For a brief moment, there was silence and stillness. Eighteen cave moles bared their teeth at Aurelia, while the young woman stood stiffly in place. She observed that the level 10 cave mole stood near the door, teeth bared at her. The moles surrounded her from all sides, making Aurelia feel trapped. She gripped her wand tighter in her hand, feeling anxious but could also feel adrenaline start to shoot through her veins.
Then all but one of the moles exploded into action, running and leaping towards Aurelia. She shot a spatial slash at the closest cave moles, killing four of them with one attack. A smaller mole was the first to reach her as it leaped towards her left side. Aurelia quickly dodged to the side, barely missing the mole, as she made a second spatial slash with her wand. This time, she only killed two of the moles, as others avoided the attack. Two more moles reached her and slashed at her mana shield. Aurelia tried not to panic as she mana bolted the two moles next to her, catching both in the attack. There were four more cave moles approaching her from the right, so Aurelia casted another spatial slash at them. With her other hand she blindly casted a mana bolt towards the group of moles approaching from her left. The spatial slash killed three moles while the blind mana bolt she had cast ended up killing another. That left five moles still attacking with the largest mole still unmoved from its position by the door.
The smaller mole that had leaped at her before got up from where it had landed and took another pass at Aurelia. Two more cave moles reached her and started slashing at her legs. Aurelia couldn’t dodge the flying mole with the other two at her feet. She aimed her wand at the flying mole and casted mana bolt, before aiming a spatial slash at the two by her feet. Thankfully, the mana bolt connected with the flying mole and it was blasted away. The spatial slash also was successful in killing the two moles by her feet, but not before they had finally finished off her mana shield, making it disappear completely. Aurelia was now unprotected as the final two approaching moles came at her. As Aurelia tried targeting the mole in front of her with a mana bolt, it gave the second cave mole a chance to leap at Aurelia and make a successful slash at her leg.
“Ow!” Aurelia shouted in pain, and she flinched, causing her mana bolt to miss the mole in front of her.
Aurelia switched targets and aimed at the mole by her leg. She blasted the mole, but not before getting a new slash from the sharp claws of the mole. Her distraction allowed for the other mole to reach her and the second mole clamped down on her unhurt leg. She cried out again and lost her balance as neither of her legs could hold her weight. The second cave mole let go of her leg and then aimed to take a bite out of her stomach. Aurelia screeched in fear and aimed a mana bolt with her hand into the cave mole’s face. The mole exploded over Aurelia and she closed her eyes and shrunk away.
There was a moment of silence after the last mole died. That’s when Aurelia heard the clack of claws on stone. The large mole, it was still alive! Aurelia leaped to her feet, or rather, she tried to. With a shout of pain, Aurelia collapsed back down as her legs could not support her. On her hands and knees, Aurelia looked up to see the large, level 10 mole approaching her. Its teeth were bared in a growl, and its beady black eyes shone in the crystal light of the cave. She noticed the very long and very sharp claws it supported on its paws. Do moles have paws? Or is it just feet? It didn’t really matter.
Aurelia went to aim her wand at the mole when she realized she had dropped the wand at some point. She frantically glanced around and saw it had rolled a couple feet away from her.
Aurelia looked up again to see that the mole had started to run at her. It stood two feet tall and three feet long and at her position on the ground, the mole was very intimidating. She reached out a hand and tried aiming a mana bolt at the mole. The mole dodged to the side, missing the attack. Aurelia made a horizontal slash with her hand, but the mole leaped over the resulting spatial slash. It grew closer and closer, and Aurelia grew more frantic. A second mana bolt glanced off the side of the mole, leaving a gash, but not debilitating it. The mole continued forwards and as it grew near, it leaped at Aurelia. She tried one more mana bolt at the leaping mole and it connected at the mole’s shoulder.
The large mole was pushed off course, but Aurelia didn’t wait for it to land atop her. She rolled to the side, avoiding a hole in the ground. She reached for her wand, which was now laying next to her, and turned back towards the cave mole. The mana bolt had taken a chunk out of the mole’s shoulder, but it didn’t seem to notice. The monster turned towards her and continued its advance. She aimed another mana bolt at the mole, but was surprised to see the mole dodge to the side and avoided the attack.
Aurelia gritted her teeth, “Just die already!”
She made a spatial slash with her wand and a large ripple of magic raced in the air at the mole. This time, the attack was successful in truly injuring the mole. Well, if you counted being cut in half just an injury, as her foe was now truly dead.
Aurelia breathed heavily from the pain and shock of the fight. She glanced around, expecting another mole to leap at her, but none did. Then, she got a new notification.
Congratulations! The [Crystal Tunnel] completed!
[Cave Mole] Level 2 x3 defeated.
[Cave Mole] Level 3 x4 defeated.
[Cave Mole] Level 4 x4 defeated.
[Cave Mole] Level 5 x5 defeated.
[Cave Mole] Level 6 defeated.
[Cave Mole] Level 10 defeated.
1525 experience earned!
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You have reached level 5!
Would you like to loot [Cave Mole] x18?
“Well I guess that means I got all of the cave moles,” Aurelia sighed in relief. It also looked like she had finally received enough experience to level to 5. Unfortunately it didn’t seem like she had a new skill point to spend. She really needed another attack spell. Preferably something that would allow her to deal with larger groups of monsters without being overwhelmed. She believed that type of spell was called crowd control spells in the games she had played.
