Chapter 25
Muscle and Wits [https://i.imgur.com/1jjkdqE.png]
Jack Mors moved through the tunnel with a careful step. He passed one blue light after another as he continued to ascend through the passage carefully watching the path in front of him. One of his hands was on the wall in order to help him in a long climb and with the other, he held his heavy mace.
Jack’s full plate armor silently rattled as he ascended, but in the narrow tunnel, the silent rattling of his metal sounded as loud as a small earthquake. And yet Jack still moved slowly and with care. Like a predator through the night of the forest, Divine may bless an unlucky Fallen Eldritch Priest who would get unlucky enough to find himself in his path.
He stopped as the wall of dirt and rubble blocked his way. Jack relaxed and put his hand on the wall in front of him. Solid rocks didn’t even budge when Jack pushed on them and he had no other choice as turn around and move back to where he came from. There was no way forward from this point.
After a 20-minute walk back, he found himself in the tunnel room, with the rest of his party waiting.
“So?” Orla asked.
“Passage is obstructed, as I thought,” Jack answered, “We have no escape now.”
“Is it only dirt blocking the way or is it the rocks? Maybe we can dig through it?” Linus asked.
After taking the best nap in his lifetime and spending two days resting and eating, he and the rest of the party felt like completely different people. They were not fresh, per se, but at least they restored part of the energy they spent during their last days of travel and combat. To be more precise, they should call days in this underground cavern light cycles, as there was no other way to measure time besides watching lights in the Priest city and mysterious clocks hung on the many walls. Despite being able to understand that contraptions all over the house were made to perceive the time, they were way too complex and intricate for Mad Dogs to understand the correct way to read what they told them. Seven different arrows were split between two circles with no indications on them in uneven intervals between. It was not a clock, but a nightmare for a human horologist.
“Ruble mostly consists of small rocks and dirt, but there is no way we are going through that?” Jack said.
“Why so?” Orla asked.
“It starts very early. It’s hard to discern how fast we were pushed through the tunnel the first time went through it, but I would approximate that at least half of the tunnel is buried. For us to excavate all of it with our bare hands will take us years.”
“Shit! I don’t have years,” Linus chimed.
“No one of us does, let’s proceed with the plan,” Jack said.
They went to the trinket room and got their prepared explosives.
Through the method of trial and error, they found out which of the trinkets exploded when thrown against the wall and which simply broke in pieces or didn’t get damaged at all.
Surprisingly, only one trinket exploded with certainty. It was a ball-shaped container with a blue mana stone inserted in it. There were many of them and, if they had to make a guess, these trinkets might work as some sort of power cores. But there was no evidence of that as they didn’t see those balls in other contraptions in the room.
But the purpose of those balls was not important. What was important was that when crushed against the wall they exploded in a bright blue explosion. Explosions were strong enough to leave black scorching marks on the red walls of the room.
Mad Dogs collected all the balls in the trinket room, leaving behind none, and ventured towards the tunnel where constructs guarded the door behind them. They had to hurry as the dark part of the daily cycle would soon be over. They tested how good the entrance membranes were at blocking sound, and the results were uninspiring. They only muffled the explosions, but they were still loud enough to catch the ear of the passerby. Mad Dog didn’t find a single ear on the Fallen Eldritch Priests, there were only eyes and arms, but safety was their priority. There was no need to risk unnecessarily.
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They brought all the balls to the corner, which hid them from the constructs, and piled them up in one big pile. They had to return to the trinket room twice more to get all the balls from there to here, but once that was done they got ready to engage constructs with all they got. In their pile of death and carnage were around 50 explosives, and that should be enough, or else they were screwed. Now all they could do was throw them all at the same time and hope for the best. One explosion like the one they witnessed at the artifact room would be enough to take man’s head clean of his shoulders, but you could never know what to expect when dealing with Eldritch. Dealing with Eldritch-made guard robots took them to completely new heights of ‘I don’t know what to expect’.
Their plan was set and there was no other way. Or, even if there was one, Mad Dogs would not take it.
“Woof!”
“Woof!”
“Woof!”
Three silent woofs were shared with each other and Zaun did his best to impersonate the barking dog with his hand.
They each took a ball in their hand and turned around the corner to stand face-to-face with their enemy. Mad Dogs stood in a row waiting for reactions from constructs, but there were none. Constructs didn’t seem to even register their presence. They continued to stand at the door as if nothing changed in their surrounding.
Linus opened his mouth to say something, but he was not able to. There was no warning when both constructs exploded in movement at the same time. They moved in complete tandem side by side like two copies of the same being. They ran at Mad Dogs with swords ready looking like a pair of death reapers.
Jack reacted first. He threw his ball at the approaching threats without looking at how it landed. He was already behind the corner grabbing the next ball from the pile.
Both constructs dodged the explosive with no effort at all, but it didn’t save them from the explosion. The ball landed behind them on the ground and exploded in a bright flash of blue. Shock wave pushed constructs forward and swept the ground from under them. They both fell down and before they managed to get up, three more balls landed straight on them.
This time explosions were right on the targets, and they were smashed down to the ground with swords and a few lost limbs flying to all sides. Despite the direct hits, constructs tried to get up right after the blasts. They looked battered, but they were still functioning and ready to take human heads off right from their shoulders.
“Don’t gawk at them! Take balls and throw them!” Jack shouted and pushed a new ball into each of his party members' hands.
A new set of explosions exploded right on top of the constructs and they were pushed down once again, without being able to stand up and resist even a little.
After that explosions didn’t stop until Mad Dogs were fully out of the trinket balls. One of the constructs was destroyed. His body was trashed into pieces, and complex machinery and the glowing core inside of him were exposed. Core stopped its glow right in front of their eyes.
The second construct still tried to resist and fight in his poor state. He had exactly one arm left on him and that arm tried to grab something in waste of effort.
There were no kill notifications.
“Wow! It actually worked!” Linus said in amazement.
“Of course it did,” Jack laughed very satisfied with the result, “ But we didn’t get an experience.”
“It was expected,” Orla said.
“Expected? Yes! Still sad? Still yes!”
Linus stepped forward and approached Construct still trashing on the ground. He thrust his spear and activated his only perk.
Spearman’s thrust II - Grants a single strike extra power depending on your raw Strength stat.
Each Strength point grants 5% increase. Cost 1 mana
His 12 Strength stats gave his thrust a 60% increase in power. It was a power on top of his already refined body with 12 Constitution and 12 Strength stats making him almost as strong as professional athletes back on the earth.
His strike landed on the body of the construct and simply bounced off it.
“Huh?” Linus said in wonder.
Spearman’s thrust II
Linus activated his perk once more, this time focusing on his form and footwork. The spear was thrust with an even greater speed and strength. Thrust was deadly and terrifying. And it bounced off the battered shell of the Construct without doing any visible damage to it.
“I guess we got lucky,” Orla said.
“I guess so,” Linus mumbled.
They went around the, now stationary, construct and approached what they hoped to be the treasury doors, without looking back at the laying machine of death behind them. They didn't think about how the spear bounced off it without even scratching the construct. They didn't think about its impenetrable shell. They didn't think about its sharp and deadly swords. They, definitely, didn't. For sure.
Cold sweat ran down Linus back.