Kit rewarded Snowball with a chunk of meat from his pouch. He then thought about the precious stones Snowball had collected and wondered if they would find anything else in the cavern. “This is really useful Snowball, do you know if there are anymore items in the cavern?” Snowball was a seeker of treasure who better to ask than Snowball.
The small fluffy dog shook its small head. Kit wasn’t too disappointed at Snowballs response, the aim of this trip was not treasure but ingredients. Now that the cavern was cleared out by them, they moved onto the next cavern on the map.
The next room turned out to be similar to the first room, it was a large cavern with an opening in the ceiling letting natural light filter down. The light flowed over a large tree bearing fruit in the middle of the cavern. The tree was a large as a three story building, it dominated the whole room.
Getting to the enormous tree was going to be a problem. Sleeping on the ground across the cavern floor was over 100 creatures similar to large bears. The bears were black with a light green stripe running down their backs that glowed in a soft light akin to the stalagmites in the previous room.
A light chuckle of delight sounding next to him, Kit had heard this sound numerous times before, it always led to him being roped into a fight. Before Kit could stop the lunatic, Mars was already launching his throwing knives at the closest bear. “Damn it Mars! At least wait for us to make a plan!”
The bears that had been previously sleeping had started to rouse. Kit wanted to curse at Mars, but he had no time. Grandpa was already shouting orders to kill as many bears as they could before they became fully awake.
Kit pulled his sword and started hacking the closest bear. After a few rough slices of the tough skin Mars moved beside him. “Just slice their neck Kit then move on to the next one, they will soon bleed out so don’t waste time giving a final blow.”
He followed Mars instruction and was slicing through the bears at a fast pace. Soon notifications started popping up.
Ding!
[Shining razor backed black bear killed]
Reward: 10,000 experience, 3 x Shining razor backed black bear meat.
Ding!
[Shining razor backed black bear killed]
Reward: 10,000 experience, 3 x Shining razor backed black bear meat.
The notifications followed Kit as he moved from one bear to another. He was starting to think that Mars was not that crazy for diving into killing the bears. Half of the room had been defeated by the party when Kit started to notice a problem.
The bears were no longer groggily waking as he passed. A loud roar scared the living daylights out of him, he froze at the sound. As if a pebble was thrown into water a ripple of roars spread around the room. Kit had to cover his ears from the deafening sound.
Kit swung his eyes around the room and paled. Angry beady eyes were centred on him, a spike of adrenaline coursed through his body. Kit could hear his blood start to pound in his ears. This was going to turn into a disaster real fast.
A ripple of panic flooded his system as four bears rushed at him. Kit braced himself for the pain that was about to explode on his body from the angry bears about to rip into him. Kit sucked in a breath and lifted his sword, he wouldn’t go down without a good fight!
As the first bear lifted its paw to strike at him. A blur rushed past Kit and bulldozed into the approaching creature. More black shapes barrelled towards the angry bears before Kit could take action. Confusion filled Kit, then as the creatures slowed down to engage in a fight, Kit realised what was happening.
Kit searched around looking for the cause of his safe state. Peaches wasn’t far behind him, his silver hair was billowing out as if caught in the wind and red ribbons were dashing out from his body towards fallen corpses strewn on the ground.
Instead of moving to the side and letting Peaches take care of the remaining bears, Kit decided to be like Mars and focus on earning experience points. Kit made his way over to the midnight guardians and worked together with them to kill the black bears together.
When the last bear fell Kit collapsed to the floor with a wet plop. Blood coated his clothes, and a metallic smell filled his nose. Kit wished that they had brought the portable shower with them right now. He would have to make do with changing his clothes and wiping the blood from his body with a cloth.
Mars leaned over him with a pleased expression on his face. “That was fun! I can’t wait to go to the next cavern. Come on Kit, get up!” Kit felt like slapping the cheerful smile right off his face.
As if noticing his displeasure Mars dangled a big plump fruit over his head. “Look at this beauty hmm, I can’t identify it.” Kit’s eyes locked on the glowing fruit, a soft green glow emitted from the skin. “See cutting through the bears was worth it!”
Kit snatched the fruit from Mars grip and inspected the fruit closer. It was oval shaped and had a thin waxy skin, a sweet tangy smell permeated from the fruit. Kit wanted to taste the flesh inside but held himself back, he didn’t know if it would have any negative effects. He thought it would be better to wait until they left the cave to try it.
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All negative thoughts towards Mars disappeared and a smile played across his lips. Kit jumped to his feet with a burst of energy. He looked over towards the tree to see that Grandpa was already clearing the branches.
He swung his eyes over the cavern floor to see chucks of meat strewn everywhere. Grandpa had the fruit collection handled all on his own so Kit started to gather the meat. The others noticed Kit’s movements and joined in to gather the meat from the floor.
In no time the room was picked clean. Kit changed his clothes and quickly wiped his body, he was then ready to head to the next room. As they headed to the next cavern Kit went over all the ingredients he had already collected in his mind. A large smile played on his lips, he was going to be busy when he returned to Spartan Fire.
Sounds of movement caught his attention as they neared the next cavern. Grandpa signalled for them to stop, Mars headed towards the room on silent feet as the rest of them waited for Mars to return with news.
