[Bonestinger - lvl ??]

In the time she was distracted by Identify, the Bonestinger fired again, Liz barely able to dodge the shot aimed at her heart. It struck her right arm instead. Gritting through the pain and with her fight or flight instinct distinctly skewed to flight, Liz turned her back to the advancing six-legged monster and took to her heels.

Despite its enormous size, it was able to keep up with the running human and even seemed to catch up with her. With her still not fully recovered stamina diminishing quickly, Liz ran towards the forest. But even there the monster followed and simply ran the trees down. The denser the forest and the thicker the trees got the further the monster finally fell behind. Liz also slowed down, her stamina nearing its limit, her arm bleeding continuously. After 10 minutes of running, Liz finally stopped and flung herself in between the roots of a massive tree.

Panting from exertion she grabbed a healing potion and replenishment tonic from the backpack, downing both simultaneously. Her breathing slowly subsided.

'It shouldn't be able to follow me through this thick foliage. I'm not even hearing it anymore. It probably got attracted to my aura. I am an idiot for not keeping better control over it. What kind of monster was that anyway? Garuna never mentioned anything like that. That doesn't bode well for whatever else inhabits this forest. In the end, the snails are extinct!'

Feeling as safe as she was going to get, Liz spent the next two minutes taking stock of her meager supplies. Her backpack was still there, but she was down to one replenishment tonic, eight healing potions, one dose of antidote, around 4 meals worth of food and the various other supplies. But food wasn't her problem. She had felt thirsty since the chase, but her water skin had been lost somewhere along the way.

Since she couldn't do anything useful at the moment, she had her meager resources recover through meditation. When her health and stamina reached their maximum after about 10 minutes of sitting defenseless, Liz took a look at the only gains she had made so far: her new skills.

Spell Channeling - passive - lvl 1

All your spells can be channeled for continuous use at an increasing cost. Skill level reduces effect

Arcane Magic Resistance - lvl 3

Your body is better protected against foreign arcane magic. Damage by offensive arcane attacks is reduced. Effect increases with skill level

'Sounds fun, if it weren't for not being able to cast magic. I need to somehow retrieve Garuna, if he isn't already 'absorbed'. Without him this whole trip is useless. I don't have an inkling -hah- of an idea how the enchantments need to look. With my aura also under wraps, the Bonestinger shouldn't be alerted to my presence if I return'

With the beginning of a plan made up and the sunlight dwindling, Liz needed to find her way back. Her only orientation in the dense forest was the faint sound of moving water. Considering the stream her best option for the approaching night she decided to move in the direction of the sound. Breaking off a branch and designating it as her new staff for dealing blunt damage, Liz started moving.

After a few minutes of walking she stood in front of a cave entrance, the sound of water coming from the darkness within.

'So I am lost. That is definitely not the river. And I have no idea in which direction it could be. Garuna spoke of extensive cave systems in this valley. Either I risk getting lost in the caves or I try to find water and shelter for the night on the surface. On the one hand so far there hasn't been anything here that wanted to harm me in this part of the forest besides the Bonestinger, the cave would be an unknown. On the other hand, there might be lots of nocturnal monsters and Garuna also said that the other source of Quicksilver was in the carapaces of beetles in the caves and with these massive fauna changes on the surface, the subsurface could possibly be more stable...'

With her greed eventually winning out, Liz took out a glowing mana-powered orb and entered the dark unknown.

The downward sloped tunnel, at first at least a dozen meters wide, narrowed down considerable over the first fifty meters. Liz was barely able to fit with all her gear. The tunnel continued, the roaring of water getting louder and Liz getting more unsure about her choice with every dozen of meters going deeper in the mountain.

After about five minutes the narrow crevice opened up into a massive shaft of a cavern, Liz standing on a platform almost at the top. The roaring sound of water was coming from an enormous waterfall, the source even higher than Liz, that was falling down in the middle of the vertical cavern feeding the massive lake at the bottom. The walls of the shaft, that had to be hundreds of meters across and thrice that in height, were covered in glowing crystals and moss. The air was humid and heavy with mana, not the poisonous level of the moss but considerably above Liz's previous experiences. Several smaller caves and crevices were visible all around the walls, together with platforms in front of some. What stood out to Liz were natural cliffs and some man-made bridges, forming a network of paths between various caves and crevices. Along some paths, stairs were carved into the stone to reach higher levels.

