As the incline begins, I force us to keep the same pace as level ground, our advanced attributes a huge help in warding off any limiting fatigue, especially with the few battles we had on top of the walking.
As we round the edge of a narrow, naturally formed ledge that leads up and through a slight dip between two peaks, I spot a large crystalline form moving towards us at a fast pace!
It appears to have come from the very valley containing our goal, perhaps a guardian of some kind for the treasure hidden within?
Beginning to jog, I’m joined by a trotting Artemis on one side and a gliding Horus on the other as I pull my hatchet from my hip, twirl the handle in my usual pre-battle warm up and begin to speed up.
The creature’s form reveals more of itself as it draws near, its shape resembling a rhino!
Still formed from a variety of crystal, these ones colored brown and green, the Beast runs on four heavy, flat hooves that rumble the ground with each heavy footfall. Its huge head, roughly the size of a smart car, bears a 4 foot long spike of sharpened crystal and leads the way as it aims for us.
{Garden Grunt, Border Guard, Lv.32}
Hmm, a class? That could make things a bit more difficult, time for some tactics!
“Hoarfrost, for the legs.” I tell Artemis, who speeds up slightly to reach the creature first and limit its mobility.
“Distract it with your flash ability, follow up with anything to its eyes. Crystal or not it will need them to see.” I say as I turn to Horus.
He wings ahead now as well, just as Artemis leaps agilely to the huge Beast’s side and begins breathing out an icy blue cloud that encircles and solidifies the fore and back hooves on her half of it.
The Beast, its momentum like a freight train, quickly shatters the ice holding it to the ground but, in the process, launches itself nearly head over heels in a comical acrobatic display before coming down to a landing with a truly earth-shattering slam!
As the ground rumbles and shifts under the great impact, I move like a surfer, my knowledge of the very crystal itself, as part of this world’s “nature”, allowing me to be as nearly one with it!
Horus, capitalizing on the distraction, comes swooping down as the creature tries to gather itself to its feet, his brightly flashing talons going off just in front of its crystalline eyes.
As I begin to rush the Beast, its head moving erratically in reaction to the light burst, Horus makes the second part of his attack by swiping across the blinded eyes and forcing it to defend the orbs by stumbling off to the side and down on its knees.
Head spinning, nearly blinded and carrying a lot of extra weight in ice on one side of its body, the Beast has no answer for my leaping form, hatchet limned in a soft glow as I pour my HP into Wild Rampage while Natural Reinforcement turns my flesh and bones to dense, heavy crystal.
My attack, amplified twice over, comes singing through the air like a crystalline avalanche, my enhanced weight adding some extra oomph to the attack as my hatchet’s head, widened by nearly two feet by the glowing light of my ability into a massive axe-head, comes crashing down!
WHOOMPH!
My blade, my weight, and my power penetrate in a long, hair-thin slit on the Beast’s chest, embedding all the way into the crystal flesh up to my hand on the weapon’s shaft.
With a groan and a fractured chest weeping broken crystal, the Beast falls listlessly to its side, and after several heaving breaths succumbs to its wounds and seals our victory.
Congratulations! You have killed a Garden Grunt, Lv. 32 for 10,000,000 XP!
“Oh, that’s a big boy!” I say with raised eyebrows as I shake crystal debris from my hatchet.
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{Crystal Shards: 8/10 to Skill/Spell Level Up, 1 Complete}
And this type gives more Shards too, it may only be by 2 but that’s still some extra toward further free levels.
Moving on, we follow nearly the trail the heavy Beast bored into the ground with its heft as it charged us, walking along a natural path into the slight valley between two of the towering peaks.
As the sun falls toward the edge of the horizon, I catch sight of our destination, a small cave nestled in the valley floor. Its open mouth surrounded by large, crystalline flora and strange, floating orbs of glowing light moving from plant to plant and forming a shifting and undulating scene of magical wonder that nearly steals my breath.
Lost in the scene, I say softly, almost wistfully, “Belina would have loved this…”
“She is with us still. In our hearts, she always will be.” Artemis tells me somberly, her own eyes drinking in the sight as much as I.
“You’re right, little lady. When did you go and get so wise??” I tell my oldest friend with a small smile.
“Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I did have a good teacher, after all.” She replies affectionately.
I give her ruff a scratch as my eyes go a bit misty following her compliment, I truly am so fortunate to have her.
"Ow!” I say, rubbing my noggin where Horus just pecked me, our bond sending his mischievous thoughts my way, his way of asking for some more attention too.
“Of course, I didn’t forget you, my friend!” I say quickly, using my other hand to rub his little head as he closes his eyes and shakes a little talon in near imitation of a dog getting just the right spot scratched.
“Alright, let’s go find us some treasure, maties!” I say a moment later, our game faces back on as we cautiously approach the cave, ready for anything.
Passing through the alien forest is strange but also, shockingly enough, familiar and even nostalgic to some extent. It would seem my abilities and Class are hard at work in making this forest who-knows-where feel like home.
{Crystal Conifers, Lv. 30-50}
My Aura does a good passive job of letting me know of anything approaching, giving me some peace of mind as we make our way through the densely clustered crystal trees that an ambush isn’t lying in wait for us behind one tree or another.
A small clearing surrounds the cave mouth, the trees roughly 50 feet from the entrance, 50 feet of the crystal ground, completely bare of life.
“Hmmm, that’s not suspicious at all…” I mutter sarcastically.
A soft chuff from Artemis conveys her unspoken amusement, and agreement.
Horus, curious, flies up and circles the clearing like a vulture circling some roadkill, his keen vision searching for evidence of anything, or anyone, in the area waiting for us.
A moment or two later, Horus sends over an image of a patch of crystal that looks the same to any other just to the left of the cave, a patch that with his nearly telescopic vision reveals itself to be subtly cut out!
A clear seam is visible around roughly a square 5 feet by 5 feet and from above, an obvious disturbance in the crystal dust around it becomes quickly evident.
“Spring it? Artemis and I will time it to arrive as you draw it out.” I think to our resident overwatch.
Rather than answering with words, Horus replies with an acknowledgement and begins his dive!
“Let’s go.” I say as my hatchet finds its way to my hand, my abilities already spinning up as I begin a slow jog before speeding up to a sprint that has me nearly flying over the ground, Artemis at my hip in perfect pace with me.
Horus comes swooping down, his talons glowing differently than usual, the moon having just come over the horizon on the desert side of the mountains.
He comes in low, his talons ripping the trapdoor off the ground and revealing a huddled form within!
The Beast, startled, stands to its full height on strong back legs with two short, vaguely T-rex style arms jutting from its broad torso. It is made up of darker colored crystal, almost like dark a camouflage of browns, greys and blacks and its appendages are all capped by wicked looking claws that it opens and closes as it searches for whatever disturbed it.
Still undetected, we draw near to it as the System identifies it as a {Silicon Stalker, Lv. 33}, it finally turning to us as we reach within ten feet of it--at speed too!
Letting Artemis have the coup de grace this time, I lead the way with an empowered strike that I take low, sliding along the ground like I’m stealing second base as I slash across both of the thickly muscled back legs, forcing the Beast to its knees with a hideous shriek of pain not too far off from nails on a chalkboard.
Artemis opens her jaws wide, blue eyes aglow as she channels her breath in a far more focused icy cloud than her previous use, the directed ability a truncated cone coming from her mouth and aimed squarely into the vulnerable mouth, still held open from its screech of agony, of our sneaky enemy.
She directs the blast there for a few seconds, burning through a full half of her smaller Mana pool as the Beast’s entire head freezes solid and then falls to the ground with a crash, cracking into a thousand pieces on impact.
Congratulations! You have killed a Silicon Stalker Lv. 33 for a total of 12,000,000 XP!
Leaving the fallen Beast where it lies, we head toward our goal, the gaping mouth of the cave only a dozen or so yards from the site of our little battle.
Artemis leads the way, her nose catching the air to try and tease out the scent of anything that might be inside as we edge our way into the darkness and gloom.
The interior smells of moist dead air and decay, a small clump of bones, rotting body parts and viscera piled to one side in evidence of our recently deceased enemy’s larder.
But that is all the cave contains, no treasures from what I can tell, just dust and death!