Rest was easy to come by after they returned.
Even the anxiety over the assault the next day couldn’t keep Clay awake once the others took the watch. He fell into a deep and dreamless sleep for nearly the entire night; when Lawrence woke him to take his watch, he felt incredibly refreshed. The bite of the winter cold seemed harsh on his skin, but he didn’t even mind the lack of a sunrise.
The sky was cloaked in clouds now; his farmer’s life told him that snow was going to happen within the next few hours, maybe before lunch. It might be the last big storm of the winter, but that wouldn’t make it any more pleasant to get caught in. Better to be underground before it started.
For the moment, however, he wasn’t in any hurry. The past few weeks had been full of unrelenting pressure and hard work, but Clay had felt free in ways that mocked his time at the Academy. He’d been doing what he knew he needed to do. Now that it was almost over, and that Rodcliff was almost safe, he was almost sorry to see it done. Almost.
All of which meant that once he returned to Pellsglade, he was going to be leaving to put a stop to whatever plot had started here. He’d hunt down whoever was creating Lairs, find a way to stop them, and from there try to find whatever he could on the Eternal Seal. There had to be something, somewhere, that would give him a clue. Some fragment that had survived the ancient wars and the passage of time. Perhaps the Trickster would even give him a nudge in the right direction, assuming she wasn’t messing something else up.
Clay snorted, amused by his own blasphemy, and turned his thoughts to the struggle ahead of him. There would be slimes waiting for him, along with the Guardian. He wouldn’t be able to rely on the bonuses from [Defiant] to save him like he had with the scaled tyrant, but hopefully the rest of his [Experiences] would make up for the difference. The damage reduction from [Unyielding] alone would do wonders, as long as he didn’t let himself get hit too hard.
The others started to wake behind him, and Clay looked over as the camp stirred to life. It would be time to go soon. He brushed himself off and stood.
It was time to finish the mission.
Clay paused at the mouth of the tunnel, his ethereal senses clamoring in his skull. He looked around at the others, taking in their serious expressions. “Well, here we are again.”
A rough chuckle ran through them, though Xavien and Natalie both just rolled their eyes. Anne gave him a broad grin while Jack just nodded seriously. Lawrence kept his eyes fixed on the tunnel, as if expecting the enemy to make an appearance after all.
He continued in a low voice. “It’s going to be like last time, but harder. You’ve all fought those giant ironslimes; I’m betting there’s another bunch of them just waiting for us to show up. Plenty of the smaller ones will be there as well, along with whatever Guardian the Lair has. We still don’t know anything about what that can do, and we’ll need to wipe them all out if we want this to end.”
Clay paused, and he looked down the tunnel. “We can’t let them stop us. This Lair is the last thing that threatens Rodcliff, and if it survives, then the town is dead. The monsters are too close, and without the lizards keeping them in balance, they’ll swarm the place. Everyone there will need to run, or they’ll be dead.”
He looked back at them, seeing the recognition of the stakes in their eyes. “So when we move in there, be careful. Be brave, but don’t risk yourselves too far. I want heroes, living ones, by the end of this fight. We’ll leave the dying to them.”
“Move fast, hit hard, and help each other, and we’ll all get through this.” Clay looked around one last time, mentally bracing himself for the combat ahead. “Let’s go.”
He turned and led them into the tunnel, watching for signs of opportunistic ambushers as they approached the Lair itself. After a short walk, he started to see the same unnatural light of the Curse itself flickering over the stones ahead, and steeled himself for whatever was waiting for him.
The mine once again opened up into another broader junction, one where the Curse itself sat close to the back. Where the first Lair had been littered with the leathery husks of dead eggshells, this one had scattered pools of deep, clear fluid, obviously etched into the floor. Clay identified them as spawning pools almost immediately, and just as clearly, they seemed to be close to bursting; he thought he could see the cores of the would-be ironslimes shifting within the deeper pools, already showing signs of life.
