The face of the cave was several body lengths wide, with purple crystalline spikes jutting out of the rocks at various angles, giving a strong enough glow for the team to see what they were doing.
Adam listened as Matilda explained she couldn’t actually utilise her radiant burst magic to simply give them a light source and that she would have to cast the magic into the darkness to light it up, which was inefficient and draining.
Walking through the beginning of the cave Adam was unsure of what he would find, or what he would even be able to do in here that was useful, it wasn’t like they had days of food and supplies with them. They might have to backtrack and go to Hammy’s house if they ran out of time in here. After walking through the cave for about thirty seconds, the path began to bend and more crystals lit up the area around them. Examining the crystal closely Adam noticed they were slightly transparent, he had seen no signs of life in the cave yet, there was the odd noise that spooked all three of them but it all sounded quite distant and unidentifiable.
They quickly reached a fork, the main path continued forward while another path opened up into a separate room to their left. Adam ventured into the new room on the left path.
“Let’s try to focus on keeping some kind of mental map of this place, the last thing we want to do is get lost, or not know our way to safety and light if things get ugly.” Adam had a bad feeling about multiple diverging paths but there wasn’t much choice at the moment, they had to find out as much as they could from this place.
Walking through another bend on the left path they came around to a chamber that had obvious signs of intelligent life being in there. An altar sat elevated on a set of small stone steps, there was no other light sources but there was a higher density of crystals than anywhere else in the cave they had seen so far so it was a well-lit room.
“That’s definitely blood” Brian remarked wiping his finger on the altar. “Fresh enough that it’s on my finger right now.”
Adam and Brian turned their heads quickly to the sound of Matilda screaming and a loud crash as her three radiant bursts bounced around the cavern. Adam was glad she had her passive that her spells would heal her allies as one of the bursts went right through him. “What was that for, there’s nothing there Matilda, you might draw attention screaming like that. Stick close to us if you are scared.” Adam shook his head, this was possibly a treasure trove of information for their path forward and their mission but it was also incredibly dangerous.
“Sorry, I thought I heard -“ Matilda’s sentence was cut off as she screamed again, a large rat-like creature popped out of the barrel she was standing near on the other side of the room. It walked on two legs with a humanoid appearance and would barely stand at the waist height of Adam, it had a patchy coat of thin fur, with some exposed skin layered throughout. It wore loose, simple clothing, shorts and a loose sack with arm holes as a shirt. It made a groaning noise as it walked towards Matilda, it actually looked like it struggled keeping its balance and moving in general.
Adam held his hand up at Brian who was drawing his axes. “This thing looks sick or something, maybe we can check it out a bit before we kill it, if we even have to kill it.”
Matilda backed away as she tried to turn her back so she started walking backwards towards Adam and Brian. Adam approached slowly to get a better look, it’s small beady eyes had a pure black iris. It’s fur was all matted and wet. The rat-man as Adam had very quickly named it suddenly jumped into the air, it’s face meeting Adam’s as it burst forward kicking at Brian’s shoulders, stopping the swing of his two axes, Brian had not listened and gone to kill the creature anyway, but it was of no use. This creature was incredibly quick and agile. It jumped backwards into Matilda as she cast another three Radiant Bursts out of her hands, one of them hitting the creature in the back as it kicked Matilda in the head, knocking her to the ground. It roared in pain, a surprisingly vicious and deep roar based on appearance alone.
“Why is it so damn quick?” Brian rolled back up from laying on his back, now crouching and intently watching the movement of the threat.
It bounced forward again, almost floating in the air right in front of Adam’s face in an instant, as Adam had the thought to use his psychokinesis to block a kick to the face, he got kicked in the face and flew into a corner of the altar. He was too slow for this. It continued to bounce around, almost floating in the air, it quickly zigged and dashed across the room dodging the splitting Radiant Bursts and axe swings the team threw at it while Adam tried to maintain consciousness and get back up. It had no weapons or seemingly super dangerous abilities but the power and speed behind the kicks alone was taking its toll on all three of them.
Adam’s hiker menu popped out
New Bonus Objective - Kill the kobold. Kobolds are notorious for their low agility and high intelligence, creating underground cities and utilizing materials from the earth’s crust through technological advancements that span tens of generations, they prefer to stay away from surface-dwellers.
