by Jakob Tanner
We sighed and dropped our heads. There was no hope for us then. We were stuck on this island. We better make an SOS sign.
“But,” said Jackson raising a pudgy index finger up like a school teacher. “By its very nature, this floating island stays afloat by its natural crystal mana deposits at the core of its foundations. If we find the core, we will be able to mine enough crystal mana to get us back on track to La-Archanum.”
We all nodded our heads, including the crew sitting off by themselves. We were making a plan. Hope was not lost.
“So the question is,” continued Jackson, looking out into the shadowy jungle of the floating sky island. “Who stays here with me and who delves into the unknown?”
15
Serena slashed her giant sword like a machete, cutting a path for us through the floating island’s jungle. Thick bushes and leaves came up to our waists, making traversal incredibly difficult. The place was clearly uninhabited. It was sticky and humid the deeper into the jungle we went. While Jackson and the remaining crew members stayed back at the cliff repairing the ship—Serena, Shade, Kari, and I had left on the mining expedition.
“Are we sure we’ll be able to find our way back,” said Kari, looking up and around at the shadows of the trees, nervously.
Serena stopped and glanced back at the path we had made. “There’s only one discernible path on this island and we’ve made it. I think we’ll be fine.”
“Sheesh,” said Shade scratching the back of his head. “I can’t say I’ve ever been in a hurry to go to La-Archanum.”
“Have you ever been?” I asked.
“No, but I know many who have. Let’s just say there’s acquaintances there I don’t care to see.”
“AKA, people you swindled at cards,” joked Serena.
“Swindled, yes. At cards, no.”
We continued deeper into the jungle. Buzzing in the distance were small exotic insects. There were orange bees and silver caterpillars. The insects were around level 2 and 3 and so kept their respective distance from us, recognizing our superior strength. I eyed up all the plants with strange new fruits: blue apples and large red berries.
I reached up to grab one of the apples from a tree but when I attempted to pull it off, it wouldn’t budge. Huh?
I materialized my basic short sword from my inventory. I kept it handy in case of emergency situations. I stood on my toes and carved off the blue fruit.
New Item Alert!
Blue Apple (x1)
My eyes glowed. Another message appeared in my HUD.
New Discovery! Blue Apple
What is this strange new fruit you’ve discovered? Is it edible, poisonous, or quite simply delicious? The possibilities are endless! Submit this item to a skyfarer’s guild in any major Illyrian city to “Inspect It” and learn more of its properties. Doing so will grant you a discovery reward as well!
This was awesome. Every item we gathered on this island would count as a potential discovery. I hurried over to a bush and scavenged some “Red Joogu Berries (x5)” and got a similar message.
“Uhh…Clay.”
The rest of the party was staring at me like I was a weirdo. I lifted up the berries in the palm of my hand. “These fruit are good cooking materials and they also count as discoveries!”
“Oh wow,” said Serena, smirking. “Quick question: do they power airship engines? Oh yeah that’s right, they don’t. C’mon now snackmaster, we have crystal mana to find.”
We moved through the jungle for another minute until we heard a rustling in the distance. We all froze. Serena at the front of our formation, lifted a finger to her mouth. Stay quiet. There was a clearing in the jungle ahead of us. The patter of footsteps came from beyond, accompanied by odd snorts and wheezes. We quietly moved closer to the noise. Through the bushes was a cluster of animals. They were thick muscular creatures with gray flesh and a pointed scale on their long-snouted heads, a genetic helmet of sorts. The scales stretched back all across their bodies in a plate of scaled armor, ending at their ringed tails. The back part of the scales glowed with a faint bluish hue.
“Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking,” whispered Shade, glancing at the blue glow at the back of the creatures.
“Those monster carry crystal mana,” I said.
“Exactly,” said Shade. “And worst case scenario: they’re tonight’s dinner. So feels like a win-win to me.” The thief brandished a blade, ready to dive in and slay the mobs.
“Hold on,” I said. “We need to make a plan.”
I took in the clearing to get an idea of what we were up against. The creatures’ names appeared in my HUD.
Crystalladon
Level 14
HP: 570
MP: 24
There were three smaller crystalladons in the clearing, plus a larger one I assumed was at a higher level. The key would be to take out the little ones as quickly as possible. I relayed the strategy to the group and we got to work.
We crouched in the bushes watching our targets as Shade snuck around the clearing. The crystalladons roamed back and forth, oblivious, until the bushes nearby rustled. Shade emerged from the shrubbery, daggers drawn. He triggered backstab on the monster closest to him. His daggers dug into the flesh below the crystalladon’s armored top. The creatures screamed and rushed towards Shade.
Serena stepped forth into the battle and bellowed, “Protect Thy Allies!”
The crystalladons attacks canceled out and they turned with vehemence to Serena.
“Come and get it,” she grinned.
Kari lifted her staff and weaved her fox hands through the air, creating a glowing orb with a wisp of white smoke. The glowing ball flew across the jungle clearing, spinning around Serena’s person, buffing her with defensive boons.