Those monsters were not alone, however. Dozens of small ironslimes were nestled in every crevice of the cave, with some even hanging from the higher parts of the ceiling. All of them seemed to ripple briefly as the team reached the mouth of the Lair, as if they were sensing their role in the fight to come. Larger ironslimes were scattered across the breadth of the Lair, their bodies half-buried in stone that seemed almost mushy from their digestive juices. Five giant ironslimes were clustered together in a group in the very center of the ceiling, their dark bulks already clenching and preparing to spray at the intruders.
Clay, however, focused only on what had to be the Guardian. A single slime stood apart from the others, lumped into the middle of the cavern below the giants. It was easily larger than any of them, though its clear skin revealed layers of glistening ooze within. The core was impossible to see against that background glow, and it seemed to shift excitedly as he stepped forward.
Fortunately, he’d already used the Orison. The Words of Refrain made it easy to use the [Chant] on the newest monster.
[Guardian Ur-Slime (Iron)]
[Rank: 10, Type: Slime, Status: Lord of the Second Lost Mine Lair]
[Type Kills: 0, Deaths Caused: 8]
[Instincts: Guardian, Creator, Commander, Eternal]
It wasn’t much information to go on, though the very name of the ur-slime did not encourage Clay to face it. At the very least, he had confirmed that it was the actual Guardian, and not some clone or ironslime pretender. He’d actually been a bit worried about the ironslimes somehow managing to hide their Guardian among their shifting forms—after all, who could tell two slimes apart, aside from size.
Fortunately, the shining slime wasn’t trying to hide. Instead, it drew itself up, and the air seemed to fill with a cloud of scents that Clay couldn’t even begin to identify.
Then it launched itself forward, and the entire cave seemed to flow in at them, as if the very stone itself was a river coming to meet them.
Clay crouched and started moving, his spear held in his hands and the Flame-tongued Song on his lips. He didn’t know if it would be useful against the Guardian itself, but it would make it that much easier to forge a path through the lesser monsters, at the very least. The others charged around him, their voices a mixture of [Chants], [Charms], and warcries that echoed through the stone chamber. It was a curious contrast to the silence of their opponents, who threw themselves forward with nothing more than scraping sounds to announce themselves.
The first of the slimes reached Clay, and he lashed out with his spear immediately. Small slimes died and exploded in clouds of dispersed fluids, quickly filling the air with toxic fumes. Overhead, the larger ones clenched, and Clay was forced to dodge and deflect as a rain of stone spears came down. He heard Lawrence calling on his [Invisible Ward], while the others dodged and blocked as best they could.
A heartbeat later, one of the giant ironslimes froze. As it began to shiver, Clay caught sight of a cluster of stone tentacles crushing its core, and mentally congratulated the [Occultist] for scoring the first of the larger kills. When it exploded a moment later, raining poison and fleshy chunks in all directions, it knocked at least two of its companions from the ceiling. One of them fell directly onto a spike of ice that Xavien had called forth; the other was hit by an arrow that looked like it could have punched through an oak tree. Neither exploded, but it was clear they weren’t going to be pulling themselves back up anytime soon.
Clay turned his attention back to his own charge and found a cluster of big ironslimes blocking the way. They had moved under the stone, and were reaching for him with their tendrils. He slashed and hacked and cut, carving off pieces of them with ease as he pushed his way through their clutches. More fluid and poison filled the air; it was already starting to get hard to breathe.
Then he completed the Flame-tongued Song, and he filled the air with fire. The ironslimes burned, their severed fragments withering and bursting. They withdrew their bodies back under the floor in a panic, though rivulets of flame chased them under the ground. Clay saw them run and suppressed the urge to track them down and finish them. He had bigger prey to worry about now.
The ur-slime rolled forward, its formidable bulk shining almost as much as the guttering fires or the shining Curse behind it. Clay stepped forward, his spear held tightly in his hands. He willed it to expose himself, to lash out at him and leave itself vulnerable.
