Geron
"Thank you,” Geron said after receiving the report of another group leader. Most had returned by now; the operation was going mostly to plan with just some small hiccups where goblin camps weren't there anymore or some escaping.
His mind wasn't on the operation though, they hadn't heard back from Lord Rowan's party yet. That wasn't surprising, they weren't expected back for a couple of hours yet, but it was still on Geron's mind. He wasn't sure if it was the right decision to send the young lord into a situation that was obviously dangerous.
Maybe I should have gone with them, he thought in vain. He was the commander of this operation and knew that he couldn't just abandon his post out of selfish desires, it didn't stop him from worrying though.
“They are fine,” Sola said from her spot in the corner of the tent. She was looking tired after spending most of her mana on taking care of the wounded. “He has four knights with him and if anything gets past them, then they would still have to overcome Eydis and that is not happening.”
“Still feels weird to not be at his side, that is all,” Geron replied while trying to look busy.
“You can't fool me, darling,” she laughed a little and he finally looked over to her. Even with the dirt, blood, and exhaustion, she was the most beautiful person Geron had ever seen. He kept his gaze on her until she smiled warmly and asked, “What?”
“You should take a bath.”
She laughed loudly and replied in a squeaky voice, “You asshole! Not everyone can sit in a tent all day and push some paper around.”
Geron smirked, pulled her on her feet from her chair and closer to him. “I don't mind a little dirt, but you might feel better.”
“I would certainly know what would make me feel better,” she answered with a sly smile, but they were interrupted by a loud voice before Geron could reply anything.
“Commander, there is an adventurer here who says he is the only survivor of his group.”
They separated from each other, and Sola returned to her chair while Geron turned back to the strategy table. “Send him in.”
A young man, maybe eighteen, entered he was wearing a copper adventurer marker and a worn padded gambeson, definitely a low-level adventurer. He looked horrible, blood running down his face from a wound on his forehead, his armor and parts of his skin was scorched.
“What happened, boy,” Geron asked with a neutral tone. Sola was instantly on her feet helping the man to a chair and looking at his wounds.
“We..., we went to exterminate the goblins as instructed,” the young adventurer's eyes and words trailed off multiple times while he talked but Geron was patient with him.
“The monsters were too strong. They killed us all, dragging us down into the forest, but I was still alive and managed to find a hole that led to another cave.” He was rolling his eyes and shaking as he spoke.
“Keep it together. One thing after another, what squad was yours, where did you go?”
“Team … seventeen.”
“Isn't that the one Michael went looking for,” Sola exclaimed with widened eyes and looked at a stone-faced Geron.
"What place was it that they dragged you to? A monster lair?”
“I heard stories about it but didn't think I would ever see one,” the young man wept and put his hands over his face.
“What did you see? Tell me,” Geron growled, and the adventurer looked at him through his fingers.
“A dungeon!”
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Michael
He dashed to the side, dodging the attempt of the small monkey creature to throw cinder into his face, and rammed his sword into its neck.
The fire monkey went down with a gurgling noise and Michael ripped his sword free with a pained hiss. His hands were continually pulsing, but he couldn't afford to be slowed down.
The knights were holding the bigger monsters off at the perimeter while smaller ones slipped through the cracks or came jumping down the trees.
They had been fighting for the better part of three hours. It was always the same, they moved a while along the wall until some kind of monster spotted them and made a ruckus while attacking. Then they would have to contend with a wave of monsters and either clear them out fast enough or look for a moment to slip away.
Michael's mana reserves were filling up well with him not throwing any kind of magic around and only having to fight zero- or one-skull monsters, but the knights were starting to have a harder time with the constant heat from the surroundings and the fire attributes of the monsters.
Michael had forced them to take a couple of small breaks already but that never lasted long, they were too focused on getting him to safety rather than their own health.
A horned beetle came charging at Michael, it was as big as a dog and the tip of its horn was glowing red. Eydis, who was inside the ring of knights, taking care of anything dangerous that broke through, gave it a side glance and then focused on a group of five small bird creatures that were throwing feathers at them.
