Ahava calmly said, “Yes, it contains the lore of Eridu.”
“You say the lore of Eridu,” said Etel-Pisha, “but that is only the original knowledge for the magical system we use. It has been lost for a long time until now, and it's in my hands. Sorry, but I must get back to it.”
Ahava said, “Have you slept yet?”
Etel-Pisha said, “No” and went back to reading the text.
Ahava went into a workshop and started experimenting with the elemental powers and steel. Iron, wood, bits of animals and other metal were retrieved from his bag and placed into storage locations around the room. Ahava went to the kitchen and got some ash and coals in a bucket. This got a strange look from Lilith, who was cooking a meal.
He first formed some iron plates. Using a mixture of ingredients, he experimented in making different types of steel. This work took several days and was only accomplished as he used his scanning ability and had help from Shulgi, as he could not even get Etel-Pisha to leave the clay tablets. They had developed a range of tests to find the properties of the steel. Most of this involved dropping large, heavy objects on the steel sample. Ahava noted this all down for future reference. He also noted that as they discovered data it would automatically be recorded in his H-Journal. Finally, they had a number of steels with different properties.
In the meantime, Shulgi had managed to employ some metal and woodworkers to help. They set up a workshop outside the main building with the equipment the people needed. Ahava set them to produce different weapons and designs. Shulgi would check the design and would constantly make suggestions for improvements. The workers thought it was a waste of money to try and perfect some weapon and not produce items for sale but they were being paid well it, which was fine with them. Ahava’s idea in doing this was to produce not only a strong steel weapon but a good design weapon. He also did not want to teach others about the production of the steel.
As the artisans were working on weapon designs, Ahava worked on infusing magical effects into steel. First, he infused earth, fire and water elemental flux on a flat piece of steel. This had the effect of producing a force field above the steel surface. With Shulgi and his children helping, they tested the effect out. At first, this involved dropping large stones on to the plate. This produced no effect, except the children squealing with laughter. Finally, they used a block and tackle to lift a stone block, weighing about a ton, with a metal spike to hit the steel plate. With repeated drops, they only managed to slightly dent the metal. The next development was to use the force field effect on the edge of a weapon. This produced a sharp edge that cut like a razor but never blunted. The final effect they found was using air elemental flux on a bowstring which when it was released moved at a faster than normal speed, shooting the arrow much farther. This effect could also be used on a spear and other the throwing weapons. Ahava also remembered the effect he a had developed earlier for lightening weapons
Soon the weapon designs were completed by Shulgi and the artisans. Ahava now started the process of forming the designs in the best steel, using his elemental power. As he was forming the shapes, he was amazed at how much easier it was than when he first entered the world. His use of the power was improving, but he needed to increase the earth, water, and air elemental powers so he could start using them as magical weapons. The final part was infusing the weapons with elemental flux.
Eventually all the weapons were ready for the adventurers. Ahava invited everybody over for a meal. Namzu arrived at the house first. Istar and Nasha arrived together, talking about something in earnest as they came through the door. Nasha looked a bit shocked but soon relaxed with all the food on display. Finally, Etum arrived last of all, from the weapons college. Etel-Pisha had never left the house, as he was reading and rereading the lore of Eridu. It had been difficult to get him to eat and sleep. They had managed to just get him to come for tonight's dinner and weapon demonstration.
When dinner had finished, they all went to look at the weapons. Nasha, Shulgi, and Etum’s set of weapons were all the same: armor made of steel fitted plates, chain mail and helmets; there was a large spear and a large shield. Namzu had a set of throwing knives, a dagger, and a cloth tunic and trousers with a force shield infused on their surface. Finally, Istar had a similar tunic and trousers as Namzu, a bow, and a dagger.
