Sam stared intently at the pages scattered around haphazardly on the impromptu table he had created. The others, after a brief discussion about taking a break, were around the room.
Dan was taking a very quick bio break, Clarissa was scraping off some unusually colored moss from the wall and then putting it into small glass bottles, and Katie was furiously messaging somebody, sitting on the ground while fiercely scowling.
While Sam was curious about who managed to rile the young woman up so much, he was also wise enough not to ask.
After all, he had a bigger issue.
When he first saw the writings on the torn pages, he instantly recognized them as the demonic language thanks to his inherited memories, yet there was barely anything about the language in those same memories.
And now that he had a little time to think about it, he found it rather weird. The other Sam specifically made sure to study the demons and everything about them, to find one of the Shadow Tunnels and make bank.
He leaned back in his seat, with his hands in his lap, closed his eyes, and began meditating.
Battle Meditation was always on not unlike a passive buff in any other game, but simply meditating still helped him. Sam cast his mind back, going over the memories he inherited from the other Sam.
Some were vague, cloud-like, clearly not important to his dimensional counterpart, yet others were as clear as any current video he could watch over the internet, and a select few were so vivid because they have been seared into the mind of the person to who the memories originally belonged to.
Every betrayal and loss was showcased in high fidelity, oddly clinging to his mind, making a real effort to disassociate from them and not get consumed by the rage and sadness suffusing them. With a real effort, he cast them aside and concentrated on the strongest memory in the deluge.
The moment when the other Sam died. It was basically burned into his head, unable to be forgotten, and hard to ignore. Working backward from that second, knowing that the death was related to the Shadow Tunnel, he soon arrived at the relevant topics.
‘Oh…fiddlesticks…’ he thought as he realized the issue.
Demons weren’t united. No demon would use the demonic language, understandable by all demons and a lot of non-demons if it meant that their work would be understandable by any looky-loo. Instead, they used codes. So many codes…
Sam had a rather sizeable headache as he quickly skimmed the other Sam’s effort to decrypt several pages of codes that he had found.
The reason the other Sam spoke the basics of the demonic language was for the same reason. He thought it would help him, but when he realized that it was basically useless, he threw it aside.
The fact was that most demons didn’t even use the demonic language as the base for the codes was another thing. Apparently, being locked behind gates guarded by elite soldiers forced them to face off against each other. Thus, most demons when they had to write codes, used a language from another race, or simply made up a new language.
He opened his eyes, head slightly aching, and stared at the still unknown symbols on the old pieces of paper.
‘It seems I have to do it the hard way…’ he mused as he saw Dan logging back in. He stood up and stretched, then carefully collected the papers. ‘Those people in webnovels have it so easy…’
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Gathering the team back together, they soon continued their journey forward into the belly of the fracture.
Soon, the fracture ran out of moss monsters, and felled trees replaced the demonic treants, forming rudimentary defenses as crazed demons kept swarming them. The demons themselves came in several flavors.
There were ones that tried to use the sword, hacking at the air, bulky ones hefting giant greatswords going even more berserk, while slightly saner ones used bows to snipe at them from behind the rudimentary defenses.
Rarely, mostly part of big groups, they happened upon demons that were clearly mages in the past, yet now they simply stood there with open mouths and bulging eyes, pointing at Sam’s group and letting out guttural screams as demonic magic headed for the team.
The demons were strong, no question about it, but they were very, very dumb.
It was rather easy to funnel them and deal with them one on one. Though Clarissa had to work her magic to make sure their tank survived the first strikes.
And all the way, they collected small pieces of paper, hoping that in the end, they would get something for their efforts.
The drops were middling at best, lots of coins, some of them from the demonic realm, which Sam took citing a quest as a reason, while Katie needled him for the details.
They also dropped a few demonic-looking swords, but as they were not enchanted, or the passage of time or some other phenomena has corroded the enchantment that had been there, they only collected them for the metal they contained.
By Sam’s estimation, it was around three-quarters toward the end when the first valuable thing dropped. Naturally, it was a skill book.
Dan picked it up and read it out loud. “Poison Purge. Purges poison from the target in a short amount of time, high cooldown.” He instantly handed it over to Clarissa.
Sam nodded and waited alertly while the healer learned the spell. It was a good one, though thanks to the speed it purged poison, it had a chance to add debuffs to the target.
Mostly vomiting.
Sam couldn’t wait for the compilation videos, as a sufficiently trained and talented healer could cast it with a zero chance of the debuff, or they could force the debuff.
