The scorpions looked like laughing crabs that were very quick on their feet. Kain laughed and slapped Kaden on the back, but he didn’t really see what was funny about the whole situation.
"Check them out, then you will know what is funny, my young friend." Kaden did just that. He inspected the scorpions, after which his mouth dropped open.
Kain roared in laughter upon seeing his friend's mouth wide open. After half a minute, he was able to talk again. "Is this a joke?" Kaden asked. Kain shook his head, grinning wide.
"Does this mean we will get to kill things over and over again?" Razor asked, briefly coming to life.
"Oh yes it does." The Wolfman winked once at the bird for good measure.
"Oh great," the bird replied sarcastically, "even dogs are attracted to me now." Before Kain could reply, Razor disappeared.
"You need to teach that thing some damn manners lad, or I'll do it for you!"
"I’m sorry about him. He is just a smartass sometimes, no offense intended."
"Right. Alright then. First, you and I need to rest, my mage friend. Then, we will spend a few days killing scorpions. There is a cave nearby that I used to live in for years. This is how I managed to get to my current power."
Kaden suddenly scowled at the Wolfman, annoyed by the constant use of ‘mage’. "I have a name, in case you didn’t know, Wolf," he snapped back.
Kain’s eyes went wide in disbelief, his jaw dropped a good ten centimetres. First, his expression became serious, then he burst out in laughter.
"Very well, Kaden. I can respect a man who can stand up for himself. I will not use your class anymore. From now on, I'll call you by your name, as you have earned it many times over by now."
"Thank you-"
"How are the two of you doing?" a voice rang out, startling them.
Kaden flinched and turned around, only to see a lone spider sitting to his right. Kain sat quietly, not paying it any more attention than it deserved. Kaden however, was about to squash the thing with his foot.
"What the hell do you want, spider queen?" he demanded, foot still raised.
The spider just sat there, motionless, with its many eyes staring back at him. It was unnerving, to say the least. "I just want to have a chat, my little human. Or should I call you, my little tyrant?"
"Is that supposed to be funny?" he asked with a dead, cold expression while lowering his leg.
"Oh, come on now! Why don’t we have a little chat among friends? I'm sure you will appreciate a bit more backstory than that furball might have given you. What do you say?" she asked.
Kain remained quiet, only throwing an occasional glance her way.
"Whatever. You don’t seem like you’re willing to leave, so we might as well," Kaden replied. She laughed heartily, then turned into a woman with eight spider legs and a thick torso. Her breasts were enormous, with hair flowing down her back that was as black as the night. Light red eyes stared back at him from a face as pale as the moon. Kain winced and turned away, with pain written all over his face.
"Did he tell you about us? How this came to be, my boy?" she said.
"More or less," he replied, feigning boredom.
"I see. Did he tell you about our child?" Kaden’s reaction betrayed him, which seemed to amuse her to some extent.
"Then he didn’t tell you what happened to my beautiful girl, right? Of course he didn’t. I might be a black widow, but I'm not the heartless one in this matter. In fact, it's him who's heartless!" she yelled out, spitting poison from her mouth. "That man killed our daughter and blamed me for it!"
It was as if Kaden got hit by a sledgehammer. It would be very logical not to tell something like this, but still, he couldn’t judge a man for keeping his secrets. A secret is fine, but killing your own child? That was something totally different. What kind of monster would do that to his own offspring?
"Would you care to… explain, Morgana?"
"Why yes! I will tell you all about it if you are willing to listen," she said, getting comfortable after more of her body turned human. She lay on top of a large stone and looked Kaden her right into her many eyes. "You see, we were very poor, and my child had been born very special. Her blood could give you immortality."
"Immortality from someone’s blood? What do you mean?" Kaden asked, intrigued by her statement. This world was magical and special, that much he knew, but blood that could give someone eternal life?
"Very simple. The last drop to leave her body gave the drinker immortality. Kain had made a deal with one of the minor gods to try and overthrow Bardos. How foolish he had been to think it was possible. Even if the god had succeeded, what guarantee did my dear husband have that he would get what was promised?"
