Sher threw her arms around Louie's neck and gave him a big hug.
"Thank you, this looks wonderful. Ten times better than that crap armour I was wearing, this makes me look like a shadow ninja from those Japanese anime. Thank you."
She released him quickly when she saw BOB stand up and gave her a look to see if she meant his master any harm.
Louie wasn't used to PDA as far as he could remember he always only had one love and she was all he needed. He blushed beet red.
Joe started laughing when he saw Louie's face.
He smacked Louie on the shoulder but backed away quickly when BOB gave a low growl.
"Easy BOB, they are packmates, they mean no harm."
"Yea no harm BOB, no harm at all." Joe was quick to reassure BOB.
"Damn bro that dog of yours will make me buy new underwear every day if there were underwear available in the vendor which there isn't I checked. BOB? Why BOB? By the way, thanks for the armour, it looks awesome, honeybadger huh?" He rambled nervously while eyeing BOB.
"Yip, sorry I don't name things but it might be because of the hides I used in making the long shirts and coats, you know what they say about honeybadgers, they will attack any creature no matter the size cause they don't give a fuck."
They laughed.
"True."
"BOB? I like the name BOB, so why not."
Joe shook his head while giving the D . . BOB an uncertain look. "You are sure it's friendly?"
"No it's not friendly but it think of us as a pack, and I think that if you want to win its trust Then treat it as one of us, somebody that can kill you but won't because you are one of us. Like I said, try to win its trust."
"How the hell do I do that?"
"It is a dog, granted it's a bloody big dog, but still a dog, so how would you win a dogs trust?"
"I don't know, I never had a dog, never even thought of getting a pet."
"I had a puppy when I was a kid." Sher was back after she has slipped on her armour.
Louie held his hand out to her. As they appreciated the form-fitting armour.
"The armour looks good on you, take my hand and accept the transfer."
She received a BB asking if she would like to accept a transfer from Louie.
When she accepted, she noticed a steel bar appearing in her inventory.
"If you are ready, take a cross-legged seat and think of him as a big puppy."
"Bloody big puppy," Joe muttered.
"Shhht, then just thinking of him as a puppy reach out to him mentally and offer him a snack. Wait give me back the bar."
She gave him a puzzled look and made the transfer.
He moved to the bench and placed the bar down took the engraving pen and started to cut the bar into smaller bite-size bits before placing it all in a piece of cut leather that he transferred back to Sher.
"Use that as treats. Don't want him to get greedy."
Sher sat on the ground facing BOB but across the road from him.
She took one of the treats and held it in her lap while she imagined calling to BOB, visualizing him as if he was a puppy and that she had a treat for him.
She was definitely not thinking of him as a big killing machine, she closed her eyes and thought of nothing else but her cuddling the puppy and feeding it treats.
She gave a startled squeal as she was unexpectedly licked with a cold tongue, she laughed and opened her hand as he took the treat and laid down in front of her feet to chew and swallow it.
Suddenly its chewtoy Golem leg appeared in front of it as it started chewing again.
Joe gave Louie a look. "It got an inventory?"
"Well Gaea did say that all living beings got a system, he is obviously alive."
They watched as Sher started rubbing BOB behind the ear and he rolled over so she can rub his tummy as his tongue hang out the side of his mouth.
"What kind of dog do you think he was before this? Pitbull?"
"Yea, if a pitbull was a meter tall and 60centemeters wide with porcupine spines laying flat on its back. Its build are definitely solid like a pitbull, might have had a prickly temperament before the change." Louie smiled and moved back to the workbench and cut another bar up and hand it to Joe.
"I don't think Sher's trick will work twice, but if you get an opportunity then you should have some treats ready."
He started cleaning up and inventoried the workbench before they all, BOB included, moved back into the restroom.
As they entered the room the first thing they saw was a big poof of a doggie bed in the one corner near the bunks.
"Well, that settles it then, even the system agree that he is one of the team."
Joe shrugged. "I wonder if he needs to drink fluids?"
"Don't know, but it's a golem, I don't think they need to eat or drink, it will absorb metal to regenerate. Anyhow, I think we should all take a bite to eat and get a bit of rest, then get to practice with your new hand, I still want to work on that shield of yours and the lesser one that I have. Sher, I don't know if you want me to try and improve on that slingshot of yours, but I think that when Joe does exercises later, I should try and make some more slingshots and I might try to do some experiments with some of the mageparts that we got."
