Explosion
The explosion immediately blew through every one of Janus’ reinforced mana panes, only stopping after it threw Tara completely off her feet. Janus and Rowan only felt the earth shake below them.
[Your party has defeated a dangerous enemy: Heartstone Guardian] x7
[You have gained 2 levels]
[Your Bravery skill has gained 1 level]
[Your Spell Weaving skill has gained 3 levels]
Tara was climbing to her feet as Janus went over the notifications.
All seven of them? Stars! I know Rowan was chipping them down, but still!
“Stars be damned, Janus. You told us you could make bigger explosions. I just didn’t expect… whatever that was.” said Rowan.
Janus hardly had time to explain himself as the ground shifted once more. He couldn’t even count the amount of [Heartstone Guardians] crawling out of the earth. The churning rocks under his feet interfered with his footing, and he fell to the ground. Moments later, he could feel one of the creatures swiping at him with its claws.
In the distance, Janus heard one of the surveyors from the digging team shout, but couldn’t make out exactly what they said through the rush of blood in his head. He tried to create a minor explosion of mana to push the monster off of him, but only managed to slam himself into the ground even harder.
There was more than one monster swiping at him, crushing every pane of reinforced mana he had a chance to put up. Finally, sharp claws dug into his side, scraping along his chest.
Janus reacted immediately, hissing through the pain, and attempted to use [Lesser Healing] to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, this meant less of his focus was spent on defending himself with mana barriers, and he was struck again, this time on his head.
There was no way to tell exactly what was happening in the cavern as blood flowed over his eyes. His mana was crawling dangerously close to zero, and he could feel his health falling rapidly with each strike from the [Heartstone Guardian]s.
In an act of desperation, he slowly slid his hand into his robes pocket. Thankfully, the [Focus] was still there and hadn’t been ripped free by the monsters. He defended himself with his other arm and shoved the enchanted item into his mouth.
Almost as soon as it touched his tongue, the [Focus] began to dissolve. He could feel his mana restore to a little over its halfway point. With his new mana stores, Janus created several mana barriers directly on top of himself. On the other side of the barriers, he compressed as much mana as he could.
It wasn’t nearly as destructive as the pressurized mana explosions from his mana pearls, but it was still the largest explosion of mana he had ever created without first compressing the mana into a hardened shell.
Janus’ ears were ringing as he quickly wiped the blood out of his eyes and crawled backwards. There was no telling if his gambit had actually pushed all the monsters away.
Finally, his vision focused. There must have been more than a dozen [Heartstone Guardians] in the cavern. Janus could see the glow of Tara’s weapon as she tried to push back against several of the monsters. Rowan was slumped against the cavern wall, a [Heartstone Guardian] digging into his chest with its claws.
Janus swiftly launched a ball of reinforced mana at the creature attacking Rowan. He barely had time to see the projectile connect before his earlier foes recovered from his mana explosion. With a snarl, the nearest one leapt on him. He pushed back with a pane of reinforced mana, but it shattered. The creature landed on him and pushed the air out of his lungs.
In a flurry of limbs and reinforced mana, Janus just barely defended himself against the claws slashing down on him. He only had moments before the other monsters would be on him, too.
Despair began to set in as his mana crawled towards zero once more. Each attempt to reform his mana shell or create a barrier of mana slowly inched him towards his doom. Without mana, there was no way for him to defend himself.
Now, however, the more concerning resource was his health. He could feel his vitality slip away as the value crawled downward. There was no need to view his status. He knew there wasn’t much time left.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The last thing he attempted to do was cover himself in the thickest mana shell he could, as close to his skin as possible. The attempt drew his mana well into the negatives, and mana exhaustion hit him hard.
He could feel his consciousness slipping away when a strange keening sound suddenly rang out through the cavern. It reminded him of metal striking metal.
[Your party has defeated an enemy: Heartstone Guardian] x4
What’s going on? Is that Tara?
Janus could feel a whoosh of air above him and a sudden thud as everything seemed to become still.
[Your party has defeated an enemy: Heartstone Guardian] x5
[You have gained a level]
[Your Lesser Healing skill has gained a level]
He could hear voices now.
“Beltas, crack the gem thing. Carl, on me. Let’s get rid of these monsters.”
Suddenly, the pressure above Janus vanished as he heard the sound of metal on metal.
[Your party has defeated an enemy: Heartstone Guardian] x2
By this point Janus was struggling to make out what was happening. The thick layer of mana covered his face and obstructed his eyesight. And he wasn’t going to risk dispelling the barrier.