Aurelia moved to a more comfortable sitting position and hissed in pain. Aurelia took out a healing potion and downed it. The cool liquid felt refreshing as she drank and the relief she felt from the healing caused her to sag in place.
“Praise the Lord, those things are amazing!”
Her two legs became whole again and any sign she had been injured was cleared away. As she studied her legs, she saw that not only were her pants now really ripped up, but her boots had taken a good beating this time. One boot had a chunk ripped out from a mole bite, and the other had gashes in it from being clawed at. Hopefully her boots would be able to last through the dungeon, because Aurelia definitely would not want to walk barefoot while running around and fighting monsters.
Aurelia finally addressed the prompt asking her about the loot and said she would like to loot the defeated cave moles. In a couple seconds, all the remains of the cave moles had disappeared from the tunnel and herself and she received a new prompt letting her know what loot she had received.
[Cave Mole] meat x 20 received!
[Cave Mole] pelt x17 received!
[Cave Mole] large pelt x1 received!
[Monster Core] level 10 received!
52 Copper coins received!
1 Silver coin received!
[Cave Mole] leather boots: common received!
[Cave Mole] claw dagger received!
All loot deposited in [Spatial Storage].
Aurelia blinked at all of the loot and first took out her new leather boots. The leather was a dark brown color and was thick and sturdy. The boots looked brand new, unlike the torn pair on her feet. Aurelia grinned in excitement and quickly switched out the pairs of boots. They felt comfortable on her feet and she walked around to get the feel for them. She paced around and then tried leaping over one of the mole holes. To her surprise, her leap more than cleared the hole, plus a couple more feet. When she landed, she paused for a few seconds before trying to jump in another direction. Her jump went far higher and a lot further than she thought was even possible for her to.
“I have leaping boots!” Aurelia laughed aloud, looking down at her leather boots. To be honest, leaping boots would be useful, but Aurelia thought she could stand to get an item with more defensive abilities.
She next pulled out the dagger she had looted from her inventory. Staring at the sharp dagger, she wondered how a claw had transformed into a dagger, or for that matter, how the pelt of the mole had transformed into boots. Aurelia guessed it truly didn’t matter to her. Inspecting the dagger, she noticed that it had a brown, leather wrapped hilt and a six inch blade. The blade seemed to be the same color as the cave mole claws, but it felt more like metal than whatever claws were made of. Maybe the cave moles actually had metal claws. The dagger came with a leather sheath on a brown leather belt. Aurelia attached the belt around her hips, just below the edge of her corset, aligning the blade to lay on her left side.
Aurelia glanced around her again, trying to see if she had missed anything. There was nothing left of the moles, but she could see some of her own blood stained the ground. Gross. Aurelia made a face. She then looked to the right side of the tunnel and noticed a particularly large white crystal. She walked up to the crystal to get a better look at it. It was the size of her small fist and glowed with a soft white light. She grabbed at the crystal, trying to wrench it away from the wall. It wouldn’t budge. Aurelia took her new knife from its sheath and tried using it to pry out the glowing crystal. In hindsight, it was probably a stupid choice. Her only weapon and she tries to use it for something that could ruin the knife. To her surprise, it actually worked. The knife easily cut through the stone wall, and allowed Aurelia to get the leverage she needed to pop out the crystal.
It was slightly larger than what she had seen on the surface. The crystal had been stuck two inches into the cavern wall, making the circumference of the crystal larger than her original assessment. Or maybe, the crystal had grown out of the rock, rather than being put in the rock. Aurelia noticed that the crystal continued to glow, even after being separated from the wall. Just as she had hoped!
“Now I have a portable light source!” Aurelia said aloud.
Aurelia took a couple of minutes to gather a few more of the larger crystals from the wall. In the end, she had twelve of the light crystals sitting in her spatial storage. Feeling satisfied with what she had done, Aurelia decided it was time to head through the next door. Onwards!
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In the meadow where Aurelia had first arrived on Eldria, something had changed. The animals could feel it, the monsters could sense it, and the people in the village could see it. A large formation of rock had formed in the middle of the meadow, standing over 15 feet tall in the grassy ground. Glowing blue and white crystals jutted out from the rock, and what looked to be a cave entrance was carved into the rock. Animals that lived in or near the meadow were frightened of the rock and started moving as far away from it as they could. Curious monsters peaked at the cave opening from the forest tree line, wondering what had just appeared. Some of the villagers who noticed the new landmark decided to investigate.
A young boy, who looked to be nearing his teenage years, dashed towards the meadow. He wanted to be the first to reach the glowing rock, excited about what he would find. He ran up the hill, avoiding the stream that flowed down from the meadow and towards the village. As he neared the formation, his heart thumped in his chest. Was this what he thinks it is?
“There is no way. But it looks just like how they describe them in the stories!”
The boy slowed and stopped as he reached his destination. He walked over to an auspicious opening in the rock, and saw that the darkness in the opening was too deep for him to see what was inside. He reached out and touched the side of the rock, then jumped back in surprise when a system prompt appeared in his vision.
“Woah!” The boy stood still in fascination as he read through the prompt. When he finished, he found himself lost for words.
A minute later another group of villagers reached the glowing cave entrance. As each villager each received a prompt of their own, the mood of the growing crowd became more and more excited. The lowly villagers realized that their lives would be changed forever, even as their village would be changed forever.
The boy felt a spark grow in his heart, as he realized his dreams of becoming an adventurer may actually become reality. Their village had a dungeon!