*** Chapter 55
The next morning, Fred and the group were given a receipt of their living expenses and food, this would all be on credit until they can afford to pay it off, right now, the lodging was 600 tokens a month, and food was 400 tokens a month, the group got ready and went to the main administration hall.
“What missions are you going after Fred?” Jackson asked.
“I was thinking of finding an easy combat mission to get an understanding of the wildlife around here,” Fred responded.
“Here, Silver spiders, they are the size of a large dog and normally appear in caves, attracted by noises and vibrations, causing problems for the miners,” Ronald commented,
“Or you have the iron wolves that roam the surface,” Peter commented, according to my father, the ones around the fort are a lot weaker, mainly because the forts top brass purges any of the larger ones,”
“I think I’ll go with the silver spiders; you get extra credit for killing ones closer to mining operations,” Fred commented,
“Yeah, that would be great, shall we go together,” Jackson asked, gaining agreements from everyone, “Great, we are going to need blunt weapons, most monsters here are metallic based, and so you’ll have a hard time with swords,”
They travelled back to the lodging to pick up their equipment, Fred’s Elemental armour wasn’t completed, so he had to settle with his spare set, the armour wasn’t enchanted, but the exoskeleton underneath had enchantments in the joints, that can be switched between increasing speed or strength.
They travelled to the gate, and after queuing for half an hour, managed to exit to the outside, “Right, this way, the first mine entrance should be about a mile up the road,” Peter commented while holding the map he picked up at the administration building.
The path was a grounded cobblestone, with the landscape being rockery bumps and hills, however everywhere he looked he could see gleams of silver streaks in the rocks, most of them were probably ores of some kind. Fred peered into them using his metal Esper sense, most of it was low volume ores or aluminium and sorts, mainly metals that wouldn’t be worth their extraction price.
“How do we procure food here; I haven’t seen any soil or plant life?” Fred asked while looking around.
“It’s not all metal here, north of the fort is a meadow area, where they can grow crops, but they still have metal particles in the soil there,” Peter commented,
“Yeah, I noticed the food had a metallic taste to it.” Fred commented, “what about animals, we ate meat here every night?”
“Yeah, again, we brought some beasts over, there are some ranches on the meadows too, who also feed off the metal-enriched grass, however, this will just increase our affinity to metal,” Jackson said,
“But isn’t it bad for you to eat metal?” Ronald asked.
“No, not here, all of the metal here is infused with mana, and thanks to our metal affinities, it allows us to feed off of the metals here, although we wouldn’t be able to directly eat the metals ourselves, he can eat the plants that feed off of it,” Jackson answered this too.
They reached the entrance of the cave, all of them wearing heavy plate armour all but Fred was equipped with maces and small shields, Fred sported a small shield but had his two pick hammers with him.
“Right, are we ready,” Jackson asked, they were stood to the side of the entrance to not get in the way of the miners passing by, “We will have to go deep into the mountain to find creatures and the shallower parts are well-trodden and fortified,”
Each of them closed their visors, they all wore metal mana crystals around their necks on a chain, although, with their high levels they would be able to see a little in the cave, with this they would get a better view using mana sense, even compared to being in broad daylight.
Following Jackson’s lead, they each entered the mine in a single file, for the first hour, they travelled through the mining part, some of it might have been the original cave, however, it was eroded by the miner’s efforts.
It was only after the hour did, they come across the intersections of the mine and cave, with natural-looking erosions becoming more prevalent. However, even to this part did they find miners coming and going, with minecart tracks running the floor, another half an hour later they came to a relay station, it was used as a supply depot and a barracks for the miners and guards.
Peter went off to report their arrival to the depot captain, he came back shortly after and shared the news he had got.
“Right, this is our first depot, the second will be in another hour and a half, and that is the one we will be staying at,” Peter commented, “a few other teams will be staying there with us, including Harold.”
“My brother?” Fred asked, “What’s he doing down there?”
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“I don’t know, apparently they arrived yesterday,” Peter commented,
Fred had an ill-boding feeling; he would bet money on Harold trying something funny down there. However, he was down here now and wouldn’t waste the effort coming down here just to turn back at the first hurdle.
They rested for 10 minutes and then carried on their march downwards, the terrain was becoming tougher to traverse, with them having to dodge the ever-increasing presence of stalagmites and stalactites.
This brought their supposed travel time an extra 15-minute delay. Arriving late afternoon at the last depot. Again, Peter went off to report their arrival to the depot captain, who issued them a room key.
They entered what was a shabby little room with three bunk beds 3 tables pushed together with 6 chairs, and 6 chests for storage, each of them started taking off their armours and started oiling them, this was a routine they had to do every few days to prevent rust, normally they would have servants to do these when they were at home, but they did it themselves during campaigns, meaning they weren’t completely helpless bumpkins.
