Mosh rose and moved down the corridor. The light remained dim, the broken walls and ceiling leaving their piles of debris and diffuse lighting that created deep pools of shadow. Mosh kept his light stone going, dispelling the shadows from around him. He could hear skittering and the occasional footfall, but none of the shadow creatures approached, they seemed content to follow, to follow at a distance, Mosh did not want to think of what would happen should his light stone fail, and increased his speed. He would prefer to find the purpose of this Dungeon than to end up at the mercy of the enemy who surrounded and followed him. He walked while he kept to his routine of occasional switches to Mana vision to try and detect magical traps and if anyone, anything, was lying in wait.
The corridor was no longer straight, but seemed to have a curve to it, as well as sloping downwards. It drew a large arc, and arrived at the first door he had seen, not an open space opening into an empty room. He approached the door, patches of it lit up in colours of mana. The biggest seemed to be a rune made up of fire mana, the second a large rune laid into the floor in front of the door using runes for acid mana. Theoretically, one could avoid the rune on the floor if you were agile enough. In reality? Few possessed an agility sufficiently high to avoid the traps or to disarm them, there had to be some other way to disarm them.
Mosh sat, examining the area around the door with all his senses. With mundane sight, no runes could be seen, just the bare stone and a slight indentation near the right doorpost. In his mana vision, there was a thin but clear path through the runes to the indentation. One had to be able to see the runes or know it well, but it was there. Something belonged in the indentation. He stood, knowing he had to backtrack. He had to have missed something, somewhere lay the key to this door.
He marched back up the corridor, making the trip using senses only, when he marched back, he would use mundane senses, he hoped that of there was something he was missing with one, he would detect it with the other. He started walking, then berated himself before Midkar could. He was forgetting his Mind Detect enhancement! He activated it.
Mosh smiled, now knowing how long he could keep his abilities going. He had never tried to keep it up for a sustained period, but now that he knew the cost, he could. Though with how much was needed to maintain it compared to its recovery, he would not be able to keep it going much more than twenty minutes before having to allow it to rest and recover.
He walked on, now being able to watch as the scuttling matched the movements of minds that he could track. He looked in the direction of one of those detected, and could see nothing, yet there was a mind there. There had to be another passageway parallel to this one in which the shadow creatures were moving, but he had not found it. But knowing what to look for made the search easier, and when he next came to a large pile of rubble, he examined the wall. His light illuminated it, but on close examination a thin crack could be seen. He was too nervous to put an eye to it, his mind showed him images of a claw poking into his eye as he did so, so he pulled back.
Mosh placed the mana stone on top of a pile rocks, maintaining a mana connection to it. When held, the mana drain was minimal, a mere one per hour, separated from his body, that increased to one every ten minutes, the ongoing maintenance less than his recovery meaning he could keep it going indefinitely. He made sure his spear was handy and picked up a large rock in his two hands, Using all his might, far greater than that of an un-awakened human, especially now that his body had advanced to Tier 5, he hurled it against the wall, and immediately jumped back hoping to avoid any rebound. The rock hit the wall and shattered, but parts of the wall broke off and the crack a fist sized hole. Through it, he could see another corridor, like this one with one broken patches of light from smashed walls and ceiling. He caught movement as light from his stone flooded in, and his mind detect showed movement from the creatures within it. There seemed to a number of them clustered near the hole.
A thought stuck him, and he took his spear, imbuing it with mana. He felt the mana move into it, and he nudged it, moved it into the blade. He stuck the blade through the hole, all the while accumulating more mana within it. The minds on the other side remained in place, they did not take any action on the blade poking through, and Mosh gave a grim smile, He pushed more mana, and thought of it exploding, expanding away from the tip. It worked, but far better than Mosh had expected. The flames exploded out, washing over the gathered creatures, but also firing back through the hole, singeing his skin and burning off his eyebrows. Even worse, the explosion bounced of the walls on the other side, and more of the wall broke, shooting out towards hm. He screamed as he dived to the ground, but was still struck be shards from the wall, cutting across his body and smashing into him.
Mana Used 10
Explosive Mana Strike skill learned. Tier 0 Level 1. Mana per use: 10
He grabbed at his spear, standing quickly as blood flowed from some of the wounds where he had been cut by shards. He felt pain in other areas, bruised, but nothing felt broken. What concerned him was that his light stone had been dislodged and while it still shone, its light was broken up and shadows surrounded him. The skittering had stopped, but he could see the minds in his Mind detect, and they were coming towards him!
Stolen story; please report.
He stepped towards the light stone, hoping to retrieve it and dispel the shadows, but it abruptly dimmed, the only illumination the patches left on the ceiling, creating even more shadows. One of the minds seemed to hover where it had been, and four others moved to encircle him. He thought back his attempts to create a Psi attack, and the impediment being the range. The rocks around him could be shot, but he had no clear targets, only the general location of the minds. Perhaps with a shorter range he could create the attack he needed.
