by EA Hooper
“So, it might be kobolds,” Xan said. “They’re about my size, and they love scurrying around cramped canyons like this.”
“But kobolds are really weak,” Quinn noted. “I’d be surprised if they were on a mid-tier world. They mostly spawn on super low worlds.”
Xan shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll check out these smaller passages and send a party message if I see something.” She looked at the map, found a passage about where the map said to go, and then squeezed between the stone. Within seconds, Xan disappeared down a winding passage.
Jim let out a long sigh. “This is boring. I thought the middle-tier would be more action-packed than this.”
“Relax,” Vincent said. “This is only the first world—which is not only a City-World but also mostly barren.”
“You’ll have plenty of opportunities to get yourself killed,” Quinn joked. “Don’t complain about it not being exciting after we jumped you past the challenging stuff.”
A large shadow passed over the canyon, and all three players looked at the small gap above them.
“So, either of you see what that was?” Vincent asked.
Quinn shook her head no.
“Nope,” Jim replied. “I’m not bored anymore, though.”
>Vincent: Hey, Xan, something big just leapt over the gap above us. You might want to head back.
>Alexandria: Uh, I found the entrance to the distillery. Also, I need help. There’s—
Vincent heard a whooshing sound from the passage, and then the crackle of a Mana Magnum. The medium-cost spell had twice the Magic Rating of Mana Gun, and a larger radius, but its recoil made it harder to aim. Their team made frequent use of it when facing stronger-than-average enemies, and even Vincent occasionally used it because it cost about half the mana of Void Gun.
“Xan!” Vincent shouted. He tried to squeeze between the rocks, but the gap was too small.
“Move!” Quinn shouted, charging her experimental attack.
Jim looked at the black static around her fist. “That’s a bit different from what I’m working on.”
Quinn hit the crevice, and a shockwave blasted both sides of the walls to pieces. However, the spell launched Quinn across the canyon. The back of her head hit the stone wall, and she collapsed to the ground. Vincent and Jim ran toward her, but she climbed to her feet and touched the bloodied spot on the back of her head. “Find Xan!”
Vincent nodded, and he hurried through the path. Jim followed behind, and Quinn trailed farther back, limping as she walked. She disappeared from their sight as the two men zipped through the winding passage.
Vince arrived at an opening of what looked like a mine. He noted strange vines overgrown on the wooden walls and frames of the tunnel. His eyes caught signs of mana burns on the walls and a trail where someone had been dragged.
“Did she get taken?” Jim questioned, hurrying into the tunnel.
Vincent followed, and his HUD updated his location to Old Razortwig’s Distillery. The tunnel led into a large cavern full of machinery, barrels, and equipment. Vines covered almost everything in the distillery, and Vincent saw that all the tunnels had been blocked by the overgrowth.
His eyes searched the cavern for any hidden passages, but he saw none. “Where could she have gone?”
Jim equipped a hardened-oiron longsword. “This is a little too odd.”
Vincent nodded in agreement. Maybe Scan will pick up something I’m not seeing. He Scanned the nearest blocked passage.
Spriggan – Monster Class: C | Age: 53 | Sex: None | Personality: Protective
Vincent looked back at the entrance as the vine-like creatures crawled over one another from the ceiling to block the passage. “Uh, Jim. Did you use Scan yet?”
“No, why?” Jim glanced at the blocked passage. “Oh. Huh. So there must be dozens of those things, right?”
Vincent’s heart pounded in his chest. “Yeah, I think so.”
>Vincent: Quinn, look out. The vines are monsters.
The spriggans blocking the passage glowed green when Vincent tried to send his message, and a noted popped up on his HUD.
Unable to send or receive messages at this time.
“They’re disrupting messages,” Vincent told his friend.
“Then we’ll have to get them out of our way,” Jim said, aiming his palm at the wall of vines. He fired Mana Volley, but the spriggans’ bodies flashed with green light. His attack rebounded, exploding into a shower of mana.
Vincent grabbed Jim and pulled him away from the sparks. “Be careful, they must have some protection from magic.” He equipped his enhanced oiron longsword.