Instead, the ur-slime simply rolled forward and tried to crush him beneath its bulk. Clay was forced to dodge aside at the last moment, its glistening bulk nearly catching his feet beneath it as it went by. Clay hit the ground, rolled, and killed a pair of small ironslimes as he stood up. He watched as the ur-slime’s momentum came to a stop, and the thing came back at him, still moving with impressive speed.
This time, Clay didn’t wait for an attack. He charged in and hacked at the ur-slime, stepping out of the direct path of its charge. The speartip caught the flesh of the Guardian and bit into it, gouging out a furrow that would have left a brutal, gushing wound in any of the ironslimes.
The ur-slime, however, simply sealed the wound. It came to a stop near Clay, towering over him. He felt a hint of fear at its size and apparent lack of concern for his weapons.
Then it seemed to explode, reaching out with three different pseudopods to grasp him.
Clay threw himself backwards, lashing out with his spear in a series of stabs meant to fend off the questing tendrils of slime. His spearblade bit deep once, twice, three times, four… The slime didn’t seem to notice or care. Each impact made the individual pseudopod tremble and retreat slightly, but the slime itself simply continued to chase after him, sprouting more and more shining limbs to reach for him.
Frantic, Clay began to recite the Words of Refrain. The thing hadn’t shown any aversion to fire, but it might convince it to back away a little. The [Chant] completed in mere moments, and he breathed flame straight into the middle of the monster that was chasing him.
To his surprise and relief, the ur-slime’s response was immediate. It recoiled, its many arms retreating as the fire crisped its shining skin.
Then it began to glow red, the color leaching into it from the place where the flame had been burning through it. As Clay let the [Chant] die, the entire ur-slime radiated a cherry-red aura, as if it had transformed into metal heated in the forge. He could feel the heat from it, the air seeming to bake and distort around it.
He took a cautious step backward, wary of a trick. The ur-slime pulsed, as if it had exhaled a breath of hot air, a rush of heat that sapped the moisture from the atmosphere.
Then a portion of the ur-slime seemed to bulge out, and Clay crouched, ready to spring aside. He expected a stone blade, like the ironslimes used, or perhaps another lashing arm of slime.
What he got instead was a portion of the ur-slime suddenly breaking free. It plopped with a sizzling sound onto the bare rock, and Clay backed up slightly. His eyes darted from the smaller blob to the larger slime, and he saw another half dozen blobs forming all around it. Despite himself, he took another step back.
Then the smaller blob jumped straight at him, hurtling directly at his face as if it had no self-preservation at all. Clay reacted on instinct as much as anything else; his spear came up and stabbed, meeting the blob halfway. He saw the blade pierce the thing’s hide. It deformed slightly around the speartip, as if it was resisting the wound.
A half-heartbeat later, the world went white as the blob exploded.
Clay was thrown across the cavern, his armor sizzling from the fireball. He tumbled slightly, striking an outcropping of rock as he spun. The ringing in his head cleared enough for him to ball up as he rolled, and once his momentum had slowed, he lurched to his feet.
His vision cleared quickly enough that he saw the ur-slime rolling at him again, this time trailed by half a dozen red, glowing blobs. Clay grit his teeth as he recognized the problem; he started the Canticle of Ice a moment later. He struck at the ur-slime as he dodged aside again, but his spear seemed to leave no more impression than it had before. When the rest of the blobs came for him, he danced aside, darting a look at the others to see how things were going for them.
He caught sight of them surrounded by dozens of small ironslimes who were trying to bury them under the weight of numbers. It didn’t seem to be going well for the monsters, however; waves of fire, lightning, and stone ripped the small creatures apart, while the larger ones were melting away. Clay could only see one giant ironslime left, and there were barely half a dozen large ones still surviving. If he could hold out for long enough…
The ur-slime came for him again, its arms reaching and grasping, and he was forced to refocus. He kept the arms from grappling him with a series of frantic stabs and hacks, only to see the smaller ones circling around to come at him from behind.
