“…So you knew?” Weed asked calmly with his back against the boulder. The scorpion scuttled in Weed’s direction. The remaining survivors of the mining crew all hiding in crevices or behind boulders out of the scorpions view and reach. The monster simply, ran around in circles looking for them.
“…”
“You knew about the scorpion? Didn’t you Tasha?” Weed asked again, only louder this time.
“....”
“Answer him! Is he telling the truth?” Tinaquarrier asked, impatiently. He just lost four friends in rapid succession.
“You must know that Nigel asked us to keep this an absolute secret. This was necessary for the sake of our own safety.” Tasha shouted back.
The scorpion moved in Tasha’s direction.
“Sarkaan, did you know about it as well?” Tinaquarrier asked angrily.
“…”
‘Since when did games have such realistic NPC’s? Lying to each other? Is this some cinematic moment? The flow of the game didn’t seem to suggest this was scripted or was it crafted so well that it appeared so fluid and realistic? The range of emotions the NPC’s displayed, to a background story running in tandem which players were unaware of added to Elementarem Vim’s appeal. ‘Might as well join in on the fun.’
“Of course, Sarkaan knew!” Weed shouted back gleefully, he did not like Sarkaan for his meticulous approach to begin with. It was a good opportunity to burn Sarkaan and build bridges in one go. “How else, did he know what type of scorpion it was?”
Weed could hear scraping sound from behind him. The scorpion could not reach them at the moment. But it sure as hell was waiting for them. Talking was technically a hazard, although Sarkaan indicated that it the creature has no ears it could still pick up on vibrations no matter how tiny. It had trouble pinpointing it if it wasn’t a continuous flow but gained a rough idea where it’s target were. Weed wondered how did the scorpion distinguish between food and inanimate objects; pretty much like a bat using echo to hunt. To avoid giving away their location they spoke with long gaps of silence in between.
“Quiet! Its getting closer!” Masin shouted as he smelt it get very close to Weed. Indeed. The scraping sound was much closer now. It moved around them. By speaking up, the scorpion turned around and headed towards Masin.
“Phewww.” Weed breath a sigh of relief.
After a few hours, Weed noticed that it was still in the center of the cavern. ‘Its circling us!’ Everyone had the same realization as Weed, even though nobody moved a single voluntary muscle, their heart beats was a giveaway. The scorpion continued to make circuits around their location for a while.
As the stuffiness increased, Weed could feel a bead of sweat roll down his forehead. Waiting and doing absolutely in a game was the most boring part...however Weed did not at anytime feel bored. He had to remain alert and stay as still as he could. Though it wasn’t a perfect solution, up against a level E/500 monster he didn’t have many options. If you had to compare the scorpion to a monster in Royal Road, it would be on par with three Van Hawks. Its massive size, impossible to crack armor and four pincers only certified the perceived threat level as “instant death”. If Weed had played mortal combat, then the scorpions first and last attacking move would be ‘Fatality’ accompanied with a ‘Flawless Victory’ message. To sum it, wait it out or commit suicide by fighting the monster were the two options Weed faced.
After waiting hours, it eventually lost interest and went away.
‘Is it even possible to get a cramp in game?’ Weed asked to himself. He was flexing his body as quietly as possible when his foot knocked a small rock off the edge of the ledge. For Weed, the world around him slowed down. He instantly dropped to catch the stone...but it was too late. It gave off an echo with each bounce against the lower ledges till it came to silent halt on the mine’s floor where it rest in peace. The four dwarves who had come out of their hiding places stood motionless as they stared at the stone at the bottom. Hearing no clicking sounds of the pincers, they then shifted their gaze to Weed and glared at him menacingly. Weed himself flashed a guilty look in return, the last thing he wanted to do right now was risk calling the monster back.
Everyone looked at Masin with a questioning look on their face.
“SNIIIIFFFFF”
“SNIIIFFFFFF”
Masin gave a nod after taking a few deep sniffs. Everyone breathe a sigh of relief. The trauma finally ceased. Seeing the clear signal, Tinaquarrier rushed towards Sarkaan and lifted him by the collars and pushed him against the wall.
