Jasper started strolling down the rows of enormous fruits and vegetables keeping Effen and his arrowhead that he had just imbued again close by. He strode up to a giant gourd before squatting down and jumping. He cleared the entire length of the gourd and adjusted the angle of his body so that it would be easy to land. The plant was the largest vegetable in the area so Jasper knew that it would give him the best view for scouting around. He knew that there would be monsters in the dungeon, and it was possible that some of them would be plant based instead of animal based like many of the ones that Jasper had run into outside of the dungeon. The only way to know for sure would be to get the lay of the land and find out what he was dealing with.
He tapped his foot on the top of the gourd to test its stability and heard a soft thud as his foot struck the plant. Now that he knew that he was not going to fall through the top of its Jasper got to work scanning the area for monsters. Only a few hundred meters away Jasper saw what he was looking for. At first, he only thought it was a trick of the imagination but upon looking one more time he saw it. Two thin clear wings let out deep rapid thuds as they beat against the air keeping the largest insect Jasper had ever seen in the air. The monster had yellow and black fur all over its body, and two antennae protruded from the top of its head.
It wasn’t the only one flying around either. As Jasper continued to search the area from afar, he noticed that there were more of the same types of large creatures buzzing around and spreading some kind of powder that would fall from its body onto the plants as they flew around. As the powder fell Jasper noticed that plants would react in different ways. Some of them grew while others sprouted multicolored flowers that bloomed immediately. When the flowers bloomed the large bug creatures would immediately land on their petals and extend some kind of strange proboscis that Jasper couldn’t see very well from his position on the gourd.
Jasper couldn’t help but think that the large monsters were somewhat cute, but if he knew anything about monsters, he knew that they did not care for humans at all. Jasper continued to observe the flying insects for a while trying to find something that he could use against the beasts. He started getting lost in thought coming up with plans on how he could deal with the swarm of giant fluffy bugs. The thwub thwub sound that he’d heard from farther away filled his ears, but Jasper didn’t notice it at first still stuck in his thoughts. It wasn’t until the thrumming of the wings was right by his ear that he reacted.
Jasper threw his upper body backwards slamming his back into the top of the gourd, and as he did a yellow and black blur shot passed right above his face. The fuzzy creature stopped, hovering in the air as it turned to face him. Details that Jasper hadn’t noticed from far away jumped out at him. For one the monster was far larger than he’d thought that it was at least the size of two of him. Second, its enormous eyes were as black as pools of tar with another three golden eyes in the center of its forehead. The insects’ mandibles were smaller than he’d expected, but at the same time they seemed sharp and intimidating.
The bug flicked its sharpened proboscis towards him hungrily while a stinger the size of a broadsword would unsheathe itself from its abdomen. Jasper put his hands above his head pressing his palms into the gourd and kip upped in one move. At the same time, he mentally commanded Effen to move behind the beast. The knife moved into position, but as soon as Jasper ordered it to attack the monster moved out of the way at amazing speed. It immediately turned its attention back toward Jasper and the three golden eyes started to glow. The glow intensified for just a couple of seconds before a beam of energy shot directly toward him.
He dodged out of the way, losing his balance on the top of the gourd and falling all the way to the ground. Jasper landed on his back causing the air to be knocked out of him which was a far better result than it would have been before he’d raised his vitality as much as he had. As he was still gasping, he rolled out of the way as the monster came down on him slamming its stinger into the ground barely missing his head. Jasper continued rolling to the side until he was able to scramble to his feet. The insect didn’t want to give him time to rest though and immediately dove at him again.
Jasper was getting used to his body’s new strength and speed though and rolled out of the way again immediately getting back on his feet. Flinging both hands forward Jasper shot his arrowhead and Effen directly at the flying creature. Jasper looked like the conductor of an orchestra as he moved his arms directing his weapons to attack the creature who continued to dodge. The insects’ eyes started glowing again and that’s when he saw his opportunity. As the monsters’ eyes glowed Jasper noticed that it was no longer moving around. He activated Effen’s wind blade cutting a large slash in one of the thrumming wings.
The monster fell to the ground, but the beam still shot out. Luckily it missed its mark as hitting the ground had thrown off the insects aim instead scoring a hole in the gourd behind Jasper. The monster continued trying to thrum its wings attempting to get airborne again. The giant slash on one of its wings prevented it from doing so instead causing it to thrash around on the ground until it was able to climb to its feet. Without its ability to fly it was a sitting duck just waiting for him to finish it off. Jasper obliged directing Effen straight through his enemy’s head. Right before Effen landed the final blow the monster let out a high-pitched scream that was quickly cut off by its death.
