"Grimsley!" Lone's shout reverberated through the smouldering wreck that was once a proud smithy.
He was met with no response, so he rushed through the main forge and couldn’t see any immediate signs of his friend. Wasting no time, Lone rushed into the backroom that - thus far - he'd never been allowed to enter.
The room only contained a bed, a bookshelf that was empty, and a rug, all of which were going up in flames.
"Waterball! Waterball! Waterball!" Lone put out the furniture, resulting in steam and smoke clouding his vision.
"Wind Blade!" Lone was thankful that he'd recently trained all his crude magic spells to the point that they'd evolved into their regular versions. Not needing to chant lines of ancient magical text was beyond amazing.
His air magic spell cut through the smog, clearing a good portion of it as the wall to the bedroom was sliced open, giving the carbon monoxide-filled gas another escape route besides the door.
Now with the ability to see a few paces past his own nose, Lone quickly noticed that he couldn't see Grimsley anywhere.
Panic spread across Lone's face. 'Where the fuck is he?! Did that cunt kidnap him?! I don't see why he would... He's a petty little weasel, but not a devious one. What reason would he have to kidn-... Is that a trapdoor?'
Lone could see some smoke trickling out from underneath the bed, and in lieu of that, his eyes homed in on the suspicious-looking floor.
With nary a scrap of hesitation, he stored the still-smouldering bed frame, removing it from the room. "There is a hidden door... You sneaky fuckin' dwarf."
Hope filled Lone's mind. He quickly noticed the lock on the hatch. There was no way that he was going to open that quickly, well, so long as he used... conventional means, which he wasn't obligated to do.
"Tail Spear." He cut the metal and wooden contraption to ribbons. The next moment he jumped down into the unknown.
'Fuck. I can't see a damned thing.' Lone quickly tried something that he honestly had no idea if it would work or not.
Putting his hand out, he attempted to store the black smoke that filled the room he was in. 'I can't use Wind Blade in here. I could aim at the wall upstairs, but here? I might fuckin' kill Grimsley if he's in here... I need the air in here to be clear... Even a flashlight wouldn't be much help. Every second counts if he's been ingesting this shit... Wait, will that work?'
Lone closed his eyes and focused his mind. He imagined the air in the room being clean and pure, free of smoke entirely and perfectly filled with that lovely gas that almost everything relied on, oxygen. Well, oxygen and nitrogen, specifically.
Item does exist on Altros.
The host has a great level of understanding of the item. 25,000 base MP cost. 12,500 additional MP has been consumed to compensate for the lack of the host's knowledge.
The host has insufficient MP. All of the host's MP has been consumed and the host's MP will be sealed for [10-hours] to create the item: [Clean Air In [This Room]].
No fanfare. No flashy magical light show. Nothing. The smoke just... disappeared.
Lone's head was throbbing and several notifications for skill level-ups were trying to impair his already blurry vision. Setting them aside like the earlier ones for his magic usage was a struggle, but he managed to do it after a second or two of concentrating.
Gritting his teeth through the pain, Lone tried his best to focus his eyes. Thankfully, it seemed that there were no fires in this room. Daisuke clearly hadn't found it, the incompetent fool.
The room only contained a bed, and, on it, was a young girl who had slightly sharpened ears and a stone-ish look to her skin, leading Lone to believe that she was a Stone Dwarf like Grimsley.
Collapsed over the girl's chest was the grizzled man that Lone knew as his blacksmithing master, a close friend, and - similar to Gilbert - something of a father-figure.
Head pounding loudly like a pneumatic drill, Lone rushed over to the two and slung one over each shoulder. It was hard to see since he kept squinting his eyes to aid with his migraine, but he was certain that he'd seen a slave collar on the girl's neck before her head had gone out of his line of sight due to being pressed against his back.
'Did Grimsley kidnap her from underneath that fuckhead's nose? Fuckin' solid job, pal. Serves the cunt right. He'll pay for this.' Surprisingly, Lone's thoughts were crystal clear when they were filled with anger towards the current summoned hero of Milindo.
The room was quickly filling up with smoke again since the building above was still a blazing inferno, and Lone could feel his consciousness slipping.
He was already exhausted from the earlier near-death experience at the Blue Orc camp, but with his mana organs now overtaxed and in need of dire healing - which he could not perform due to his MP being sealed - he felt like he could faint any second.
Thankfully, it hadn't been five minutes yet since he had invoked his Tail Spear skill, so he used the hardened and incredibly sharp limbs to cut a tunnel through the basement's wall directly to the street above.
Luckily, the secret room was at the rear-end of the smithy, so Lone could avoid the attention of the crowd out at the building's front.
Once he was out of the smithy, he wasted no time in running down an alleyway.
'Thank God... Thank God I wasn't... wasn’t too late,' Lone thought in relief as he weaved his way through the slums as best as he could to both avoid people and head towards The Adventurer's Guild. 'If I was even a moment lat-'
Suddenly, Lone's eyes were heavier than they should be. He also felt like something had... pricked him. "Wha..." The next moment, he toppled over, completely unconscious. Grimsley and the dwarven girl, likewise, fell on top of him.