'There was civilization here? But judging by the moss growing on the paths, in a time long past'

Liz entered the cavern fully, still to enraptured by the sight in front of her to watch where she was going. On a particularly wet stone she slipped, falling down the wet and steep wall below her. Desperate to stop her descent, she tried to hold on anything in her path, but slipped on any protrusion she reached. After about fifty meters of interrupted falling she stopped on a platform, roughly crashing into a boulder, eliciting a yelp from her. She groaned when she stood up, her legs sprained and bruised but thankfully not broken. The unprotected portions of her skin were all bruised or bleeding from scratches. She looked back up, realizing that the way back would be hard when her consciousness was alerted to a notification.

-- Welcome to the caverns of Nuurtor --

-- You have entered a dungeon. Experience gain is increased. --

'Oh no, Garuna spoke of dungeons as generally being full of monsters more powerful than anything around them. And he also mentioned dungeons in places of fallen civilizations were mostly filled with even more durable undead. Do the stairs mean this is a former civilization center with burial grounds nearby? Fuck'

After applying some healing potion on the worst of her wounds, Liz moved around her current platform, trying to find a way up. 'In any case I should better get out of here. Neither powerful monsters nor undead sound like a fun idea'

Unable to find any purchase on the wall and unwilling to exhaust herself further by trying to climb anyway, she instead started to search her immediate surroundings for anything useful, especially fresh water. Near her was a small and empty crevice. In front of it was a small pool of stale spray water.

'I definitely need to rest, no way around that. Now I can either drink this likely contaminated water or I can hope for another source in the future. The problem is whether I want to risk getting sick by this water in order to not be weakened by dehydration should I encounter any monster on the way out... I could of course boil this water, I know the rune for fire, have the empty vials and my staff should be dry enough to burn. But then I only have my daggers left, and the smoke might alert some monsters.'

Unwilling to let herself be weakened, Liz decided to take the risk and gathered some water, to boil it at a safe distance to the crevice.

By breaking her staff into a pile of smaller bits and putting the filled vials of water inside she made herself a crude campfire. Using a dagger she carved the rune for fire into a bigger piece of wood, imbuing it with mana while doing so. Holding one of the mana crystals from the wall to the rune she started her trial of directing the mana from the crystal into the rune, to avoid injuring herself further.

To do so she needed to maintain a small thread of mana to the crystal. However, with her undeveloped mana system, it was less of a small thread and more of a rope. To say this was an enjoyable experience would be a lie. After ten minutes of blistering her skin, thankfully without any permanent damage due to healing potions, she finally succeeded and the piece started to burn.

After making sure the whole pile burned, Liz made some distance to the fire and smoke and hid in her shelter crevice.

She tried to maintain an eye on the fire but after 2 hours of nothing happening and the fire turning into embers, her eyelids grew heavy, and she dozed off.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

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Liz woke with a start, reprimanding herself for falling asleep in such a dangerous environment.

After a quick inspection, she was fine if sore, no body parts gnawed off by monsters. When she looked into the cavern, she however realized that it was bustling with activity.

In the distance, especially further down, she could see entire swats of the darkness moving in the dim light. Even close some things moved about on the stone.

'How did I miss this yesterday? When did all these monsters come here? How long did I even sleep?'

Having no answers to her questions, she redirected her gaze to her campfire, where she saw a monster directly in front of it. It looked like a scaled lizard but was the size of a cat, with two spikes surrounding a big single eye on its head and only a short stubby tail. Its head was regularly darting from side to side, nothing escaping its gaze.

