by Jakob Tanner
+122 EXP!
+122 EXP!
+122 EXP!
+122 EXP!
+122 EXP!
The area was cleared, leaving six nodes for us to mine on our own.
“Okay guys,” I said. “Let’s all spread out and take a node for our selves.”
Everyone nodded and materialized their iron pickaxes and headed off to work.
I approached my node with new resolve. I always enjoyed gathering materials in games and I didn’t want my weak physical stats to screw me out of mining. I lifted up my pickaxe and dug it into the node.
Mining attempt failed
Your mining skill increased by 0.1
I took a deep breath and then lifted my pickaxe again. I threw it down into the node and faced the same message in my HUD.
Mining attempt failed
Your mining skill increased by 0.1
I did this about seven more times, grunting and groaning along with the rest of my party. Kari had a disconcerted look on her face. She was struggling similar to me.
I lifted my pickaxe for a ninth time. I slammed it down into the node and felt the metal pick puncture the surface of the node.
Mining success!
Your mining skill increased by 0.4
Your mining skill has leveled up! (Level 2)
I crouched down and picked up three bits of crystallized mana. Shit. At the rate we were going this was going to take all day. Potentially longer, if there weren’t any more nodes.
We each moved onto another node when we depleted one. We mined to the music of our grunts and groans. I was halfway to leveling up my skill again when Kari screamed.
A crystalladon materialized out of nowhere and rammed right into her, taking out half of her HP. Serena ran towards the healer, dematerializing her pickaxe. She then pulled her sword out from behind her back. She stunned the beast with her first attack, then kicked it over and stabbed it to death.
+122 EXP
“Thanks,” said Kari, wiping sweat off her forehead. “That was a close one. I guess we have to worry about the crystalladons respawning in here as well.”
Serena looked around. “It looks like we’ve mined most of the nodes here. I say we take a quick break, fight off any more respawning creatures and then continue down the cavern.”
“Good,” I said. “I have a great break plan as well.”
I scanned my inventory and materialized a random stick and a slab of crystalladon meat. Next I punctured the slab of meat with the stick and held it up in the air. With my other hand, I conjured a fireball and held it beneath the slab of meat. The meat sweated and crackled.
Your cooking skill increased by 0.2
I grinned, watching the slab of meat glaze over. It reminded me of a kid when my family and I went camping. Sitting around the fire roasting hot dogs. I smiled, focusing on the similarities rather than the glaring differences.
The group all smiled at my ingeniousness.
“That’s right,” I said. “Clay Hopewell: human barbeque. Who wants a cooked slab of crystalladon meat?”
Everyone’s eyes brightened up at the idea. The smell of the cooked meat was making my mouth water. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to tell when the meat was fully cooked and edible but then I got a message in my HUD.
You discovered a new recipe: Barbequed Crystalladon Meat
Ingredients: Slab of Crystalladon Meat (x1)
Barbequed Crystalladon improves your mining skills by 5% (Duration: 30 minutes)
I walked over and handed the stick to Serena.
“Thank you charming chef,” she said.
“No problem,” I grinned. “But don’t for a second think you’ve escaped chopping duty later.”
She laughed and took bite of the meat. “Mmm. Delicious.”
“That’s not even the best part,” I said, firing up another slab to make for Shade and Kari. “Eating it increases your mining skills.”
“Fantastic!”
I fed the rest of the team and then made a slab for myself. It was yummy, especially after all the mining. What would the meat taste like once I applied all the spices back on the airship? My stomach grumbled with excitement.
Swallowing her last bit of barbequed crystalladon, Serena said, “It’s crazy to think we’re going through all of this for the Ultriga Weapon.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “If it were easy to get the Ultriga Weapon someone would’ve gotten it already.”
“No, I mean, let’s say we beat Kaige and get the weapon first. What then? Do we use it to annihilate Arethkar? Do we destroy both them along with the enslaved Chosen? They didn’t really choose to be there, did they?”
“The Chosen will respawn.”
“Will they?” said Serena. “In terms of power level, people talk about this thing in the same vein as the mark on your wrist. Like it has a god-like power.”
I swallowed my last bite of meat. “We don’t even know what it does yet.”
“Sure,” said Serena. “I’m only speculating.”
She raised good points, especially about the enslaved Chosen. I’m sure some of the NPCs living under Arethkarian rule didn’t agree with everything the high council chose for its country. They didn’t deserve to perish in a war between nations.
After eating, we continued down into the mine. The nodes hadn’t respawned, but more crystalladon had. If we were going to spend our time fighting, it would be better spent in areas with minable nodes.
As we moved along, I received a message in my HUD.
Personal Message: Time’s Running Out
We’ve got new intel. Oren Kaige’s fleet of ships are on course for La-Archanum. Where are you?
Theobold
I closed the message in my HUD and relayed it back to the group.
“Damn,” said Serena.
“I know,” I said. “Our shortcut was meant to give us the advantage, but it looks like we’re still playing catch up. We’ll have to mine a lot faster if we want to get off this island and back on track.”
