The next morning we once again set out. This time I had gathered some of the magical plants that were nearby and made a few things to help us. Without my alchemy kit, I couldn’t extract essences from them, but I was able to make a powder which would act as a severe irritant to the eyes and throats of the monsters, and a type of cream that was highly flammable.
We carefully made our way down every side tunnel of the first level, wiping out nests of rats, bats, and roaches as we went. We eventually ended up at the ladder going down to level two around lunch time, and stopped to take a break. Not wanting to fill the area with smoke, Persy pulled out a metal plate with a magic circle drawn on it and sat a pot on top of it. After filling the pot with all of the ingredients for the soup, she closed her eyes and touched the edge of the plate. A few seconds later it started to heat up.
“Isn’t she going to use up all of her mana doing that?” our elf mage asked.
“Feel the flow of mana around her.” I responded.
He closed his eyes and a few seconds later a smile appeared on his face. “She’s channeling the ambient mana into it.”
“Yep. The background in this area is more than enough to heat the food up, the plate just doesn’t have a circuit to automatically draw in the mana. I’m guessing she got the idea from an adventurer when she went to buy her gear.”
After eating she used a cleaning spell to clean the dishes, and we set out again. The second level didn’t have any new monsters, though the rats and roaches were a bit larger, and by the time the sun was setting on the surface we had cleared all of the monsters and were setting up camp near one of the two ladders going to the third level. The other one had been surrounded by wards and exploding runes, magic circles which would store large amounts of elemental energy and release it all when an unauthorized creature stepped on it. We had set the trigger to “Humanoids”, as we had an elf mage and a dwarf swordsman with us. Persy wouldn’t be able to use that ladder without being very careful to walk around the traps, but it should keep the monsters from coming up that way.
We used the same watch schedule as we had before, but when everyone was awake in the morning we realized that we hadn’t needed it. The guards had barely even heard the monsters last night. After breaking camp I and the two mages went down first and made sure the passage was clear before everyone else followed. We then followed the path we had decided on two nights before. This time it wasn’t as easy. The mantises had climbed up the ladder, along with one of the ogres. Several of our fighters were injured by the initial run-in with the mantises, as they managed to drop in the middle of the group from the ceiling, but after that we started searching the ceilings. They tried to repeat the tactic twice more, but we saw them before reaching them and either one of the mage or I would throw an attack at them, piercing their thorax and making them fall from the ceiling. Even the ones that managed to survive that level of damage could then be finished off by the fighters as they tried to recover.
Normally, relying on the mages to act as ranged fighters would have left them depleted of mana, but in a cave with a background mana level that now reached into the low four range, we could restore any mana spent on those few weak spells in less than ten seconds. As we neared the last corridor before the ladder, we saw the Ogre standing there with ten mantises and carrying a large dog-sized cockatrice. The bird’s saliva had a paralyzing effect if it managed to bite you, and the spurs on the back of its legs contained a deadly poison. We formed a line, with the fighters in front, mages and I in the middle, and Persy at the back, ready to throw in buffs and debuffs, as well as a ranged healing spell at anyone that was hit. Healing injury without being near a person was slower and used more mana than healing when you could touch them, but she might be able to stop bleeding or neutralize the paralyzing or deadly poisons the bird might use.
The Ogre roared and the mantises swarmed at us. I and the two mages hurled fire balls and lightning, managing one spell each before they reached our front line. I would have preferred using a proper shield wall to break the enemy’s attack, but their shields weren’t large enough nor did the men have spears. Still, most of the men were able to get in the first attack against the mantises. Seeing two of the men go down, I cast a physical boost spell on myself and ran into the gap created by their collapse, drawing my sword. While I hadn’t bothered to upgrade my weapon, my upgraded armor managed to stop the attack that got though my poor swordsmanship. This failure to injure me bought me an opening and I brought the end of my sword down on the mantis’s neck, severing its head. I saw the cockatrice jump at the Captain, a move which he raised his shield to block, I reached out my hand, throwing a shard of ice at it. While they were agile fighters, they had poor defense and was currently distracted. The physical attack pierced its side, causing it to stumble slightly. The Captain took the opportunity to stab it under the wing, piercing its lungs and causing it to collapse.