They all trooped outside to test their equipment. Istar went first, after they had set up a target on a tree. She first, tried the bow, giving them running commentary. After putting an arrow in the bow, she said, “The pull drawback is easier than normal. It is easier to hold the bow at its full-pull. Ok., let’s see how hard it can hit the targets. Letting go of the arrow now. Wow, that was fast and where is the arrow?” She walked to the tree the target was on and said, “Hey, look at this; it's gone through the tree and is sticking outside the other side. That’s amazing; I never have seen that happen.”
After a few more arrows going through the tree, she was grinning with joy looking at the bow. Ahava went over and said, “Let me show you how effective the clothing is at stopping weapons piercing through it.” With this, he took out a dagger stabbed her in the arm.
Everybody gasped in shock, but Istar said, “It’s all good; I only felt a pressure on my arm.”
With that, she got her own dagger out and stabbed her arm a few times in amazement. All of the others gathered around, taking turns stabbing her arm and laughing.
The next up to try their equipment were Nasha, Shulgi and Etum, all with armor, shield, and spear. Nasha threw a spear at a large tree; it seemed to fly out of his hand and then accelerate in the air. It slammed into the tree and embedded all the way through. It took a lot of pull to get it out. Shulgi and Etum tested the shields with Shulgi holding his in front of him like a shield wall. Etum ran like a charging bull toward the shield. This only resulted in him being crumpled against the shield. It was good that he had his armor on, else he would have been injured. Of course, after this Nasha had to do the same charge at the shield. If Etum was a charging bull, then Nasha was a charging rhino. The shield did not mover either; it only ended up with Nasha on the ground, with Istar laughing like a hyena at Nasha.
Finally, Namzu used his throwing knives. As with the spears, they accelerated into the target with a loud thud.
Chapter Eleven: Storm-Demon
After the demonstration Namzu suggested, with a grin, “With weapons this powerful, we should go to the doorway in the cave we found and explore what's behind it. The guild has a job up on the board for it. If you all are willing then I’ll pick up the job and we all can leave in a day.”
Everybody agreed and set the date to leave in two days from that evening.
For the next two days Ahava worked on his own weapons and armor. His armor was like the others except he fixed the talismans and ring to the armor. He had been charging them since defeating the goblins. With the large stores of elemental power, the effect on the armor was a significant increase of efficiency in the magical effects. He read through his stats to find the effect of infusing elemental flux into his body.
Gender: Male
Biological Age: 30
Intelligence: 15, Stamina: 16, Strength: 15, Constitution: 14, Dexterity 16, Charisma: 11
Points: 1225
Element - Flux rate per second
Earth -2,831; Water -1,502; Air -3,500; Fire -2,713; Ether -83,0134
Aristotle's Rhetoric Emotions
Emotions -Flux rate per second
Anger -300; Calmness -2500; Friendship -170, Fear-320; Courage -450; Shame -50, Confidence-300; Kindness -150; Cruelty -20; Pity -80; Envy -50; Love -100
His age had again dropped and he also had an increase of Stamina, Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity due to the infusion of his elemental flux and training. Ahava could also feel the changes in his body, as he moved quickly and with more power. He decided to start to increase the amount he infused into his muscles and bone to prepare for the adventure ahead.
The day came
for the group of adventurers to leave. Namzu, Nasha, Istar, Etum, Shulgi and Ahava were all ready to leave but Etel-Pisha was still reading the lore. It took Nasha physically pulling him away from the clay tablets to finally detach him from his study.
The group walked out of the city early in the morning. The armor that some of the group had on got looks of wonder from other groups of fighters out and about in the morning. As Ahava walked in the early morning’s slightly damp and chilly air, he could not help feeling excited about the adventure. The whole team was buzzing with an excited vibe. Even Etel-Pisha was now laughing and joking with the group, as before he had been annoyed in having to leave his reading.
Traveling through the forest, they moved quickly, without encountering any significant monsters, and soon arrived at the cave entrance behind the waterfall. Slowly moving around the waterfall and entering the cave, the group made their way to the front of the doorway with a stone slab.