Everyone nodded and we went back to searching the caverns. We found another large area much like the one we’d mined previously. It was occupied by crystalladon, which we made quick work of. We mined the nodes when a roar came from further down the passage.
I shivered. “What the heck?”
I let the others continue mining as I peered deeper down into the cavern. In the distance was a large golem with a massive mana crystal glowing on its back.
Crystal Golem
Level 20
HP: 1130
MP: 29
I hurried back to the group. “Guys! There’s a golem down there with a giant mana crystal on its back. I bet if we slayed it, we’d get a ton of crystallized mana. Definitely more then what we’ve been collecting here so far.”
Serena made a face. “I don’t think it’s in our best interest to fight such a high level monster. It will only be a couple of more hours if we mine here.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “You’re assuming the nodes we mined respawn quickly. We can be out of here and flying off to La-Archanum in no time if we take the crystal golem out.”
Kari wiped sweat off her eyes and shrugged.
Shade scratched his chin. “I’m not sure about it mate. The deeper we go into this cavern the more dangerous the monsters are, even if their levels aren’t high. They’ve lived a long time, long enough for their skills and ability levels to far outstrip their base stats. The risk isn’t worth it.”
I didn’t know why the party was so skeptical. Kaige was getting closer to Ariellum by the second while we were sitting ducks on a floating island in the middle of nowhere.
“C’mon guys,” I said. “When did we ever weigh the risks like this before? We have a mission to accomplish. One with a shrinking deadline. Anything that gets us closer to succeeding at our quest faster has to be done.”
“What about the shortcut that landed us here?” said Serena.
Her point hit
me like a punch to the gut, but this was different. The squid attack was out of our control; fighting the crystal golem wouldn’t be. We knew how to fight in party formation, we were the same level as it, and there were four of us and only one of it.
“I’m going in,” I said. I headed down the cavern towards the crystal golem.
The steps of my teammates echoed behind me. They were coming with me, even though they thought I was being impulsive and crazy.
My fingers twitched in prep for a spell.
I would do whatever it took to beat Kaige to Ariellum.
17
The golem walked back and forth, patrolling the open zone of the passage. It had the shape and body of an oversized gorilla, except instead of flesh and fur, it was constructed entirely of crumbled stone. A large pink crystal jutted out from its back, glowing, brightening up the area of the cavern. Such a large mana crystal would surely power our airship to where we needed to go.
“Let me debuff it first,” I yelled. I hurried ahead, waving my arms across the ground in front of me. I manipulated the ground below the monster’s feet, destroying and tearing it into crumbled dangerous shreds. My palms heated up with molten balls of flame next. I whipped each blast, heating up the destroyed ground, crippling the cavern creature.
The golem yelled out with rage and stretched out an arm of its own, shooting a crystal blast at me. I spun around and faced my teammates, who were looking at me strangely. I smirked and initiated flame dodge, hurling myself towards the monster, leaving a trail of flames beneath my boots. I grimaced at the golem’s shard blast shattering against the ground where I’d been standing. I spun around, stretching out my hands, letting a frosty energy exit my body and create a plate of frozen ground behind the golem.
The monster raised a clenched stone fist, high in the air, ready to smash down on me. I electric blinked a few feet away and initiated air blast. A gust of wind blew forth from my hands, pushing the golem onto the frozen ice. It slipped and fell.
Chilled, burning, crippled. Three debuffs flickered beneath the golem’s status bars, eating away at its HP. I flame dodged back towards the others, yelling, “Back to normal formation. Go, go, go!”
Serena rushed towards the monster, triggering her charge attack, zigzagging her way closer and closer to the disoriented golem. She landed out of the charge attacks with a crushing blow, drawing on all of her strength and energy to slam her giant sword into the creature’s chest. Shards of rock chipped off it like a mining node. Serena yelled and grunted, slashing her sword again and again into the monster.
Shade hurried in behind the beautiful tank warrior, dealing spinning attacks and knife jabs on the creature’s rear. Kari threw protect spells at both Serena and Shade, showering them both with golden light.
I stood beside Kari, taking in the battle from the sidelines. I materialized an MP potion from my inventory and uncorked the glass bottle. I guzzled down the blue liquid. It tasted like watered down cough syrup.
The crystal golem raised its fist, preparing its hammer smash. It threw down its clenched fist. Serena met the attack with her sword, holding it up horizontally, blocking the attack with sword shield.
Distracted in its battle of wills, Shade jabbed the monster in the ribs. The crystal golem lifted its other hand and swiped across the area, knocking Shade back. The thief flew across the cavern. He tumbled and fell to the ground, dropping 35% of his HP.
Kari shot a healing spell his way, a glowing orb flying across the cavern and replenishing Shade’s HP to 100%.
I gotta get back in this.
My palms heated up with flame and I whipped one fireball after another at the creature. The balls of flame smashed into the chest of the golem, dealing a blaze of damage.
The crystal golem roared and lifted its fist away from its struggle with Serena. It knocked her to the side and charged towards me.
