way in different places.
“What are you looking for?” Suzy asked.
“This, this entire room; if it’s what I think it is, then, well, shit. I don’t know, but it would be the find of the century.” Dave put his rods away. Pulling out a pencil and a book, he wrote different symbols onto the page, sending out a search function through his rune notes.
He moved around the room. The others watched him and checked out the dead kobolds.
“Dave, are you okay?” Deia moved over to him.
“Yeah, fine.” He looked to her. “Sorry about before, but now neither of us can die. The only thing we must worry about is losing our experience and whatever we’re wearing. Being a Player changes things and I wasn’t about to let that be my first death.” Dave smiled.
“I know, but on some other level, I am used to people dying here and staying dead. When I saw you like that, I didn’t know what to do.” She looked at the floor.
Dave put his arms around her, seeing the tears in her eyes. “Come here.”
She shook, crying quietly; the others gave them room as she let out her tears.
Dave listened to it, patting her back and making comforting noises. He’d never had someone so attached to him like Deia. Thinking about losing her, even though he knew that she would respawn, made his mind go black with fear and worry. He didn’t know how he would be able to do it.
After some time, she stopped shaking and her grip loosened.
“You good?” Dave looked to her.
“Yeah, sorry.” She smiled at him.
Dave smiled and kissed her forehead. “You don’t ever have to be sorry at a thing like that,” Dave whispered, squeezing her.
She returned the squeeze before she stood back a bit, going back to her role as party leader. “What are you doing with that notepad?”
“Well, to anyone who has ever watched Stargate—which I don’t think anyone here has—this place is kind of like Atlantis. Those two boxes can be used to rain magic or arrows down on anything that comes through here and control the teleport pad.” Dave pointed to the two boxes on either side of the room.
“That is a defensive position, ready in case someone attacked.” Dave pointed at the box at the end of the room. “And this sexy beast right here is the star gate.” He moved to the half-circle. “Wow, there goes my childhood television shows.” He looked at the blank stares.
“Okay, so in Stargate, they basically have a portal. Using different symbols, they can connect to other star gates and you can travel all over the darned place. Just dial one up and you can cross in between all day long.”
“Like the teleportation pads?” Induca said.
“Bingo! Now this—this is a third or maybe a fifth the size of a teleportation pad and look at it.” Dave held his arms up and turned in a circle, his Touch of the Land highlighting the runes and Magical Circuits hidden under the circle at the front of the room. “This is not just some simple portal, or Mirror of Communication or even teleportation pad. This is elegance!”
“The teleportation pads are smaller than this,” Deia said.
“Dave, speak English,” Suzy warned.
“Right, okay, uhh. Well, they aren’t like the teleportation pads on the surface. Those are about ten meters wide; they go down into the ground about fifty meters and spread out over sixty meters. They also use a ton of power. These take a lot less power and they’re not just tuned to other teleportation pads. I think this could teleport people to anywhere you have a base station. Just a simple pad that can intercept the energy and change it back into reality.”
“So, it’s a much smaller teleportation pad?” Deia asked.
“It’s a much more powerful one. Dave is right. This can connect to other pads like this as well as a city’s teleportation pads and portals. If you place down a rune circle, then you could use it to quickly move troops to one single location. It is why the Aleph were so powerful and why the Pantheon was ordered by the Jukal Empire to destroy the race.”
“Did they really?” Dave looked to Anna.
“Well, my father did bend the rules a little bit and classified them as dangerous creatures. A number of their race were saved and put into hibernation. Soon, they should be waking up. If we were to start clearing their home of any pests that could have stumbled in, it might be useful to us.”
A notification pinged on Dave’s interface. He looked to the others, seeing that they, too, were opening their interfaces.
Level 64
You have reached level 64; you have 305 stat points to use.
Active Skill: One-handed and Shield
Level: Apprentice Level 4
Effect: Weapons damage increased by 14%. Defense increases by 5%.
Cost: 20 Stamina
New Active Skill: Inference
Monkey see, monkey do. Well, in your case, it’s monkey reads a fuckton of books and monkey is sometimes harder to kill because he understands a bit of what the hell he’s reading. You just made melee fighting nerdy—you happy with yourself?
Level: Novice Level 3
Effect: Reading books and learning information on different topics can lead to new discoveries. You absorb information to be used at a later date. Higher recollection in higher stress situations. 9% increased chance of discovery.
“Wow, okay, that is going to be useful as hell. Also, might mean reading a hell of a lot of books.”
Stat Increase
+12 Strength
+5 Intelligence
+9 Agility
+2 Vitality
Dave looked at the last notification.
Quest: Aleph Homecoming
Anna has said that the Aleph are coming home to Emerilia. Several of their homes and places they worked in have been overtaken by different monsters. Will you travel to Alephir in order to re-open the gates and push back the hordes of creatures that have defiled this once proud race’s homes?
Rewards: ???
Do you accept?
Y/N
“I don’t know what the rewards might be, but if we could learn even a bit of what they know about teleportation, then I bet I can get Suzy something that is pretty damned badass. I might also be able to get those portals working,” Dave said.
“Doesn’t Bob know ho
w to get them working?” Malsour asked.
“Yes, but he can’t be down on Emerilia for longer than five minutes or else the rest of the Pantheon might figure out what he is doing, or who he is helping,” Anna said. “Also, if he starts activating portals, then the Jukal over-watch programs will inform someone and command him to take them apart.”
“If I do it myself and without his knowledge, then it won’t invoke the Jukal Empire and their over-watch programs. He can tell me all about them, what they are and what they do, but as long as he doesn’t mention how they do it but in general terms, then I guess those over-watch programs won’t react?” Dave asked.
“Exactly.” Anna smiled.
“Well then, Anna, I hope you know your Aleph written vocabulary, and Malsour, I hope you brought your notepad. We’ve got a lot to check over. I guess we should also accept that quest?” Dave looked to Deia.
“It sounds like a good idea to me. I don’t know how we would clear them all out. There aren’t any rewards mentioned. Though if the Aleph are as far stretching as Anna says, there are probably many monsters that we will encounter and need to defeat. We came to train and it sounds like a good event to do just that. That said, everyone gets a vote here. If the majority don’t want to, then we can leave the quest alone and sell the information about it on to another group.” Deia looked to the others.
“I’m in,” Induca said.
“After Dave’s riveting Star Trek story, how could I resist?” Suzy said.
Dave closed his eyes in pain as he mumbled, “Stargate, its Stargate…”
“I’ve heard much about the Aleph. The chance to meet them and clear their home of enemies? I’m in,” Malsour said.
“In!” Dave said.
“I agree with the others.”
Deia opened her interface. “Yes.”
A waypoint appeared on their map. Dave opened up his mini-map. It looked as if it was much farther into the dungeon, possibly at the end of it.
For The Guild (Emerilia Book 2) Page 7