“Then I’ll cut through them!” Jim shouted, readying his blade. He approached the vines and slashed. Their bodies glowed green, but their shields must’ve only been about the strength of regular oiron. Jim’s blade cut through several vines, and the creatures reacted with piercing screams.
Vines on the ceilings and walls unfurled themselves and landed around the two men. Several vines twisted at the top of the creatures to form heads, and two green lights glowed from between the branches like eyes.
The men attacked right away. They both aimed for the newly formed heads and slashed through them. However, the attacks didn’t seem to stop the walking vines. The creatures whipped at the pair with glowing branches and cut through the Threshold on Jim’s Mana Shield, but Vincent’s Gravity Shield slowed the attacks too much for them to do more than scratch his armor.
Vincent cast his Zero Field on the nearest spriggans and tossed them across the room. They’re hard to kill, but they’re lightweight. It’s too bad I haven’t bothered to learn any fire magic.
“So, what’s the plan, Vince?” Jim said, nervously. “Can’t cut them down. Can’t shoot them down.”
“The heads they make are red herrings. There must have something that controls their bodies. Everything like them in the game has a weak point to attack.”
A dozen spriggans circled around them, and the two men stood back to back.
“Oh!” Jim shouted. “That lump thing. What about that?”
Vincent looked closely at the nearest spriggan and saw a swollen growth on one vine. The spot glowed just before the monster’s arms flashed with magic for another attack. He blocked the attack and then cut through the growth. The spriggan screamed and turned to dust before it hit the ground.
“That’s it!” Vincent replied to Jim.
Jim slashed through the growth of a spriggan, and then blocked the swipe of another. He spun and cut down two more. One of the creatures lunged at him, but Jim Vanished, reappeared behind it, and slashed its weak spot.
Two spriggans curled their branches around Jim’s body. He tried to Vanish again, but their vines flashed green, and his body reappeared in the same spot. Two more joined and tightened their vines around him.
“Vince!” Jim shouted.
Vincent slashed through another spriggan and turned to see his friend being enveloped by the glowing vines. He cast Zero Field on Jim and the spriggans, trying to knock them away. Jim held his ground, but the spriggans lost their grip and flew across the room.
Four spriggans leapt at Vincent’s back and wrapped their vines around him. He struggled to break their grip, which allowed two more to join and pull his arms low to the ground. “Help!”
Jim drank part of an ether to refill his mana. “Don’t worry, I’ll break you free. Just stay super still.” He charged negative energy into his fingers.
Vincent’s eyes widened. “No, no, no! Don’t shoot that near me.”
“Don’t worry,” Jim said. “I can almost control it properly.”
Jim aimed his fingers at the spriggans and released the void attack. The black energy looked larger than Vincent’s Void Gun, but it moved slower. It flew toward one of the grappling spriggans and tore through its vines. The attack arched through the air, cutting through all four spriggans. Vincent could swear the attack grew wings just before it sliced the last spriggan. However, the attack spa
rked and then rebounded back at Jim.
Jim ducked, narrowly avoiding being decapitated by his own attack. It continued across the room, slashing another spriggan before burning a hole into the wall.
Vincent overpowered the remaining vines and threw the spriggans off him. Jim’s attack had killed none of them, but they’d lost numerous vines, and Vincent found it easier to find their exposed growths. He slashed through them one by one, and Jim finished off the spriggans on the other side of the room.
A shockwave tore through the spriggans blocking the entrance. The attack rocked the cavern, and the two men paused.
When the dust cleared, an injured Quinn limped into the distillery. “Where’s Xan?”
“We haven’t found her yet,” Jim replied, cutting through one of the spriggans that Quinn had knocked away. “Kind of busy with these monsters.”
Quinn gulped down an entire ether while the two men fought off spriggans. “Then stop playing around. Which direction did they take her?”
Vincent glanced around. “I don’t know, the trail ends in this room.”
“Then I’ll head down the middle path,” Quinn said, looking at three blocked passages opposite of the entrance. “Dumb monsters always take the middle path.” Black sparks surged across her arm.