NOTICE: You have defeated Level 22 Giant Aurora Bee. +500 XP
Jasper quickly checked the kill notification and decided that he should go ahead and put on his work gloves. If the fight that he’d just gone through was any indication, then he was going to need all of the stat buffs that he could get. Pulling on his gloves he felt an instantaneous feeling of strength and power flow through his entire body. Jasper flexed his fingers testing the flexibility and durability of the gloves, then he directed Effen, Flot and his arrowhead to come to his side.
Once he was satisfied that he hadn’t lost any of his equipment he took stock of his surroundings. It was the same area around the bottom of the gourd. Sprouting from the top of it was a green stalk that spiraled toward the ground sporting several gigantic leaves which provided plenty of shade from the luminescent crystals in the walls of the cavern. Jasper lifted his head to stare up through the leaves and wondered if it would be worth it to jump back on top of the massive vegetable. In the end the decision was taken out of his hands when he heard the thrumming of wings coming his way, and from the sound Jasper was hearing he knew that it was more than one of them.
“Crap! That final scream must have alerted the other bees in the area.” He exclaimed. Jasper took off running away as fast as he could away from the area with the bee corpse in it. There was no way that he could handle multiples of those things at once, at least not with the weaponry he had on him. “Really regretting coming into this dungeon right now!” He thought while breathing raggedly pumping his arms and continuing his sprint in a random direction. Effen moved ahead of him, cutting through any obstacles in Jasper’s way until the blood rushing through his ears overcame the sound of beating wings. He decided to stop when that happened and catch his breath and check if he was still being followed.
Diving behind a tomato the size of a small vehicle Jasper placed his hand on his chest attempting to slow down his heartbeat. Once he caught his breath, he opened his ears again listening searchingly for his pursuers. When an entire minute had passed, and he still hadn’t heard the thrum of wings, he let out a sigh of relief. He’d managed to escape this time but the thoughts running through Jasper’s head beat at the resolve he’d built up before entering the dungeon.
Why did he follow the path to the dungeon in the first place? Why didn’t he spend more time planning out a dungeon run? Why didn’t he craft more weapons or at least figure out some kind of shirt to wear? All these defeatist questions ran through his mind causing him to wonder if he had subconsciously wanted to die and knew that he would If he entered the dungeon. Flot floated in front of Jaspers eyes, and he immediately calmed down.
“No that’s not it. I wouldn’t leave you and Effen in here alone.” He said while petting the side of his floating wooden pot. If Jasper wanted more weapons, then he could make more weapons wherever he was.
“I can build them, I have the technology, I can be better than I was.” He said feeling a new boost of confidence. After all, if he had managed to survive the trip through the desert and mountains. He had survived the poison and radiation of the surface, and he’d even built himself a home for him to grow from. Jasper knew that he could do it again, once again, though he needed to find himself a base of operations. For now, he had enough water, and there were plenty of plants that he could eat. The only problem he could see was radiation and poisoning since he’d left the ambulance back at his camp. That was when he noticed something odd and decided to check his status effects.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He confirmed that he hadn’t gained a single level of either radiation or poisoning. It was true that the yellow-colored clouds that permeated the surface outside of the dungeon weren’t present inside, but Jasper hadn’t noticed that at first. If this was a different kind of biome than the one outside the dungeon, then that meant that if he wasn’t killed by a monster then his survivability time had increased by an ample amount. With that thought Jasper decided to get to work, an idea already growing inside his head.
There was a holiday that people in the city celebrated every year to honor the dead and give children something fun to do. People would dress up in burlap and paper masks and walk door to door with their children collecting sweets. People would light bonfires and pray to the gods for the souls of their lost loved ones, but the biggest thing that Jasper remembered was that people would carve designs into different vegetables and hang them outside their houses as offerings to the gods. If he could do that with small vegetables, then Jasper wondered what he could do with some of these large ones coupled with runes instead of funny or scary faces.
Jasper walked about searching for the perfect vegetable to work with. An hour later he found it, the perfect vegetable for his project. An enormous orange pumpkin stood in front of Jasper, it was rounded and even on all sides sitting perfectly on its bottom. A couple of curling vines with leaves sprouted from the top of it cascading down the sides of the pumpkin’s surface. Jasper smiled looking at what would be his most elaborate runic project so far.
