Hex’s words didn’t really leave room for argument. Even if they did not like it, the logic was sound. Once it was agreed they would probably have to take the fifth tunnel to ultimately progress, the Rogue relented to trying out the other options. Scott once again led the way as the party trekked back to the third tunnel, the one that had had the single waiting harvester when they first checked it out. The Guardian had suggested that if the goal was experience, then the route already shown to have monsters was the better option of the two. No one had had a counter argument to take the empty route instead.
While the tunnel was certainly smaller than the chamber the party entered from, it was not narrow. If they wanted, all five of them could walk side by side easily and not even brush the walls. That would not leave much room for anyone to maneuver or swing weapons though, so it was decided against. Instead, Sam moved to take up position parallel to Scott, the two toughest members of their party walking roughly equidistant from both each other and the walls. Once entering the tunnel the concern of an ambush from behind felt lessened, so the Warrior was no longer needed the shield their rear. Sam also mentioned he had no intention of drawing his sword. Its swing was too wide to use comfortably here, and Cyn got the feeling he just preferred using his hands to fight overall.
Hex, Cyn, and Dana formed a second parallel line behind the first. They stood closer together and more centered than Scott and Sam, and while Cyn felt a little exposed without anyone directly between her and the darkness ahead, she was pretty sure the Rogue intended to use the gap to flit in and out of spider range should they be attacked. As the sole source of useful light, she had to be centered, or one side of the tunnel would lose illumination and they might miss something important.
Only a few minutes walk from the entrance and one more Harvester later, the mangled minecart track, which had periodically shown itself through twisted bits of metal and wood cresting out of the dirt back in the area they started in, suddenly became whole. Mostly whole, anyway. It still looked decrepit and rusted, but there was a cart sitting atop it and for as far as Cyn could see there did not appear to be any obvious breaks in track around it. The glowing web that spread across all surfaces, which had continued to accompany them away from the main cavern, was also not present on the tracks and cart.
“That is the single most suspicious thing I have seen in my life, and I have seen some shit.” Dana’s normally professional tone had slipped, and Cyn was pretty sure that was the first time she had heard the woman curse. Cyn agreed though, it was very suspicious. Either this cart was used regularly, which seemed unlikely since the web continued everywhere else in the tunnel, or there was something keeping the arachnids from putting web on it. She used Inspect, still at a distance.
Minecart - Level 4
…what? Why would a minecart have a level? And one so high at that. The party was still walking while Cyn’s thoughts bumbled around in confusion, albeit slower than before they saw the cart. Still a good fifteen feet away from it Scott held up a hand. “Everyone stop.” The Guardian didn’t look back but continued speaking as they all obeyed. “Cyn, you said you had a damage spell, right?”
Not sure where he was going with this she answered truthfully. “Yah, but I don’t actually know what it does and I think it has to be thrown.”
“Let's find out on that.” Scott pointed at the minecart.
“You…want me to attack the minecart?”
“No, sweetheart. I want you to attack the obvious mimic.”
“Oh. Alright then.” Obvious mimic. Of course. Cyn felt like an idiot. That's why it had a level when she used Inspect. She quickly double checked the description of Mana Ball.
Mana Ball (Common) - Condense mana into an inefficient and unstable mass that can be thrown to deal unattuned magic damage.
Exactly as helpful as she remembered. She shifted her staff to her left hand, assuming she would throw better with her dominant one, and held out her right hand palm up, attempting to cast the skill. Mana Ball proved to be an entirely different experience to cast than Restoration.
The only similarity was the continuous drain on mana while the Ball was forming. It was a slower drain than Restoration thankfully, but Cyn was able to feel much more sharply how her mana left her body, and where it seemed to stem from. It was almost as if tiny veins of pure power grew out from the center of her chest to her fingertips, and those veins expelled an ephemeral blue mist out of them.
The mist rapidly solidified in her hand, gathering to become a sort of amorphous blob initially. She tried to focus on the idea of making it round, seeing as it was literally supposed to be a ball, with some success. Her fingers were still venting out mana though and the larger the mass got the harder it became to keep it a shape. It seemed to naturally want to separate, or perhaps react with the world around it, instead of just being solid-ish mana. Cyn quickly cut off the skill before the Ball was too big for her to keep together, but even though she was no longer venting mana from her fingers the Ball continued to drain her just to keep its shape.