“Spill everything.” He said in steely tone. Weed’s mind registered the look. It was similar to the look his mother sport whenever she caught him doing something wrong. She will keep staring at you until you spill it. However, his mother’s eyes revealed a sense of warmth and care. Tinaquarrier eyes burned with the glare of hatred, he seemed to be on the tipping point ready to kill Sarkaan at any moment. Weed was overly joyed to see Sarkaan being lifted by the corners; Weed’s dislike for Sarkaan was made apparent with this. Weed also noted Tinaquarriers habit of lifting people by the collar, having experienced it himself; he knew Sarkaan felt very much threatened. Though dwarves maybe small, they are quite strong, just like ants. Tinaquarrier only proved that every time he lifted someone bigger or heavier than him.
Weed quickly turned towards Tasha. He showed no sense of surprise at Tinaquarriers actions. He also didn’t seem to be indicating he would break it off. He kept his peace and showed no remorse. Sarkaan on the other hand, began sweating and fidgeting. The silence stretched. Only the odd sounds of the wind howling through the mines could be heard.
“It’s the shell.” Said Sarkaan that broke first.
Tinaquarrier pressed Sarkaan against the wall, as if he was pressing him for more details.
“The diamond is the scorpion’s armored black shell!”
“Quiet, Sarkaan!” Hissed Tasha as he broke his silence. “Nigel..”
“No! It is enough that three of our brethren died. I shall have no more blood on my hands!”
Sarkaan that finally broke his silence shot back. Tinquarrier let go of Sarkaan who fell to the ground and started coughing. Tinaquarrier’s grip had him choked. Tasha wanted to say more but Tinaquarrier stepped forward. Both of dwarves were staring eye to eye. Their close friendship seemed to be drawing to a quick end. Tinaquarrier gripped the hilt of his sword tightly as Tasha reached in for his daggar. Weed who was on the sideline would swear that weapons were about to be pulled out and more than unncessary blood would be spilt. He simply decided to step between them. The two dwarves would have drawn their weapons out had it not be for Weed; killing each other off seemed the most amicable solution.
“Stop this. Both of you. We can do this later.” Weed pushed both Tinaquarrier and Tasha apart or at least tried he tried too. His low stat made it feel like he was prying between two walls. From Sarkaan’s or Masin’s or any third person view point it would look like Weed was feeling up the two dwarves chest. It would qualify as a WTF moment.
Tinaquarrier shot Tasha last hard look. It was a look that promised that matters were yet to be settled. Usually, matters between dwarves were settled involving hammers and cracked skulls. Tasha shot Sarkaan the same look as well who looked even guiltier.
“Okay. This changes nothing. We are contracted to get black diamonds. It matters not if we picked it up off the ground of some monster’s shell. Can we all agree on that?” Weed gave all dwarves leveled gaze. Sometime back, in a zombie survival movie clip, he saw a similar sort of scene. Just like the movie, where everyone was bashing each other up for hiding secrets and so on. However when the main hero intervenes and spews brilliant cliché lines that they must survive no matter what, the group stops fighting amongst themselves. Weed was hoping to pull off the hero’s role here less the flying twenty feet in the air and doing ridiculous chinese kung fu moves that could split a boulder in two.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Sarkaan, tell me more about the Black crawler.” Tinaquarrier said as he let go off his sword.Tasha resigned himself to a corner of the cavern, he refused be part of the reveal secrets while on a guilt trip movement. The story came out slowly from Sarkaan’s mouth.
“Know the old man, Kendelbreu? Remember, how he used to be the richest of the richest? A wealth knowing no bounds?” Sarkaan asked solemnly.
“Aye, what of it?”
“Kendelbreu’s wealth lay in the mines he dug. Kendelbreu had inherited mining rights for a single mine. That was the source of all his wealth. It was also the largest and most precious mine in Northern Mountain City. Rarest of the rarest ores and stones came from his mines like water flowing into our city.
He had many mining crews to unearth rare ores. It was unknown whether the scorpion first arrived here. Maybe it arrived here before the mining began and was in deep slumber,only to be woken up by all the mining. The point is the scorpion is here. It began with one team that never resurfaced. Back in the day, when I was new to mining, it caused a sensation amongst the miners. No trace left of an entire team. Where did they go? No one knew. Kendelbreu hushed the matter with the money he had. Then a few more teams went missing. They just didn’t return. We would leave together and return together. Everyone knew everyone’s face. Seeing people not return was disturbing. Very rarely do we have cave-ins or explosions. Did we hear anything? Did we see anything? Nothing. Its like they vanished.
Nobody thought much of it. Sometimes Kendelbreu told us dwarve quit and sometimes he told us cave in. We knew better but Kendelbreu was rich, who would say anything. Even the royal house turned blind eye when Kendelbreu happily paid the death benefits. The few who remained, started taking precautions. Money is only good if you have a life to spend it on. Eventually, there were survivors that claimed they were attacked by a monster like never seen before. Black and large; the scorpion. Initially, Kendelbreu rubbished the claims of the survivors, said they were delirious.