Kit recognised the gleam in Mars eyes when he approached. He could already guess that there would be something to fight inside the cavern. “The room is filled with Zombies, it looks like an abandoned settlement inside.” Kit was surprised at what was in the room, he hadn’t expected to come across a ruin inside the cave.
“This cavern should not pose a problem then. Give me a moment, then you can enter.” Peaches nodded to the group then headed into the cavern. When all the sounds of movement stopped, they moved towards the entrance.
An eerie sight greeted Kit as he entered the room. Human corpses in different states of decay stood still in the room all facing towards Peaches. Kit felt a shiver of revulsion spread down his spine.
“Hey Peaches question, if we kill them while you control them would it still give us experience points?” Mars raised an enquiring brow.
Peaches tilted his head in thought. “I have not tried that before, I have not animated them just taken control of their movements so it might be possible. You can try it if you like.”
Mars rubbed his hands in glee then went up to the closest zombie and removed its head from its body. A large smile ignited on Mars lips. “Haha, totally possible! Kit come gain some easy experience points!”
Kit followed Mars actions and removed a head from the one of the zombies body.
Ding!
[Living dead plunkling villager killed]
Reward: 7,000 experience.
Kit happily started to go on a killing spree with Mars, the others started to fossick around the dilapidated buildings. Kit heard a loud yip from Snowball every now and then as he moved through the corpses. He assumed that Snowball was alerting the others to some treasure in the room. This spurred Kit on to move faster he didn’t want to miss out on treasure!
He gained another swordsman level and a jolt of happiness spread through his chest. Only 10 more to go before he could gain entry up the mountain behind Spartan Fire!
It didn’t take long to finish cleaning up the room. When he was done, he went to find Snowball so he could go treasure hunting with him. To his surprise he found Snowball at the entrance of the cavern with the others.
Grandpa lifted his eyes towards Kit as he arrived. “Snowball doesn’t think that there is anything else worth taking inside the cavern so we should be done with this room.”
Kit’s brows shot up, Snowball had checked the cavern so fast! He was really glad right now that the little dog had tagged along. He made a mental note to bring Snowball on his exploits in the future, not only was his nose great at finding treasure he also came with bonus fighting power thanks to the midnight guardians!
“We are making good time through the caverns, should we stop for something to eat before we tackle the last room?” Twix asked Kit to get his answer. Kit nodded in agreement, now that Twix had brought it up, he realised how hungry he was. As if to confirm his thoughts his stomach chose that moment to let out a loud rumble.
Laughter filled the cavern and a blush appeared on Kit’s face. He quickly busied himself pulling out prepared meals to hide his embarrassment. Once they had a belly full of food they moved on to the last cavern.
Kit felt his spirits soar thinking of all the ingredients they had already collected. He couldn’t wait to see what was in the last cavern. As they approached the last room Kit heard loud squawks filter down the passage.
A frown pulled Kits brow in thought, this sound was familiar, but he could not place his finger on what it could be. The closer they got the more squawks could be heard. Kit glanced down at Snowball to see if he had any reaction to the noise. He wanted to see if the squawking creatures would pose a danger to the group.
Snowball’s tail was wagging frantically and his big eyes gleamed with excitement. Kit became eager to enter the room, if Snowball acted like this it must be something good! As the tunnel opened up into the cavern Kit spotted one of the creatures that was making all the noise.
A gleaming white chicken with a purple crest on its head was scratching at the ground. Kit’s eyes lit up at the sight, finally something that he could use in numerous creations without having to rack his brain for a recipe! Not only that, he could get his hands on some eggs!
Excitement coursed through his veins and he practically started to salivate at the sight of the bird. He hoped there was a large number of the chickens inside! When he tore his gaze from the white bird, he swung his gaze around the room.
The final cavern was enormous compared to the other four, he couldn’t see the back of the cavern wall from where he was standing. Large patches of the ceiling were missing and the light from outside filtered down on to the floor below. The temperature in the cavern was unexpectedly warm and humid. Kit peeled off his vest as he took in the scenery.
Large, lush greenery decorated the cavern floor, beautiful splashes of colour could be seen among all the green flora. White chickens with different coloured crests were everywhere he looked. Kit couldn’t stop a large smile spreading across his face.
Recipes swirled in his mind and greed filled his eyes, he couldn’t wait to start collecting the white animals. “Grandpa do you have anything that can store some of the chickens. I want to take a large amount of living ones back to Spartan Fire.” Kit glanced back at the fish tanks floating behind the group, he was sure Grandpa would have some kind of cage in his pouch.
When Grandpa didn’t respond straight away, Kit glanced over to the old man. “Sorry Kit, I forgot to pack the cages. That’s not a problem though, we can just make some bags from the vines in the room.” Grandpa lifted his hand and pointed to a large green vine that was climbing up the wall of the cavern.
“The hard part will be catching these wily birds, they’re not as easy to capture as they look.” Grandpa demonstrated by walking towards the closest chicken. The bird stopped its scratching and eyed Grandpa warily.
When the old man got close enough to bend down to capture the bird. It moved faster than Kit expected. The bird darted away with ease, then turned towards the old man and puffed up its chest feathers. It then raised its head in a haughty manner, eyed Grandpa with what seemed like disdain, then it went back to scratching at the ground.
Kit’s jaw dropped at the arrogant display, he felt like the bird had just mocked Grandpa.
A chuckle left Grandpa’s lips at the bird’s action. “See they’re fast little buggers.”