Joe's eyes lit up at Louie's last words.
Joe went to the vendor and chose to get a dish that was some kind of steak with green mash and gravy.
Joe and Sher went to bed as Louie took BOB out for a bit of bonding and to try and see if he could teach BOB some basic attack signs.
They went back to the restroom after a fruitless hour. Louie just shook his head.
He went to the vendor before going to bed. Earlier he had found the section for basic spells and skills hidden in an obscured section marked species, what the hell it was doing there he doesn't know, but he must remember to tell his team where to get the skills.
He bought two skills for 3g each.
System Minimap: Lvl 1> This Minimap will generate an image of everything you see around yourself in a radius of 2kilometers. Your path will be marked with a red dotted line and lasts for 24 hours before fading away. Higher levels will reveal hidden caches as well as enemies using stealth
Cartography: Lvl. 1 This skill aids in the production of maps. Increased aptitude for drawing per level of the skill. Skill level increases the accuracy of User minimap. Accuracy and quality of Minimap increase with skill level.
Louie took the cubes from the vendor after a couple of tries to figure out how it works, like licking it and willing it to be absorbed, after trying everything he could think of the accidental crush it in his fist.
Suddenly he was elsewhere.
He looked around and surprisingly he didn't feel threatened or anything, in fact, he felt very calm.
A creature appeared in front of him. It looked like a humanoid praying mantis. Wearing a long coat. It bowed at Louie.
"$#%$&%-$&# &##&."
Louie bowed back. "Sorry, I don't understand you."
The creature stood back and after a moment it nodded its head. It indicated that Louie should keep on speaking. Louie shrugged.
"Where is this?" He walked over to a window and saw a strange crystal-like landscape outside. "I was transported here? Does this have to do with the cartography skill cube that I bought?"
The creature reached out and it seemed that it was adjusting something in the air.
"Greeting gentle being. I must apologise for I have never encountered your language before. Are you from a new integrated species"
"Yes, we are from the Gaea system, how can we understand each other?"
"I have a universal translator, I just had to calibrate it. You are here to learn the cartography skill let us start."
It pointed towards a table full of maps. Louie tried to learn more about where this place is and how he got here, but all he could find out is that he isn't really here and while his soul or whatever part of him is here no time will pass in his reality.
Louie felt like he was bent over that table for days before the cartographer was satisfied with his progress and bid him a good day.
He was suddenly back in the restroom and saw that only a couple of seconds had passed.
He crushed the mini-map cube and went back to another classroom with a different teacher.
After he came back he checked his watch and saw that nearly no time has passed here, while days flew by while learning the skills.
He set a reminder on his clock and marked it vendor skills before going to take a shower and crawled into bed.
It's been a long 40h since they entered the dungeon.
The next day was just as they planned, Louie told them about the skill section and the teachers, and they each bought the map from the store but Sher went for two more since she was going to try and do her own aromatherapy again.
Farming: Lvl. 1 Proficiency and knowledge of farming implements increase with skill level. Quality and Yield of crops and from animal husbandry increase with skill level. Increased quality of foraged materials per skill level.
She was looking for Horticulture but is a sub-skill of Farming so she had to take both.
Horticulture: Lvl. 1 Horticulture is the agriculture of plants, mainly for food, materials, comfort and beauty for decoration. Horticulturists apply their knowledge, skills, and technologies to grow intensively produced plants for food and non-food uses as well as for personal or social needs. Proficiency and knowledge in farming and agricultural related skills rise with the level of the skill.
The rest of the morning went smooth as Louie finished of their gear and joined Joe in sparring to get him used to his new hand.
It took a while for him to try and explain to BOB that they were only playing and that he shouldn't try to eat Joe every time he hit him.
Sher overlooked their practice as they used blunt weapons and she was there to heal any broken bones and bleeding. She got lots of practice in using her healing spell.
After a tiring day, they decided to call a stop and made sure everything was ready to tackle the dungeon again the next day as they got ready for a well-earned rest.
They got up as their reminders when off and made sure that they had everything they needed before getting breakfast from the vendor.
Louie got BOB a bar of stainless steel for breakfast, Damn I got to find out what to feed him, it will bankrupt me if I must buy him food from the vendor.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
"Hey guys, did you see this? There are metals listed here that I'm sure only exist in books. Like this, I read about this in Dr Who. Dalekanium that's the stuff Daleks were made of, and this, Sheol. It costs 10G a gram, wait, I'm going to buy it. I want to see what this magical metal looks like."