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He snarled and dodged as one of them jumped for him. Clay felt the heat of it searing the edge of his hair as it went by, but he didn’t dare strike it. If the explosion had knocked him towards the slime instead of away from it…
Clay kept moving, kept dodging grasping arms and evading the glowing blobs, even as he reached the end of the Canticle. He doubted that hitting the ur-slime would do much good. In fact, magic seemed to empower the thing, so best to avoid it and eliminate its minions first.
He ducked beneath another glowing blob, batted an arm away, and jumped backwards out of reach. The Canticle answered his call, and spears of ice formed, lashing out at the glowing blobs. They detonated in a wave of concussions that shook the floor beneath his feet. All but one of the blobs died.
His eyes widened. The one that had survived had been shielded—by one of the ur-slime’s graspers. A spear of ice had penetrated the thing’s thick flesh, and it slowly dissolved as a white glow spread through the ur-slime. He could already see new buds forming across its surface, all glowing with that same white light.
Clay grunted. Clearly, the thing wanted to be hit by magic. Yet he couldn’t just rush in, not with all the little minions running around. Physical attacks didn’t seem to do much, but perhaps he just needed to hit it a little harder.
Still, before anything else, he needed a clear battlefield. Clay put aside his spear for the moment and took out his shortbow.
The weapon hadn’t seen much use in the past few days, mostly because of the hides and defenses of the creatures he’d been fighting. Now, however, he had targets worth shooting. As the blobs came rushing towards him again, Clay backpedaled calmly and drew an arrow back.
His first shot caught the red blob, the one that still had some kind of flame magic stored in it. It exploded in a wash of flame, something that made the others shy away from it. Clay grinned and fired another four times, picking off the ice-white blobs that were budding from the ur-slime. They popped and exploded just as easily, sprouting thickets of frozen spikes each time. One of them even burst while it was still attached to the ur-slime, and the Guardian shook with apparent rage at the loss of its minion.
Clay paused dramatically, and then picked off the last two in quick succession as they came around the ur-slime’s bulk. They exploded in showers of ice, and he smirked at the Guardian. He didn’t know if the thing could see, but it still seemed to be able to feel the loss of its little friends. A little taunting was not a bad thing.
He stowed the shortbow and recovered his spear as the ur-slime lurched forward. The ice-white glow was already fading from its flesh, but it still reached for him with limbs thick enough to cover his entire torso. Clay responded by hacking away at them, trying to batter them away while he thought about what he was facing.
Magic was obviously ineffective, though he wondered if he could eventually wear it down by convincing it to bud the little explosive blobs and then destroying them. He could only imagine it would come up with some other way to surprise him, though. Hacking and slashing at the thing didn’t seem to have almost any effect; its hide simply shrugged off the blows, and any cuts that made it through the hide seemed to seal almost immediately. The limbs were too thick for him to sever in a single strike, too. How was he supposed to kill this thing?
His mind flashed back through the battle. Magic had harmed it a little, but not enough. The flames had barely scorched it, and when the spear of ice had punched through it, the thing—
Clay paused and ducked beneath another grasper. The ice spear had gotten through the skin, even if it had been absorbed afterward. It probably wasn’t the ice. Had it been the type of attack? Could it be weaker to thrusts than slashes? The arrows had popped its minions easily. Could similar attacks work better on the ur-slime itself?
He smashed a grasper aside, then knocked a second one out of his way. Then Clay stepped forward, his breath coming short in his throat, and stabbed directly into the bulk of the creature.
The hide of the Guardian deformed slightly, as the thing’s skin resisted the point of his spear.
Then the spearpoint penetrated, and a greenish fluid sprayed from the wound. It hissed and fizzled on the stone, eating through the rock, and Clay yanked his spear back. A flick of the spear rid the weapon of the monster’s acidic ichor. It recoiled, a trickle of green running from the narrow wound.
{Insight increases by 1!}
Clay smiled.