Vincent eyed the negative energy with worry. “Quinn, you’re pushing yourself too far.”
Quinn huffed, trying to control the spell. “Don’t care. Got to save Xan.”
She punched the wall of spriggans and blew the monsters to pieces. However, the gravitational wave ran up her arm, snapping the bones in her fingers and arm, and even dislocating her shoulder. Quinn toppled to her knees and screamed in pain as the dismembered spriggans jumped to their feet.
Quinn equipped a Lotus Capsule and popped it into her mouth as the spriggans charged toward her. “I see another trail!” she shouted. “You two better save her.”
The monsters wrapped themselves around Quinn’s body as they tried to strangle and wrestle her to the ground. The Fighter bit into the capsule, and her entire body was converted into blue mana in an instant. The mana exploded outward, vaporizing the spriggans.
Vincent and Jim steadied themselves as the explosion rocked the room. When it passed, they saw that Quinn had annihilated all the spriggans that had been blocking the passage.
Jim flashed a horrified expression. “Poor Quinn. I hope that didn’t hurt too badly.”
“It doesn’t,” Vincent replied, grabbing Quinn’s items. “Let’s hurry.”
They ran down the passage, and Vincent saw the trail-marks. It looked like Xan had temporarily broken away from her assailant before getting picked off the ground again at an intersection. Magical lanterns lit the deeper part of the passage, and Vincent wondered how far down the dungeon went.
I figured this was more of a top-heavy dungeon. Why does a distillery need to go so far underground? Unless this connects to a spriggan nest below the dungeon.
“Which way?” Jim asked. “I Scanned both directions, but I’m not picking up any useful information.”
Vincent eyed the lanterns. The right-hand tunnel remained level and had three lanterns hanging overhead. The left-side tunnel went deeper, but lacked lanterns. However, he saw a light gleaming off rocks near the bottom of the passage.
“This way,” Vincent said, hurrying down the deeper passage.
The tunnel stopped at a sudden drop, and Vincent looked at the opening in the crevice high above that let in light from the skybox. His eyes traveled downward, and he gaped at the massive, crooked pit that zigzagged until he couldn’t see the bottom.
“Jeez,” Jim said, worriedly. “You think something dragged her down there?”
“The spriggans are too small to take her away so quickly,” Vincent noted. “I think whatever we saw leap over the opening grabbed her. I assume it hangs around sections of the dungeon and canyon that have crevices overhead. That way it can easily maneuver in and out.”
“That’s kind of a shot in the dark. Ten spriggans together could’ve carried her off the other way.”
“There’re no tracks,” Vincent said. “Whatever is picking her up is stronger than a spriggan, but it also doesn’t leave footprints.”
A curious expression crossed Jim’s face. “I don’t know what kind of monster would do that. How about this, I’ll go down first and check it out. My Agility is higher, so I have a better chance of getting back out.” Jim equipped a mapping rune and leapt into the pit. He jumped from ledge to ledge until he disappeared out of Vincent’s sight down the crooked, narrow cavern.
Vincent watched his dungeon map fill up, but after a minute, it hit a cut-off.
Outside area information not available to dungeon map.
Our basic mapping rune only reveals information when we’re in the same region. If it’s not showing me anything past that point, then that’s not part of the dungeon anymore. So where the heck is he?
>Jim: H**, **nce! Hur** and *** **** here.
>Alexandria: **lo? J**? He**! I’m under—
Vincent leapt from ledge to ledge, but his party chat cut out completely. The pit went far deeper than he’d imagined, and the part on his dungeon map only proved to be the first third of the cavern. He descended for several minutes and had to use a lighting rune to see anything. However, as he traveled deeper, he spotted a dim glow.
Something’s down there. A boss, maybe? It can’t be the dungeon boss. They instinctively stay in or near their dungeons.
The pit narrowed, and Vincent saw the white glow near the bottom growing stronger. He tried to use his party chat again, but only heard a piercing noise. Vincent slipped on the ever-narrowing ledges and plummeted toward the light. He fell twenty meters through a large cavern and into a glowing pool of water.
