Chapter: 14

Len woke in the middle of the night as someone approached the barn. He’d laid down a spell that would wake him in such a situation.

He rubbed his face, he’d fallen asleep after finishing Rick’s arm bracer’s that lay on the workbench infront of him. A flare of mana through his body eased the aches from sleeping in a bad position.

The intruder came around the last cart before the workbench, it was Marigold, the woman that had yelled at him and Rick about healing her husband.

She paused her steps as she looked at him. She fumbled with her dress and drew a kitchen knife, holding it out in front of her.

“I’m just here for that potion! I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Potion ain’t going to help your husband. He was dead before Rick and I got here.”

“I can save him!” She took a threatening step forward with her knife, jabbing it in Len’s direction.

He sighed and crossed his arms, she was still some five meters away.

“Those potions are mine, I’m not going to give them to you.”

“You’ll give them to me else I will hurt you.”

“You would hurt me to save another? You’d get further along in what’s to come compared to others. Do you have family, children?”

He grabbed a stool with his tendrils and dragged it over next to her. Most of him was screaming out to redner her unconscious, for someone else to deal with her. It would be easier, it wouldn’ be his problem anymore. Thoguhthte time with his family had soothed hs heart, had calmed him.

“I have family, my husband got this land from his family and I came to join him.”

All that she might have.

“If I don’t have him I don’t have anything,” She said. There was fear and worry there.

“Grief is—messy.” Len leaned back against the workbench. “It hits everyone differently. Its all individual as the relationship you had with that person you lost. Though the one thing it will take is time.”

“He doesn’t have time, he needs that drink!” She moved forward again, eyeing his pack on the workbench.

“It won’t work on him, though it could save another’s life. Would you deny another’s life for his?”

“If he’s not alive I won’t have a say on my life. No one will want to marry the second wife of a farmer.” Resolve firmed up in her eyes.

Len frowned. “Did you get a skill increase?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re already stronger than most people and with the information Rick and I said you’ll be able to be much stronger. You’re already stronger than any normal man. You’ve got your own kind of strength, you don’t need to be attached to man.”

She faltered. “You’re lying.”

“Don’t need to lie, look you ain’t getting the potion so go figure out what you want to do.” Len rubbed his face and yawned. “I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll take this as you being hit with grief and confused.” He waved at her. “If you threaten me with a blade again when I’m trying to sleep I’ll kill you.”

She stumbled back as he stood. There was unsureity in her gaze now.

“I’d suggest putting that back where you found it. My mother wouldn’t be happy to know you were thinking of stabbing me with one of her knives.”

She turned and fled the barn. Len reached out with his will, closing the doors to the barn, casting an alarm spell upon it and the other entrances into the barn.

Secure he moved to the nearest cart and pulled out the metal bolts that held the cart’s tailgate up.

He let it drop as he went to his pack, grabbing it and carrying ti back to the cart as he pulled out sleeping blankets. Laying one underneath, using the pack as a pillow and pulling a blanket ontop.

He yawned and went to sleep. Wasn’t the first time he’d been woken up by someone wielding a blade.

***

"Morning, beautiful," Rick declared as he entered the barn, causing Len to nearly jump out of his skin, the alarm spell activating at the same time.

"Morning, jackass," Len retorted, scooting down to hang his legs off the tailgate.

Rick grinned, passing him a cup of tea. He sipped his own as he studied the pieces of armor laying on the workbench. "So, how did it all go?"

Len looked upon the enchanted armor. The arm bracers were covered in a layer of spiked crystal like the claws of the foxes, threaded with black veins.

The leg bracers were smooth like the armor for the torso, also with the black veins.

“I put strength on the arm bracers and agility on the leg bracers. Speed us up some but not a whole hell of a lot I was tempted to put the summoned armor layer on all of them, though it would be better with plate armor allowing full coverage.”

Rick turned the bracers over, the core was spread through the enchantment and organic veins connected the core to the exterior covering.

“That’ll be handy,” Rick said. “They’re starting to cook up breakfast there’s a group that wants to come with us to the dungeon.”

“I talked to my family about it last night,” Len said.