She was pretty sure if she stopped thinking about it being a ball she would be finding out personally what unstable meant.
The whole thing had taken about four seconds to form, and was now floating just above Cyn’s palm. The way it wiggled as she struggled to keep it round reminded her of a non-newtonian fluid, and she felt as though it could be a true ball if she could find the right balance of magical pressure.
Now was not the time, however, with her party watching in interest and a bead of sweat dripping into her eye from the effort this was taking. Scott had even turned sideways, keeping one eye on the mimic while being able to also watch Cyn. With a deep breath, she tossed her Mana Ball at the mimic underhand.
The drain on her rose sharply as the Ball arced through the air, the effort needed to keep it together rapidly overwhelming Cyn’s capabilities. She had been aiming to have it land in the bucket of the minecart, and when her control fell away it was near the front, still above the mimic. Without her restraining it, the Ball immediately burst like a water balloon.
If a water balloon could be filled with liquid acid. And shards of glass. And covered in blue flames. The burst did not solely hit the minecart either. The Guardian was just able to raise his shield in time to block what looked like a long, thin spike of flaming mana, which burst into smaller shards on impact. Cyn barely heard the Warrior yelp over the piercing shriek now filling the tunnel, but did not see what had hit Sam as a mostly solid chunk of her own mana slammed into her gut.
The impact of her returning mana was less than she expected, only making her stumble back, and it seemed to reabsorb into Cyn’s mana pool almost painlessly. The now-revealed mimic was not so fortunate. Its contorting gray form still held the basic bucket shape of a minecart, but it now was oozing a viscous yellow ichor from multiple small puncture wounds. There also appeared to be sections of its body that had become partly melted, warped into bubbling ridges and grooves. A long, jagged mouth was open on the side of the minecart, filled with row upon row of wickedly sharp teeth, and that is where the shrieking was emanating from.
Cyn was still trying to take in the full effects of what she had done, a little stunned, when the mimic turned towards her and charged. Dozens of eyes in various sizes opened up from previously unseen cracks in its body, and every one focused on her with murderous intent. It had no trouble getting off the track and locomoting on its own, as where there had previously been wheels was now dozens of gray nubs sticking out of the bottom of the mimic. The little undulating legs allowed the monster to move surprisingly quickly, and she was barely able to throw herself sideways in time to avoid its maw.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
What she could not avoid entirely was the mimic’s tongue. Long and whip-like, it flicked out to catch hold of her right wrist as she dodged, the stronger monster causing Cyn’s momentum to suddenly change. The force of it made something in her shoulder snap, and her staff dropped from her other hand as she found herself being limply dragged after the mimic, now scuttling down the tunnel in the direction the party had come from.
Cyn had been momentarily blinded by the pain from being grabbed like that, but it only took her a few seconds to be able to think coherently again. As soon as the mimic stopped she was going to be in deep trouble if she did not do something, fast. Some instinct told her she was dangerously low on health points, but with her current situation that was probably obvious. She could not take the time to open her menu and check her health, either, but undoubtedly bouncing along like this was whittling away at whatever points she had remaining. Restoration was not going to be enough to help her here, as its healing rate was far too slow.
She could try Mana Ball again, but instead she chose to focus on her chest, where she had felt her mana drawing from earlier. By doing this she could feel she was also low on mana, though the feeling did not tell her exactly how low. Ignoring that, she tried to control what remained and push it out of her fingers like Mana Ball did, but without using the skill. She didn’t care about making a ball, or even trying to make the mana a single mass. It was a waste of resources when she was touching the monster.
She felt it working, although in her state of focus the process felt sluggish to Cyn. In reality the whole effort took only a single heartbeat, and within a few more moments she felt herself roll to a halt as the mimic seemed to let go, Cyn ending up stopping on her back. She also felt a notification pop-up, but she was far too preoccupied to care. She cut off her venting mana quickly, and in her blurred vision Cyn barely caught sight of something, or someone, vaulting over her.
It was coming from the wrong direction to be the mimic again, so she assumed it was one of her party while she was blindly fishing around her pouches one handed to search for potions. Cyn didn’t even try to stand up or move more than was required to feel around the pouches one by one. Metaphorical alarm bells were ringing through her whole body, declaring her now dangerously low on health and mana.