Adam was glad his menu had given him some information on the enemy but it seemed pretty useless when this thing was obviously stacked up on speed and agility. What was going on? He kept hearing a rattling noise as the creature jumped around but couldn’t place what it was in all of the chaos.
He tried to throw slashes of kinetic force at the kobold but was restricted in his aim since he couldn’t hit Matilda or Brian, the three of them were now all on different sides of the room. Any that got remotely close seemed easily dodged as the kobold almost teleported across the room in seconds.
Brian yelled in frustration “What’s the point in my leech when I can’t even land a single hit?”
Matilda was ducking and weaving, trying to alternate radiant burst casts and dodging the kicks of the kobold, she had no aiming issues since it would damage the kobold and heal her allies. “Leech?”
“The passive I got back at level two with the hound, I’m supposed to be healed” Brian took another kick to the face and fell to the ground as he tried to explain his ability.
“But everything keeps kicking my ass before I can even land a single hit.” He muttered, standing back up out of pure determination and anger.
There. Adam spotted what was making the rattling noise he kept hearing. Some type of small idol hanging from a chain on the kobold. Every time the kobold jumped around it swung around and rattled.
Adam directed Brian “Go aggressive on it, I want it bounce back at me with its backwards kick.”
Brian ducked one kick and swung his axes with extra speed and power as he walked into the kobold. It bounced backwards at Adam as he had planned, Adam threw his psychokinetic cut at the creatures chain as he rolled over, avoiding the brunt of the kick but still copping it on his ear, now ringing.
The small idol fell to the ground, Adam grabbed it quickly, hoping the quick kobold wouldn’t notice it. Adam held it in his hands, noticing in front of him the kobold now hobbled slowly towards him, groaning, almost like it was in pain. Adam quickly stood up and hurried over to Matilda on the other side of the room, he was now several times faster than the kobold without trying. Rotating his wrist he checked a menu option that had not yet been of any use.
Inventory - Featherfoot Idol. Rank 2 Idol. Increases agility by 30. Increases cast speed by 30%. Equipped in Idol Slot 1.
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Excellent, if they were to put up any type of fight against ones like the woman who could have crushed them like ants at the gate, they would need huge increases in power like this, would this really work as well as it had on the Kobold for him?
Brian and Matilda both peeked over his shoulder to read the menu, occasionally peeking at the Kobold with concern as it still slowly tried to cross the room towards them.
“What does 30 agility mean, or do? Just seems like a number.” Brian said, dragging his axes along the rocky floor, scraping and grinding away, ready to strike at the kobold again. “Well, it can’t be a bad thing at least.”
Adam went back to his skills menu, the tree of abilities and modifiers opening up again. He tried to focus his attention on ideas about stats. A small menu opened up below the skill tree, it had some basic stats for him.
Strength - 13
Agility- 43
Intelligence- 22
Cast Speed- +30%
Looks like it only showed him the stats that he actually had, he doubted cast speed would have been there before he got the idol. Well, all he had to do was see what stats the other two had access to.
Brian flicked his wrist and focused as Adam instructed them both.
Strength- 20
Agility- 20
Intelligence- 13
Matilda wrinkled her forehead as she looked at hers.
Strength- 13
Agility- 13
Intelligence- 25
The kobold fell to the ground, groaning yet again as it coughed up blood and phlegm.
“We can figure the stats out later I guess, looks like there are some common themes and our stats are related to our class. Let’s just deal with this kobold first and foremost.”
The other two nodded, agreeing with him as they cautiously approached the kobold which looked like it was now dying, shaking and rolling, shivering even.
A head rolled down towards the altar as Brian brought his axes back up beside him, trying to wipe the blood off on the hard rock floor.
Kill The Kobold Quest Complete- 400 XP Granted. 400/4000 XP.
“What the” Matilda prepared to begin a great rant towards Brian.
“Put it out of it’s misery, that’s what I did.” Adam watched him as he truly seemed to have no remorse or hesitance.
“Did you grow up on a farm or something?” Matilda asked as she watched the head come to a stop at the foot of the altar.