He charged, even as the ur-slime lashed out with a wave of graspers. Clay ran gleefully into the monster’s reach, batting tendrils aside or deflecting them with his spear. His spearpoint became a blur as he closed with the creature and then slipped in past its guard. Three lightning-fast stabs punched through the ur-slime’s hide, and each time it jerked backwards, leaving a wound to smoke and hiss as green ichor leaked from the hole.
His charge came to a sudden stop as a grasper wrapped around his leg. Clay grunted as it squeezed; he could almost feel his bones grinding together. In response, he stabbed the thing a fourth time, punching the blade in up to the crossguards, and then yanked out his Pell knife. The heavy blade punched through the tendril’s skin easily as he stabbed it once, twice, three times. As the strength went out of the grasper, Clay yanked his way free and pulled his spear out to renew the attack.
The Guardian was in retreat now, flailing with its limbs to try to keep him from following it. Clay followed it doggedly, stabbing it again and again in a frenzy. Acid sizzled and hissed, occasionally burning on his armor or skin. He kept using the [Chant] of Pure Touch to clear it away as he advanced, always continuing to attack.
Finally, with its hide pockmarked by bleeding stab wounds, the ur-slime heaved itself backwards. Clay dashed in, hoping for a chance to strike something vital enough to kill the creature.
Then it seemed to explode in seven different directions—one of which was launched directly at his face.
Clay reacted on instinct again. His spear met the incoming mass of slime with unerring accuracy and speed. It exploded a moment later, washing over him in a flood of acid. He staggered backwards, swiping at his face as the stuff burned; he completed Pure Touch a moment later, and the acid vanished, driven away by the [Chant].
He opened his eyes and realized that the ur-slime had actually scattered itself, dividing into smaller creatures that were now starting to surround him. Against another foe, it might have worked; against Clay, it seemed to smack of desperation.
Clay unlimbered his bow again and put an arrow into the closest of the slime fragments. It shuddered around the wound, and he put a second arrow into it before it could escape. The fragment exploded in a shower of acid.
He heard a squelching sound behind him and leapt forward. When he turned, he saw a pair of slime fragments slamming into the ground behind him, their graspers falling just short of him. Clay put a pair of arrows into one and smashed the second one aside; it joined its comrades in death a moment later.
Four down. He looked around for the other three and found two headed for the others were fighting. His eyes widened for a moment as he took in the magic that they were flinging around. If they hit a fragment with the wrong spell…
He fought down his own worries and centered himself. His bow came up, and he fired arrow after arrow. Two arrows claimed one fragment. A third hit the other. It managed to lurch out of the way of the fourth shot, but the fifth caught it just as it was leaping towards Xavien. The [Oracle] yelped as the acid splashed near his boot, but Clay was already turning away.
Where had the last fragment gone? The Guardian wasn’t going to just abandon the Lair. It couldn’t. Whatever its self-preservation instincts might have been, it had to protect the Curse. If he tried to purge the place without killing it, the thing would find some way to attack him.
Of course, that also meant he knew exactly what he could do to draw it out.
Clay headed for the shining light of the Curse. The Guardian would know that he could destroy the Curse; they always seemed to be aware of his ability to do that, at least. It wouldn’t let him finish the [Chant], but would it try to interrupt him, or to stop him from even starting?
The question was answered a moment later, as he stepped over a narrow lip of rock and the ground seemed to explode with slime.
It wasn’t just the slime fragment; the five large ironslimes that had fled from him before were there as well, flinging themselves at him with tendrils extended. The ferocity of the attack would have taken him aback if he hadn’t already been expecting it. True, he hadn’t expected that many arms to be reaching for him, but he’d anticipated something to interrupt his charge.
His spear became a blur again as he smashed and hacked at the slimes. Rubbery flesh tore and noxious fumes filled the air as he drove the five ironslimes away from him. The ur-slime’s final remnant, however, ducked beneath his spear and leaped for his face, already extending a grasper to cover his head.