“Right, the captain has given us a list of reports of sliver spider sightings in the last week, starting tomorrow we can start checking them out,” Peter said, placing the report on the table, and next to it, he placed the map of the known tunnel network.
“This tunnel has the most silver spider sightings out of all of them, right at the end of the map, apparently a few days ago the miners opened up a breach into a huge cavern there, and silver spiders have since been trying to enter the mining tunnels, making the breach wider,” Peter commented,
“So, we should start with this one, surely there will be no seeable end for the time being, as they have just entered a giant cavern,” Jackson argued.
“For the time being, they have just closed the tunnel, they want to make a fortified position at the entrance to the cavern as other reports talk about seeing riches in there, our main task, as well as other teams who are going, will be to start conducting raids into the place, and bringing mineral samples back with us,” Peter said,
“Anything else?” Jackson asked,
“Well, the usually scouting tasks, mapping, information gathering, their biggest concern is a nest, while Silver spiders usually hunt and scout around in packs, they normally have colonies too,” Peter said,
“A bit like us then,” Fred commented, “Just with extra legs.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Jackson agreed.
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The next morning, after breakfast at the mess hall, the group suited up and packed whatever they would need, “Visibility might be affected, there are reports of glow moss down there, but we shouldn’t rely on it, make sure you have your Metal mana crystals, and spares, just in case,” Peter commented.
Fred also got out 4 spurs of wire and attached them to the back piece of his armour before putting it on, then fed the ends of the wire through holes running down the length of his arms using metal Esper,
“What’s that for?” Jackson commented,
“Its rope made out of steel, I can manipulate metal so it should come in handy for scaling the caverns,” Fred explained.
“Manipulate, through magic?” Jackson asked,
“Yeah, kind of,” Fred replied vaguely.
“Cool, make sure it doesn’t drain your mana, your mana sense is the most crucial tool you have while delving into this cavern,” Jackson warned.
“Ok, I will do,” Fred assured.
“Hey, you saw how Harold was looking at you in the mess hall?” Ronald commented, “Do you think he will try something?”
“I think so, but not this early in the expedition, we would probably not travel that far into the cavern for now, so it would be hard to do anything,” Fred said.
“I see,” Ronald nodded, if Harold tried anything, the three could become collateral in Harold’s schemes.
Once everyone was ready, they headed off, four teams were going down, which included Harold’s group. There was a group from the garrison standing at the entrance to the tunnel with a bunch of miners, labourers and building supplies.
Once everyone was there, the captain stepped forwards, “Right, listen up, the garrison will be stationed at the breach guarding the labourers, whose task is to start setting up a fortification there, according to reports the breach leads out to roughly 10 meters from the bottom and 80 meters from the top, as well the other side is roughly 10 meters across, however, we are unable to see the ends going left or right,” he took a pause,
“The fortification will be built on the cavern floor, with a sealed path to the mine shaft. The four scout teams will be tasked with scouting the area and dealing with any threats they come across, while also mapping the area. The higher-ups also want samples, so if anything catches your eyes grab some of it. Two teams will be going left, and two going right,” the captain finished the explanation, “Alright, after you,”
It was the scout’s job to scout out the area, hence the name, Fred’s party was the second to last to go in the mine shaft, it was wide enough for three people to fight in a rank formation or two people to fight effectively.
They walked for half an hour until the front stopped, Fred could hear sparking sounds of metal on metal, in rapid succession, “Brace yourselves, incoming,” Fred was able to see through the gaps, the sparks were coming from the feet of the spiders running along the floor. Three out of the four-man party at the front took up a defensive stance, interlocking shields, this was Harold’s group, however, Harold was the one standing behind them,
The next group join in, creating the next rank, Fred then heard the spider’s impact onto the shields, they were small round shields made out of metal, probably the radius of a forearm. With the charge halted, the front rank swung with their maces downwards, crippling the two at the front, two spiders behind started climbing over their fallen comrades.
Another two spiders from behind started dragging the fallen ones away, Fred noticed they weren’t dead, and this had given them time to recover from their stunned state, the spiders were a lot more intelligent than Fred had realised, a few spiders started crawling along the walls and ceilings.
Fred applied his mana sense, and with the metal mana crystal, he could see the outline of everyone’s armour, as well as roughly 30 spiders down the tunnel, it looked like this battle will turn into a slow grind.
As the spider on the roof crawled closer, it launched itself off attempting to land on top of the front rank. Harold managed to swat it away with his mace before it could land, however, the two people on either side, making up his rank wasn’t so lucky with the spiders crawling along the side of the tunnel.
However, the spiders didn’t manage to interrupt too much as they were soon beaten to death before they could do anything, but this had distracted the second rank long enough for another set of spiders to fall into the gap, this time, they were able to orient themselves to fight against the second rank.
“The first rank is exposed, we’ve only killed 4 spiders, and injured 7 more, but we could end up losing the front rank,” Ronald said, the 7 spiders injured were healing fast, and 3 of them had already rejoined the fight.