The beetle came barreling in with the fury of a bull, its size made it look a little bit silly, but the hot glowing horn would teach him if he underestimated it. Even though it was only a one-skull it was still at least once or twice evolved.
Michael jumped to the side to evade the charge, but the monster was quick on its six feet and managed to change direction in a heartbeat, a boon of its evolution no doubt.
He used his sword to parry the horn and redirect the beetle past him, he was still stronger than the small beast. Michael swung around cleanly and stabbed at the back of the insectoid. His sword bounced of the hard shell and only left a scratch.
Devastating charge and impenetrable armor, Michael thought while jumping around the beetle. He was sure now that the monster was at least three or four times evolved, he was surprised that the beast had not increased in size by much in its evolutions, that seemed to be a common way to evolve with most monsters from what he had seen.
Michael tried to stay behind the monster while thinking about how to kill it, his eyes focused on the spindly legs. He swung at the closed one and cut it clean off.
Not much armor there, huh, he thought and began taking off one leg after another. The beetle was no match for his speed and only a few moments later it was wiggling on the ground with only one leg on each side left.
Michael then grabbed the corner of its shell and yanked the whole beetle on its back. He hissed when the strain on his hands let them flair up again but ignored it.
The wiggling stopped a moment later when he sunk his sword into the gaps in the belly of the beast.
He looked around and took in the scene; Eydis had ripped the birds apart already and was currently beating down on an infernal dog with her bracers.
Silas and Lance had finished their fights and Erhen was chasing off a group of the small monkeys.
They watched as Zeke wrestled a smaller version of the huge gorilla monster to the ground and crushed its throat with his knee. He held it down until it stopped moving and then rose breathing heavily.
“That was the last one, I think,” the veteran knight said and looked around.
“Better be or we will fight the next one with only our hands,” Silas growled and looked at his bent sword. “Damned heat, it is bad enough having to hold back to not break the sword but with all these fuckers having so hot blood we have to deal with even softer swords.”
Michael looked at his own sword, it was crafted to the highest standards in Reen, but it was still only a mundane sword. He was not strong enough to easily break it normally but now it was chipped and bent.
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I need to get magical weapons for my knights, Michael thought. He looked at Eydis who had lost her second weapon a while ago and was fighting with her body and what parts of the monsters she could use as a weapon.
“We must have circled nearly the entire cave by now and have only found dead-end tunnels. We should probably start thinking about what we do if we don't find an exit,” Michael said to change the subject to a more productive one.
“We can always wait for rescue,” Erhen suggested. “They should be getting nervous by now and with Lord Rowan here we can expect them to send a rescue party fairly soon and with a lot of power if even our party hasn't come back.”
“That is great, you just wanna sit back and get rescued? How is that going to look for us as Lord Rowan's guard,” Silas protested, and the younger knight shrunk back a little bit.
Eydis ignored the whole discussion and was currently butchering the largest monster she could find.
“We don't even know how far the tunnel collapsed, it could take days or weeks for them to dig through to us,” Sir Zeke interjected with a grim expression.
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” Michael said, “We don't even know if the tunnel collapsed that far. We will not give up yet.” He looked from one knight to the other until they nodded.
Eydis jumped up triumphantly just a moment later and presented a spiked crystal as large as a marble. It was pulsing with a dim light.
“Is that a mana core,” Michael asked surprised.
Eydis nodded excitedly and signed with one hand, “I had some kind of strange feeling multiple times before with the monsters and it seems it was this.”
“Interesting,” Michael commented and inspected the woman. She must have a great sense of mana if she managed to feel the power of such a weak mana core in this environment.
Lance took the core out of Eydis's hand and looked at it, “I have never seen a mana core before. It is warm.” He frowned and passed it to Erhen.
Monsters of a certain mana level begin creating mana cores to store their mana, this starts at the three-skull level but lower-leveled monsters with enough evolutions could also have one. At first, it will be spiked but with more mana, it will become smoother and smoother until it fully forms a sphere.