“I need to plan.” He said and immediately got to work. In the same area were several smaller pumpkins and that’s where he started his work. He summoned his toolbelt and pulled out his saw immediately moving to cut a hole in the top of one of the smaller pumpkins yanking it off and beginning the process of pulling out the guts of the plant. He could have worked faster if it hadn’t been for the thought of wasting food being something food being something antithetical to his beliefs so every time, he came across a seed inside he would separate them from the guts that he had no way to cook into anything at the time.
When he was finished, he took his pen and began drawing runes all over the vegetable struggling with the fact that the pen wanted to slip off the smooth surface of his newest crafting material. It took him many hours to finish marking the template for his carving. From there on out Jasper used a combination of his saw and Effen to carve the symbols on the pumpkin canvas. It was harder than he expected it to be seeing as he hadn’t practiced any carving techniques yet, but as he continued to practice, he noticed that it was becoming easier to make exacting cuts. He even unlocked a proficiency for knives, and wondered why he hadn’t gotten any proficiency for them while he used Effen to fight.
The only thing that he could think of when it came to that was that he’d only used Effen as a weapon so far, and not a tool. That frustrated Jasper thinking that he could have gotten another knife as a tool months ago if he’d only thought to take up whittling. He let the frustration run off his shoulders though and continued his work. Finally, after an entire day of working on his person-sized pumpkin he was satisfied with his work.
NOTICE: You have crafted a carved runic pumpkin! +2000 XP, +4 Magic, +6 Creativity, +5 Control, +4 Dexterity. This is a very creative use of your class I’ve never seen before have a reward! -H. Would you like to imbue carved runic pumpkin? Y/N. Would you like to name carved runic pumpkin? Y/N.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: You have managed to impress one of the the gods of the system that created your specific class. You have been gifted the title Pumpkin Carver 1! +10% to all stats that pertain to carving when working with pumpkins. Pumpkin carving kit added to toolbelt!
Jasper stared at the last notification and couldn’t help but chuckle. A direct achievement gained from a god had happened maybe three times in the last 100 years that he knew about. The stat boost would be great for his current project and Jasper was happy to have more tools, but the fact that they all had to do with carving pumpkins meant that they would be of limited use to Jasper in the future.
“Looks like the gods have a sense of humor.” Jasper said dryly. He didn’t name this craft because he wanted to make sure that it worked first. Before that though he wanted to check out his new tool. Sure, enough another pouch had been added to his toolbelt changing the layout to fit his new tools. This kit sat inside a square leather pouch with a zipper on it. Jasper pulled his new kit off of the toolbelt and unzipped it to check out the contents of the pouch. Inside each of the tools were attached with a small leather loop and rivet button.
The first tool inside was a small flat spoon with jagged saw-like edges on each side of it. Following it were two finger sized saws with different types of teeth. Then there were three tiny knives, one of which had a curved blade, another with an arrowhead shaped blade and one with a hollow cylinder as its blade. At the end were some more eclectic tools, a scalpel and five tools with different sized and shaped loops on each end of them. Every one of the tools had wooden handles but aside from that they all seemed rather mundane. Jasper only hoped that he’d figure out their special qualities as he continued to work on the pumpkins.
Closing the pumpkin carving kit Jasper turned his attention back towards the task at hand and started imbuing mana through each of the runes that covered the pumpkin. Unfortunately seconds after he started his imbuing process one of the electrical runes had a problem with one of the growth runes close to it causing a chain reaction throughout the entire thing. Jasper watched as the pumpkin sparked until the entire vegetable was squishy enough that it ruined all the other runes that he’d placed on it. It was unfortunate, but Jasper had a feeling that this wouldn’t be easy when he started the project.
Jasper passed the following several days like this, first he would spend an hour working out just for routine he started using the giant plants as weights and began raising his strength stat slowly again. After that he would start re-planning his runic combination to make sure that they wouldn’t react poorly with another. Once he had designed something that he thought would work well he would begin the process of marking it down and carving a new pumpkin. He didn’t want to touch the big one until he’d had this figured out, but part of Jasper worried that he’d run out of smaller pumpkins before being ready to use the giant one.
With his new title and pumpkin carving kit though he managed to improve the carvings little by little raising his other stats as he went and gaining another two levels strictly by pumpkin carving. Every now and then he’d be bothered by another one of the bees, but now that he knew how to take care of them, he’d shoot them out of the air quickly and destroy the head before it had a chance to call for help. One day after another failure that had resulted in the pumpkin throwing itself into the air, bursting apart and raining down leftover pumpkin guts on Jasper he sat down to think.
