by Ivan Kal
“You will need to practice a bit before you are ready for combat, but it will work.”
Vall nodded as he tried another swing. Then he let go with his real hand, leaving the sword in his new one and turned to look at Morgan. He clasped his shoulder and looked into his eyes.
“Thank you, both of you,” Vallsorim told him then glanced at Titus.
“It is what friends do,” Morgan responded seriously.
Vall tried to do a few more moves, doing them slowly and getting the feel for the new hand.
“This is the final prototype,” Morgan said as he worked. “You can keep it now to practice and get a feel for how your new hand works, but we will be making you a new one.”
Vall turned to look at Morgan with surprise in his eyes. “A new one?”
“Yes,” Morgan replied with a smile. “This one has been a bit of a proof of concept. The next one will be the real thing, and we will try to improve on the design—maybe even add a few more enchantments. The straps also need some work, and I have a few ideas on how to get them to be a bit more comfortable, but we’ll see. That one can be your spare in case you ever damage the primary one.”
“I don’t know what to say. You’ve spent so much time doing this for me, just saying thank you doesn’t seem to be enough.”
“It is—that and, well, doing your job properly from now on.” Morgan grinned.
“I will, I promise,” Vall said seriously.
With that, Morgan turned to look at Ves, who had walked over to watch. She had a soft look in her eyes as she looked at Morgan.
“What?” Morgan asked.
“I love you,” Ves told him.
Morgan looked around him to see quite a few people standing there watching them all. Embarrassing as all hell, Morgan thought to himself, but he still opened his mouth and spoke out loud.
“I love you, too,” he said with a grin. Better own it.
He stayed there for a few more minutes, watching Vall get familiar with his new hand and making sure that all was good, and then he left the training grounds. Now he needed to take a short break from Engraving and relax a bit—and what better way to relax than to go dungeon diving?
He headed straight to Lucius’s office at the Sky Guard headquarters to set the run up.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Three days later, Morgan let an arrow fly and it hit a kobold in the head, dropping it. He was inside the Mountain’s Heart dungeon, on the first level. It wasn’t really much of a challenge, as Morgan had far out-leveled it by now, but he had brought a few people who were lower levels to help them get some experience. There were two Sky Guards with them, Reor and Lerna, who were levels five and four, respectively. Both were soldier class, and they were armored as such. Besides the three of them, there was Clara, who was supporting them with buffs and regeneration boosts as she stood just behind the front line. Her class—Aegis—was originally been intended for a more tank-healer-support kind of role. From what Clara had told him, it was supposed to be a buff-reliant class, where the user would boost themselves, as well as their nearby allies, for more protection. Clara hadn’t previously been focused in that direction, however, so she had fit a bit more into a support role—something she was now trying to remedy. To that end, she was currently swinging her new staff and smashing in a kobold’s head.
Hear gear had changed some, and now she was wearing some light armor. Lucius had given her a Sky Guard tunic, which was basically just chainmail. Lucius told him that it was called lorica hamata, another thing that his grandfather’s guild had brought over from their Earth. Morgan had only recognized the armor that the Sky Guard now wore because of a MMORPG he’d played for a short while that had been Roman themed. He didn’t really know much about Rome other than what he had learned in school, and that was a long time ago; but from the few talks he’d had with Lucius recently, he learned that his grandfather had been chosen and brought to this world a bit more than a thousand years ago, and that he had only died around a hundred years ago. Morgan had known that the ascended could live for as long as they had ascension crystals, but he hadn’t really comprehended to what extent that was true.
Lucius had brought many ideas from his home, which Morgan was more and more certain was actually not his own Earth. There were things that Lucius talked about that Morgan was certain had not happened on his world. From a few stories, he gathered that Lucius’s Rome had expanded to discover America, and then began a conquest against the native tribes, which was where and how Lucius’s grandfather died.