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Finally, after another gigantic cavern traversed and with countless demons defeated, they reached walls made from the same wood that made up the improvised defenses they had seen on their short journey.
Instead, they saw tall, imposing walls made with inhumane precision, shooting holes paced evenly and Sam could practically smell the enchantment of durability wafting from the walls.
Too bad the gates were torn asunder, leaving a gaping hole in the otherwise magnificent fortification.
As soon as they made this observation, the team heard a roar and soon demons came pouring out of the gate.
“Retreat! Retreat to the turn!” he exclaimed and the team, thanks to the time they spent fighting alongside each other followed his command to the letter, retreating as one unit, with Katie in the front fending off the fastest attackers while Clarissa shielded them from arrows and other projectiles and Dan and Sam unleashed their magic on the crazed crowd rushing at them.
Reaching the turn in the cavern system, Sam unleashed his meager earth-shaping skills and created some fortification for himself. It wasn’t anything grand, but it was enough that in conjunction with the bend in the cavern wall and the stupidity of the insane demons, it would lead them to their death.
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Readying his magic, Sam grinned, raised his sword, and exclaimed.
“Let’s show them our power!” He then unleashed a barrage of wind, each of them piercing fireballs originating from Dan, turning them into blazing infernos. All this happened, with Katie’s maddened laughter giving a rather enchanting background music.
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The boss, as expected, was another demon. The only difference was that it was twice as big as the biggest one they had seen so far, with a twice as big sword, and wore armor upgraded with metal parts.
“Plan?” Dan asked, standing next to Sam as the giant let out a roar that shook the walls, causing a minuscule amount of dust to fall on them.
“Distract, Dissect, Dead…”
“That’s so lame…”
“Sorry, still workshopping…” Sam admitted with a little embarrassment, then called out. “Lucky! Bite from behind!”
Thankfully, thanks to the insanity, they didn’t really need to hide their intentions.
There were a few heartbeats of silence as the monster picked up speed and then Lucky emerged from the shadow of a fallen tree being splintered by the rushing giant.
Apparently, the monster still had enough awareness to recognize when it was being attacked so it instantly whirled around, protecting itself with the wide and flat blade that it wielded with Lucky’s enhanced fangs clashing against it.
This was a fatal mistake as Dan and Sam rained magical death on the poor monster, with Katie ready to strike. The monster recovered after a second, singed and a little bit damaged but still had enough health to earn the boss title.
Katie rushed at it and her sword strike was met with another, pushing the girl back, but this meant that the monster was once again distracted. Ready for another barrage.
And that’s how it went…
The moment Katie took more damage than advised Lucky would jump in, distracting the monster with a bite or claw strike at the head with Clarissa healing up their berserker tank.
It took a while, but with an insane monster, this was their best bet.
Granted, Sam could have created a giant hole with his earth magic and lured the monster in, but that wouldn’t have allowed them to practice their skills in a ‘real’ scenario.
Skill levels go brrrrr…
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Gathering the drops, even more demonic weapons, with some demonic metals in ingot form as well as a few more Poison Purge skill books that Sam would be auctioning off to people who were going to try that insane poison fracture. It wouldn’t work as the poison wasn’t fully physical, but it would be very funny.
They crept through the destroyed gate, alert, ready for more monsters but what awaited them was silence and even more destruction.
The walls gleamed with hardiness and durability, but the inside of the fortification was much more chaotic and less cared for.
It seemed whatever befell the demons started after they had finished the walls.
He spread his mana far and wide, but from what he could gather, trying to ignore the cloying demonic mana and the chaotic haze of dimensional mana from the fracture, he could only sense one thing of importance.
But better to be safe than sorry.
“Right. No splitting up. We go around in a spiral and finish in the middle at the only semi-standing building. Questions?”
“Yes,” Clarissa spoke up with a dry voice. “Why not head for the building directly?”
“Because this is a game and I don’t want to miss any hidden loot.”
She didn’t have any good answer to that…
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Their trek through the detritus and chaos of the inside of the fortification was slow at the beginning as they sifted through the rubble, but as they got their practice in and found no evidence of any more monsters, their operation sped up.
Sadly, they found nothing.
No hidden cellars, no hidden doors leading to vast vaults filled with mountains of gemstones, and no small safes filled with ancient scrolls of wisdom. Nothing.
And now they stood before the dilapidated building waiting for Sam’s signal.
“Alright people. By the book! Katie goes in, then Lucky. If they survive, we follow!” he announced cheerfully. Katie agreed equally cheerfully, but Lucky, demonstrating his constantly growing intellect visibly glared at Sam.
