Chapter 46 – Solace Behind the Waterfall
I frantically paddled away from the allosaurus, summoning my love whip to drag me away as the allosaurus flailed in the water with its sauropod prey.
Crack.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
-142 health
With a nasty crack, the whip pulled my left arm out of its shoulder socket, leaving me reeling pain so excruciating that I almost lost my senses.
[Your left arm has been dislocated. Seek immediate medical attention.]
Rosalia has casted [Luxurious Heal] on you.
+2 health
+2 health
+2 health
+2 health
+2 health
+2 health
+2 health
I felt my bones slowly slip back into their normal position as I continued to swim away from the bloody flailing mess in the lake. More allosauruses converged on the wounded juvenile, and the towering sauropods above slowly pivoted their massive bodies to batter them with their tails.
You have received a [Buff] from Rosalia.
+100 physical defense
+100 magic resistance
+100 vitality
Above me, Rosalia hovered between the mammoth sauropods in her white clerical robes, and readied a magic circle. Instead of swimming towards the waterfall, which Bjorn was doing, I decided to deviate from the original plan, turning back around to Siege Tank Golem.
Whrrrrrreeeeeeee-
An adult sauropod’s tail struck the allosaurus biting down on the juvenile in a sweeping motion. Blood stained the otherwise crystalline water as the juvenile sauropod broke free from the allosaurus’s jaw after the impact, while letting out a pitiful squeal.
Water splashed everywhere as the allosaurus sank into the water before resurfacing due to its buoyancy. Up ahead, I could see a faint glimpse of Bjorn shouting for us to hurry up. Nuh-uh. No way I was swimming through those monsters while they were still in the water ahead.
Undeterred even after one of their pack was hurt, the allosauruses continued to snap their jaws at the juveniles, in the hopes of scoring some easy prey. The fight was getting closer and closer to me, and I back paddled towards Siege Tank Golem with my one good arm as [Luxurious Heal] continued to slowly tick and mend my limp left arm.
Splash.
EEEEE! EEEE! EEEEE!
One of the larger juveniles was caught by two of the waterborne allosauruses, and let out pained squeals one after another that sounded like a pig being butchered. With one jaw clamped on its foot, and the other on its neck, the two tyrannosaurus-like animals began to slowly tear apart the poor juvenile sauropod, stretching its neck and leg against each other so hard that its body shape and skin began to warp and tear. The leg was first to go, completely tearing off at the joint and exposing bloody red flesh that was leaking blood.
The awful squeals the juvenile sauropod made while being ripped apart alive would haunt me for a long time. Nothing could quite describe the sheer gut wrenching horror it was to hear an animal’s pained and helpless high pitch cries while being torn apart and eaten alive.
Its neck was next. With a vicious bite, the allosaurus tore through the skin of the sauropod’s neck and sank its teeth in. It twisted its head back and forth, shaking the juvenile’s neck as it slowly died. A third allosaurus joined in, biting down right at the pained animal’s tender genital area, where the meat was softest and easiest to access through the hide.
[You are now sick.]
As someone who was easily squeamish, I lurched forward and vomited right into the lake, gasping for air as I kicked my legs desperately to stay afloat while convulsing. With only one hand helping me paddle upwards, I felt myself sinking.
Dun. Dun.
Siege Tank Golem just reached me, and knelt down so that his shoulder was at water level. I desperately tried to climb him with one hand unsuccessfully, until he lifted his large stone hand and gently guided me up to his shoulder. Once I landed belly first on his scorching hot sun-baked stone shoulder, he stood back up.
Gasping for breath, I turned around and flopped over. Sensing that it was already too late, the herd of sauropods turned their backs on the caught sauropod, and the entire herd slowly walked towards the direction of the waterfall while shielding their young and vulnerable by leaving the larger adults on the outer perimeter.
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The allosauruses tore into the flesh of the juvenile sauropod, who was now floating sideways in the water, missing half a leg and an entire section from its neck. It groaned and whimpered feebly as its neck slowly moved up while the allosauruses began aggressively consuming its flesh from the bottom up.
Rosalia landed on Siege Tank Golem’s shoulder right next to me, with a pained expression on her face. She averted her gaze from the sickening feeding and placed her cold palm on my forehead, checking my temperature. Taking the cross pendant from between her breasts, she pressed it onto me with an open hand and began channeling a healing spell.
[Your sickness has been reduced.]
[Your feebleness has been reduced.]
I felt some strength return to my body as her healing magic flooded me with divine energy.
“I’m running out of mana,” Rosalia said in a worried voice. “Let’s get to the waterfall soon.”
“Okay,” I managed to croak out, still pale from the whole ordeal. At our high vantage point, it was easier to take an impersonal approach while looking down at the unfortunate situation below.
THUD.
I grabbed onto a spike handle to avoid being thrown overboard as Siege Golem rocked back and forth from the impact of an allosaurus barreling itself against it. Rosalia began to fall until she activated her hover ability, which prevented her fatal plunge into the jaw of the waiting allosaurus. Biting with its side teeth into the golem’s rock appendages as if it was trying to tear off a hunk of flesh, the allosaurus withdrew its jaw and investigated the golem more carefully. Perhaps it was expecting to contact flesh from a moving object, not pure stone. The allosaurus drew backwards, and charged again.