Clay ducked out of the way, his hand yanking the knife from his belt and driving it into the mass of the ur-slime. The heavy knife punctured its flesh easily, and acid washed over his forearm as he shoved the slime fragment up and back. It thrashed at him, partially engulfing his arm. Clay grunted and wrenched the knife back and forth, twisting the blade deeper into the ur-slime.
The fragment twisted and fell away. Acid spattered from the wound as it hit the ground and started to move away. He could see the ironslimes gathering themselves for another assault.
Before they could attack, he threw his spear at the ur-slime and impaled it. The blade of the spear tore through it and struck stone, burying the well-forged weapon in the mine’s floor. For a moment, all seemed to go still.
Then the ur-slime’s final fragment exploded, showering the area with acid.
{Guardian Ur-Slime slain! Soul increases by 100}
Clay winced and finished the Words of Refrain, purging himself of the stinging fluid, and then turned on the ironslimes. He found them writhing, still covered in the acid of their forebearer’s death. They seemed uncertain, as if suddenly wanting to flee.
He didn’t give them the chance. Clay began the Flame-tongued Song and leaped forward, his knife still clutched in his hand. The Pell knife tore jagged holes in their already weakened hide even as they shuddered and tried to withdraw. Their attacks seemed to bounce off his armor harmlessly, barely more than he would have felt from a blow while he wrestled back on the farm.
Then he activated the [Chant] and bathed them in fire. All five ironslimes died in a wash of flame.
Panting from exertion, Clay turned to search for more monsters, only to see the others already jogging towards him. They looked a little battered, but most of them were smiling. There was no sign of any other monsters in the mine; if any of the ironslimes had survived, they had run for it.
He smiled at them. “Well done. The pools are probably where the ironslimes are coming from, so let’s make sure we burn every single one of them. I don’t want a single slime to come out of them.”
The others nodded, and they spread out with torches in their hands and the [Chant] for Spontaneous Spark on their lips. Clay watched them for a moment and then turned towards the Curse itself.
It hovered, just as the other two had, its unnatural glow filling the air. Just as before, the terrible wrongness of its presence made it hard to focus on anything else.
There was another corpse kneeling in front of it, though it was dressed differently than the last one had been. The figure wore armor and had a sword at its feet. He frowned, stepping closer. Its clothing seemed richer, more well-made than any miner or overseer could wear. A dull realization settled over him as he recognized the symbol on its chest.
It was Baron Rodcliff, the [Noble] that had vanished before he and his friends had arrived. A grim suspicion stole through him, but he rejected the idea immediately. The baron had been a low level [Noble]; if he had been the Rogue that had written the [Chant] on the wall of the last mine, he would have died there instead of the miner. Whoever the Rogue had been, they had somehow condemned Baron Rodcliff to the same fate as that miner.
He pictured it in his mind. The baron and his [Guards] had somehow fought their way to this mine and taken shelter. Then, as they had fortified the entrance and set a watch, they had spread out through the cave, making sure that nothing was waiting in the darkness to ambush them. Baron Rodcliff had searched along with his [Guards], and once he reached this place…
Clay turned his head to follow the dead baron’s vision, and there he found it. The same deadly [Chant] scrawled across the wall in the same jagged marks. It had been a second trap, and a second level [Noble] had not had a single chance to resist. It would have burrowed through his mind and seized control of his tongue before the baron had even realized what was happening. He and all of his [Guards] had likely died in moments, while the new Lair had fed from their last breaths.
He felt a flicker of anger from that image and recommitted himself to finding the Rogue responsible.
Then his gaze drifted lower, and he felt a bolt of terror as he recognized Lawrence standing in front of the [Chant].
For a heartbeat, Clay was frozen in place. The [Occultist] was staring up at the [Chant], his eyes wide. Lawrence’s mouth was clamped shut; Clay could see a dribble of blood leak from a spot where the man had literally bitten down on his lip. Both his hands were clenched tight; his quarterstaff had rolled away to the side from where he’d dropped it.
