“If bosses have true sight, we could be in trouble,” I said. “I can unequip my stuff and deal magic damage to the rock, maybe collapse it.”
“It’s fine,” said Cuby. “It’s not like we spent much doing that except your mana—if he comes, he’ll be alone for a while, and with no maneuvering room.”
I thought about this, then nodded. She was right, of course.
“I think we just need to do damage,” I said, voice still a low whisper. “I could have loaded us up with Purging Radiances to throw at him when he appeared, but we kept trying to get clever and pull tricks.”
Cuby shrugged. “In our defense, pulling tricks has always worked—every time, up until this time.”
“True.”
“Also,” Cuby said, “the ground here is littered with animal bones.
“Great,” I said, looking down to see not just bird and rodent-sized bones, but bones that looked like they belonged to saurshrikes and people.
“We’ll be fine,” said Cuby. “I doubt it’s another boss, but we should go deeper and see if there’s another exit or a space to camp.”
For a moment I wanted to say that I doubted this—but then I remembered that we were in a video game, and this was a cave. I conjured a hardlight tether and gave it to Cuby to wind around on of her arms for light, then brightened my candle-flame to its utmost, bathing the way ahead of us in blue light.
At first it almost seemed like the cave resembled a natural formation like one might find on Earth—past the soil that had fallen in over the years, we treaded across uneven stone and had to stoop down and crawl on our bellies to reach the other side.
But once I got up and brushed myself off, I saw that we were in a tunnel that, while seeming naturally formed, was conspicuously uniform in its overhead clearance. We progressed slowly, making sure to look out for any monsters until we rounded a bend to see the strangest room ahead—a wide area, its center a small earthen mound surrounded by a moat of still water.
On the mound there was a chest—an actual treasure chest, the wood bound with bolted strips of iron, the lid curved.
I sighed, remembering the bones. “This is a trap.”
“You thought that about my sword.”
“No, I thought your sword could be a trap,” I corrected. “This is definitely a trap.”
I started casting an Implosive Missile.
“What are you—”
I threw it at the largest stalactite—which took no damage from my pure Divine affinity. “Something’s going to jump out when we get that chest and try to turn us into bones,” I said, beginning another cast.
“If you say so,” Cuby said.
My second cast was aimed at the room’s biggest rock, and my third cast struck the surface of the water—which immediately roiled, hissed, and converged on the chest from every side, sucking it into the center of a massive, mucoid glob.
Spineglutton – Level 11
The ooze shuddered, then slug-crawled away from us and up the wall, where it spat a single chip of stone at my Mana Shield before dying to my Purging Radiance spam.
“I know, I know,” I said. “It was rude of me. But I don’t even want to give Spineglutton here a chance at showing us its hospitality.”
“Yeah,” Cuby said, sighing. “You were right.”
I threw a few more missiles around to make sure it wasn’t a multi-monster encounter, but had to be satisfied after only a few: my Energy was almost depleted, and I was barely past half way to level 12.
I stepped forward and opened the chest. There was no trap—and its inventory contained only one thing:
Container – Iron-Bound Chest [40]:
Uncommon Equipment – Glittering Derunium Splint Mail
Requires 21 Strength
This set of splint mail was forged by the gnomes of Mirrakatetz for use by their strongest warriors.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
+ 9 Defense Rating
+ 80 Hit Points
+ 5 Divine Resistance
+ 1 Magic Resistance
+ 2 Physical Resistance
+ 1 Psychic Resistance
“Hey!” said Cuby once I showed her the item. “That’s useless to both of us. Forever.”
But in a stroke of genius, I’d started thinking like a toddler. “But check out the box,” I said, nudging the chest with my foot. “The box it came in is the real prize. Let’s drop all these monster parts in here and free up some space for more monster parts.”
We did just that, having harvested a large collection of demonstones, crystallized hearts, derunium-infused scales, ram’s horns….
We debated burying the chest, but we didn’t have any tools and there wasn’t much in the way of soil, so we left it where the ooze had died. Then we carried on through another, narrower passage to find a long crevice that led to bright light.
“Do we leave?” Cuby asked. “We’ve got two hours left on our clocks and on Make Camp.”