Clara’s new gear was essentially a chainmail dress. She wore a brown dress beneath it, and the chain mail came down to just above her knees. It was heavy, for a non-ascended, not so much for ascended who had far greater strength. She told him that she hadn’t put any points in the attribute, and yet it was still twenty-two points—and she wasn’t even particularly above average for an orc. She also had two simple leather gauntlets and greaves, while her bag, secured to her lower back tightly so that it didn’t interfere with her fighting, was filled with poultices and other things she might need.
Her staff, however, was something else. It was made out of hard red wood, and the ends were cast in iron and engraved, the work done by Titus in the few hours he hadn’t been helping Morgan make Vall’s hand. Both ends were engraved with just a few small force amplification wards; it wasn’t much, but each of her strikes would hit with just a bit more force than they would have otherwise.
The last person on their team was Vall, who was standing with the two Sky Guards on either side of him. Both of the Sky Guards used shields and were tasked with protecting Vall. He was still getting the hang of his new hand, but he could still use most of his abilities. He bellowed, and his shout reverberated before him, stunning the remaining four kobolds. The two Sky Guards slashed with their swords and killed two before Clara stepped forward and smashed the head of another, just as Vall stabbed his sword into the last. Morgan watched from behind closely, making sure that everyone was safe. For his part, he had mostly been taking care of any kobolds that tried to flank them.
He knew that he wouldn’t get much experience from this—he was here more for the change of pace, and to think. Their Guild had grown significantly, now having more than one hundred members and around the same number of non-ascended associated with the Guild Hold. Then there were all the towns and villages that were now in their territory. It was a lot of responsibility, and Morgan needed to figure out how to keep them all safe from the goblin threat.
Reach was the northernmost settlement in the valley other than those of the orc tribes, meaning that it would probably be the first place to be attacked. There was also, however, the chance that they would be simply ignored by the goblins once they saw their defenses. True, they weren’t all that impressive, but Morgan had already talked with Lucius and they had agreed to upgrade the walls down in the Reach Town, to turn them from simple palisades into something more like wooden walls. They would use wooden boards on the outside of the logs to reinforce the wall as well as widen it and construct it as though it were made of stone. Other than that, they had a few more plans in place for the defenses. The problem was making sure that the goblins did attack Reach, rather than passing it by.
“Should we continue down?” Vall asked, and Morgan turned to look at him.
“You think you can do it?” Morgan asked him. The second level was the forge area, which was where they would encounter lizard-men who were between levels eight and ten, four levels below Vall and Morgan. Clara was level twelve, and the two Sky Guards were a bit under leveled, but they wouldn’t be doing too much except making sure Vall didn’t get flanked.
All of them knew the tactics and their enemies fairly well. Lucius had done several runs with other guards, and they already had a book with the best tactics as well as a list of enemies, their abilities, threat levels, and the best ways of dealing with them. They had started calling it the Compendium, and they would be adding to it as they expanded and fo
und new dungeons.
Vall thought about it for a moment, then turned to look at Lerna and Reor before glancing at Clara. “Yes, with the two of them I think I can hold the stairs. Clara can support us, and you can just thin their numbers before they reach us.”
Morgan nodded. Frankly, he had gotten a lot more powerful than the last time they were in this dungeon. Perhaps not in class level—he was only one level higher—but his skill and ability levels, as well as his knowledge of how to use them, had much improved. He was confident that they could take the dungeon on, but this wasn’t about his confidence. It was about Vall’s.
Morgan took a few minutes to explain the tactics for the next part again, and he couldn’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia. This was what he had enjoyed doing before, on Earth. He would spend hours going through the encounter mechanics and then devise the best strategies to take them on. This was all however very different; here, they were fighting for real and against real beings. There were far more issues to take into consideration.
Once they were ready, they headed down the next level. Morgan led the way with two arrows already nocked and ready. They opened the doors and Morgan immediately aimed and fired. His two arrows flew and struck both lizardmen standing on the balcony in the heads, dropping them to the floor. Their party stepped into the room with Vall and the two Sky Guards before moving immediately to the stairs leading down into the forge. Clara followed and stood a bit behind them, attaching her buffs on them as they waited.
