The trio slowly walked around the massive crystal. The two humans casually poking, pushing, tapping, and kicking various parts of the crystal in their quest to figure out the best way to remove it. Neval however was just watching in amusement at the humans’ attempts. She knew nobody ever cared for such large crystals due to the massive headache in just getting the things out of the dungeons, much less the extreme difficulty of cutting the things down to a useable size. The only things harder to cut were diamonds!
The two humans looked at each other and nodded. “Yep. This’l do.” John said with a grunt as he tapped the crystal a few times. “More than enough to get our accounts started up and give the ship some juice. The little gems-“ he looked at Neval “-crystals, my bad, will help power a lot of the little things around the ship.”
Neval couldn’t help but chuckle. “Alright. Your guns are impressive, but how do you plan on removing that chunk of solid crystal? I mean your guns did a little damage to the stone walls but that crystal is far tougher.” She gave the bright red gem a few solid taps with her staff to emphasize her point. “I mean this stuff is some of the hardest stuff we can find! The only reason it isn’t used in armor or weapons is due to it being too brittle to hold an edge and not very easy to work into armor. Otherwise we- What are you doing with that bundle and string?”
She was smart enough to already be backing out of the room a little bit when she saw it. The humans were already strange enough that when they brought out something so odd that she couldn’t help be cautious.
Once she heard Jack laugh as he started to put the package at the bottom of the stone she slid back into the main hall and gave the door some space. That was not a laugh one could trust.
“Alright Nel- Nelva? Where did you go?” Jack’s voice called out as he looked around the room once the charges were set. He wanted to make sure their new friend was nowhere near the blast zone. Him and John quickly looked around the room before Jack poked his head back into the hall to see the frog already taking cover. “Ah! Good! So you have high explosives in this world too?” He asked as he motioned John over.
“High explosives? No, I am not familiar with that. I mean, I have heard of explosive spells but nothing like whatever that is.” She explained motioning to the room getting even more nervous as both Jack and John calmly walked out of the room only to sit next to her. Their armor was clearly very high end so they should be able to take most damage with ease. On top of that why would they just leave the crystal they clearly wanted behind?
And what was that metal tube in Jack’s hand?
“Oh. Well just sit there for a bit. Practical demonstration might be a better way to explain it.” Jack’s voice was still the normal upbeat tone, but even Nelva could pick up the rather disturbing glee that laced his words. “Alright! Lets pop! Clear?”
“Clear.” John replied. Soon a loud beep echoed down the caves. Nelva could see a strange red light flashing at the top of the strange tube as Jack started to count down.
“Alright, high energy mining in three. Two-“
>Motion detected in crystal room. Scans indicate three rats.
:I have a bad feeling about this.
“Awesome. One. Detonate.” Jack then pressed his thumb down on the top of the detonator that let out a shrill beep.
“De-“
Nelva never got to ask what the last word meant before her question was answered. Loudly. The cave shook and she could feel the blast wave roll through her body as dirt and dust was flung out of the entrance to the cavern room.
Nelva simply stared at the humans. Her eyes wide as she stared at the two as they calmly got up and walked into the room. “No rats spotted. Must have been near the charge.” John calmly said as he kicked some rubble around.
>Remains of rats detected among dirt and debris. Remains too small and buried to be able to detect with normal vision.
:I refuse to give anyone EXP for that. 3 rats killed.
Jack couldn’t help but chuckle at the idea of the rats just sniffing the charge before POOF! No more squeakers. In fact, the more he thought about it the more he chuckled. It was only Nelva giving him quite the look did he calm down.
John was more focused on the crystal as he brushed away the shattered remains of the rock and made sure the crystal itself was okay. Sure enough it looked like the larger gems were far more resilient than the ones found within monsters. He couldn’t help but hum about 16 tons in a deep, rich bass voice as he slowly used his armor to pry the crystal off of the remains of its base. Soon Jack joined in with a higher pitch as he grabbed the other end of the crystal.
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Nelva could only watch as the two humans lifted the crystal as they happily hummed away. The weight of the crystal was enough to make her doubt it was just the humans lifting it. She walked close to jack and soon she could pick up a faint noise from their armor. Was it enchanted? It didn’t sound like any enchantments she had read about. Then again this armor was nothing like she had ever seen before anyway.
:error
>error?
:er-^& spawn rate exvcuss e4t5nl frc. Wnrig!
>Alert! Horde detected approaching your position from an unknown source between you and the exit. Prepare for combat.
