Swimming to the side of the river, Billy flopped himself onto the rocky shore and lay there gasping for air. As the adrenalin started to subside the pain all over his body began to make itself known and he also felt the familiar feeling of [regeneration] starting to heal his burns and wounds.
Billy was uncertain how long he lay there, it was like his brain had shut down, he had no thoughts, no feelings, and barely registered his surroundings. By the time he snapped back to reality all his wounds had healed and his magic bar had refilled. Despite this he still didn’t feel completely fine. His conscious mind was telling him to move, that nowhere here was safe. But another part was pushing back, telling him to just lie there, just let whatever happens, happen. That he was already so lucky to make it this far and that things would just get worse if he kept going. There was no shame in giving up when everything was against you. When you were betrayed.
At that last thought, Billy felt his anger resurface. He grabbed on to it and fed it and in turn his anger began to fuel him. “Get up Billy, there’s revenge to be had again” said a voice in his mind. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to his feet, his body feeling heavier than it should.
He only now registered the words in front of him
“you have reached level 4”
“the spell [Ice shot] has leveled up”
“you have gained the trait [Thick skinned]
+ 5% resistance to piercing damage
+ 5% resistance to fire damage”
“would you like to see your characteristics?”
Billy dismissed the messages and took a shaky step forward, and then another, then another. His anger drove him on as his senses and instincts came back.
He lifted his eyes to scan the area and noticed the high walls in this narrow part of the canyon made everything extremely dark, so he put his hand against the wall to guide him. Although he knew he would be approaching the area where he fought the forgehides, between the dark and heading in the reverse direction, he was unable to gauge exactly where he was.
Straining all his senses to try and notice anything that could be a threat, he slowed his pace further. Inching around a bend, he froze as something caught his eye. The light of the moon glinted off something ahead. Billy flattened himself against the wall of the canyon, slowing his breath. After not seeing or hearing anything else for several seconds, he began to step forward doing his best to minimise any noise he made.
Keeping low and stable he made his way around the bend and recognised the area as the spot he had killed the forgehides.
Seeing dozens of large silvery shapes in the moonlight, he eased himself behind a rock to stay out of sight. Peeking out from his hiding place he noticed that none of the shapes were moving. Picking up a stone, he threw it as far as he could, causing a “plink” noise over the other side of the area. But still none of the shapes moved.
Cautiously, he crept out from behind the rock and approached the closest of the shapes. As he got closer he saw that the front half of the monster had been melted to slag, from where he was now he could see several others that were in a similar state. He began to walk to each monster to examine them and found that all of them had been killed by a heat extreme enough to melt through their thick metallic hides.
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Getting closer to the river, he could see the ground had been scorched with even some rocks being liquified. “Damn molten golem must have tried to get out here and killed all of these forgehides” thought Billy “sure would be good to know where it’s at now so I could avoid the blasted thing”. The thought of the molten golem put him on edge even more as he started to move again.
He started to move faster as he made his way through the canyon. A bit of hope filled him that he might actually make it out of here. As he went he could see more scorching on the ground indicating that the molten golem had come this way. He hoped that it had cleared all the other monsters out on its way. But, after travelling further down the canyon, a familiar, putrid smell hit his nose and he realized that he had no such luck.
Scanning the area all he could see were the burn marks from the molten golems passing but the smell told him that they must be close. Looking up he saw them, countless mawbeasts clinging to the sides of the canyon, their pale skin seemingly illuminated in the moonlight. Their screech told Billy that he had been spotted as well.
He called out “lightning shot” and fired as the monsters started running down the sheer walls at him. The first bolt of lighting hit one monster and arched to another, killing them both. moving away from the wall, Billy fired again, and again, killing 4 more beasts.
Before he could fire again, he was tackled from behind. Rolling with the beast he kicked it off him into two more of the monsters. He fired twice, killing all three.
He used the space that had given him to start sprinting trying to make it around the corner. The lack of light made it difficult to see where the mawbeasts were, so Billy didn’t see one of them coming from the right, smashing into him and biting down on his shoulder. He swung a fist at its head, but achieved very little. Realizing the skin was too thick for his punches to cause any damage he instead drove his thumb into the monster's beady eye. It cried in pain, releasing its bite. Billy took the opportunity to hit it with a lightning bolt.
Getting back up and spriting again, he managed to electrocute two more that were in front of him, clearing his path. Making it around the corner, he tucked himself up a small outcropping, trying to obscure himself in shadow. The chasing mawbeast flew right past him, not having the eye sight or intelligence to see him hiding.
Only six of the remaining monsters had followed When they rounded the corner and realized they had lost track of him they stopped and started sticking their tongues out to taste the air and track him. From his hiding spot, Billy aimed and fired 6 shots in rapid succession to make sure he managed to kill them all. He then stayed hidden for a couple of minutes to make sure no other mawbeasts had followed him.
“Ding, you have reached level 5”
“Spell [lighting shot] has leveled up”
“Spell [finger guns] has upgraded. Spells can now be selected mentally
“You have gained a skill point. Please select a skill upgrade from the following:
[guns akimbo] cast spells from both hands, does not increase magic pool, each hand can cast a different spell.
[rapid fire] doubles the rate at which you can cast spells, does not increase magic pool.
[power shot] cast once with double power, magic cost stays the same as baseline, 1 hour cool down”
Considering each skill for a second, Billy settled on guns akimbo. Thinking that the ability to have two spells ready at once would be useful.
Once he had healed and his magic had replenished, Billy made the final push to get out of the canyon while still keeping his senses sharp for any nasty surprises.
He was uncertain how much longer he walked, but eventually he saw the exit. The mixture of hope and relief overcame him and he started running, getting free from the canyon walls he turned and made several rude gestures at the canyon before collapsing to his hands and knees on the flat ground.
The air out there seemed sweeter than he remembered and he breathed deeply. After a moment he noticed he could smell something else, something that smelled like burning. looking at the ground under his hands he saw the familiar scorching that indicated the molten golem had passed here.
Following the direction the burn marks went with his eyes he could see a glow far in the distance where something was on fire. “I’m…i’m going to ignore that and hope it goes away” said Billy as he turned and started the walk back to the town of Blackwater.