His mana exhaustion was hitting him with waves of nausea and pain. Each wave dimmed his vision until he could see no more. A few moments later, he lost consciousness.
-
“It’s a quick mana infusion, Carl. He should be fine. I even topped off his health.” A low, rough voice stated.
Janus blinked his eyes open to find a man leaning over him. The man’s eyes were a cacophony of colors swirling in his irises. The sight was so captivating that Janus could do nothing but stare.
“You done over there? This redhead needs healing. Badly,” Someone replied. Carl, maybe?
The healer turned to the other voice. “Yeah. This one looks good.”
Only then did Janus come back to his senses. The cavern was barely recognizable. Entire chunks were missing from the walls, and the ground was torn up into rubble. Tara was off to the side and Janus had never seen her so angry before.
Are her eyes… glowing?
Rowan was on the ground, his chest covered in blood. The healer who had just left Janus’ side was now standing over the [Trickster]. A prismatic beam poured out from the man’s down-turned palm, and he directed it at Rowan’s chest.
“Ah, fuck me sideways,” Rowan breathed out.
The healer was accompanied by two others. One wore a black cloak, his face hidden in the shadow of the hood. He held two wicked looking sabers, one in each hand. The second figure towered over the others. Janus had never seen someone so big in his life. Not to mention the mountain of a man was completely unarmored, only wearing what looked to be soft leather shorts.
“Alright what was the next quest step?” asked the massive man.
“We need to take the [Heartstone] a hundred meters from this location,” the healer replied.
“Let’s move before the Bear Guard gets here,” said the robed man, who Janus identified from his voice as Carl.
He felt that the name didn’t really fit the aesthetic the guy was going for.
Carl.
The strange thought caused Janus to let out a weak laugh.
The three men looked towards him before Carl nodded to the others and shoved a glowing red object into his cloak. A burst of shadow covered the trio, and they were gone when it dissipated.
[Your party has completed a quest: Find the Heartstone]
[You have gained a level]
[Your Spell Weaving skill has gained a level]
[Your Lesser Healing skill has gained a level]
“Stars, damn it! We had it!” shouted Tara.
“Can it, Tara. We were dead if those guys didn’t show up,” said Rowan.
“Eagle Station pricks! They’ll be lording this over us for months!” Tara continued.
Janus ignored the exchange and leaned against the cavern wall. Adrenaline slowly left his body, and his limbs felt like jelly. With a jolt, he remembered the mining crew. He glanced around in a hurry, attempting to spot the tunnel they had come from.
The crew was milling around, nursing scrapes and bruises. Janus counted the same number of people that had been there before. They had all survived.
“Let’s get out of here. You guys can argue when we’re back in the station,” the foreman called out. “I never should have suggested we do this shit, anyway. I’ll be lucky if I still have a job when we get back.”
-
The trip back was uneventful. They had only made it out around five miles from the station before the quest had triggered.
Janus wondered how the Eagle Station delvers had made it so far, so quickly. Eagle Station delvers should have been much further from the [Heartstone] than those from Bear Station.
Maybe they were already nearby.
A second thought occurred to Janus. If the notification for the quest could reach all the way to Eagle Station, what about the surface. He shivered, imagining the cavern above Bear Station tearing open and hundreds of beasts crawling down into the streets.
Best to not think about it.
Stepping back into the station felt surreal. The tension started to drain from his body.
Is it possible to enter a tunnel without having a near-death experience?
He looked on as Rowan spoke with the foreman about their pay. The man couldn’t promise anything extra, but he would put in a good word for their team at his company. The digging crew departed, leaving only Janus and his companions outside the tunnel entrance.
“Is every job going to be like this?” asked Janus, giving Tara a look.
“Hey! It’s not my fault. Everyone agreed to do the quest,” she huffed.
“Look, I’m not blamin’ anyone, aye? Just maybe we should take it a bit slower. If those Eagle Station guys didn’t show up, not only would we be dead, but the people we were hired to protect would be dead,” said Rowan. “I can accept a fuck-up killing us, but we need to be more careful if other people are involved.”
“Personally, I’d prefer that we not fuck up at all if it means we’ll die,” replied Janus.
Tara walked away from the tunnel entrance. “Just imagine the payday if we got the [Heartstone]. Not to mention the prestige! We’d be the talk of the station.”
Janus couldn’t really fault her. If they had succeeded, it would have been a big deal, he was sure.
“I mean, we got a lot out of this. I haven’t gained four levels that rapidly in a while.” Rowan said while following after Tara.