“Would like to get them through a few more skill ups.” Rick put down his mug and started pulling on his armor from the workbench. Len drank another mouthful off tea, putting it down on the end of the cart before he slipped onto his feet and approached the workbench.

“I was talking to some of the people round here, they got several skill-ups ready for today,” Rick said.

“If the dungeon’s calm enough I said that they could harvest the crops. Should give them all an easy skill up and increase what they pull in.” Len shrugged on his armored plates before pulling the straps on either side of his chest tight, releasing them a bit before tying them.

“Could be a good spot for a dungeon outpost,” Rick said. “Day or so travel from the train station in Warwick, can use the cores and crystals to make enchantments to increase defense and stats. The meat will be useful. Don’t know what kind of rewards the dungeon will give out either. If they can farm at the same time then they’ll be able to sell food as well.”

Len worked his jaw.

Rick held up his hands. “Though if you were to say that then your family might think about staying and put themselves at risk.”

“I just got them back and I’m starting to get my head around that,” Len said.

“I didn’t say you were wrong. I’m just saying that it might not be a bad idea to set up a dungeon outpost here. There’s no guilds that will tax us for using it and we can make them stronger with gear.”

“All dungeons are valuable its just how much risk are associated with each. Do you know anything about this one?”

Rick shook his head. “Can’t say I do.”

“How much would we research every dungeon we went into. Take the time to learn about them slowly,” Len said. “We’re dungeoneers, they’re farmers that got much stronger over a day. They’re still having a hard time with their strength. They’ve ripped off nearly all the doors and they’re damaging the buildings and ceilings just by moving around.”

“We don’t know how strong the dungeon is yet,” Rick said. “The creatures are around level fifty or so, that makes it a mundane grade.”

“Its weak for now but it’ll get stronger. They can get lax if its easy to kill the creatures inside. Most of them are going to be stronger than that with the skill-ups so they won’t be getting stronger from killing the creatures.”

“The creatures will get stronger. Those manning the outpost can learn how they fight and if they kill enough of them they can stay a few levels ahead of the creatures, giving them some safety,” Rick said.

“You have a point.”

“You just don’t want to put your family in that position,” Rick said.

Len pulled the strings on the back of his last leg bracer tight and tied them. “No I don’t.”

He stood up.

“Make them as ready as possible for what’s going to come. You think that we’re going to sit in a city throughout this all?”

“No, probably not.”

“There’s all those dungeons out there to be delved, cleared out and outposts set up. How many dungeons did we hear about that we wished we’d done first? We can do them,” Rick grinned.

His excitement was infectious as Len shook his head to try and hide the grin that was forming.

“There we are,” Rick slapped him on the back. “Come on lets go see our ‘first’ dungeon.”

They walked out of the barn to find a group of nearly a dozen men holding makeshift weapons, Des and Len’s father was among the crowd.

“Rick and I will take point, we’ll scout out where the dungeon is and if possible try to see what’s going on inside,” Len said.

There was some awkward shuffling among the men.

“Treat everything that we say as an order. You don’t put just our lives at risk but that of everyone here if you trigger a dungeon overflow.” Len looked among them. There were a few jutting out their chins, not pleased with the situation.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Come on.” Len waved them on. He turned and started walking for the forest. He looked over to Rick who gave him a look that seemed to say ‘this should be fun’.

Len grimaced, slowing as they reached the wall to the compound.

“Anything happen?” He asked the boy at the wall. He nearly jumped up out of his skin as Rick gently caught the boy’s pitchfork and returned it to him.

“There were some birds and things in the fields but nothing came out of the opening in the forest.”

“Thanks,” Len said.

He walked out of the wall, moving in his armor to warm up some. They moved along the field that had been stomped down by the creatures and the fighting. Len stopped at the entrance to the forest, casting mana sight.

“Don’t see any disturbances.”

“Lets see where it goes,” Rick moved down the muddy trail with a hand on his hammer.

Len followed with the others following behind.

Rick used more of his strength, hopping down the path as he looked around. Len studied the path as they moved deeper. The forest had been left along the ground hilly and filled with stone that would have been bad for farming. They passed a pit that had been used to quarry stone for the farm homes in the dell and beyond.