"Ah, thank the Primals. What a stroke of good fortune that this... incident happened. I'll have to thank the hero when I have the chance," a well-built man dressed from head-to-toe in black said as he lowered a silver pipe of some sort that seemed to be designed to blow darts.
"Finally, with this, my future is guaranteed. It was a bit touch and go for a minute there, Mister Golden Ticket," the man said as he crouched down and lifted Lone's head up by his hair.
He slapped Lone's face a few times, and fairly hard at that. Not even so much as a groan escaped his lips. "Yup. A Golden Foxkin you may be, but clearly, you're not immune to dragon tranquillizer. I've heard about how hardy you are, my friend, so I'm thankful I took extra measures... Now, about these dwarves... What to do..."
----------------------------------------
Lone's eyelids slowly flickered open and they were met with darkness. He tried to move his hands to wipe his eyes, but, oddly enough, all his limbs felt loose and overly relaxed.
He could barely move his fingers, let alone his hands. 'Am I... chained up?'
As the seconds passed, Lone's vision slowly adjusted to the darkness. There was a tiny bit of light trickling out of the frame of what looked like a door. From what he could make out, he was in a barred cell with his arms chained to the walls.
He wasn't able to see if there were other cells or if he was alone, but he needed to know if Grimsley was still with him or not. "Grimsley?" he whispered.
"Keh... I'm here, laddie... Keh..." a haggard and pained voice answered.
'Shit. His lungs must be in tatters from all the smoke... Still, it's a relief that he's alive at least...' Lone thought. "And the girl?"
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"Aye... Keh keh keh keh!" Grimsley wheezed something fierce.
"Shit... We need to get out of here. I need to heal you two," Lone said. He had noticed that he no longer had a headache, so that meant that he'd been here for over ten hours already, which wasn't good.
Only God knew what Sophie would do to find him... She was unhinged at the best of times. Lone could still vividly recall the time that Soph had told him her other personality had tried to coax her into murdering him, and now that she clearly cared about him too... well, suffice to say that he was worried about what she would do with her Teleportation if pushed.
"Some 'uman cocksuck'r- Keh! Comes an' checks up on ya every hoor or so, Lone- Keh!" After saying that, Grimsley entered a wild frenzy of painful-sounding coughs.
'Every hour or so? I've got time then... I can't move at all, so, my best bet is that I'm drugged up with, what, muscle relaxants or something? Boy, what I wouldn't give for Sofia's luck. I'd have probably gained immunity to whatever's in my system with that,' Lone thought before he said, "Don't speak anymore, Grimsley. Agitating your throat isn't a good idea. I'll get us out of this... somehow."
Worst-case scenario, he still had three daily uses for Mental Destruction.
Since there was nothing else for him to do immediately, Lone decided to check his notifications. If nothing else, that would help him pass the time.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 3.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 4.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 5.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 6.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 7.
Congratulations! the host's active water magic skill [Waterball] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 8.
Congratulations! the host's active air magic skill [Wind Blade] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.
'As expected. Man, I was an idiot. Next should be the mental and physical pain resistances, right? I was able to ignore most of it due to the rush of saving Grimsley, but if I hadn't gotten knocked out, then wouldn't I be in, like, excruciating pain?' Lone thought as the next set of blue screens filled his sight.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 10.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 1.
Passive Skill: Mental Pain Resistance
A skill that helps protect the host's mind.
Reduces the effects suffered from overusing MP by 15% [+10%]. All mental pains will be weakened by 15% [+10%].
Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 1
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 2.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 3.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 4.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 5.
'And round about here should be where my mana organs were on the brink of exploding,' Lone commented internally.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Physical Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Advanced Level 10.
'Thought so,' he smugly noted as his droopy face formed what could loosely be called a grin of sorts.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 6.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 7.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 8.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 9.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Poison Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Expert Level 4.
'So, was I tranqed or something? I was damn-near unconscious already when it happened, so who knows? I'm glad I got a level out of it at least,' Lone thought happily, seeing the silver-lining. The next notification removed all of his newfound joy.
Warning! The host has been [Enslaved] to [Gregor Milatod] via a [Slave Collar].
'Huh. I get a warning for that? Warnings are fuckin' rare... I remember getting one back on the goblin island when I first overused my mana and when that first boar gutted me, but aside from that... Hmm... Something to think on.' Lone wasn't concerned by his slave collar even if it displeased him immensely.
He had already proven that he could destroy such things with his Creation Magic's ability to alter things, so it was a non-issue in his mind.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 10.
Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Mental Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Advanced Level 1.
Passive Skill: Mental Pain Resistance
A skill that helps protect the host's mind.
Reduces the effects suffered from overusing MP by 30% [+15%]. All mental pains will be weakened by 30% [+15%].
Cost: N/A Mastery: Advanced Level 1
'No new effects? Oh well. At least overexerting myself while creating shit won't feel like I'm having fuckin' cardiac arrest anymore... just a regular ol’ heart attack,' he mused.
Lone waited for a moment but no new notifications popped up to continue distracting him.
'And that's it. No Basic Regen, huh? Guess the pain wasn't enough to spark another level up since I was out like a light and BR didn't level-up since it's already expert rank, and I didn't boost it with any mana,' he concluded.
Lone closed his eyes and simply waited. He'd make his next move when his, Grimsley, and the girl's, kidnapper stepped through the room's door.