“Marvelous, to think that this small thing holds so much mana,” Erhen muttered while staring into the gem.
Mana cores were used mostly by mages in rituals, drawing out the mana of the stones or by artificers building them into their works as a power supply.
“Bag it and let's gather everyone we can,” Michael ordered.
The knights looked at each other with a slight look of confusion but complied, nonetheless.
Mana cores were not worth that much in the kingdom because of the defacto ban on mages and the single-digit count of artificers in the whole kingdom. Most of these only made trinkets so mana cores were rarely used.
Lord Cedric's old sword had a few built into the hilt and blade but that sword was ancient.
Michael smiled a little but explained, “Have you forgotten that we will have some competent artificers in our country soon so the monster cores will be useful? Might even be in your future weapons.”
A sudden enthusiasm came over the knights when Michael mentioned the possibility of them receiving magical weapons. Eydis directed them to the monsters she thought had cores, which were sadly only two more and the cores were even less developed than the first.
The monster parts would have been more valuable than the cores normally in the kingdom, but they wouldn't have the time.
After gathering the cores and Eydis grabbing a horn to use as a makeshift weapon they continued around the cave.
It didn't take them long to reach the point of their entrance. The battlefield they had left was looking much more gruesome now. Dismembered monsters that had been mostly devoured and a swarm of low-level monsters picking through the remains that the bigger ones had left. Mostly a swarm of the little monkey monsters that had started the fight.
The monkeys made a ruckus when they entered the clearing but still backed off from them. Michael stared at the little beasts while they walked over to the collapsed cave entrance, but they kept their distance while screaming at the top of their lungs.
“So, what do you think,” Eydis asked Michael while he inspected the cave-in.
“Don't know, we should probably just start digging,” he said and stepped back.
“Erhen, Lance, get in there and start clearing,” Sir Zeke said and took position watching the tree line.
“With these monkeys, we will have to contend with a new horde soon,” Michael said and stepped next to Zeke.
“No, I don't think we will have a problem. After this carnage, the monster density will be way down and those that survived will have retreated to evolve no doubt with the mana they have consumed here.”
Michael nodded and stayed next to the knight in silence while the others worked.
Suddenly a loud crash happened behind Michael, and he spun around to see the two young knights jump back from the rubble.
“What happened?”
Lance shook his head and replied, “I don't know, milord. I grabbed a stone and then suddenly something collapsed behind it, I think.”
“Another cave-in,” Zeke asked.
“Possible. This whole thing might be much more unstable than we thought. Let's proceed but more carefully.” Eydis joined the clearing effort while the rest watched, there was not enough space to have more people work on it anyway.
Something was striking Michael as odd though. He heard nothing unusual and turned around. The monkeys were gone, and he now noticed that it was oddly quiet.
Another crash shook the air but this time it was coming from the forest. Everyone turned around and looked when a second crash happened.
“That sounds like trees falling,” Eydis signed and grabbed the monster horn.
“Something big is coming,” Silas added.
Loud footsteps began to appear and one of the trees blocking their vision was suddenly toppled and crashed to the ground revealing another tree.
It was not as tall as the other ones around but much thicker, the trunk consisted of two parts until it fused two meters above ground, and the leaves on the thick branches were on fire. A strange symbol and opening were situated right beneath its burning crown. It suddenly raised one of its trunks and took a step forward.
As if a lens got swapped Michael realized that this wasn't a tree but a four meters tall charred wood monster.
The two trunks were its legs, the thick branches its arms, and the symbol and opening was its face.
With an ear-shattering roar, it made another step forward and the light fell on the bark which reflected it as if it was made out of metal.
“It is the dungeon guardian,” Zeke yelled, “A damned tree horror, that's a four-skull monster.”
The guardian made another step and reached one of its hands into the burning leaf crown. It flung the fire in their direction, everywhere it landed small fire creatures began to rise and charge them, they looked like large saplings.
“We're cut off, defensive positions!”