“Damnit!” Jack yelled out as the two humans put down the crystal sideways to help make a barrier. Soon Jack was lining up a collection of shells on top of the crystal’s top as John put a few mags down as well to get ready. Both focused on checking their gear to make sure they would be ready for whatever was about to come around the corner.
Nelva watched them prep as she stepped behind them. She could feel the ground rumble from the sheer amount of monsters coming towards them down the hall. Was it due to the crystal? The explosion? She took a deep breath and thought things through. She refused to just let them handle everything, and by the looks of how they were preparing this time would not be so easy for them. She had to help.
After just a little bit of thought she realized just what she could do.
“Oh mighty earth, strong and solid. I beg for you to relax your vigil and your strength and let those that would do me harm not be carried on your back. Open, and let their feet find no purchase!” She then slammed her staff down watching the gems glow.
The two men readied their rifles as the first rat popped its head around the corner only for what little brains it had to be blown apart by a single shot from John. As the rest of the horde came around the corner the floor began to shift and grind as once solid stone became loose gravel. She knew she didn’t have the power yet to truly kill many on her own, but she figured if she slowed the horde enough those guns would be able to take them out.
Her plan worked better than she expected. As the front line of the rat horde met the gravel their feet sunk into it causing them to topple over. Soon their squeaks of surprise turned into shrieks as the horde crawled over them soon burying them alive in a flood of fur and claw. This was repeated over and over again as whatever rats were in front fell over when their feet sunk into the gravel once the bridge of bodies ran out. Soon they were trampled into the gravel themselves to give their rattine “allies” a faster way of getting to their prey.
However the bridge could only form so fast, and each layer often caused a pile atop of it leading to more rat deaths. To make matters worse for the horde there was more than each other to fear. The two humans had settled into their pattern. Heavy rifle blasting apart anything that was of unusual size while the shotgun shredded the front line of rats slowing down all of the horde behind them that much more.
Jack at this point didn’t even bother aiming much. All he could do was blast away as fast as he could rach his shotgun, pausing only to slip in a few more shells before continuing to blast away. His buckshot slamming into the squeaking horde.
John wasn’t faring much better. He had rested his gun against the crystal and even with his careful shots was having to constantly swap out mags. Their withering fire continued for awhile before they reached back and pulled out their grenades. Neval wondered why they were taking out strange metal balls, but decided to default to “take cover” after seeing how they were handling things so far. She saw them pull on metal rings followed by a shard of metal popping off the grenades. She barely had time to think about how wasteful it was with metal before the two men threw them into the horde. She started to look over the crystal to see what was going to happen before Jack grabbed her and pulled her back down.
Once again a blast rocked the cavern and the shrieks of rats filled the air. She watched as they pulled out a few more grenades and tossed them into the horde butchering even more of them. They took turns as well. One prepping a grenade while the other either slid shells into their shotgun or bullets into empty mags. Once they ran out of grenades they popped back over and resumed their cruel pattern of slaughter.
Soon the horde became a few stragglers trying to make it over the mound of bodies only to be taken out as soon as their head popped out into view. To Neval’s shock it even became a competition for the two men to see who killed the next rat first while saying something like “whack-a-rat.”
After all she had just seen she opted to not ask any questions about it. She had questions about quite a lot more, and frankly she just needed a moment to calm down. She was also worried what else could happen if she did ask questions at this point.
:System restored. Oh. No. Not calculating that. All party members gain two levels for their brave defeat of the rat horde.
The two humans paused their efforts at lifting the giant crystal to move their bodies a bit to get used to the rush of power that came with a level up before they started to carry the crystal over the mass of bodies. The rat corpses making a wonderful bridge now over the gravel that Neval had made. While she wanted to ask what levels they were she decided once more to let that question wait.
Soon they were at the bottom of the well and a few small metal things drifted down. They latched onto the crystal before starting to haul it upwards towards what Neval could only describe as a massive floating building made of metal.
“That, is our ship.” Jack explained as he walked up to her.
“That is a ship!? Its made of metal and flies!” She pointed out with a croak as she looked between him and the ship above her.
“Yup! Now hold on tight to me and I will take you up to it.” He explained as he handed John his guns. Neval looked at him then the ship once more. This was her big chance. The chance to study humans, things from another world, and a ma-
Magnificent level of technology.
That.
She took a breath and calmly wrapped her arms around Jack using her naturally adhesive fingers to hold on tight. “Alright, so how are we getting-“
Her question was answered before she could finish with the roar of thrusters. A roar that could just barely hide a mix between a ribbit, scream, and profanity at a frog that had not been expecting either humans, or herself, to fly.