With his charge failing, the Ogre decided to join in with the attack. He crashed into two of the men that had managed to defeat their opponents and sent them flying. The Captain and several others turned their attention to him just in time to see him swing his enormous club down at them. I realized why they had chosen this stretch of corridor rather than one of the smaller ones at that point, but it didn’t matter. With the men jumping around trying to dodge his swings I couldn’t get a clear shot. I looked around for enemies, but the other fighters had finished them off. I saw Persy tending to the worse off of the two men that were thrown.
I prepared a lightning ball, intending to paralyze him if it didn’t kill him, and after about five seconds the Captain dodging out of the way gave me an opening. I threw the attack and he screamed in pain as the lightning jumped across his body. He fell to one knee, the pain and muscle spasms making it hard to stand, and the Captain’s blade came down on his neck, severing his head and leaving the corridor floor covered in his blood.
Seeing that the battle was over, I ran over and started healing people. One of the men that tried to challenge the ogre, the dwarf, had taken a club to the head, so I started trying to stop the bleeding in his brain. Thankfully he was wearing a helmet or he likely wouldn’t have an intact head left. Brain damage was too far beyond my ability to treat, but I could at least stop the internal bleeding. I sent mana into the blood vessels in his head, ordering it to clot the blood anywhere it left the capillaries. I was careful to make sure it didn’t clot inside the capillaries, as that would cause him to have a stroke. When I was close to finishing Persy ran over and took over. She had been studying the Intermediate Healer’s Handbook and, while she didn’t have that certification yet, I had no doubt that she could do most of the more advanced spells.
With her taking over and actually repairing some of the bruising in his brain, I set to work fixing broken bones and cuts, sometimes just bandaging the wounds and ordering them to drink a healing potion. They didn’t act quickly, the level four healing potions I providing essentially just making you heal at sixteen times the normal rate, but I couldn’t spare the attention to do much more right now.
It took the two of us thirty minutes, with the two mages and few uninjured guards like the Captain standing guard, before we had treated everyone. We hadn’t lost anyone, but the Dwarf, who I now learned was named Solace, hadn’t woken up after being healed, and seven of the twelve men had been injured. “Should we take a break, Captain?” I asked.
“The healing probably used up a lot of nutrition.” he responded. “We’ll take a thirty minute break to rest, and let the mages recharge their mana. After that, we’ll move out.”
“And if Solace hasn’t woken up by then?” one of the men asked.
“Then someone will have to carry him. I won’t leave him behind.”
The men nodded at this, and I saw several of them break out jerky, nuts, or dried fruits, things that were easy to eat without warming them up.
Taylor walked over to Persy and I watched him carefully as I popped some candied fruit into my mouth. Stress made people do stupid things sometimes. “Hey, I just wanted to say thank you.” I tried to think of why he would say that, then realized that he was one of the two men the ogre had thrown. “When that ogre hit me I thought I was a goner. A rib broke and punctured one of my lungs. But you saved my life. Sure, I’m not at one hundred percent yet, but I’ll manage. So thanks.”
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She smiled and said he should think nothing of it, as that was her job. I could tell he wouldn’t just forget about it, though, as he nodded and went back to sit with the other guy that was thrown.
Persy and I both managed to mostly refill our mana before Sir Philip ordered us all to stand up so we could continue. One of the men handed me something before we sat out, the spurs of the cockatrice. “Maybe an alchemist can do something with them.” he said. I nodded and thanked him, placing them in my backpack. Once I was back home I was sure I could extract the poison, but here I wasn’t sure how I could use them.
We made our way through the rest of the level, clearing out the rest of the mantises that we came across and within a few hours we were at the ladder leading down to level four. “Ok, men. Let’s take a break.” Several men sat near the top of the hole listening, occasionally hearing animal noises or speech in the ancient goblin language, but no one tried to come up the ladder. We still didn’t cook anything, but we did eat some rations, Persy and I patched up what surface injuries were still left, and then we meditated. Solace had woken up about thirty minutes before we stopped, and he was now watching over Persy and I as we meditated, making sure that nothing harmed the two that saved his life.
An hour later, I heard the men start to get up and put on their gear and I got up. I had actually finished refilling my mana a few minutes earlier, but was practicing using the ambient mana to cast Physical Boost, as I still wasn’t the best with it. I was now a few percent stronger and more dexterous than I was before. Hopefully it would come in handy. In battle even a hundredth of a second could mean the difference between life and death.