Rick slowed his pace.

They came to an open area, a cliff to the left side, the remaining three sides trees, other than the thirty meters around the crystalline sheathe that jutted out of the ground.

“Well that is just fucking obvious,” Rick said.

“Pretty recent impact,” Len studied the trees that had been ripped from the ground and tossed outwards.

Crystal shards created a shining path that connected to the muddy trail they were on.

“Thankfully they haven’t gone in another direction,” Len said.

“Go looking for the largest density of mana. That must’ve been everyone at the farms.”

“Weren’t the only things in the area,” Len pointed to bloody marks and stirred up ground, signs of fighting.

“Other beasts attracted by the increased mana,” Rick said.

They settled down among the still standing trees, watching the dungeon entrance.

The rest of their group appeared on the trail.

“What are you doing running off like that?” A man with little left of hair upon his head and a sour expression on his face admonished.

“Keep your voice down,” Len hissed.

“Look here boy, if you think that I’m going to let some kid order me around.”

“Raskin keep your voice down?” Len’s father grabbed the man’s arm.

He tore it away.

“I’m done with this stupid shit. He’s a boy Edward, both of them are. Sure they were able to fight some of those creatures yesterday. Today we have the same strength as them and we’re men. This is our home and our farms. Lennard would want us to run away from here. We’re going to kill these beasts like we did when that bear started coming onto our land.”

He glared at Edward and then Len in challenge.

“There could be five creatures down there. It could be hundreds,” Len said.

“Squatting out here in the forest ain’t going to do nothing.” The man said. “Come on.” He looked around the group, two other men stepped forward.

“Cowards.”

They pushed past into the opening. Len and Rick let them. Len’s father made to move past to stop them once more.

Len put a hand on his father’s shoulder.

“Some people have to understand the world by running head first into it.”

Rick grunted and pulled his hammer out.

Pride is a fickle teacher.

Raskin looked like he wanted to say something, hearing Len but caught Edward’s eye and waved to the others with him. “Come on.”

They moved towards the sheathe, their feet crunched on the crystal. They moved around to the right.

“Shoot that fucking thing!” Raskin yelled. A chittering hiss came from the ground as another man pulled a revolver.

“I said no firearms,” Len shook his head.

The first shot hit something unseen as the trio backed up.

The second round the revolver tore out of the man’s hand flying above him before it exploded. The force slammed the man into the ground.

“That’s why you don’t use gunpowder, might not even have enough force to fire the bullet, or so much force it blows up your gun,” Len shook his head.

A crystalline spider emerged from the ground and charged the two men recovering from their buddy’s exploding pistol.

One lowered his spear even as he was backing up, the spider gaining momentum he stabbed at the best, lodging the pitchfork in its mouth, losing grip on it as he turned to run, the end of the pitchfork got wedged under a fallen tree, the spider’s momentum driving it through its mouth, and brain before its armor delfected it into its body.

The creature went suddenly and completely still, the pichfork’s shaft snapped with the weight of the dead spider, dropping to the ground.

The ‘killer’ who was stumbling overe trees, pasty white tripped and grunted as experience flooded him.

A second and third spider had charged out of the dungeon.

Len kicked the logs infront of him and the other scouts.

“Have them running left to right, foul up the spider’s footing,” Len said.

Rick kicked logs into place, creating an obstacle to the dungeon’s entrance.

Raskin jabbed at one spider it hit the armor above its left foremost leg, scratching uselessly against its crystal armor and making him wide open.

The spider darted forward, opening its maw.

Len threw a rock, hitting the creature in the head, diverting its attack. It bit down on Raskin’s arm instead, crunchin bone as Raskin yelled out.

It shook Raskin, ripping his arm off and tossing him into the trees.

He snapped through branches, hitting a tree and falling to the ground.

“You two go and get him, tie his arm up to stop the bleeding.” Len pointed to two men. “Rick grab the gun guy. Anyone else have a gun toss it out into the forest.”

Two pistols were thrown out.