However, he had a hidden weapon.
“I’ll have your favorite rabbit stew made!”
The next second the already falling apart door was in splinters and Katie was yelling for Lucky to wait for her.
Fortunately, neither Lucky nor Katie died, so the rest of them followed inside.
The house was in disarray and parts of the outer walls were missing, with holes in the roof, displaying the roof of the shadowy cavern.
There were three rooms, but only one had something interesting in it.
Sam, Dan, and Clarissa found Katie and Lucky standing next to a bed, on which lay an emaciated corpse of a clearly female demon, garbed in a once ceremonial garb. ‘A priestess…’ he mused as he took in the scene.
And right where her heart should have been was an irregularly shaped dark crystal that was constantly emitting demonic mana. ‘And the source…’
“Look around and see if we can find a clue about what happened,” he told the team while closing his eyes and starting to scan the building with even greater focus.
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They found only one thing: a bag, in surprisingly good condition, in another room, under some rubble.
To their surprise, it only had some moldy food, a small velvet case, another collection of writings, more money, and a spell book.
Naturally, they checked the book first.
“Huh, Clarissa, this is your lucky day…” Sam said with a smile while handing over the book. “Purge. It purges mana from the target. The more will and control they have over their mana, the more mana it takes to do it.”
She took the book, and it instantly transformed into motes of white light that swirled around her before vanishing. Clarissa, the smart woman she was, instantly got the rather heavy-handed hint.
“Give me a few minutes to practice before trying it on the crystal,” she replied before sitting down and closing her eyes, starting to familiarize herself with the spell.
Sam gave her a thumbs up and turned back to the velvet case.
Opening it gently with the others and two very curious familiars watching, he revealed a simple monocle surrounded by a rather thick silver band with writing on it. Sam couldn’t help but let out a big sigh…
“At least that I recognize…”
“Then what is it?”
“Elvish. Enchanted…” he picked it up and carefully looked it over, even though he recognized it immediately. “…to translate. How lucky for us…”
“Then we can read what we found?” Katie asked excitedly.
“I can. It translates into elvish.”
“Booooo….”
“Them's the breaks… now let’s get a table and we shall see what befell these poor fellows…”
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Sam sat at the table outside of the building, not wanting to distract Clarissa with Dan and Katie staring at him in anticipation. Puffball wandered away after the first minute, and Lucky was gnawing on some robust snacks at his feet, content to be just near him.
He theatrically cleared his throat and began reading his notes after translating them into elvish, then into proper human language and putting them in order.
“Day three of our trip. We found an excellent spot to rest. The priestess has blessed us with…”
“Day seven. Last night some manner of beast attacked us. Small wounds, no death. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Day eleven. First death on our journey. His soul is with the Goddess. Priestess is unbothered.”
Here, Sam was interrupted by Katie. “All of them are like that?”
“Yeah, the first ones are pretty boring, but the latter ones are much more interesting.”
“Then skip to it, please, before I get bored to death…”
“Sure, princess…”
He reshuffled the notes a little, cleared his throat again, and began reading.
“Day thirtieth. We have not seen the road in a while. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Day thirty-third. We ran out of fresh fruit. Thankfully, one of the scouts found an orchard near a cave. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Day thirty-fourth. Great rain stopped us from traveling. The cave was ideal for a rest. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Day thirty…something. The rain hasn’t stopped. A nearby river has flooded. Fruit is tasty. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Day something-something. Still enough fruit. Rain is so-so. Priestess is unbothered.”
“It’s a day. Got food and water. Cave comfy. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Day. Food. Cave. Priestess is unbothered.”
“Sad. Sad. Sad. Priestess is unbothered.”
“And there the rest of them are just scribblings of the phrase ‘Priestess is unbothered’,” Sam finished his retelling. “I think some of them were written with blood.”
Katie was openly crying. “That was so sad!”
Dan cast a nervous glance at the girl and nodded hesitantly. “So, they ate some kind of fruit that drove them mad?”
“Probably the reason we got all those Poison Purge books.”
“Great, but why does this fracture have seven charges? It wasn’t that hard…”
“Probably, because the next time we will reveal different information.”
“Oh, one of those…”
“Yeah…”
Their discussion was interrupted by Clarissa coming to get them, ready to try the new spell on the dark crystal.
Soon, they found themselves back at the small cavern where the portal was still merrily spinning.
They looked at each other, and as one, the team charged at the fracture.