She still hadn’t found the potions when someone knelt down beside her and roughly shoved the mouth of a bottle past her lips in an effort to force Cyn to drink. She managed to swallow most of it, the effects rapidly tangible. Cyn still felt like she had taken the beating of her life, for sure, but was no longer one bad papercut from death.
Dana, who was the one who had force-fed her the health potion, helped Cyn get into a sitting position, then to standing. The Archer was taking on most of her weight, but that was mostly because Cyn felt unsteady and nauseous. Her legs had barely been injured at all. Dana appeared to be speaking, at least it appeared her mouth was moving, but all Cyn heard was a deafening silence as they shuffled away from the direction the mimic headed. She remembered still being able to hear the mimic shrieking while being dragged, but not after it let go of her. Perhaps she had hit her head? It had been bouncing off the dirt rather forcefully.
“I can’t hear you. Anything, actually.” She couldn’t even hear herself speak, and that was a really odd sensation. Dana just nodded grimly and after moving a little further the Archer sat her back down on the ground. Turning, Cyn could barely make out rapidly moving shadows outside of her diadems aura. Her vision was clearing up slowly, but it wasn’t enough to see how the fight with the mimic was progressing for the others.
Dana was watching that way too, and Cyn tried to wave her away. “Go help them. I’m in no condition to heal anyone.” The other woman refused to leave however, just standing with her bow out and sweeping her gaze over both sides of the tunnel. Probably for the best if Cyn was thinking more clearly about it, because there was no way she would handle being ambushed by a spider while everyone else was fighting the mimic.
Cyn went to prod at her right shoulder, the worst of her injuries, and stopped when she noticed her arm. The mimic’s tongue was still tightly wrapped around her wrist and forearm. Between the likely break in her shoulder and the disorientation of being dragged she had not realized the mimic did not actually let go of her. Instead, it looked like its tongue had been severed or ripped out and she had been trailing the golden ichor of the monster's blood. She tried to use her left hand to pull off the tongue, but it seemed to have adhered tightly to Cyn’s skin. Rather than start opening more places to bleed from, she left the tongue where it was and closed her eyes, trusting Dana to keep watch, to check her stats.
Health Points: 12/40
Mana Points: 0/100
Stamina Points: 35/40
Zero mana. She knew it had been very low, but assumed once it hit zero she just would fail to be able to use it. Unless she had happened to stop venting right as she ran out of mana points, which would be a massive coincidence, that did not seem to be the case. There would definitely be a cost to using mana when you had none, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was silently in the negative, or she could not regenerate for a while? Because she had been out of the fight long enough she should have gotten back at least a few points.
The fact she was only on twelve health, after drinking a potion, was also pretty shocking. Sure, the potions did not say how much they restored but either it only gave a pitiful amount, or she had been down to only one or two health points when she drank it. Even then, that amount of health return would probably be useless to someone like Scott or Sam.
As she stared at her resources, pondering and watching two of the three slowly regenerate, another notification popped up and she watched her numbers change in real time.
Health Points: 13/50
Mana Points: 0/140
Stamina Points: 37/50
Too bad leveling up did not restore her health or mana. She checked her notifications, making sure that was from the mimic kill. There was a third notification waiting she had forgotten about receiving earlier, but she would check it last since she did not know what it would be for.
Class experience earned for assisting in the death of Mimic - Level 4. Experience has been split among all living members of your dungeon party.
Bonus experience earned for attacking before the Mimic was revealed.
Neat. Bonus experience for noticing a mimic before getting chomped. Hopefully that was for the whole party, because Cyn absolutely would have been subject to a surprise attack without Scott’s help.
Class level up! [Mage] is now level 2
+1 Vitality, +3 Mind, +3 Will, +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Luck
+3 free points
Exactly what she expected to see there, although she was wondering at what level she would start to get more skills. She wasn’t sure how everyone else was feeling since they could physically fight, but she really needed something other than Restoration and Mana Ball. Mana Ball was just too unstable to be useful in most situations.
New Skill Gained! Freeform Mana Casting (Unique)(Passive) -
The System honors your willful attempt to manipulate mana without skill assistance, and has permanently removed all natural safeguards relating to mana use. Proceed at your own risk.
[Human] - Evolutionary path altered.
[Mage] - Evolutionary path altered.
That was not what she meant.