Clay was by the man’s side in three quick strides, the [Chant] of the True Blotter already spilling from his lips. If there was one benefit, it was that the [Chant] of the Poisoned Wish was a long one, and Lawrence was obviously fighting it. He reached the wall a moment later, and a few rushed words later, the scrawled text vanished from the wall, erased from existence.
He heard Lawrence groan in relief and turned to see him falling to his knees. The [Occultist] began to gasp for air, as if he’d been holding his breath underwater. Perhaps he had literally been holding his breath, worried that the words would come out.
Clay was by his side a moment later, putting both his hands on the [Occultist]’s shoulders. “Lawrence. Sir Lawrence, are you all right?”
Lawrence nodded, still heaving and sucking in air. “Y-yeah. I-I’m f-fine.” The [Occultist] shook his head, shivering as if he had been drenched in ice. “F-finish it.”
He paused for a few moments more, fear clawing through his mind. If the [Chant] had taken hold somehow…
Then he glanced up at the Curse, which had started the slow process of retreating. It would be safe from him if it managed to go dormant. Then some other fool would have to deal with it in the years down the road.
He hadn’t let it happen last time. It wasn’t going to happen this time either. Anger and rage tore through him as he stared up at the breach in reality and began the Garden’s Peace.
It fought him, as the others had before. The light of the Curse flared and struggled, wisps of the thing trailing from it and lashing at the stone surrounding it. Frustration and stubbornness helped him to bear down against the pressure; the words of the [Chant] spilled out phrase by phrase, line by line. He could sense the spell building the walls around the Curse, containing it, compressing it. The light intensified, nearly becoming a blinding glare. Clay ignored it and continued sealing the wound in the world with each and every syllable.
Once again, it seemed to take forever, but the image of Lawrence almost dying to the [Chant] and the fate of Baron Rodcliff gave him more than enough motivation to see it through. Even the fatigue and pain didn’t slow him as he reached the climax of the [Chant]. He shouted those last words, hammering them into the Curse as if he was nailing it to the wall behind it.
In response, the Curse began its final collapse. As before, the thing lashed out at him, an unearthly scream that shivered through his soul. It was too little, too late. He watched as shadows gathered around it, the eerie light fading from the world. Then, all at once, the Curse seemed to fall away into nothingness.
This time, the others had torches in their hands. Instead of darkness, the loss of the Curse’s harsh light left only flickering firelight behind. Shadows danced on the walls in front of him, and Clay slowly slumped to his knees. He leaned back and tilted his head to stare at the ceiling.
{Curse of Second Lost Mine destroyed! Soul increases by 1000 for all nearby heroes}
{Will increases by 1! Fortitude increases by 1!}
{Commoner reaches Level 12!}
{Maximum level for all Stats is now 27!}
{Experience gained (Tunneler: Gain 5% bonus to all skills inside of an underground area. Gain extra 15% bonus to the Tracking skill in an underground area.)}
{Experience gained (Champion: Gain 20% bonus to all skills and damage when facing a Guardian.)}
{Experience Exterminator has gained power from destroying a Curse! Experience is now Exterminator II: Gain triple the bonus from all Bane Achievements.}
The notifications from the [Gift] brought out an explosive sigh. Another Lair purged, another Curse destroyed. He’d reached another level, and his companions had advanced by one level, maybe even two. Rodcliff was safe now; there would be no more monsters, beyond the handful that were still roaming the woods north of town. It would be the kind of threat that even a low level [Noble] could handle once a replacement reached them in the spring. For now, the [Guards] could just have the other [Commoners] hunker down and wait. He could even have his team stay for an extra handful of days to track down any that stayed close to the mines instead of scattering to the wind.
Either way, the mission was done. No more monsters, no more overwhelming threats. It was time to return to the town and let them know it was over.
He smiled. For some reason, he could already picture the celebration.