[Nuur Lizard - lvl 5]

With it sitting right in front of her campfire Liz needed to get rid of it and with its seemingly low level she might actually succeed. With the risk of losing the element of surprise with each passing second, Liz drew two daggers and as silently as possible extracted herself from the crevice when the lizard was looking at some commotion in the opposite direction.

Without a sound Liz neared it, sprang forward and aimed her daggers at the lizards scaled body, her attack promptly deflected by the scales without doing any visible damage. The lizard uttered a mix of a hiss and a squeak as it darted around, its eye focusing on Liz who had sprung back after her failed attack.

The lizard darted forward, Liz reacting on instinct to dive to the side. Only to be met by a glob of liquid hitting the unprotected part of left arm.

Instantly her left arm starts sizzling, causing pain to jolt through it and her to drop the dagger.

'This overgrown salamander can spit acid?'

Liz swatted at her arm with her right arm bracer while dodging another glob of acid spit.

As the lizard prepared its next strike, Liz darted forward and swiped her remaining dagger along the inside of its front leg. Her inexperience with knifes caused her to miss the lizards smaller scales and the dagger tip scraped along the hard scales of its back without leaving a mark.

'How can I damage this monster if my dagger simply deflects on these scales?...'

Liz dodged another glob of acid, the lizard now seemingly agitated that its prey didn't want to die, its eye slit in hatred.

'... Oh, of course...'

When the lizard again darted forward and the next acid went flying in her direction, Liz dodged but instead of recovering the distance, ran towards the lizard.

It froze, not sure how to react to the unexpected move from its prey. In the second the lizard needed to recover and while its throat visibly transported the next attack upwards, Liz thrust her dagger in its eye, putting the weight of her whole body behind the stab. The dagger penetrated the eyeball, and continued, the momentum of a human body easily shattering the weak bone structure behind.

The lizard uttered a last bubbling squeak before dropping, never having gotten to throw its last acid.

Liz went back to the backpack and quickly downed a healing potion, her arm in a pathetic state, the skin fully gone, the muscles underneath visible. 'Oh fuck, that stuff is potent'

Only now did she realize that her skirmish might have attracted attention. She quickly scanned the surroundings, finding nothing moving. 'Of course nothing can hear over the roaring water. I must have really been tired if I was able to sleep with this volume'

Still afraid of other predators spotting the carcass, she dragged the dead lizard out of view. Liz finally took her time to properly inspect the body.

Green blood was oozing from the eye, the dagger still embedded up to the handle. With a squelching sound that made Liz retch, the dagger released from the head. Otherwise, the body was lean and fully covered in small brown-yellow scales.

'It didn't drop anything. Maybe this isn't as much of an RPG as I thought'

Realizing that there was nothing to be gained from the body, Liz dumped it over the side of the platform, letting it tumble down dozens of meters before being stopped on another flat protrusion.

Wiping her bloody hands on her leather skirt, Liz finally took to the notifications from the fight.

-- You have killed [Nuur Lizard - lvl 5] --

-- [Pain Tolerance] has reached level 8 --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 2. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

-- [Arcane Mage] has reached level 3. 2 stats points distributed. 3 additional stat points awarded. --

'A level up! Finally! And this lizard was only level 5? That was only four levels above my one! I guess if I had used magic it would have been easier. I am definitely way too weak without it, maybe even with it. But before looking into this stat business, I need something to drink'

Perusing through the ash of her campfire, she found the now charred vials. Only hesitating for a second, Liz opened the first and swallowed it in three quick gulps.

Having drunk two of the 8 vials without finding anything wrong with the taste, Liz returned to her crevice and recalled her status.