However, one day, Kendelbreu’s own team stumbled upon the monster’s lair. It was filled with dwarven bones and babies of the gigantic monster. Kendelbreu had stumbled onto it’s nesting lair. Now most dwarves, would run away in fear seeing something like that. But Kendelbreu had different eyes. When he flashed his torch in the nest, the baby scorpions shined back like millions of black jewels. The diamond dust Kendelbreu gave, came from the baby scorpions that the workers killed in their effort to escape. Since then Kendelbreu had been searching for people to mine his black diamond.
Then, one day, it all stopped. Kendelbreu’s wealth was no more, where did he lose it? No one knows. They say he was transporting it when bandits struck. However, only few knew what really happened for Kendelbreu had his pride and never revealed where his wealth disappeared. But those who miners who lived to tell the tale, knew better. He paid miners astronomical rates to keep mining in these dangerous conditions. He hired legions of soldiers to kill the scorpion. Finally, he is now reduced only to a shadow of what he used to be. He has gambled everything on these mines.”
Sarkaan finished with the long and sad tale of tragic greed.
‘Something feels off.’ Weed thought. He could not put his finger on it. But he felt something important was missing from the story. He did not get much time to think about it as Tinaquarrier broke his thought process.
“Then what? We find the monster’s lair and kill some baby scorpion for black diamond?” Tinaquarrier asked as he seemed more than willing to kill something.
Weed glanced at Tinaquarrier. It was as if he had forgotten the deaths of his two comrades and moved on; just focusing on his job.
‘Probably its dwarven culture. Mining is a dangerous job. Makes them too fatalistic?’
“Are you mad, you want to go to that monster’s lair?” Masin’s voice rose an octave and volume. “Did you not see what it did to Narre? Snapped her body in two. How many dwarven swords do you know that can slice a dwarf in half? Eh?”
“Masin, it’s either the scorpion or Nigel. We don’t need to kill the giant just a few babies. How much could one be worth? Even the rarest stone is 1000 gold a gram. This must be worth more? Think about it! A single baby scorpion. Enough to feed your family for days at an end.” Tinaquarrier’s voice rose too in challenge. “And do you want Narre’s, Dol’arcs or Yaluk’s death to be in vain? Had they known it was no ordinary scorpion, maybe they would have acted wiser.”
Weed doubted that last line. The scorpion by all standards was extraordinary. If the three dead dwarves didn’t realize that then, then god help their VR souls.
Masin seemed to agonize over the choice. The short spelunking had so far resulted in three deaths, one of them by terrible mutilation. As Masin thought about it, he had the least chance of dying in this particular mission. Normally a sniffer would have the highest chance of dying since he was the team’s sniffer and scout. However, with an enemy you already could smell miles away was enough of an advantage to ensure safety.
“I will do it. But the elf stay at my side. I don’t trust these two. Tinaquarrier. You stay at the back.” He was indicating Sarkaan and Tasha as the ‘two not to be trusted’.
“Here.” Weed pointed on the map as he spread it on the floor. He placed a small candle on the center of the map to illuminate it. Everyone inched closer to have a look at the fabled map of Kendelbreu. As they discussed they ensure to keep their voices to hushed whispers. A large section of the map was missing; the east side of the map stopped at a wide branch while the west ones stopped at dead ends.
“We can gather from Saarkan’s story that the monster killed the miners. It is also probably why the east side is blank. That ‘X’ is where Kendelbreu claims have seen the black diamond. That is probably where the lair is located. I think if we want to find it, we need to go beyond the map. It shouldn’t be surprising if some routes caved in during the years. The pillars holding up these shafts is old. So collapse is only natural.” Tasha outlined as he moved his finger around the map. Weed could clearly see the ‘ace’ quality in Tasha. He was a dwarf that stuck to a code of honor. He avoided giving into emotions and was fairly pleasant. The easiest way to describe him would be like a snake. He could easily deceive you into believing you were friends and then backstab you the next moment. If Weed ever had to learn how to up his betrayal skill, then Tasha would be the master.
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Authors Note:
1. Will be edited soon. Please do expect a lot of mistakes as we worked .....very late to write this.
2. Thank you so much V4LKYR13 for volunteering to author this chapter! I played role of co-athor!
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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo
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