Morgan moved over to the edge of the balcony, not even trying to hide. There were quite a few lizard-men down there, but his eyes found their target on the far side of the room. Beyond the large cauldrons, holding molten ore, the four magic users stood in a circle surrounded by a magical barrier, and they were chanting something, attempting to summon a demon into the room. Morgan pulled his bow back and infused the arrow with his energy, triggering his Rain of Arrows ability. He let it fly, then immediately pulled another arrow, infusing it again and charging it to explode. He fired it close behind the first, and then he summoned an energy arrow and let it fly before summoning yet another and beginning to fire in a constant stream. His Rain of Arrows detonated and a deluge of energy arrows fell on the shield, notifying all the enemies that there were intruders inside the room. The lizard-men gave out war cries and started rushing toward the stairs to get to the balcony where Vall and the others waited.
But Morgan focused on the mages. His arrows started slamming into the shield, and quickly enough it was depleted. The lizard-man mages had abandoned their casting and were getting ready to fire their spells at Morgan, but his arrows found them first. An exploding arrow hit the first one, blowing half of its face off and staggering the rest, before they were hit by his energy arrows, killing them quickly. With them taken care of, Morgan turned back to the lizard-men below him. The large group was running in a stream at the stairs, and Morgan could hear the others already fighting. He started infusing and then firing his Arrows of Decay, the infusion turning them into area-of-effect arrows. The arrows hit their targets and exploded, sending a burst of decaying mist around that weakened all that were caught in their range. He fired four of them and then switched to taking shots with his energy arrows. In a short time he had thinned their numbers significantly, but there were about a dozen of them left down there.
Morgan glanced to the stairs, seeing Vall and the others dispatching the enemies without problems. So Morgan climbed on the railing. He looked down at the lizard-men and fired one of his Binding Arrows straight down, then quickly dropped his bow and jumped. The binding arrow stuck in the floor, and as roots began growing from it, Morgan reached out with his energy and forced the roots to catch him and lower him gently to the floor.
The lizard-man didn’t waste any time. One stepped close and swung his sword at Morgan before he’d even disentangled himself from the roots. Morgan simply activated his Arcane Shift and stepped forward as his body became insubstantial and the roots no longer held him. The lizard-man’s sword passed through his body with no resistance and he stumbled from the momentum. Morgan pointed his arm at the lizard-man and activated his Energy Blade, which grew out of his fist and pierced into its head.
Morgan then glanced around—a lizard-man was about two meters away and in the process of taking a swing, but Morgan just raised his other left arm and sent a bit of his energy into his gauntlet. A bolt of energy flew out and hit the lizard-man in the head, sending it reeling back. Morgan bent his knees and shot forward, stabbing with his energy blade into its stomach and cutting to the side. Another lizard-man attacked, but Morgan’s blade was there to block as his left hand pointed in the lizard-man’s direction and fired a bolt in its face. It wasn’t as powerful as his exploding arrows, however, so while it did damage it didn’t kill out right—but the distraction was enough for Morgan to cut into its neck.
Two more lizard-men were rushing at him, but Morgan jumped backward and fired while in the air. One of the lizard-men dodged the attack, but the other was staggered by the bolt in his chest. Morgan waited for the one who dodged to come near him and attack, and once he did, Morgan parried the attack and danced around the lizard-man, putting his left hand on its back.
Decay, Morgan said in his mind, activating his Touch of Decay skill. The lizard-man faltered, but didn’t collapse into dust like the skeleton. The Touch of Decay ability was weaker the more life energy the target had, so Morgan rushed beyond it, leaving it behind and heading at the other lizard-man who he had staggered before. He reached it and attacked. The lizard-man blocked the first attack, but Morgan fired another bolt of energy point blank in its face, disorienting it. Before the monster could recover, Morgan had stabbed him in the chest.