"Wait, what?" Kaden asked incredulously.
Morgana seemed to enjoy the look of shock on his face and relished in it. "Long story short, Bardos killed the minor god and turned us into what you see now. He gave us immortality and placed us here to battle each other for all eternity. Neither can kill the other. We tried many times, but there is no way for us to die by each other’s hands. Only an outside factor, like yourself, can do it. Now, think about it carefully. Do you want to set someone as powerful and crazy as him out into the world? To wreak havoc upon what life there is outside of this maze? I, on the other hand, would serve you forever in gratitude."
Both of them seemed to be schemers. No wonder, after a thousand years of this back and forth, one would be crazy not to use any given opportunity to get out.
"How about I get both of you out of this dungeon?" Kaden asked, not wanting to choose sides just yet. Both Kain and Morgana’s eyes found his. The two of them were dumbfounded for a moment, and lost their ability to speak. Morgana gathered herself first, and replied with a curious voice.
"Do you think that we didn’t try everything we could have thought of?" she asked, her voice breaking with cynicism.
"There are things beyond you, Kain or me. However, I know one such being, his name being Bardos." Their smug expressions faded from their faces as Kaden’s eyes met theirs again.
"Very well. Find me on the upper floor, and we can discuss it in more detail. My telepathic power is coming to a close in any case, Human. I hope to see you soon. Bye, now." She waved, and her figure dissolved into the black spider. Kain lunged up and crushed it with a stomp.
"You, stay at the entrance to the cave. I'll gather every single scorpion in this zone, and you will then kill them all at once. You will have about eleven minutes. Understood?" Kain said as he ran off, not even waiting for a reply.
"Insane! That is what you are!" Kaden yelled after him. He cursed and slammed at the air a couple times before calming down and staring out into the desert intently. Which skill would be better to take care of them?
The area of effect was too small in both cases, even with Frozen Land. "No, no, no! I don’t want to use the elemental core yet!" he yelled after the Kain, angry for making him use it so quickly. Not willing to lose any time, he opened the skill tab.
Ice Age, Level 1: Summon an ice storm and freeze everything in a large radius, inflicting 6400 direct damage and 1900 explosion damage per large ice shard. Adds a random number of Frostbite or Slow stacks. Skill cooldown: 9 minutes
Maelstrom, Level 1]: Summon a maelstrom and crush everything with high pressure and crushing waves within the storm’s eye, dealing 9200 direct damage and 1800 damage of suffocation damage over 6 seconds. Skill cooldown: 9 minutes
"Shit! What do I do? It doesn’t say anything about which one has a larger range or area of effect, or if they’re burst damage or not! Think, idiot, think! An ice storm would probably cause damage over time as everything freezes, and then explodes over a few seconds just like the lower tier spell. Then, if I was to summon a maelstrom, it would actually be the same. You don’t drown at once, so it will also probably cause damage over time, but faster. But if I was to summon a maelstrom, it would probably suck Kain in as well. Shit!"
The sound of many clattering pin
cers could be heard in the distance, as well as a high-pitched chattering sound, combined with the occasional howl that seemed to come from Kain.
Kaden walked out of the cave and looked for where the sound had come from. His mouth dropped open in awe as Kain ran from left to right, jumping around and running in between the things, and then again towards him. There were hundreds of them. His gaze went to his skill tab again.
The damage was slightly less, but with such a number of these things, it would shred everything around the area of effect as well. He sighed and chose his skill, [Ice Age]. Imagining for the skill to appear, a red effect marker popped up in front of him on the sand and it was monstrous, at least thirty meters in diameter.
"Hah! No going back now!" he said to himself, louder than he should have. Luckily, there was no one around to hear him.
Minutes seem to roll into hours as Kain kept making passes around the creatures, making the sound of their beating pincers almost unbearable. How the hell can he endure this sound? Kaden thought to himself.