As he broke the surface, Vince saw the piercing glow emanating from a fault line at the bottom of the pool about fifty meters below. The white line glowed so brightly that Vincent couldn’t stare at it for more than a second.
Thinking fast, Vincent unequipped his sword and armor. He hurried to the surface and gasped for air. A green glow caught his attention as he swam for the nearby rocks, and he eyed the massive tree trunks that protruded from the cavern floor. Glowing vines covered the trees, but Vincent couldn’t see the bottom or the top because the trunks came out of the ground and hit the roof of the cavern. He Scanned the nearest tree out of curiosity.
Source Tree – Total Rating: 300 (Material: 150 | Magic: 150) | A type of underground tree that feeds off world magic. Spriggans grow from these trees.
>Vincent: Can either of you hear me? I’m at the spriggan nest.
>Jim: Wr*** *ay! Un*** the *****!
Hundreds of vines shook on the trees, and spriggans leapt from them. Vincent readied himself to fight until he saw dozens of them coming toward him. He turned and sprinted back into the pool of glowing water.
Did Jim mean under the water?
Vincent took a deep breath and equipped his sword and armor. He sank toward the intense light of the fracture, but looked away. An underwater tunnel appeared in his line of sight, and he removed his heavy equipment. Vincent followed the tunnel but felt himself running out of air. His feet kicked as fast as he could go, propelling himself toward a light at the end of the passage.
He passed several unlit passages under the water, but ignored them. The water rippled ahead, and it took him several seconds to realize he was staring at rain hitting the surface. Vincent raised his head above the water, finding himself in a smaller cavern than the last. Miniature rain clouds hung near the ceiling, and exotic plant life covered the walls and floor. However, Vincent’s gaze went to the light and shadows across the cavern.
Jim panted and wiped sweat from his forehead. He’d clearly taken a beating from an enemy and looked near his limit. His eyes darted across the cavern with a dismayed look.
Vincent spotted Xan lying at the edge of a pool of glowing white light. He could see a rainbow gleam reflecting off the pool when
he looked closely, but his attention turned to Jim.
“Where’s the enemy?” Vincent asked.
Jim glanced at him. “Thank god you’re here. There’s two of them. Elementals.”
The stone behind Jim rose into a floating moss-covered figure. The figure seemed to have pieced itself together from the stone and dirt in that spot, leaving chunks missing from the ground. It formed the upper-body of a brutish, humanoid figure. Although, its pieces didn’t always stay connected as it moved.
“Jim!” Vincent shouted.
The monster clobbered Jim and tossed him into the wall of the cavern. Vincent took a step forward, but something grabbed him by the leg and dragged him back into the water. He looked down at the shape below him. His eyes traced the shimmering outline of a humanoid figure made of water. The pressurized water moved and turned, always keeping its form, but he saw different spots of dust get trapped as it moved. The elemental dragged him back through the passage and away from his friends.
Vincent equipped his armor and sword again as he Scanned the monster.
Liquid Elemental – Monster Class: C+ | Age: 72 | Sex: None | Personality: Reserved
With his armor, the elemental couldn’t drag him as quickly underwater. He dug his feet into rocks at the bottom of the passage and swung his sword. His blade passed through without harm, and the monster replied by hitting him in the chest with a pressurized water-fist.
The strike pushed Vincent backward, but his Gravity Shield kept it from hurting. He felt himself running out of air and tried to hurry toward the cavern.
How do I fight this thing? This isn’t like liches, trolls, or spriggans. There’s no weak spot as far as I can tell. But doesn’t that violate the typical rules of this game?
The pressurized outline in the water raced toward him, and Vincent used Zero Field. The elemental hit the field and came to a sudden stop as if it’d struck an impassable wall. Vincent shoved the elemental away with his field, and then raised his head above the surface. He gasped for air and stumbled into the cavern before sipping on an ether.
The other elemental tossed Jim across the cavern, and Vincent Scanned it as his friend landed beside him.