I sat. “I don’t know,” I said. “We should get out there and farm more, see if we can get you to level 14 and even me to level 12. But Axxonni has control of these demons to a range and at a level we don’t understand. If the spirefiends are patrolling above, and they spot us, what’s to stop him from coming down on us with an army?”
But Cuby shook her head. “But if we’re in a more open area, it won’t matter. The spirefiends won’t arrive fast enough to make a difference—and every one that comes you can invert and then terrify.”
“They could arrive all at once,” I said. “Along with Axxonni. All he has to do is group up his forces and move out on us, which is exactly what he did last time. The real question is whether his reach is as far as the lower slopes, and whether he’s looking for us now.”
“If his reach were that far, he’d have gotten us when you were level 9.”
I sighed, thinking that Cuby might have a point—I didn’t know how, exactly, his demon-telepathy worked. But if I worked in the way I was worried about, things could be over for us very quickly.
“I still have my illusion,” she said. “And you still have your Auditory Illusion, which might distract the spirefiends if he sends them for us. And there’s still plenty of cover to be found. And we still have our Gift of Empyreal Flight.”
“Let’s watch this exit,” I said at last. “See if there are any patrolling overhead, see if he’s looking for us.”
We pushed ourselves up the crevice, and Cuby put a new illusion over us while we scanned the sky. “I wish I’d attacked him and his horse,” I said. “Seen how many percent a Purging Radiance does to each.”
“He was making passes,” Cuby said. “Flying into range to throw spells. Your Fragmented Spell and your investitures are a perfect answer to that, we just need to be somewhere other than a perfect environment for him to knock you around.”
“Somehow I’m worried that he didn’t show all his strength,” I said. “He was a priest—he could have a lot of healing, or boss-grade miracles.” I shuddered at the thought.
We waited a while longer, and I could feel Cuby’s impatience beside me. “Okay,” I said finally. “Let’s go. I’ll use my Hasty Memorization skill to keep track of where we are.”
“Yes,” she said, springing out of the hole with excitement. I cast a Haste on her, then followed her into the air after drinking a mana potion that I knew I would need for the farm, bringing me down to 7, total.
We didn’t run into Axxonni again, or any patrolling wyverns. Soon we were back at the base of the mountain, and I’d committed a few landmarks to memory to make sure we could get back to our cave when we wanted to.
We found a sporebear, then released a lot of frustration on it and every demon that came to fight with it. Then we repeated the process for three more packs, growing more confident in our safety as the afternoon progressed. Cuby struck level 14—and joy of joys, one of her iconic abilities was Blessing of Protection:
Iconic Spell – Blessing of Protection
Your Defense Rating is increased by 4.
You can sustain a total of 2 blessings at a time.
“They gave the sword saint the defense blessing,” I said as we wandered around to collect loot. “Nice.”
“I got all the basics,” said Cuby. “I got the two miracles, too—the heal and crowd-control clear and the extra damage auto crit. I took this one, obviously, because you’re getting close to unhittable from some of these.”
“It’s good,” I said. “And if you take a miracle next, you get 3 uses of it, right? It’s all based on grace?”
Cuby grinned. “Right.”
“How come I didn’t get any grace?” I asked. “I’m a divine class.”
Cuby laughed. “I think the invulnerability was enough, Alatar. Plus, I should take the miracles and buffs we need—your iconics should be powerful spells that you can stack spell augments on.” She shrugged. “It’s worked pretty well so far.”
I had to smile back at her. “Are you saying, Cuby, that you are going to support me?”
“Always!” she said.
Soon we made our way back to the cave as our clock ticked down to zero and Make Camp finished its cooldown. I was feeling pretty good—surely even the boss would start missing me if I could keep a Psychic Parasite on him, maybe a Haste on myself? But as I was about to clamber down into the crevice, I noticed it—away in the distance along the wider road that led to Veleth’s Rest. The very thing we’d been waiting to see all day.
“Cuby.”
I pointed, and she pulled out her spyglass. It seemed to me there were a lot of people walking along the road—far more than we’d left at Haroshi’s camp.
“Is it him?” I asked. “Did he recruit like you thought he might?”
Cuby passed me the spyglass, her face grave.
“It’s worse.”