Once we were ready, we lowered a mirror on four strings down the hole. This allowed us to look down the corridor where we were ambushed last time. We threw a few mana lights down the hole, but they didn’t push the darkness back much. “Let me try something.” I said. I conjured a ball of light and made it float down the hole and down the corridor. It made it past the branch tunnel and into the room beyond without revealing any enemies. “I think we need to go for it.” I said.
Sir Philip nodded. “Mages first. Watch the side tunnel.”
I nodded and jumped down the hole, padding my fall with a quick burst of levitation. I couldn’t manage to fly with it, yet, but I could break my fall with it. I hugged the right wall, watching the branch tunnel on the left, and prepared a lightning ball just in case. The other two mages jumped down behind me, one taking the left and one stepping several paces forward before kneeling. When, after five seconds, we hadn’t been attacked, the others started climbing down.
Once everyone was down, we moved forward. My light ball stayed in place and was slowly dimming, as it would be difficult for me to move it or recharge it now that I was concentrating on another spell. We moved past it into the room. Several soldiers threw mana lights around the room, and the other two mages threw lightballs. Soon the entire floor was lit up revealing no enemies.
“DO you think they abandoned this area?” asked Taylor.
“Mages, send your light balls towards the ceiling.” I said. The balls flew straight up, revealing several walkways built of old crates and support beams, all of which were covered in monsters.
I didn’t hesitate. Seeing the Ogre prepare to jump I hurled my lightning ball at him, catching him just as his feet left the platform. He spasmed and screamed until a few seconds later there was a loud crunch as he landed on the ground, legs and back shattered from the fall. The wolves and cockatrices jumped down as well, and we ignored the ogre as I and the other two mages started hurling spells at the falling enemies. Soon there were three enemies mixed in with us for ever one of us. Even Persy was forced to back up to a wall and cast Sanctuary on herself so that she could dodge the incoming attacks.
With the monsters too close to my comrades I drew my sword and charged the nearest wolf. It caught my sword with its teeth and I channeled lightning into the blade, burning it and heating up the blade. Normal steel wasn’t meant to be used like that, and I had no doubt weakened the blade, but I could replace it when I got back to town. When the wolf reeled back from the pain I jumped sideways and sunk the hot blade into its neck, causing it to collapse. I then ran at a cockatrice and swung at it. It tried to dodge, but my blade nicked the side of its neck and ti started pouring blood.
I continued to swing as I saw several of my men take blows from the enemy, but after killing five of them I had enough of an opening to try something. I sent multiple detection threads into the walkways above us, using the “Race Detection” power I had practiced with. One of them hit something it registered as a goblinoid, so I threw a fire ball to the underside of the walkway where it detected it. The walkway exploded, and I saw the goblin start to fall, only for a strong wind to blow up from the ground and break its fall.
I ran at the goblin, throwing fire darts as it was the fastest attack I had, but the goblin managed to dodge. Time to get creative, then. I pulled out the eye irritant I made on the surface and threw it near the goblin’s feet. The goblin screamed and started rubbing his eyes, leaving himself open for the second vial, the flammable sludge. It covered him and I stopped. Time to make the most of a utility spell. I snapped my fingers and a spark of flame flew from my thumb and finger, flying towards the goblin. When it struck, the goblin went up like a candle. He tried to roll on the ground to put out the flames, but the sludge would just reignite once it was exposed to air again.
He burned for another twenty seconds before the flames went out and I could hear him heaving in pain. He was covered in second and third degree burns, and most of them were filled with dirt, the only benefit of which was that it slowed the bleeding.
I walked over to him. “Tell me, why are you here.” The goblin said something to me but, while I recognized the ancient goblin language, I couldn’t speak it. I considered casting a Language spell before I realized that he must understand me. “Are you with the rebels?” I asked, trying again. He responded with a four word phrase, two of which I recognized as expletives, before breathing his last breath.
I turned around to see that the others were just finishing off the last of the monsters. I looked over to where Persy was healing one of the men that must have gotten bitten by a cockatrice, as he wasn’t moving but had his eyes open and looked like he wanted to. A few had also been bitten by wolves, but they wounds weren’t bad enough that bandaging them wouldn’t be enough for now.