Name: Elisabeth Larson

Class: Arcane Mage - lvl 3

Title: Wanderer

Status:

Health: 156/156

Stamina: 121/121

Mana: 368/368

Vitality: 13

Endurance: 11

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 13

Perception: 16 (+2)

Wisdom: 23 (+1)

Intelligence: 22 (+1)

Unassigned stat points: 6

General skills:

Arcane Magic Resistance - lvl 3

Eastern Plains Common - lvl 8

English - lvl 7

Identify - lvl 2

Mathematics - lvl 1

Meditation - lvl 2

Pain Tolerance - lvl 8

Class skills:

Arcane Blast - lvl 2

Runic Intuition - lvl 1

Spell Channeling - lvl 1

-empty slot-

'So the automatically assigned points went all into the mental attributes. But it seems like I need to apply them. Should I ever get back to Garuna I need to ask him if this is normal. Now how to spend the other six points... It is clear that I am way too weak. My class is focused on magic and I currently can't perform any magic. Offensively I am near completely useless. So dumping it into any mental stat or strength doesn't make sense. The most sensible option would be to split it between Vitality, Endurance and Dexterity. Meaning better odds fleeing and hopefully being able to take a few hits.'

With that she brought Vitality and Dexterity to 15 each and Endurance to 13. After a short moment of confusion she realized, that simply wishing the changes to take hold, applied them. And apply they did. From one moment to the next, Liz felt her heartbeat falter, sweat break out across her skin, her muscles cramped, and an enormous headache together with dizziness flared up. It only held for the blink of an eye, afterwards she felt more energetic and refreshed than ever before. This feeling also abated after a second. 'Holy hell, that is both incredible uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time. I seriously want to feel that again. Can one get addicted to this?'

With her stats increased Liz's focus went back to the cavern. The occasional movements in the distance were still visible.

'The best idea would probably be to scout the caves accessible by the stairs and bridges, assuming whoever built them had a way to the surface'

With her being on the same height as one of the caves of the path network, Liz scrambled along a small cliff edge to reach it.

Shortly after entering the first cave that contained no more glowing crystals, she realized that she had lost her first lighting orb when she had her accident the earlier day.

'Assuming there are monsters in these dark tunnels, I really don't want to alert them to my presence with light. But at the same time I rather see any attacker than wander into an ambush'

Deciding to rather face an enemy head on, Liz held the second and last lighting ball as she moved deeper into the fortunately steeply upwards sloping tunnel, constantly on the lookout for anything trying to attack her right hand equipped with a dagger.

Despite her hopes the tunnel soon ended in a cave-in, without any way through. Liz took the time to wedge the orb under her armor and stashed her daggers to make climbing down the steep sections easier. As she was backtracking she startled when she came upon an equally surprised lizard.

The lizard had emerged from small side tunnel near a flat portion of the tunnel Liz hadn't noticed before. Upon seeing her, it froze, but soon overcame its shock and started to attack in the same fashion as the first one.

Liz, now aware of its species fighting style, instinctively dodged the first glob while reaching for her daggers, deciding on fighting instead of fleeing. After the second acid spit passed, she ran at the lizard. But unlike its kin it didn't try to retreat and instead sprinted forward as well, leaping at her midsection in the last second.

Caught off guard by its strange behavior, Liz had no time to adjust her course and soon realized that the two bony spikes on its head weren't just for decoration when they struck and pierced her armor and stomach, causing Liz to cry out in pain.

Blinded by the pain, Liz lashed out and struck the retreating lizard multiple times. Only ever causing blunt damage.

The lizard, now out of her reach, restarted its effort of spitting acid at the weakened human. It was completely unharmed, unlike Liz who was losing more blood through her stomach wound with each passing second.

However, a blow to its hind leg seemed to have had a slight effect, as the creature visibly favored its right side. By now, the adrenaline and shock blocked the pain emanating from her stomach and Liz again had to dodge multiple acid spits. One however landed on her bracer, causing it to sizzle slightly.

'At least it can't penetrate the leather'

Holding her arms in front of her, with the bracers protecting most of her exposed skin, Liz charged the still spitting lizard, only bringing the dagger in front of her at the last moment.

Unable to gain enough momentum and with the current lizard most likely stronger, her blow only pierced the eye and stopped there, causing the now blind lizard to shriek in rage. The lizard tried to retreat, but unable to properly perceive her position, Liz had an easy time catching up to it and in a fit of rage stabbed it repeatedly. Only when the head was a messy pulp and the notification registered, did she stop.

-- You have killed [Nuur Lizard - lvl 8] --