Etel-Pisha moved forward and re-read the writing on the door, and said, “It talks about one of the seven Storm-Demons’ abodes being sealed. I cannot make out which of the Storm-Demon it is but there is a warning of traps and something about being lost.”
Namzu said, raising his eyebrows, “How do we get through the stone slab blocking the doorway?
Ahava moved forward, putting his hands on the slab. He used his earth and ether elemental power to scan the slab. It was a meter thick of solid granite. It also contained interweaving strands of the ether elements. At first, he tried to manipulate the granite with the earth elemental power, but the strands of ether resisted. Ahava then used the ether elemental power to unbind the stands from the granite. With this accomplished, he could manipulate the granite. He was able to form a small arched doorway in the slab. Etel-Pisha sent another ball of light through the doorway. Namzu crept forward through the doorway first, with the rest of the group following. With the light shining in the ceiling, they could see that they were in a large, half-spherical opening in the earth. Around the room were over twenty doors. Some of the doors were at different heights on the walls with a small stairway leading up to them. In the center of the room were about twenty human creatures with grey-green skin, deformed faces, and clubs and knives as weapons.
Namzu said in a quiet voice that everybody could hear, “Earth Trolls—they’re very strong and hard to kill, as they can take a lot of damage.”
As Namzu was giving the information Ahava felt a change in the ether elemental power surrounding the Earth Trolls. It was a feeling of time starting. The trolls started to move.
Nasha shouted, “Form up on me!”
They all formed up into a wedge shape in the same positions as when they fought the giant. The large man shouted, “Range weapons and spear attack, while we move forward.”
With that, the three spearmen threw their spears at the trolls. It was amazing to watch the spears accelerate in the air and slam into the front trolls. Each of the spears went through the first troll and then into a second. Nasha’s spear managed to reach a third as well. The trolls the spears had slammed into, fell on the ground dead, with large holes in their bodies. As the team was slowly moving forward, Istar was using her bow to slam arrows into their heads. Each arrow was splitting the skull apart and dropping the trolls to the ground. Etel-Pisha was sending fireballs toward the trolls, which set them on fire. The trolls on fire started to move around in a sporadic manner but still moved forward.
Nasha shouted, “Shield man charges the center while Ahava and Namzu hit the sides! On my mark. Now!”
The three shield men ran forward while drawing their large daggers, hitting the front of the troll's group, while Ahava and Namzu went for the side. Ahava heard a loud crash as he approached the side of the trolls. With his ax in both hands, he started to dance around the edges of the formation of trolls. He managed to cut through a number of the trolls' arms and legs but as they were so tough it was not quick enough for the pace of the battle. Thinking he needed some extra cutting power, he imagined an intense, powerful cutting flame on the edge of the ax blade. Also, a thin line of flame coming from the top of the ax head and extending about half a meter. With this, the ax started to cut through the trolls like a hot knife through butter. With the combined efforts of the three shield men at the front cutting and hacking with their daggers from behind the shield, Namzu throwing his knives into the trolls, and Ahava chopping them to bits from his side, soon the only thing left of the trolls was bits of bodies on the floor.
Namzu walked around pulling throwing knives out of the dead trolls. Ahava asked, “Is there anything of use we can gain from the bodies?” But before he could answer he felt a powerful feeling of earth flux in each of the trolls. He went over to one of the bodies and pulled out the earth flux from the body of the troll. The troll disintegrated into dry grey-green powder, while Etel-Pisha came forward with a look of interest. The amount of earth flux added to his stats by about a thousand. With the team's permission, he repeated the same process for all of the dead trolls. Using his computer tablet, he checked the increase in the earth stat. It was now at the value of 23,500 points. Walking over to an open area, he moved the rocks around himself with a radius of about twenty meters. He also was able to produce large spikes out of the ground and walls. The whole team looked on with amazement and commented on the increase in power.
Namzu said while walking around the large open area, “That was interesting. I guess we have to pick a direction to explore. Ahava, can you use your power to map out the pathways?”