Uh oh. I’d drawn its hate.
“Protect Kari,” yelled Serena, rushing to catch up with the golem and get its aggro back onto her.
I stretched out my arms and initiated air blast, pushing the golem back a step. It wasn’t enough to slow the monster’s momentum. It stumbled and then continued its charge towards me. Shit. If we lost Kari, we lost our healer and potentially the battle. I clenched my fists and triggered stone skin, getting myself ready to fight the golem one on one. Its fist crashed down towards me. I threw my hand up at the last minute and unleashed lightning cage, disabling the golem’s attack.
The golem stumbled, but then returned with a sweep attack. He knocked me over and sent me flying. I smashed into Kari. The fox girl went soaring. I blinked in the air and caught her, falling to the ground, cushioning her fall onto the cavern floor.
I stood up and saw the golem was now fighting Serena again. I materialized another MP potion. I guzzled it down and readied myself to unleash a string of attacks. I rushed towards it, blinked onto its neck. I stretched out both my arms and unleashed skull shock. Electricity burst from each of my finger tips into the head of the crystal golem. Its eyes faded and it spun on its feet.
“Guys, its stunned,” I yelled. “This is it. Kill it now.”
I cast flame wall in front of the golem, adding burning damage to Serena’s and Shade’s blade attacks.
I jumped off and triggered earthquake at its feet and lobbed fireballs at the ground.
The creature’s HP whittled down to zero, collapsing onto the ground.
+175 EXP!
I ran up to the crystal golem and scanned its body.
New Item(s) Alert!
Crystallized Mana Core (x1)
Crystal Scales (x5)
Rock (x10)
I got to work, sawing off the crystal core from the fallen body. I scanned the item once it was in my inventory and my eyes glowed with happiness.
Crystallized Mana Core = 500 crystallized mana shards
Sweet. This was more than what we needed to power the ship and get back on our mission.
“Look at that,” I said. “We did it guys. I told you so.”
Shade helped Kari off the ground and Serena gave me a face I hadn’t seen since our college days, when I’d show up to work late or talk about not giving a shit about anything. Her face was full of disappointment, like she wasn’t looking at me, but at someone else.
My arms fell to my side, jubilance disappearing by the second. “C’mon guys, why aren’t you pumped? We’ve got the crystal mana needed to get out of here.”
The party avoided looking me in the eyes.
No one spoke except Serena.
“Whatever you say, captain.”
18
Nobody spoke as we walked out of the cavern. The silence between the group was made more painful with the crunch of our boots on pebbles and the whistle of the wind. Things didn’t get better even when we exited. We trudged through the jungle path from which we came until we were back by the cliff face and found the Horizon’s Dream looking brand new.
The wood on the hull and deck gleamed with a shine of freshness. The crew were busy hammering in last minute places, but generally the ship looked fantastic. As we approached, Jackson appeared on the deck and stretched his arms out wide. “Like what you see?”
“How did you fix it so fast?” said Kari, blinking in awe and perplexity.
Jackson crossed his big burly arms and guffawed. His time in the arena had really left him with a penchant for showboating. “Easy. It was a matter of gathering the necessary materials and selecting the proper repair tabs in the menu. Resources weren’t an issue—this island has plenty of them.”
We nodded our heads, mesmerized by the sight of the ship.
“Now, c’mon up,” said Jackson. “Show me all the crystallized mana you found and let’s take it to the engine room.”
We climbed aboard the ship and Jackson gestured us to go below deck. I walked behind him and stopped to see the rest of the party waiting behind.
“Aren’t you guys going to come help get the engine going?”
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Shade leaned against the mainmast and crossed his arms. Serena turned her head to the side. Kari kept her eyes locked on her shoes. How long were they going to stay mad at me?
“Alright,” I said. “Well, I’ll let you know if it works. I’m sure you’ll feel it, if it does.”
I turned back to Jackson who was watching the situation unfold. He raised his eyebrow quizzically at me.
“Let’s look at this engine,” I said and we headed deep into the ship, near the center of the hold. The mana engine was kept close to the furnace and kitchen as the main source of power on the ship. Protective metal exhaust pipes travelled through the hull and out the top of the deck or side of the ship.
A large metal oven laid in the center of the room. Arcane lettering was inscribed on the metal. There was a handle on a small door to open the mana engine.
“Show me what you got,” said Jackson. “Whatever you have—we can put in here and see if it helps improve the ship.”
I brought out all the crystallized bits and shards of mana and saved the best for last: the crystallized mana core we’d gotten off the crystal golem.
Jackson’s eyes glowed at the sight of it all.
“Hot damn,” he said. “Looks like you did as good a job on your end as I did with the ship.”
I wasn’t sure what to say: was he complimenting us or himself?
“Now place it all in the furnace there and close the door.”
I crouched down and placed the crystal mana into the furnace. I started with the core first as it was the biggest, then I placed the shards and bits wherever there was room. When I finished I expected a new prompt to appear or things to glow but nothing happened. I closed the door to the core, again expecting something to happen and nothing did.