“Well, looks like we won,” said Taylor, but a sound coming from all around us tried to prove him wrong.
From the four tunnels which lead into this one giant snakes and thousands of cockroaches swarmed towards us. I realized that this must have been the goblin’s fallback plan, to swarm us with hundreds of weak monsters. We circled up, placing our backs towards the center of the circle, and the two mages and I started flooding the area outside the circle with area effect spells. I threw fireballs, the elf Ice balls, and the other mage lightning. Monsters died by the hundreds, but still some of them made it through our attacks. The fighters swung at them as fast as they could. The roaches died in one hit, and the snakes in two, but still we weren’t making a dent in them. Occasionally an attack would make it through, and one of the fighters would take a minor injury.
It wasn’t long before all three of us mages were channeling the ambient mana directly into our spells, our internal levels being lower than the outside levels, and the movement of the fighters started to get sluggish as the minor wounds piled up and their stamina bottomed out. I wasn’t sure we could hold out for another minute. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Persy was panicking out of terror. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do about that at this time.
Just as I started to resign myself to death by a thousand snakebites, I saw fire start to surround Persy. It spun in a circle, building upon itself as she poured all her mana into it, then began channeling ambient mana into it as well. After twenty seconds of growth it started moving towards the enemies. I went into the densest group of them, like a flaming tornado. In fact, that was exactly what this spell was. I remembered seeing “Flame Tornado” in the Army Mage Training Manual I was reading, but had never learned it.
The tornado started going around the outside of the circle in a spiral. Everywhere it touched an enemy they burnt alive. With the enemies thus thinned out, we were able to finish off the rest. A minute of so later, Persy let the tornado disappear and we found ourselves in the middle of a field of charred corpses.
The men cheered, but I could tell that some of them were unhappy about the fact that they would be unable to salvage much of worth from the corpses. Traditionally, guards on patrol could keep half of any monster salvage they gathered while on patrol, and as this mission was ordered by the Count, it counted, no pun intended. Now, with all of these corpses burnt so badly, they would have to be content with the mantis corpses from level three, monsters that were worth considerably less.
Persy looked like she was in shock from the experience. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” she just kept saying.
I went over to her. “What are you sorry about?”
“A slave shouldn’t learn combat magic unless they are a combat slave. You told me that, but I still snuck a look at your manual sometimes when you were asleep. I’m sorry. Please don’t punish me.”
I didn’t know why she was afraid of me. I had never abused her or punished her severely, unless you counted the occasional prank spell to get her to behave, like when I used a light ice spell to wake her up after she first moved in. Maybe she had gotten the idea from Lya? I knew mother abused her sometimes. I grabbed Persy and hugged her. “I’m not mad. You saved our lives. Thank you.”
She stopped panicking and looked surprised, and a bit embarrassed. “Master, I don’t think this is the time for that.”
I realized what it probably looked like and released her, a bit embarrassed myself. The other men laughed and several of them came over to shake her hand. “I knew she had a talent for fire magic, but I wasn’t expecting that,” said Sir Philip, then chuckled. “Come on, men. Let’s finish up here so we can get back to the surface and have our savior cook us a celebratory dinner.”
The men cheered, and we got back into formation. Persy and I channeled a bit of the ambient mana into stopping the bleeding of a few men, but no one had serious enough injuries to need treatment. The rest of the tunnels seemed to have collapsed, though. Apparently, when they pulled out the supports to build the overhead walkways, the tunnels were no longer able to support the weight of the ceiling and collapsed.
I checked the corpses of the goblin caster and the ogre before we left, just in case they had something on them. The ogre didn’t have anything of value on him, but the goblin had two items of interest, a stone statue of Kulkik, the goblin deity of war, and a staff. Though the wood of the staff had been mostly burnt away, the crystal at the top looked to still be functional. It was an amethyst the size of a fist, and I could tell when I put a detection thread into it that it had been alchemically altered to be a mana storage crystal. One that size could probably improve my mana reserves by fifty percent, perhaps more for Persy or one of the other mages.
We discussed it with the others, and they said that, as I killed the Goblin Monster Tamer, I was entitled to his loot. After grabbing the few organs on a mantis that were worth anything, with me advising them that the eyes contained Essence of Night Vision, we left the cave and returned to camp.