It wasn’t like he wasn’t making progress with this project. Each time the pumpkin would last longer before being destroyed in some different manner, but it was slow. He’d supplemented his water intake by eating different types of fruits and vegetables that were readily available, but the water in his pouch would only last so long which made him fearful thinking about those months ago when he’d almost died of thirst. He wasn’t making enough progress fast enough that he’d be able to clear this dungeon before he ran out of water.
What’s more is that he didn’t know when this dungeon would reach its breaking point and explode. If that were to happen, he didn’t know what might happen to him while he was inside it. He’d never heard of a dungeon exploding while there was a human inside of it. He might be cooked alive by the energy blast, or if that didn’t happen, he might be trampled over by the monsters attempting to escape the dungeon. This was only the first room after all and after five days of working on his idea he still hadn’t managed to clear a single room.
Jasper decided that he would switch pace for now. He had a small mountain of pumpkin seeds that had been growing over time that he could do some stuff with after all. He wound up working on those for a day figuring out how each of the runes interacted with each other, by emptying out the actual seeds inside and eating them then carving different ideas into the shell that surrounded them. He managed to make some connections through this process that he hadn’t been able to make when he was looking at the pumpkin project as a whole.
On a whim he decided to try a different way of using protective circles. Instead of just using the ones around each rune like he had been doing he also added a large one intersecting between each of the symbols. In this way he gained even more control over how the mana interacted with each rune. By the end of the experimentation, he had a working model of what he wanted the pumpkin to do. One of the pumpkin seeds was a success and Jasper now had a curved shell that could grow, shrink, harden, and float.
This gave Jasper something that he had been in desperate need of for a long time now a workable shield. He named it his Shelld and had some fun playing around with it making it shrink down to the size of his thumb nail then expand it to the size of his entire body. Unlike with Flot where he’d had to redraw a growth rune in different directions to make it take on the shape of a pot; instead, he placed them in locations and patterns that allowed it to keep its natural concave shape while also being able to change its size.
Once he finished playing around with his new shield, he decided to take it for a hunting trip. He took off back in the direction that he’d seen the swarm of bees roughly a week ago, and it didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for. Jasper found two bees landing on an enormous flower extending their proboscis and sucking nectar out of it. He crouched down keeping out of sight of the two bees until he was close enough. Right now, Shelld was attached to Jasper’s arm around the size of a fist ready to be used, and Effen floated next to his ear.
He motioned forward with his free hand and Effen moved forward slowly being directed to stay in the first one’s blind spot. When it was only a few meters away the other bee noticed and buzzed excitedly warning Jasper’s target of the impending danger, but it was too late. Effen shot forward taking the Giant Aurora Bee’s head completely off in a single wind empowered strike. The other one immediately turned toward Jasper instinctually knowing where the threat was coming from and shot toward him in a blur. Jasper raised his shield expanding it just in time to catch the bee’s stinger on its face.
The force of it threw Jasper’s arm into the air and appeared to give the insect another chance at him. Shelld wasn’t attached to his arm though only floating in direct contact with his skin. So, when the stinger came down looking to impale Jasper again Shelld slid down to cover the opening. Even so, the force against the shield knocked Jasper back, knocking him on his butt. Jasper rolled to his feet and saw his chance in the glowing golden eyes of his enemy. Directing Shelld to turn over he made it grow to cover the bee with its concave side towards it.
The beam hit the inside of Shelld and ricocheted back toward the direction of the bee missing it by several feet. The shield continued moving forward slamming into the still immobile insect and pinning it to the ground underneath it. Once it was trapped Jasper slid his arrowhead underneath a crack between the ground and the shell. He could hear the warning scream of the monster as he drew closer to his trapped enemy, but it was extremely muffled, and in the next moment the screaming stopped as the arrowhead tore it to shreds inside its cage.
Adding more options to his arsenal made Jasper feel powerful like he could take on the entire world. But at his current skill level he knew that he couldn’t control more than the three weapons he had at his disposal. He’d felt slightly guilty about having to leave Flot behind without any magic power inside it, but he was sure that the pot would understand his decision. It was the first time he’d been able to take on more than one enemy at a time, but he knew that he would need to practice a lot more if he were to clear this dungeon.