“Just keep going, buddy. You’re doing good,” I said to Siege Tank Golem, who was most definitely living up to the tank portion of his name as he continued to plow forward through the water. The golem nodded in acknowledgement and took another step forward, while using its massive arm to sweep away the allosaurus like it was slowly pushing a lotus flower through water. With the Crown of the Forgotten King on my head, I carefully constructed a familiar magic circle in front of me and directed it at the allosaurus.
BOOM.
-122 health.
Holy shit. This recoil was out of control now that my intelligence was so high. Even with the extra hundred magic resist from Rosalia’s buff, I was still burning through my health at an alarming rate.
A crackle of lightning shot from my arm down at the allosaurus, which jumped backwards reflexively. The bolt hit the surface of the water with a blast, instantly vaporizing a bit of water on the surface and causing some boiling bubbles momentarily. Although I missed the animal by a meter, the shocking current spread through the water and reached it.
[370 electrical damage, CRITICAL HIT.]
Wow, I never saw the words critical hit in full caps before, until now. The water amplified the effect of electricity in a terrifying way. And this was just freshwater… if this fight happened in the ocean, where the salt water could conduct the electric charge even better, any lightning mage was an unstoppable monster.
If only I could get close enough to perform a melee thunderbolt… actually, casting thunderbolt while underwater was an instant death sentence to myself. Scratch that idea.
Shrugging off the sudden electrocution, the allosaurus retreated to the other three dining on the juvenile sauropod that could only move feebly and twitch its muscles as its nether regions and guts spilled out into the lake.
Without enough health or mana to engage them, Rosalia and I simply watched on as my behemoth golem waded by the bloody feeding frenzy underneath. Rosalia didn’t even get to fully charge her holy power, so she couldn’t cast reraise right now, which increased our risk significantly.
Thankfully, the allosaurus that was curious about us earlier lost its interest after being shocked, and so we made our way through the lake without much incident. We reached the sauropods near the waterfall. They did not react to the golem, sensing that it was no threat to them. Siege Golem stepped between one of the larger one’s legs, and we approached the massive waterfall. The golem lumbered to a part of the waterfall that was easier to walk through, then lifted its arm over our heads and stepped through.
Even with the golem’s arms blocking the water, we were still hit by a blast of water that sprayed us from all sides, as it went around the golem’s arm. Drenched from head to toe by the icy cold water, we entered a clearing behind the waterfall. The sheer pressure from the waterfall was causing small droplets of vapor to wisp around and bend near the cavern walls, creating a mesmerizing mist-like effect.
Siege Tank Golem lowered its large arm, creating a staircase. Clutching my limp left shoulder, I carefully stepped over the golem’s whirling metal apparatus and down its arm. Rosalia held me by my waist and arm to give me balance while she hovered in the air to the right of the golem’s shoulder, her soaked white robes clinging onto her figure, and I limped down the golem with much difficulty.
Bjorn stood right in front of us, with a beaming smile on his face. “I thought you two were done for, but you’re both hardier than I expected, eh?”
Out of breath, I sank to the ground and ruffled my wet hair, then looked around. The dwarf had clearly made himself at home in the cave, as a bed fashioned out of straw was in the corner, next to a stone desk that he must have carved himself. Various tools made of stones and ores I didn’t recognize littered the area around the desk, and further in the back of the cave was a lot of rubble, where the dwarf was trying to mine his way up and out of the island. If only we could get to the top of the waterfall, we’d be back to where we were before the fall.
My clothes were fully soaked inside and out, but on the bright side, at least it washed off that awful ammonia smell from the urine Bjorn applied on us.
“Welcome, welcome,” Bjorn said while handing us two hand crafted stone cups. “Make yourselves at home.”
Bjorn took out a piece of chalk stone , and headed to the wall of the cavern. “Come, look.”
On the side of the cavern was a meticulously carved depiction of the entire island, and chalk marks detailing territories and temporary landmarks like fallen trees and other such phenomena were carefully documented. Bjorn blew on the white piece of chalk stone he had in his hand, and stepped on his desk for some elevation to draw.
I stood by with Rosalia, studying the diagram carefully. This kind of information could be the difference between life and death.
“As you can see here,” Bjorn spoke while tapping his chalk on a carved depiction of a waterfall. “This is allosaurus territory, which overlaps a bit with raptor territory. Over here to this end until the end of the island is T. rex territory, but here… this lake? Even the T. rexes don’t drink from there. It’s the home of the Razanandrongobe Sakalavae, a species of massive crocodile so big that they can take down even a rex.”
“I haven’t documented every species on the island, but trust me, out of all the species here on this island, you never want to run into one of those.”
Right as Bjorn made that statement, Siege Tank Golem extended one of its large fingers towards the diagram, pointing directly at the diagram of the lake.
“My Master’s tomb.... is here.” the golem said in its booming baritone voice. “There is a way… up.”
At those words, Bjorn looked on in stunned disbelief, before slapping his belly and letting out a roaring laugh. “You have to be kidding me. There, of all places??”