Len glared at them and then jumped on the logs, balancing to get a hand on the back of the man that was trying to crawl away from the dungeon after his level-up. Len slashed through a spider caught up in the logs.

There were more coming up from the dungeon entrance.

Len Rick killed two, throwing the gun guy over his shoulder, he jumped on another spider’s back, kicking off of it, the creature, crashed into the ground, bleeding from its mouth.

Len arrived with the farmers and dropped off the guy who’d leveled up.

“Aim for the head and eyes, hold your ground.” Len grabbed men and lined them up against the logs, he called up stone to stop the logs from rolling back on their feet as the spiders tried to advance, slowing down with their limbs going through the openings between logs.

“When I say one, those who are a half step forward will jab,” Len showed what he wanted them to do as Rick reached them and took the man off of his back, checking him over.

“When I say two, those a half step back will jab forward and those up front will pull back their spears. You will not jab unless I say one or two and you will pull back on the opposite number!” Len walked back down the line, kicking legs and setting stances.

“One! Two!”

They jabbed at the open air.

“From the front of your foot through your leg and up and out your shoulder. Like you’re piercing a hay bale! Again, one, two! Now lets do it for real!”

A spider came into range.

“One!” The hits went all around it. “Two!”

Someone landed a hit on its face.

“One! Pull out damn you! You want a litter of kids?” He berated them, not out of anger, though he did use that. It gave them something else to think about, something else to be annoyed with. Something they did understand. Peer pressure and berating was a great tool to motivate a fighter, or turn a famer into one in the moment.

Others jabbed into the creatures face, the spider shuddered and stilled, dying.

“Pull out you jackasses! You really are farmers!”

“Two!” Another spider was stabbed. “Don’t all swarm one spider! Attack what’s infront of you! One! If you’re head on, go for its face or next to the guy that’s head on go for it! Two!” Len grabbed onto a spear wedged into the second dying spider and pulled it out.

Rick grabbed the first dead spider and tossed it to the side, it would funnel the other spiders into the wood.

No more were coming out of the dungeon and Len could hear the two that went off to find Raskin crashing through the woods on their way back.

“One! If you don’t have a face to hit, go for the limbs! Two! Stop moving around so much, plant those feet and stay in-line!” Len grabbed up rocks from the ground, he used the resonating technique on them and threw them with spells to increase their speeds. They went through the spider’s head, they stilled, blood coming out of their orifices before collapsing.

“Now imagine a pocket of air forming around your pitchfork when you pull it out, Two! It firms up around the top and when you jab it into the spider, all that air shoots forward in a burst, One!”

Len looked at Rick and then a few of the spiders. Rick nodded, getting the message and pushing the spiders back out of the way to give them more breathing room and focus on learning how to fight and work together.

One’s spear was dragged forward, the farmer nearly going with it before he let go, stumbling towards the logs. Rick was there, grabbing onto him with his will and dragging him back.

Another over extended, getting hit with a leg that cracked his chest and threw him back.

“Leave him!” Len barked as those on either side moved to him. Rick dragged him back and fused his bones together. The man who had leveled up grabbed up his pitchfork and stepped into his position.

Finally the last spider was killed.

“Get the body off to the side, Rick?” Len asked. The farmers grabbed the spider body and hauled it to the side.

Len and Rick moved over their log blockade, nearly two dozen spiders met their fate there.

They landed on the open ground where some of the spiders had caught a curious case of the exploding head rocks.

Len and Rick moved without a sound across the ground, moving along the dirt instead of the trail of crystals.

Rick glanced down the sheathe, he moved back a step and waved Len up.

He leaned over the sheathe, looking down the ramp into the dungeon. It was formed of crystals, sloping into a room also made of crystal.

Light came from somewhere, reflecting off of the crystals, giving it a dozen different colors.

Len looked around, he couldn’t see anymore from his vantage point. He pulled back from the edge, Rick had found a rock about as big as his thigh that he was resting his hand on.

“Remote eye?”

Len nodded and projected his vision beyond his body. His vision split into two, a hedache started to build as he guided the second vision to move, it floated over the sides of the sheathe and then down into the dungeon.