He bought the gram. 'Thump' and suddenly there was a small glass container with a small speck of metal floating in the middle on the pedestal.
The air became very heavy and difficult to breathe. It felt as if the gravity has abruptly multiplied by five. Louie could see the mana waves warp around the metal. He distantly heard Joe and Sher scream something and BOB howled, he struggled towards the pedestal and use
"Louie! WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO? AND WHAT WAS THAT?"
Louie sat with his back against the pedestal, shaking while sweat ran down his face, his hands were shaking so bad that he had to clench them into fists.
Joe saw the state he was in as he came over and squatted in front of him.
He slowly reached out to Louie and placed his hand on his shoulder as Sher and BOB joined them. BOB whined softly as he played his head in Louie's lap.
Slowly he relaxed and looked at them.
"Fuck. We got to talk to Gaea, certain things should not be available at this time in the vendor, maybe never, jip definitely never."
"Louie, What happened? What was that?" Sher was really concerned as she touched his brow and
Louie just shook his head as he shared the analysis with them.
Sheol
This metal also known as Red Sheol is a very rare mineral, the isomorphic decay of this mineral attracts wormholes.
Sheol is only found in the topsoil of one planet
"I was so sure that was not real metal. I mean if it were real then that planet would be swallowed by wormholes. Look like I was wrong and it is a real metal. That scared the shit out of me, it's like a live nuclear bomb."
Louie got shakily to his feet and faced the vendor.
"Vendor, is it possible to talk to Gaea?" A BB appeared before them.
Gaea can be reached by visiting one of its temples or talking to one of its clericals staff.
"Shit, ok let's try this. Vendor, GAEA was not happy with humanity for nearly destroying this planet which is its body. If GAEA knew that you have materials that can be used as weapons of mass destruction on a massive scale, maybe even world destruction scale, that can be bought by anyone, let's just say that I bet GAEA would not be happy. Certain materials should only be available at a very very high price to very high-level individuals with express permission from GAEA."
A couple of minutes passed before a BB appeared again.
All materials, spells, abilities and skills in the vendors, that can negatively impact the world as a whole, will be placed under level restrictions awaiting further notification from the System.
"Thank you, vendor."
Louie walked towards one of the chairs and took a seat. "Bloody hell, what a way to start the day."
Sher sat down across from him. "I saw the notification, but I don't understand."
“The metal attract wormholes, hmm let me think . . ."
Joe snapped his finger. "Stargate SG1."
"Yes, Macgyver. Good one Joe."
"Ooh I loved SG1, so the stargate was a wormhole. That's not bad."
“That was a fictional wormhole. As far as I know, no one has made one yet. So think for a moment. A wormhole is like a door, it swings both ways you don't know what might come through, and it could have been any size, but the most disturbing thing is that it doesn't create wormholes, it attracts wormholes. What if there are one in space on the other side of the world? Would the wormhole go around the planet to get to the metal or through the planet?"
Louie shook his head. "This is too much for me. I was never the brightest crayon in the box, I always left the heavy thinking to others." He picked up his stuff. "We got a dungeon to clear."
When they were ready they made sure to clean the room and Sher went so far as to
They reached the room without any incident, and after searching for a couple of minutes they found a hidden stash of mana stones and metal ingots, they also found a hidden door that led them back to the main tunnel.
They had just gone through the door when they saw the road blocked with a whole bunch of golems.
In front was eight thin golems that looked like walking skeletons with spears and wearing giant shields on their backs and behind are two golems that had multiple crossbows mounted on them, they looked like mobile weapon platforms, the last one was a mage.
"What the hell? There are eleven golems now?"
Louie used
Bulwark This unit is a mobile dungeon roaming group dedicated to protecting the ranged golems. If severely damaged they might retreat to fortify the next position and administer repairs.
"Shit those are roaming mobs, we got to get rid of them before they run away and set up a new defensive position."
Thinking for a little while Louie just shrugged. "If it isn't broken don't try to fix it. Let's go with what worked. Sher, can you take out the mage again? Then fall back out of the archery range. Joe, you and I will rush the bulwark behind your shield and grab aggro. I will be right at your back with the other shield to cover our flanks from the archers till we are close to the bulwark. I will then use
They got ready and Sher got within range she managed her PowerShot to make the mage's head explode before moving back to the door.