“Something like that. Don’t ask me about it” The scraping noise as he dragged his axes along the ground continued.
They continued checking out the rest of the altar room but there was not much to be found. The idol was a great boon at least. His menu said Idol Slot 1, how many could he use? Was it as many as he could keep on his body?
Adam practiced with his new cast speed modifier, trying to create different pushes of force to place the kobold’s corpse and separated head into a corner, he ended up splattering blood all over the place but it worked and he definitely felt more competent while creating multiple different casts of his psychokinesis.
They returned to the main path from the altar room. Continuing down that path they found a few more side caverns, all of them empty, they noticed as they continued deeper into the cave that a foul smell grew in intensity. They figured they would have to find the source of it eventually but Adam insisted they be thorough and check every path possible. It finally paid off when after a dozen or so little side rooms they found a tidy room with a single desk and chair, there was no one to be seen but someone was definitely spending time in here recently. They rummaged through the room and found a small chest that was locked, it didn’t last long before Brian hacked it to pieces with his double axes. They found some coins in a small pouch with the shapes of the great Oak tree printed into the metal. Matilda confirmed this was the local currency as she had seen Vincent with some.
A few minutes further down the main path of the cave the smell had become so strong they were beginning to cough periodically. A small pocket of space to their right now had a large chest sitting in the middle of the room by itself, the room otherwise completely empty.
Brian readied his axes and Adam sighed in embarrassment.
“Come on Brian, at least let me poke for traps first, doesn’t it just look like a trap?”
Brian gazed at his axes pretending as if he wasn’t about to walk into that room axes blazing.
Adam tried to craft a net of psychokinetic force to lay across the entire floor of the room but it fell apart in his mind before he could create it. He didn’t seem to have the accuracy or adeptness to craft something like that, he appreciated Vincent’s force field maze that was used at the gates more and more as his own understanding of his skills grew. He was really on another level.
Adam found a more manual method and sent continuous pokes as fast as he could cast poking at the ground around the chest, triggering the trap he was pretty confident was there the whole time after just a few seconds. A net sprung up from the ground, coloured exactly like the rocks and hung in the air.
“Okay, now can we check the chest? Maybe they were using the trap to guard something valuable, like an Idol” Brian clearly grinned at the idea of getting an idol of his own, and apparently just assumed the next idol they found would be suitable for his class and abilities.
Brian smashed open the chest, Adam noticed that he did not perform a second check for any remaining traps, luckily there didn’t seem to be any more. Inside they found a rolled up piece of paper.
Status Report Twentieth Week of Cycle 812
To the council, I am happy to notify you that progress in the underground base continues steadily. Ongoing experiments are growing in power at least at expected rate, if not greater than. The draining Oak juice is glowing brighter each day, I swear it to be true. The crystal pool is serene. I expect much more to report in perhaps three weeks once experiment G reaches the final stage.
Regards in truth and justice- Battle Cleric Grace
“Well… What does it all mean?” Matilda asked after they had all finished reading it.
“Who knows for sure, but there’s some crazy business going on down here, this bad smell has to do with an experiment I bet.” Adam felt fired up again, adrenaline pumping at the thrilling ideas of what they might be able to impact here, what credit they might receive if they can pull off their mission, he also figured the adrenaline was pumping at the fear of meeting this Battle Cleric Grace.
As they pushed through further into the smell of despair, the cave turned into a longer, narrower chamber that was more man-made than cave. Ligher coloured stone and clay seemed to make up the hallway now. They kept their mouths and nose under their clothing out of desperation to escape the smell, not that it really helped. Adam tried to use his psychokinesis to block the smell from his nostrils and almost made himself pass out, he also felt really nervous at the idea that an intrusive thought might somehow make him cast a deadly force at his own face.
They got through the constructed hallway as it opened up into a huge, round cavern. A massive pool of glowing, translucent purple sludge filled up the majority of the room, with a ring of walled cave surrounding it. This was the first thing they noticed, the second thing they all noticed was the extremely tall woman with blonde hair kneeling at the pool. Her eyes widened as she spotted all three walking into the cavern. She quickly turned around, cupping the sludge with her hand and scooping it into her mouth.