The ramp was at a slow incline, reaching a large square room, crystals were growing on the walls in their ogonal shapes, there were a multitude of different colors. Len used his mana sight, increasing the drain.

Different mana densities and types. He cut the spell to extend how long he could use it. Crystal was on the floor, Len checked it over, noting the marks on it. There were three exits to the room, each was made of harsh angles. Len took the left one, plants grew out of the crystal, water pooled in an alcove, shining as light caught the particles in the water.

Len used flashes of mana sight to assess the different materials. He reached a corner, going around it the hallway continued down. Another tunnel broke off.

Len kept moving down, his headache growing with the range and the mana interference of the dungeon.

Something caught his eye past the tunnel that went off.

He found an opening in the wall looking out at a massive room with crystal growths jutting out of the walls and floor. Spiders moved between the crystals, weaving webs between them. The web shone in the light, a crystalline gossamer.

Len caught sight of larger spiders than the ones they’d faced at the farm. One crawled up the wall, its feet sticking into the hardened crystal as it found a node it liked and chewed on crystal, picking up more from the wall to put into its mouth.

Len closed his second vision and dismissed the spell. Relief washed through him as he blinked his normal eyes.

“Just scan the exterior, don’t go deeper,” Len said. “The spiders have webs throughout the dungeon, if you vibrate it then, could piss them off.”

Rick channelled mana, his hammer humming before he struck the ground. Rick closed his eyes as Len felt the vibrations move through the ground under their feet.

Len watched the entrance into the dungeon, listening for the sound of fox claws on crystal or the spiders legs.

“Well that’s quite the size,” Rick said. Len looked back as his friend tapped the boulder with his hammer, the stone fell away into dust, revealing a boxy tunnel system underneath, an exterior replica of the dungeon beneath their feet.

“I’ll put down an alarm formation,” Len said.

“I’ll watch,” Rick put down the model and looked over the sheathe.

Len dug his blade into the ground, drawing in the enchantment. He cut the back of his hand, dropping some blood onto it. Once finished it drew in mana, visible only to his mana sight.

“Lets head back,” Len said.

They hurried back across the ground. Len grabbed up Raskin’s arm on the ground.

The farmers made room for them to pass through.

“Second line take a rest, drink water if you have it, first keep an eye on the entrance. Ten minutes then switch,” Len looked at his brother. “You’re in charge. Dad.” Len waved for him to come with him.

Len moved to Raskin, he sheathed his blade and cleaned the arm on his walk, he kneeled on Raskin’s chest, grabbed the stub of arm and pushed the arm he’d picked up against it. He fused bone first, then some of the tendons and muscle before closing up his skin.

“Eat and drink, you’ll recover in time.”

Len got back up as Raskin looked at him with wide eyes. Len looked at the man who’d been blown up by his pistol. Rick had fused his wounds together, the man looking away, ashamed.

Len stopped a bit away from them, but close enough to the rear of their two farmer lines so they’d be able to hear what he was saying and they could help out one another if they needed to.

“Rick was able to make a model of what the outside of the dungeon looks like,” Len waved to the geometric construct in Rick’s hands.

Rick picked up a stick, pointing to the stone model. “There are two tunnels that create squared off spirals around the central area which is shaped like a diamond, twenty meters across at the top, gets fifty meters wide and then comes to a point at the base of the structure nearly seventy meters deep. There are also these burrows that break off from the tunnels going down and into the walls and then coming back up further down the tunnels or into the main chamber.”

“Fox burrows?” Len asked.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Rick said.

“The central diamond area is filled with spiders, they’ve got webs all over the place,” Len said. “The crystal in the walls is a mana imbued resource. The spiders were eating it so its consumable in some manner. There’s crystals in there that give off light, plants with mana in them that can be used for alchemy and there was a pool of some liquid with a magical effect.”

“How many of them?” Len’s father asked.

“A hundred or so? There were some that were larger than what we’ve faced, too big to use the tunnels to get up here unless the dungeon gets stronger,” Len said. “I put down an alarm enchantment around the entrance, it will let me know if anything else comes out. In the meantime we head back to the farms, skill-up as many people as possible.”