Louie and Joe rushed the bulwark who suddenly formed a spear line before swinging their ridiculous large door shields around and slamming the bottom into the ground, instead of rushing the bulwark and engaged them they were suddenly faced with a wall bristling with spears.
Suddenly there was a ripple through the air and one of the shield and spear golems twisted around and started running away. Louie and Joe cursed.
Then the fleeing golem's head exploded and shortly after his right knee was hit and he collapsed.
They took a couple of steps back as the bulwark abruptly sank into the floor and were trapped as it solidified.
All the while the archers were shooting at them and only the shield that Louie angeled to face them kept the steady slam of bolts from piercing their side, it felt as if the shield was repeatedly hit with a hammer as Louie tried to concentrate on keeping his shield locked with Joe while they slowly advanced on the archers.
All of a sudden the archers was bowled over as BOB tore into them.
Louie was as shocked as Joe, but they quickly rushed up and took out the golems, severing their limbs and inventorying the crossbows before smashing their chests in and destroying the cores.
Louie reached down to pat BOB on the head when the spear meant for his back impaled his left shoulder from behind, and another his left leg. He heard Joe grunt and swear as he brought his shield up to cover them.
"Fuck, I forgot about the Bulwark."
Sher saw that they were pinned down so she moved to the side of the tunnel and try to take out those that showed their heads.
Louie ordered BOB back when he wanted to attack the golems and took ahold of the spear in his shoulder and it disappeared.
"Yes." Next, he grasped the spear in his leg and it disappeared also. He grabbed a health potion from his inventory and chugged it down. The bleeding slowly stopped as the potion started working.
"Are you hit, Joe?" He looked him over, but couldn't see any spears sticking out of him.
"Just a cut on my hip." Louie held a potion in front of his mouth while he concentrated on blocking the thrown spears.
He swallowed the potion as Louie fit his shield to Joe's, they moved slightly to the left as they moved towards the trapped spearmen, so they are interfering with the sight of the other.
When they entered the range of Louie's spell, he liquefied the floor and dropped them till only their heads were visible.
As soon as they were incapacitated Sher rushed over to them. "Are you two ok? Louie, I saw you hit, are you ok?"
"Thanks, Sher, we are ok. I got a bunch of potions this morning, just for situations like this."
They went around and quickly inventoried the thrown spears, Joe spoke up with a puzzled look.
"Where did they get the spears? There are twelve spears here. There are only seven golems there."
Louie and Joe came to the same conclusion. "They magically generate the spears? Let's first get rid of the runner over there and the mage then we can see if we can farm these ones."
They were quickly done with the downed golems after which they moved back to the trapped Bulwark. It took a while for them to come up with a feasible strategy.
"Why are you guys doing this? Just kill them."
"This is called farming, somehow they are making or generating spears that they throw at us. So we are going to see how many spears we can get out of them."
"Yip, more spears, the more people we can arm outside."
Sher shrugged. "Ok, what do you want me to do?"
Louie scratched his head. "I think that you should stay as far back as you can with BOB and when we give you a signal you should shoot the golem, not in the head and not a Powershot, just somewhere on the body, just to piss it off."
"Ok."
She moved over to a wall and called BOB over next to her and started rubbing his head. "Good boy BOB, yes, you're a good boy." While visualising how happy they are with him for taking out the crosbowgolems, she handed him a steel snack, which he cheerfully gobbled up wagging his tail.
Louie approached the first golem and removed the shield from the floor and placed it in his inventory, he moved back till he felt the golem just inside his ten-meter radius of the spell before he slowly raised the level of the golem through the stone but still keeping it traped to its waist. It started roaring and struggling to get free.
"Sher!"
They moved between Sher and the golem blocking its view of her as it was struck in the chest.
It immediately focused on them and reaching back behind its shoulder a spear appeared in its hand which is hurled at them before reaching back again for another spear.
Joe kept on blocking while Louie grabbed any spear that was on the ground.
After four spears there was a lul and Sher shot it again, this time when it reached back it brought another shield out.
"Nice, shields also, how are we going to get that from it though?"
Louie looked down as he heard a soft crackling. "Huh, that's new."
They moved back out of the range of the spearthrower.