The knights moved as a unit and made a half circle around Michael swinging at the little fire saplings. The weapons of the knights seemed to go through the flame, but the horn Eydis was wielding made them vanish in an instant.
“They are ethereal, use your mana,” Silas yelled, and a wave of mana cut through a swath of them from his sword.
Michael pulled a face but started constructing a sigil nonetheless, the mana burned like hot water running down his arms, but they weren't equipped to fight this many ethereal enemies and he was the mage of the group.
Something rumbled behind Michael, but he knew that there was just a wall behind him, so he paid it no mind.
More mana blades were thrown by the knights, but they wouldn't be able to keep up the mana expenditure for long.
Eydis threw a monster bone she had picked up while running through the flaming saplings over to Erhen, the inherent mana in the monster parts made them makeshift magical weapons for a while after their deaths.
The guardian was still walking closer with thundering steps and Eydis charged it alone. Everyone else was too busy to call her off but Michael knew that a four-skull was too much even for most knights, and this was a guardian.
His sigil activated and a flurry of small knife-sized light spikes were flung into the mass of oncoming flame saplings, ripping them apart. The spikes wouldn’t even have been able to pierce skin properly but the advantage of ethereal beings against physical attacks was completely reversed against magical.
Michael's mana reserves took a hit nonetheless and his hands began bleeding again.
His attack had thinned out the horde but there were still at least two dozen left.
“Finish them off,” Zeke ordered Erhen and Lance, while he and Silas followed Eydis in her charge against the guardian.
Eydis jumped at the guardian nimbly evading the slow strike of the tree monster which made the ground shake. She rammed the horn at the face of the monster, but it broke without having much of an effect.
The monster roared again, and the leaves exploded outward in a flame eruption, sending the barbarian girl flying ten meters and crashing down hard.
“EYDIS,” Michael yelled and charged past the young knights, and through the sapling swarm, he got a few burns for his thoughtlessness. He could hear Lance yell behind him, but he was not listening, much rather staring at Eydis who was lying in an unnatural position with her arm strangely bent behind her back and unmoving.
Zeke and Silas charged right past her and engaged the guardian with precise attacks against its joints and other open spaces but its size and the heat it still emanated made things difficult.
Michael came to a sliding hold on his knees next to Eydis and put his fingers to the side of her throat. A couple of heartbeats passed what seemed like an eternity while Michael looked at her and waited.
Her skin was severely burned and the arm that was under her body was most certainly broken. Then he found a pulse and a wave of relief washed over him, she was severely hurt but he could feel mana flowing in her body. Even though she was unconscious her body was instinctually augmenting itself to keep her alive.
Another crash dragged his attention back to the fight when he saw Zeke being flung back a couple of meters by one of the fists of the tree, but he landed on his feet looking much worse for wear now.
They were exhausted, their mana reserves were draining, and their weaponry was bent or broken.
Michael began pouring every drop of mana he could muster into a magic sigil, the script was simple, but he put in all the mana he had.
He groaned as more and more blood and mana left his hands while the knights held off the guardian.
A light javelin burst into life and grew ever larger until it was thicker than an adult's upper leg.
Michael struggled to his feet, the weight of his body and the spell dragging him down. He looked at the beast in front of him, the knights that were fighting, his friend on the ground, and threw the spear at the beast.
The spear struck it like a meteor and the mass of mana exploded when its integrity was lost. The light blinded even Michael and for a moment he saw only white.
He shook his head and when his vision returned, he expected to see the monster collapsing, he had poured his all into this attack, his men were in danger, and this was their last chance. This was the moment in a story when the hero would strike down the evil with all their power, but the monster still stood.
There was a gaping wound in the torso of the beast and the attack had definitely damaged it severely, but it was not going down.
Dread came over Michael as the beast took another step forward and reached into its crown again to spawn more of the burning saplings.
With a crushing noise, the collapsed tunnel was blasted free, and the pieces of rock fell everywhere. Through came a flood of humans, led at the front by Knight Commander Geron.