I stood at the mouth of the branching mineshaft, casting my immobile illusion spell. Four seconds went by, the spell almost completed… and I canceled it.
Then I started casting it again. Kontor was behind me a ways, holding the torch up for light. I canceled the spell as it came close to completing again, then started casting again.
“Incoming!” Cuby’s voice echoed through the cave.
She came into sight, and a moment later one of the lizard-things came running after her, its head a misshapen lump in the dark. More of them filled the cave behind it, each of them charging after Cuby.
My spell completed just after Cuby had reached us, and I aimed for the gap between the lizard demons, targeting the center of the pack.
An illusion sprang into being between the first two demons and the second two: a two-meter wide pit whose bottom was a flat sheet of black meant to appear as an unseen, deep bottom in the dark. After the pit was a sheer wall, as if the passage came to an abrupt dead end.
I could see through my own illusion as if it were translucent, and so I saw the two lizards in the back skid to a halt before the pit. We’d talked about whether the pit or the dead end would work better as an illusion, but then I’d realized I could just do both.
Working fine, I thought, already casting a Magic Arrow at the one that Cuby had engaged. Once my Magic Arrow had stricken it and she could be sure we were both focusing the same target, she abruptly swapped to the next lizard and struck it in the eyes, her dagger flashing with yellow light.
I tagged the lizard we were fighting, also using my lore skill on it:
Webling - Level 3
A webling is a creature that has been corrupted by a demonstone and haphazardly fused with metal scraps. It captures its prey by spitting immobilizing webs from its mouth.
A webling has low psychic resistance. They are fairly unintelligent, but will follow the commands of more powerful demons without regard for self-preservation.
Unintelligent seemed to be the key word: the rear two weblings were pacing at the false pit’s edge, letting out the occasional roar. My second Magic Arrow struck the first webling dead, and Cuby and I moved on to the next, which had begun to flail after Cuby had blinded it, harmlessly out of range of both of us.
It fell much as the first had, and we both started attacking the weblings on the other side of the illusion, her with her thrown attack. First our target wheeled in place, trying to determine where the ranged attacks were coming from—and then it started retreating along the cave.
“Switch?” I said as it moved out of range.
“Do it!” Cuby said.
We sunk a little more damage into the last webling, then I dropped my illusion as it, too, began to retreat. It caught sight of us just at the edge of my range, retched once, then coughed up a gray glob that sailed through the air toward Cuby, who sprang off the cave-wall next to her in a kind of side-flip to avoid it.
The third webling fell a moment later, but the fourth had caught sight of us and come back into range. It made the same webbed attack that its fallen kin just had—only this time the webbing was directed at me, and I didn’t have a dodge ability.
The glob of webbing impacted my Mana Shield, than sank harmlessly to the ground, sliding off the air just millimeters in front of my body.
I grinned. Just like the jawsprays, their crowd-control didn’t work as long as the barrier had HP remaining.
Another Magic Arrow and a little more unrestrained stabbing from Cuby brought the fourth one down. She signaled for quiet as it died, and we stopped and listened for a moment, but heard nothing else.
“Well that went well!” she said.
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“Yeah,” I said. “If there are monsters this unintelligent at every level, then the illusion spells are going to get a lot of mileage. You barely took hits—I mean, who needs a tank when we’ve got cleverness and creativity?”
“And when they have vital organs!” Cuby said, grinning.
We looted the dead, shucking the corpses of their demonstone eyes by looting them and then dropping them, finding a few things extra in the process: several dozen tiny, glittering scales had been separated from the body, along with some hunks of blue-streaked stone that were slick with stomach acid.
Common Item - Derunite-Infused Scale
A scale from a lizard whose diet is rich in derunite. Used in blacksmithing.
Common Item - Derunite Ore
Ore rich in derunite. Used in smelting.
“They eat rocks?” I asked, lifting one of the stones before tucking it into my inventory.
“Much of their diet is other cave-dwellers,” said Kontor. “But yes. They eat the stones for the metal in them.” He frowned down at the bodies. “These also aren’t supposed to be this high in the mine,” he said. He shook his head. “The initialization has thrown things into chaos. Killing the lizards might be easy enough, but I worry what will happen if the worms have also been corrupted.”
“Yeah,” said Cuby. “Something tells me that they have high physical resistance with a name like Rock Worm. I prefer my experience points to come packaged in the softest skin possible.”
We kept going, looting more machine scraps in the next room, then traversing a narrow passage and making several turns before coming to a cave-in.
“Damn,” said Kontor, stepping forward to feel the heap of rubble. “This led to a stairwell that would take us closer to the lift.”
“Is there another way?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’ll involve more of the mines. More chances to find demons. I know you two want experience, but I was hoping you could drop me off and then return.”
“First chance we get,” said Cuby.
Kontor kept feeling the stone, his face stern and thoughtful. “There was no quake,” he said. “What could have caused this?”
“Could it be the worm?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But it doesn’t match what I know of them—they’re good at avoiding cave-ins, and they wouldn’t think to cut off a particular stairway.”
“I took the demonology skill,” I said, thinking. “The other corrupted are all unintelligent, but will follow the orders of demons without question. Maybe the worm is corrupted, and there’s a smarter demon somewhere in here that’s commanding the worm.”
Kontor was quiet for a moment. “Unfortunately,” he said. “That sounds plausible.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not too thrilled about it either.”
“On the upside,” said Cuby. “Maybe the commanding demon doesn’t have high physical resistance.” She twirled her athame.
“That would be an upside,” I said. Then, to Kontor, I added: “let’s go.”
The next chamber he led us into was quite a sight to see: the ground had been cracked and split, pulverized almost everywhere. In the center of the room was the culprit: a massive, stone-skinned worm with several metal spikes growing out of its face. It was sprawled across the floor, dead, and the demonstone that I’d guessed once adorned its face had been taken.
“Whaddaya know?” said Cuby. “Somebody else got to it first.” She stepped up and poked its rocky skin with her dagger, which bounced off with a dinting noise, then said: “And I’m not even that mad.”
“It’s not too surprising,” said Kontor. “Everyone will eventually want to come to town. The only way to Oromar’s Bastion is either through the mines or through much longer mountain passes.”
We searched the room, but naturally it had been picked clean. Cuby listened at the next exit for a while, then said she thought she heard something and went to scout ahead, yet again.
When she came back she seemed excited. “There’s three of them,” she said, whispering. “A level 3 and two level 2s. They didn’t spot me—they’re sitting around a small fire. All of them are around half HP, and they’re not moving, just talking.”
“Okay,” I said, eying her with growing unease.
“Look,” she said. “I know there’s three of them, but two of them are just below half health. I think they used all their potions killing the worm and they’re waiting for someone’s mana to recharge so they can get heals.”
“I see,” I said, wondering where this was going.
“Think about it!” she said. “They all started with health and maybe mana potions. If they had any way of getting their health back, they wouldn’t be low on hp! Alatar—we can take them!”
I blinked, then just stood there for a moment, stunned.
Cuby was suggesting we murder some people we’d never met.