Joe lifted his axe. "It's coming from the axe, the lightning seems to want to be thrown,"
Louie remembered what he did with the wind naginata. "Joe let's try it out. Run your mana through your channel up your arm to your axe and then when you are ready, release it by making it as if you are throwing your axe, but don't throw your axe, imagine throwing your mana through your axe at the golem."
Shrugging Joe said. "Ok let's try it."
They moved back into range and immediately a spear came flying at them.
Joe started pushing mana down his arm and suddenly he slashed his arm out to the golem and nothing happened.
"Shit."
"Don't worry, try again." It took another five attempts before something happened.
Totally unexpected a cricket ball-sized ball of glowing mud flew through the air and impacted with the Golem shield, suddenly there was a bright flash as lightning exploded over the golem.
The Bulwark dropped the shield and spear as it went into convulsions.
"Fuck me." Louie stood stunned for a second and then dashed forward and scooped the shield and spear into his inventory receiving a nasty shock in the process, paralyzing his arm.
"WOW, what was that?" Louie laughed as he shook his arm to try and return the circulation they retreated so Joe can sit down against the wall.
"Bloody hell that took a lot out of me." He looked for the report.
Earth call Call forth a ball of mud to cast at your enemies.
1handed trowing motion Speed: no cooldown
Damage: 1. Requirment: 20 mana
10% chance to inflict
If you are lucky you will blind them
Swamp light Call forth a ball of mud to cast at your enemies.
1handed trowing motion Speed: no cooldown
Damage: depending, very high Requirement: 20 mana + Shango focus
10% chance to inflict
If you are lucky you will blind them also. Only work together with the axe.
Louie was laughing his ass off. Wiping his tears from his eyes he said.
"Your first spell and it's a crap one, but then it combines with the axe and turns into a killer, this is classic."
He held out his hand and pulled Joe to his feet, "I think it's your earth affinity and the earth core in your arm that gave you the earth spell."
Sher checked Joe over just to make sure he was ok, even BOB gave him a sniff and a soft whine which went away as Joe underhandedly slipped him a treat.
They got another four spears and one more shield out of the golem but after been hit by the
Three hours later, seventy spears and twenty-one shields richer they were finally done with the last Bulwark.
"Damn, this was quite a productive encounter. My shield skill has gone up to 9."
"Nice, congratulations I wish I could work on my healing spell. I have thought about how I might work on that, but I want to talk to you guys because I can't do it during a fight."
They stopped to hear her thoughts on how to do more healing.
"I have <4Dscan> so I thought of activating it and then concentrating on the wound exclusively and use
They agreed to try it if they have time. Louie said.
"I will help you. We can talk next time when we rest."
"Ok thanks."
They left the site of the fight and noticed that the temperature started rising and there was a distant roar.
Ten minutes later, down the road, they found the source of the noise and the heat.
There was a crevice across the road and it ran all the way up into the sides of the tunnel and a curtain of fire roared into the roof, it was so hot and bright they had to block the sight with their hands.
"Well that sucks. Look behind the doors, there might be a way around."
They retreated a bit and start opening the doors in what looked like an emergency parking area.
They found a dark utility tunnel that looked like it might go past the firewall.
Sher wasn't looking forwards to entering the tunnel. "I don't like dark places."
"My uncle used to say, 'there is nothing in the dark that's not in the light, if you fear nothing in the light then you won't fear anything in the dark.'"
Sher looked at Joe as if he is crazy.
Joe just shrugged. "I thought he was an idiot, now with all the monsters, I'm double sure of it. I'm not keen on going in there but I don't see any other way."
They retreated out into the main tunnel.
Sher looked around. "Pity we don't have any torches with us."
Joe looked at the glowing stones on the tunnel roof. "Louie, can you do something with that?"
Louie stopped going through his inventory and looked at where Joe was pointing.
"Hmm, nice catch Joe." Louie reached up with
Lightstone Mana stone engraved with the Light rune.
Will keep absorbing mana to fuel the rune.
light intensifies the darker it gets.
Ok did the system named it Lightstone because I named it a Lightstone?
He moulded a bit of the stone around the back of the stone so it would only shine in front of them and not in their eyes.
Joe nodded. "Nice. Much better than a flashlight."
"Yip, I think before we take on the boss we should scour the dungeon for anything that might be handy outside. I think we could use the lights in the camp at night."
Sher agreed. "We have been using candles but it's going to run out."
"I'm just scared that if we wait till after the boss then we might have enough time till the reset."
"Agreed"