Serena ran ahead and met the incoming crystalladons with her massive sword. They kicked up dirt and charged at her. She replied with her move sword shield, holding it up horizontally, blocking the attacks of the incoming monsters.
The larger crystalladon ran at her from across the clearing.
“Shade! Distract the big one until we’ve finished off these,” I said.
“On it,” said the thief, sheathing his knives and pulling out his pistols. He stretched out his arms and fired a barrage of bullets at the incoming crystalladon. The large creature changed its course, heading after Shade. The thief circled the battle field, shooting at the creature, keeping its aggro locked onto it.
Serena was locked in a battle with the three other crystalladons. They raised their claws and swiped at her flesh, digging deep gouges of red blood across her armor. She winced and grimaced in pain, powering through it to lay down strikes of her own. It was a cyclical process as Serena took intense attack after intense attack, feeling the miserable pain of the wounds, followed by the rejuvenation of Kari’s healing spells, patching her up.
Serena kicked one of the crystalladons onto its side and lifted her blade up hilt first, using her blade like a guillotine. She thrust it downward into the monster’s neck. Blood spurted out from the exposed creature’s underside. Its legs waddled with frustration. The legs slowly stopped moving until they froze in place.
+122 EXP!
Two more left, plus the big baddie. I stretched out my arms and clenched my fist, pulling at the ground beneath the crystalladons feet. The clearing rumbled at first, then lines in the ground creased and cracked, until full on daggers of jagged stone shot out from the ground, stabbing and scarring the enemy monsters. Cripple debuffs flickered on the crystalladons and Serena took the opportunity to kick them onto their backside. She lifted her sword once again, taking out another.
+122 EXP!
She turned to the other to find it roasting alive on hot rocks. The cripple and burning debuffs whittle away its remaining HP and it died fully barbequed.
+122 EXP!
Serena turned to me. “And here I thought I was going to finish it off.”
I snapped my fingers like a magician. “What
can I say—I got tricks up my sleeve.”
A wailing groan came from across the clearing. “How about you say: Let’s help Shade, he’s the only poor sap fighting the biggest monster here!”
Shade was kiting magnificently, but the creature’s eyes were glowing red and wising up to Shade’s movements, attempting to psyche him out and outmaneuver him.
“Let me take over,” said Serena running straight into the battle. She leapt and landed in a smash attack. The crystalladon curled up, leaving no fleshy bits exposed; only glowing crystallized armor. Serena’s sword clinked against the monster’s defenses.
“Argh!” Serena groaned. She knocked her sword against the shell, not inflicting any damage.
Shade ran up to it and did a spinning dual-wield dagger move. He didn’t make a scratch.
I triggered Earthquake again followed up with molten fireballs to heat up the ground. The defensive crystalladon rumbled and shook from its shielded core. Its HP dwindled more and more.
“What happens when it reaches zero?” asked Kari, concerned.
“Uh oh,” I said, running towards the trees. “Take cover, it’s about to blow!”
The scales of the crystalladon blast across the clearing, digging into the nearby trees and ground.
I stood up from the bush I was hiding behind and took in the empty clearing. I scanned the clear blue crystal stuck to one of the trees.
New Item Alert
Bit of Crystallized Mana (x1)
I pulled the bit out and examined it further.
Bit of Crystallized Mana (x1)
Combine with three other bits to form a Shard of Crystallized Mana
We scavenged the clearing, picking up more bits of crystallized mana. About seven of them came from the large crystalladon. The remaining pieces of scale were normal scales. I added them to my inventory as well.
I crouched over the fallen crystalladons and scanned them for items. I got messages for more bits of crystallized mana. I materialized my sword and cut off the glowing blue bits from the creature’s scales.
“I think the mana engine runs on shards rather than bits,” said Serena. “Do we have any idea how many more Shards we need?”
I shot a quick party message to Jackson telling him the good news about finding monsters that dropped crystal mana as well as asking how many shards we needed.
Jackson: We need to get the engine back to 70% if we want to get to La-Archanum safely. I can’t say for sure, but I believe we will need, at least, 82 shards or more.
It wasn’t going to be easy. 82 shards meant we had to get 328 bits of crystallized mana. We had a big day ahead of us.
“Let’s go hunt more crystalladons gang!”
We rummaged through the forest for another half an hour and came across nothing but insects.
“Was that the last of the crystalladons then?” asked Kari.
“They’ll respawn any minute,” said Serena, clutching the hilt of her sword.
We continued through the jungle. Sweat formed on my brow as the panic settled in. What if there were no more crystalladons? Would we have to dig a hole to the center of this island? Then the jungle cleared and a stone mound with an open doorway, leading underground, beckoned us to approach.
A dungeon crypt.
I peered into the darkness. I had a strong feeling crystal mana deposits would be down there.
But what else awaited in the darkness?
16
We went down a dark mounded path of dirt. We walked and walked. We went so deep we were surrounded by darkness. It was so dark I had to be careful with every step. I summoned a fireball in my hands, illuminating the passage.
“I knew your class was good for something,” teased Serena.
“Hey—next time I cook, I’ll get you and your massive blade to chop the onions. Put you to real work.”