He concentrated, gathering energy from his Mind Core. He gathered it, compressed it, and then pushed it out in the direction of the mind he could detect coming up to him. A shriek sounded out, hurting his ears, and the minds around him fled, scattering down the passages. The one he had targeted fell from the roof where it had been walking, falling to the floor, staggering as it got up.
The candidate is being offered the Psi enhancement of
Mosh quickly accepted the offered enhancement, with only a brief curse at the Mana records. He charged the swaying creature, hoping to reach it while it was still disoriented from whatever the Psi attack had done. It tried to move into a semblance of a defence, but its balance was off and it stumbled. Its stumble was partly effective, instead of his spear striking it in its chest where its heart should be, it instead struck it higher, tearing into its shoulder. It turned, wailing, with pain filled eyes to stare at him. From his pouch he heard Silky’s replying screech as he jumped out, landing on the creature’s head, while scratching at its eyes, tearing at its large eyes with his teeth.
Mosh watched as the creature raised its claw, about to swipe at Silky, and panicked. He withdrew his spear from its shoulder, a spurt of blood following it, and stabbed, again, and again, just continuing to stand until his arms lost strength and nothing more than a mangled corpse lay before him. Through his fatigue he watched Silky tear at it, swallowing large chunks of its flesh. He ate far more than Mosh thought he could, then jumped back onto Mosh and into the pouch. He looked at Mosh with hooded eyes, fatigue overcoming him, as he curled up.
Concussive Psi Blast skill learned. Tier 0 Level 1
Spear Skill improved to level 4
Mana Sensory Control Improved to level 2
Zeil Ganev killed. Body enhancement points earned: 4. Body enhancement points needed to next Tier 4/2100.Mana enhancement points earned: 4 Mana enhancement points needed for next Tier 4/3600. Mind Enhancement points earned: 4. Mind enhancement points needed for next Tier: 4/2100 Evolutionary essence gained: 4, Evolutionary Essence to next Tier 4/150. Evolutionary Potential points gained 4, Evolutionary Potential Points to next tier 20/6600. Evolutions offered: Shadow Skin.
Pet: Silky Two has reached Evolution threshold. Evolution From Ikbar Haras to Ikbar Haras Yoter commencing. Pet Silky Two has entered hibernation.
Barmenash House
Sarah was clinging to Avi, screaming with excitement along with the others when the creature crashed to the floor. Simi was dancing in front of the screen, with Clumsy barking excitedly as he did so. Mich watched stunned. She had been in enough combat classes since she started at the Academy a week after the Coming of Age ceremony with the rest of the new combat classes, and even though it had not yet been a full three weeks, she was flabbergasted at the way Mosh fought. He definitely had a spear skill. He also had to have some kind of skill to disorient that creature. She motioned for Simi to be quiet, and for him to quieted Clumsy who was partaking in his favourite past time of barking at the Tigermouse whenever it appeared on screen. She wanted to hear the analysis from the Mileu Net News and Entertainment team, as irritating and callous as she found them. They were knowledgeable. She managed to get enough silence to hear them speak.
“…the dazing of the Zeil was unexpected, what did you make of that Diini?
“I think we give him too little credit. I have been going through some of the unaired video, and found interesting footage of him trying to create a Psi attack against feral goblins. I was not surprised that it failed then, but it seems he revisited his failure and turned it into an useful attack.”
Another man spoke up, brought in at some time in the last few hours since the delve had begun. On his jacket he bore the crest of the Greater Mileu Sanctuary, an entire planet given over to wilderness to allow various beasts and monsters to thrive without disruption. “His attack was interesting, but to me the actions of the Tigermouse lead me to believe we will soon see it in anew form. Its attack was instinctive, a predatory imperative to gain what it needed to evolve. More than that, it showed a deep bond, it completely trusting in Mosh to support and protect it. I must praise the young-man, it is rare for a bond to escalate to this trust level in such a short space of time.”
Diini turned to him, “To what do you ascribe this build up of trust. Chief Warden Sel’pio?”
“Its simple Diini, he treats it as a loving pet, not as an useful tool. He has fed it on high quality food from a tigermouse perspective, meat of those of a higher tier. He has sheltered it and kept it safe. All pet owners should learn from him. Pets treated well and not just as combat accessories do far better.”
The family tuned out as the discussion moved onto generic topics as Mosh was doing nothing noteworthy. Sarah just sat and took her son in on the screen, until she realised she had to go and prepare food for all. But when she got to the kitchen, she found some grandchildren preparing the meal under her their mother’s direction and she was shooed off back to watch Mosh, something that was continuous at the moment as the channel dedicated to his dungeon delve remained.