Kain came close, to the point that he was in earshot. The sound the scorpions made was deafening, so he knew that the Wolfman wouldn’t be able to hear him no matter how hard he yelled. Without any real idea, he started motioning with his hands to jump, then he did it himself. To his luck, Kain changed into a full on sprint and lunged a good ten metres towards him. Kaden grinned and nodded, summoning his first tier three skill.
[Ice Age]
Something truly astonishing happened as an ice storm appeared a few seconds after casting the spell, freezing the sand and crushing anything in its path. A mist spread far further than just the thirty meter diameter. Explosions shook the area as large icicles were hurled all around the area. Kaden fell on his ass, laughing like a maniac as he pointed towards the storm.
"Impressive," Kain said as he stopped beside him and turned around, looking at the onslaught. "I wouldn’t like to get caught within that thing, not even with my power."
"Neither would I." Kaden chuckled as the storm dissipated slowly, revealing everything to be dead within the target area. A chime in his head showed him a ton of new messages, which he mostly skimmed except a few random damage numbers and a notification.
You have inflicted 7.923 damage to Desert Sting.
You have inflicted 2.217 damage to Desert Sting.
You have inflicted 14.267 damage to Desert Sting. Critical Hit!
Congratulations, you have gained three levels and three skill points
Rupture level: 1. 74.267/500.000 critical damage inflicted
"How do you like it so far?" Kain asked. He was covered in cuts and bled profusely, though his health never went down past yellow. "Go and loot before you say anything stupid," he added after seeing Kaden’s incredulous look. Then, he proceeded to the cave and sat down.
Kaden nodded without a word and started looting. A good half an hour in the scorching sun later, all of the loot had been sorted, and everything that would be of any use was now in his invisible bag. Items were neatly stacked in boxes, just like in video games.
He shook his head in disgust and walked back towards the cave and sat down in the shadow next to the Wolfman, resting. Kain woke up from his beauty sleep, his wounds healed. He turned his head towards Kaden and smiled.
"Why don’t you smelt all of the bad items into ingots?" Kain asked. Kaden frowned, not quite understanding what the wolfman was getting at.
"Right. Because I don’t know how? Besides, I have no tools or knowledge with which to use it."
"I can teach you how. Also, I can do it for you just this one time. You watch and learn how it's done." Amazed at the offer, Kaden didn’t really know how to reply so he nodded with his mouth wide open. He would be an idiot to deny such a deal. After all, there was no electricity, no machines, no cars or whatever. He would have to make a living with his own hands here.
The fact that the Wolfman knew how to smelt ingots with his massive claws was beyond him. Shit, I need to stop thinking of him as a wolf. He was human after all, why wouldn’t he know how to smelt stuff? He might as well just have been a blacksmith.
The process had looked very easy, and some time later, multiple stacks of ingots lay sorted out in his inventory. They went up to ninety-nine items per stack, and two of them were almost filled up at the end. After completing the process, Kain taught him how to do it himself. After the chime, a message announced the new skill.
Blacksmithing. Current level: 1. Skill description: Allows the user to smelt different types of ore, weapons and armours into ingots and create tools from them.
"This is quite something," he said looking at his mentor’s way of handling the items.
"Yes it's. Do what I did and you should be fine."
Kaden nodded and proceeded putting up the scorpion’s pincers and its carapace, which looked like it was a chunk of metal ore. The heat started smelting the ore and a circle appeared in front of him. There were multiple lines traced across the circle, some thin and thick, all randomly thrown around. As the middle line traced across the circle its speed varied, going faster, then slower at random places. Kaden gave a mental order to stop near a thin, approaching line and it stopped just shy of it.
You have acquired an Iron Ingot. Smelting left until next level 1/199
After a while, Kaden used up all of the material. Some things were beyond easier to come by, like iron ingots, while others like steel ingots were harder, and only a few copper and mythril ingot had been smelted.