There were four more lizard-men rushing at him from the other side of the room, but Morgan ignored them for now as he turned around and looked at the lizard-man he had left behind. It had managed to recover somewhat, but Morgan could see that it was unsteady on its legs. Morgan fired two bolts at him that he was too weak to dodge, and then once the monster was on the floor, Morgan approached and stabbed it in the chest. He turned to the remaining lizard-men now about ten meters away from him and dismissed his blade, instead reaching into the quiver on his hip and pulling out three Binding Arrows, which he threw in the lizard-mens’ direction. They fell by their feet and Morgan activated them remotely. Sending tendrils of his energy into them, he controlled the roots and had them sharpen into points and stab into the lizard-mens’ feet. He didn’t have many roots to work with, as his arrows couldn’t grow to the same sizes as roots in the wild, but he did manage to immobilize them all. The lizard-men were on the ground on their backs or their knees. Morgan knelt then and, putting his hand on the ground, he sent his energy to the floor beneath the lizard-men and started shaping the pattern for an exploding ward, the same as those he usually put into his arrows. He had practiced creating such wards remotely, but he didn’t have a really great range still. At most, he could reach about ten meters from the point he was standing at.
It was basically enchanting, and once he was finished, he triggered it remotely. The stones he’d warded exploded upward, blowing the lizard-men to pieces. He could’ve made it so that it activated once stepped on, but there had been no need.
With that he stood and released a sigh. He had spent about half of his energy for that, but he’d wanted to practice his close-range abilities in real combat. That went well, Morgan thought to himself. I think I need to put more effort into my movements; I am too stiff and limited. Perhaps there is some kind of acrobatics skill that I could purchase…
He did have some training as courtesy from his martial arts training on Earth. He had been able to do some somersaults and things like that, but he hadn’t practiced in ages. It was something to consider. He turned around as he heard movement from the stairs, and saw the rest of his party walk down. They all looked like they were still in one piece, so Morgan nodded.
“Any problems?” he asked.
Vall shook his head. “Not really. My movements are still a bit stiff, but I can work on it a bit.”
“We going further?” Morgan asked. The next level was the mines, and wasn’t really all that difficult.
All of them nodded, and they continued forward. They entered the mines and steadily cleared them, with Morgan letting Vall and the Sky Guards take on most of the enemies while Clara looked for opportunities to add her own staff to the battle. She wasn’t just jumping into the battles like Morgan, but instead slowly getting the feeling for what she wanted to be in the future. Morgan and her had discussed it a bit, and she had decided to be a bit more fighting-oriented healer. She would be focusing more on healing while still retaining at least some fighting abilities to help the party, which was fine by Morgan. Their current plan was to have Ves, Vall, Lucius, Clara and Morgan as part of a party, with Titus joining them in the future once he’d leveled up sufficiently and got his class upgraded. They still didn’t have any skill stone that he could use, but Lucius had been looting a few from the last boss of this dungeon. Ves had identified them all, but sadly none were for casters.
After they cleared the third level, they found themselves in front of the entrance to the boss chamber. Morgan grimaced as he remember how stupid they had been to allow themselves to be deceived and left for dead by the tester from another Guild. The orc woman—Emily—had brought them to the dungeon to use them in order to clear it, and then left them for dead. They passed the gate and Morgan looked to the side where the lever that opened the gate was now revealed, and the plaque that was the personal message to them from the Guiding Force. Morgan personally thought that it was a bit cruel as far as jokes went—but hey, what did he know about the humor of god-beings?
He was still a bit nettled that they hadn’t found the lever originally, but it had been well hidden behind the stone, and obviously no one else had found it either since they hadn’t been Emily’s first victims. Granted, they hadn’t really been in a state to properly look for a way out regardless. They’d just been deceived and left for dead, all of their hopes and dreams seeming to have been snuffed out in front of their eyes.