Serena laughed. “Okay, deal.”
We walked down the dark winding tunnel until the ground at our feet glowed with pink and blue lines. Crystallized mana at our feet. The passage we’d been walking on opened up into a wide open cavern, brightly lit with giant mounds of crystals. Shards poked out of the ground like diamond flowerbeds. The shards were massive; as big as the quarterdeck of our ship.
All along the winding path were crystalladons walking back and forth, sniffing the ground, kicking up dirt. Glowing slime stalactites hung from up above in the high echelons of the caverns ceiling. Bats fluttered up top.
“Where are we?”
“We must be pretty close to the crystal core of the island,” said Shade. “A floating island like this will have a reservoir of crystal mana at its center. They say the mana deposits at the bottom of a continent like Laergard stretch on for full valleys.” Shade glanced around the cavern again, his nose twitching. “This is quite a bit of crystal mana. We have to consider not cashing in on the discovery of this island to anyone. These crystals will stay as ours for the taking!”
“How do we even mine them?” asked Serena. “Do we go up to those giant shards with our pickaxes?”
Shade laughed. “I doubt any of our mining skills will be high enough level to do such advanced level gathering. Plus our basic iron pickaxes aren’t the highest quality either. No. What we want to find are crystal nodes. They’d be good sources of crystal mana for us to mine.”
We stood where we were and scanned the cavern. Across the path closest to us was a little mound. It popped up with its own stat screen.
Small Crystal Node
“I see one,” I said.
I ran out to it but Serena put her hand on my shoulder and held me in place.
“Hold on,” she said. “Those crystalladons are not going to let us simply mine in front of them, are they?”
Shade shook his head.
“I thought so,” said Serena. “Let’s take out the two in front of the nearby node and then see what happens when we mine it.”
“Okay you’re right,” I said. “I don’t know why but I’m so excited to mine.”
“It’s because you’re a greedy materialist hoarder who likes collecting stuff,” said Serena.
“You are throwing me so much shade! Speaking of Shade, I feel like you’re describing him, not me.”
The rogue coughed. “You see I collect stuff and then I sell it. You keep stuff and leave it in your inventory to potentially ‘craft’ later.”
I crossed my arms. “You guys are haters. That’s what you are. Let’s take out these crystalladons.”
We followed our typical formation. Serena ran in, drawing the aggro of the two monsters while Kari buffed her. Shade attacked the monsters at their rear, digging his knives into their exposed bits of flesh. I brought the destruction altogether with an earthquake plus fireblast combo. A molten earthquake.
+122 EXP!
+122 EXP!
We looted the fallen monsters and gained more bits of crystallized mana.
I headed over to the small crystal node and materialized an iron pickaxe from my inventory. I raised the pickaxe and with all my might stabbed it into the crystal mining node. My arms stung with pain. The pickaxe barely dented the mining node.
Mining attempt failed
Your mining skill increased by 0.1
I turned to the group and they were all laughing at me.
“What the hell!?”
Serena looked to Shade. “I already made fun of his hoarding. Can you explain this to him?”
Shade shook his head and wagged his tail. “Clay—you’re not the most physical of classes, so it only stands to reason you wouldn’t be very good at mining.”
Damn. Some games separated the gathering skills differently from everything else but I guess it wasn’t the case here. While attack power didn’t directly correlate to my overall strength (which was a combo of ATKP, TGH, and natural muscle) it was a major deciding factor; having low ATKP—as I did—was a pretty good indicator of having a low overall level of strength.
“Don’t worry though,” said Shade. “You can
still help. As you mine, your level will increase and so will your ability to mine efficiently despite your low strength.”
“Watch how it’s done,” said Serena, materializing an iron pickaxe in her hands. She stepped in front of the crystal mining node like a baseball batter coming up to the plate. She widened her legs and bent her knees. She pulled the pickaxe back and then knocked it into the node. It made a snapping sound and little bits of crystal fell onto the ground at our feet. I scanned them and they were all coming up as “Bits of Crystallized Mana (x1)”. Serena went a full minute, picking at the node. She distilled twenty bits. On her twenty-first swing, her pickaxe crashed into the stone ground. The node had faded away, dematerialized into nothing.
“Huh?”
“We have to wait for this node to respawn or find another one until then.”
Geeze. They didn’t make mining easy or very efficient, but that was the point. Also, I’m sure if we leveled up our mining skills enough, we’d be able to mine faster and distill more material from each node.
“Look down there,” said Kari, pointing to a big open circle full of crystal mining nodes. Another group of five crystalladons waited for us down there.
“Alright,” I said. “We know the drill.”
Serena ran into tank. Shade attacked from the rear. Kari threw out buffs and offensive blasts from the back. I did crowd control, casting lightning cage to paralyze the crystalladons and keep them at bay so they didn’t completely overwhelm Serena. The blade soldier unleashed her blade tornado ability, spinning between the attacking crystalladons, knocking a whole bunch of them over. Shade jumped on the lopsided creatures straightaway, throwing down dagger attacks into their exposed underbellies.