Ahava said, “I will try.”
With this, he put his hands on the ground and sent the earth-ether scan throughout the surrounding earth. What the scan helped him visualize was a complex set of chambers and tunnels. Most of the tunnels were dead ends, filled with traps. There only seemed to be one twisting route that led to beyond his ability to scan.
Ahava said to Namzu, “The whole surrounding volume of earth is full of tunnels and chambers. It’s like a labyrinth full of traps and dead ends. I see one route that has promise but I need to get closer, as I cannot scan the full distance. I can lead the way and disarm traps if you want.”
Namzu said, “That sounds like a better plan than wandering around aimlessly. Ahava, you lead the way. Shulgi and Etum, just stay behind Ahava for backup. Nasha, I want you behind as the rear guard. Right, let's move, people.”
Ahava started leading the group toward a doorway on the side of the wall. Climbing the stairs, he went up to the doorway. As he moved, he kept scanning all the surrounding continuously. The first trap he found was like a magical web of ether power across the tunnel. Feeling back across the web of power, he found that it triggered a block of rock to smash down onto the paths. He pulled the power out of the ether-web and used rock columns to support the blocks of rocks. The team passed without any incident. Other traps included large pits with a fake floor, a side block that would hit people as they passed by, and a bridge over the chasm. All of this was dealt with by Ahava.
About an hour into the journey, Ahava heard a smashing sound from the rear of the group. Nasha was coordinating a defense as Shulgi and Etum ran backward. The three shield men were able to block the tunnel from the oncoming assault. The creatures attacking were the trolls and some fire red demonic creatures. The demons had horns with a face of a bull and red skin color. With the power of the shields blocking, the attackers could not break through. With their spears, the three men were stabbing the creatures pushing against the shields but only managing to kill the creatures in front. A stalemate situation carried on, until Ahava tried using the earth elemental power to produce a multitude of thin sharp spikes shooting at all angles in the tunnel. The pressure on the shield wall stopped.
Shulgi looked over his shield and exclaimed, “Well, that’s a bloody mess but it worked effectively. Wow, I would never have thought that possible!”
Etel-Pisha was, of course, interested and asked multiple questions of Ahava, who mostly grunted in reply. Checking with the t
eam, and getting their go-ahead, he pulled the elemental flux into his body. The red demons had fire elemental flux in their body. By the time he had finished his earth flux was now above 30,000 and his fire flux was up to 20,000.
Overjoyed with this new elemental firepower increase, he did a few experiments with the fire elemental flux. Using his hands, he projected a flame starting five meters from his palms. A roaring yellow and orange flame shot out to about twenty meters’ distance. He then wanted to try and produce a fireball, like Etel-Pisha’s magic. He imagined a ball of fire forming in his hand. Fire flew out of his fingers, spiraling into a ball of swirling fire. He added some air elemental power and the heat got more intense, with the flame changing to blue. He then projected the fireball down the tunnel, where it exploded against a corner wall.
Namzu said with a smile across his face, “If you are finished playing, can we move on?”
Ahava nodded and started to scan the earth. In the far distance and deep-down was a massive cavern. Telling the team about what he could sense, he led the way. Ahava led the team slowly down into the depths of the earth, through winding staircases.
The group stood before the entrance of a large stone door. With Ahava’s visualization skills he could see the large cavern, held up by columns, with a large stone statue at one end before an altar and lots of smaller stone statues around the outside. As with the previous stone doorway, Ahava made an arched doorway opening into the cavern.
Before entering the room Namzu started a discussion of how to deal with the situation. He said, “I think, as we have seen before, the frozen statues are going to come to life and attack when we enter the cavern! Ahava, can you sense any trap around the cavern?”
Ahava used his scanning power but did not find any tracks and said so to the group. Istar said with a look of thoroughness, “We could have somebody run in and try to awake the monster and lure it to a more defensive position. How about the doorway here, where we can deal with them a few at a time?”
The First Era Page 10