His Blacksmithy window opened up a second section for making tools. When he chose some random things, they had different ingredients. For example, a normal hammer needed one iron ingot and one wood, while a carpenter's hammer needed five iron ingots and two wood. A smithy hammer needed three steel ingots and seven hardwood. A smile made its way to his face even though he was tired, but the joy that had come out of this exceeded any exhaustion.
"Once we get out of here and arrive at your village, I can teach you weapon and armour smithing. You will have a lot more fun then, trust me. Speaking of which, how would you like to stay here for a few days and do some farming and leveling? These things spawn every twelve hours, which should be happening very soon," Kain asked.
Kaden could feel the nervousness coming out of his new friend, who seemed reluctant to move ahead. Did he want to draw out the moment of reckoning, or just help him? He had no idea, but a grin replaced the tired, exhausted look that had been haunting his face for the last hour.
"Sure! Sounds great. Everything remains the same? With gathering the mobs, killing them and so on?"
"Yeah, everything remains the same. Rest up a bit until they have respawned. Then, we kill some more, and you can go on smelting in the meantime."
By day six, the heat was already getting to Kaden, and to Kain as well, who had enough of the constant bleeding and cuts, even though he didn’t want to admit it. They had killed a total of eleven spawns, netting him almost a full inventory of ingots and level twenty seven.
Having made all of the necessary things, they started making basic armours and weapons out of iron ingots on an improvised anvil which had randomly dropped. It had been of the lowest quality, but they had worked their way up from it.
It was really tedious work, but he had managed to make different kinds of things. A basic Iron Armour would have a defense stat of 47, while a copper-infused one would have a defense stat of 59. The same thing applied to the weapons. It didn’t matter that copper was actually very soft compared to some metals, but it somehow worked anyway.
A basic sword he had made was at 71 attack, while the copper-infused one was at 92. The joy that he had felt upon reaching that state of Blacksmithing at level 3, Armor Smithing at level 2 and Weaponsmithing at level 2 was indescribable. On occasion, even Kain had grinned a few times in approval.
After finishing up, they prepared for the twelfth run and finished it without problems. He had gained his level 28 and did the usual smithing. One more day, and they would be done an
d could go fight Morgana. Lost in thought, Razor materialized in front of him. He didn’t speak, but just stood there, watching and waiting. After he couldn’t take it anymore, Razor finally spoke into his mind. "Aren’t you worried about how the outside world will look like when we get out?"
Kaden looked up from his work and stared at the bird. "Who do you think I’m doing this for? I want to go back and be able to protect her, and the village while I'm at it. We could have tried to do it a few days ago, but in one more day, I'll be able to do a lot more than I used to. Don’t you think that's a good tradeoff"
Razor blinked twice, as if surprised by his words. "You are right, of course, but what if fifty years have passed outside? This is a very special dungeon, unlike any other. Even though you are quite dense, you should be feeling it as well."
Kaden nodded. "That's why I have been working my ass off. We will all be better off after this, one way or another."
"I sure hope it will be worth it. Who knows what awaits on the outside? Let’s hope she is alive and you have something to return to."
The conversation ended with both going to sleep. The dreams that night were of his previous life, one that had been taken from him. When he woke, however, Kaden realised he didn’t miss it at all. In this new life, Kain, Laney and everything else was his new future and family. With that in mind, the last day ended quickly, after which he finally gained his last level. He checked his status screens to see what had happened, only to realise that most of it had stayed the same.
He had gained some five hundred health, thirty attack and thirty defense after leveling up. The attack and defense were the real bonuses, as his health had steadily progressed as usual. Nothing else had changed in his status window. Another thing he had noticed, was that the Rupture and Monster Slayer passives had gone up to level two. He checked the status of the buffs.
Rupture level: 2. 114,591/500,000 critical damage inflicted. Critical hit rate +6%.
Monster Slayer: level 2. 3,914/5,000 monsters killed. Attack bonus 7%.
The stats didn’t do much yet, but in time, the five percent would rise and given high enough stats, it would be a real boon.
Maelstrom Page 24