The next day found the group trudging through more of the same environment. The cave formations seemed to open up into large areas with twisting paths of stone. They expanded in a pattern that Victor recognized, but couldn’t put his finger on.

“It’s like a highway,” Leo finally said. Ever since gaining his powers, he’d been touching every new piece of stone and debris he came across.

“That another of your powers?” Victor asked.

“Yeah,” Leo replied, letting a handful of dirt slip through his fingers.

“It’s fitting. He always loved rocky road ice cream the most,” Ashley chimed in.

“Dad never finished his scoops when he got them, so I had to.”

“Really?” Amadeus said.

“No, he just knew you wanted more after you finished your own. You’d keep your eyes locked onto his cone so hard everyone would notice,” Ashley revealed.

“Really?” Leo said with surprise.

“Really.”

“Your father sounds like a kind man,” Lillie chimed in. Victor felt it a misstep. She shouldn’t have said that.

“He was…” Leo smiled with a sorrowful look. He stood up and looked towards a hole at the other side of the large cavern they were in.

“We should go there. There’s a big opening on the other side,” he told the rest of them.

The path was impossible unless they jumped atop the bioluminescent mushrooms in the biome. Which is why they didn’t hesitate to drop down atop them. The Wielders excluding Leo went first.

Though Victor felt some pain, the fall wasn’t damaging, even with the extra equipment he was carrying. He looked up and spread his hands for Lillie.

“Ready!” Victor shouted to them as the rest took the plunge. They landed in the wielders’ arms, with Lillie in his.

“You could’ve been a bit softer,” Ashley complained to Isabelle.

“You too, Amadeus,” Leo added.

“What about you, Lillie? Didn’t hurt you, did I?” Victor asked. She smiled in his arms.

“Not at all, Vic.”

“They really are brother and sister then…” Amadeus told Victor.

The group continued their trek across the tops of the shrooms, finding little creatures scuttling out of sight as they passed. Victor even saw structures from his location. Homes and hovels carved into the walls of the caves. But when he approached them he saw no one inside, despite the decorations that were there. He wanted to explore them some more but Ashley seemed to be growing more impatient by the second.

“Can we just get to the Seeds already?” she said to him. Victor could tell the reason for her impatience. He’d be jealous if he was unpowered as well.

He stuffed the knowledge of the hovels in the back of his mind and continued towards the hole in the cave. It was dark inside but thankfully Amadeus had charged the flashlights. They illuminated centipedes that crawled into holes and moths that fluttered around in the sky.

The group walked over the mossy ground and through the rest of the hole. In the middle of the trek, Victor took a step but felt nothing beneath his feet.

“W-woah!” he thought he would fall but Amadeus grabbed him from behind.

“Not so fast, Vic,” Amadeus said.

He flashed the light down into the moss, where there was a hole present and waiting.

“How deep is that?” Victor asked. He’d come across small divots but nothing of this level.

Leo placed a hand against the wall and closed his eyes. A moment later he let the wall go.

“The moss is obscuring it. It’s deep. Very deep. And wide too. We’ll have to find a way across it,” Leo told them.

Victor looked around and felt something off near the sides of the hole. There was a gathering of rocks there that looked just loose enough to fall. And they would’ve too, if a single small piece wasn’t holding the entire avalanche back.

Why, he could probably even fill in the entire hole if he just removed that one little piece.

“Stay back,” Victor urged the others as he brought his pistol out and aimed it squarely at the critical point holding the rocks.

He looked around for confirmation from the rest of them and found Leo’s eyes still closed.

“Leo?”

“There’s something else… further ahead. Something moving.”

And that was all the confirmation Victor needed. He stowed the pistol and decided to find another way across. If someone had set up the moss-covered hole as a trap, why put their efforts to waste, after all?

Thankfully the group found a small ledge obscured by more moss over the opposite side of the hole from the stones and boulders.

“Leave your bags on the other side,” Victor told the rest. They obeyed although with a few confused looks mixed within.

The group walked across the gap carefully and while sucking in their breath. Only the barest weaponry was on them, which helped to quiet some of the fear of the experience.

Once they’d made it, it was all the more easier for them to listen in on the noise coming from the other end of the cave. It was a splotchy noise, like mud being splattered. Victor raised a pistol that was soon engulfed in blue flames.

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He shuffled around the cave with that pistol in hand as it spread its luminescence around the walls. And sure enough, around the corner he found another group of Metamorphs. The misshapen monsters flooded the area. They were breaking and consuming rocks, crystals and whatever else they could find.

Is that how they turn into the big ones? If it was, he had a more pressing matter at hand. He was going to have to get rid of them before any more of the Brutes popped. A task failed immediately when he spotted one in the middle of the group.

To Victor, it almost looked like the monster was almost leading the others. It gave crude directions for digging and the Basics obeyed in turn. They turned arms and legs into drills to dig into the soft loamy dirt on the ground at its behest. But what they were digging for was completely out of the man’s sight.

Something like a perception stat would’ve been useful in times like these, Victor thought ruefully.

He walked back to his allies, dismissing the infusion on his pistol’s next burst.

“We’ve got trouble ahead. A bigger group of the Metamorphs than we fought before,” he told them.

“We’re better prepared this time,” Amadeus said, fingers crackling with lightning. But Victor’s eye were elsewhere. Squarely on the little trap already set for them.

“There’s way more… Actually, might have a better idea. All of you, get to the other side. Leo, can you shape the ledge that led us here?” he asked the man.

“Shape like how?”

“Make it wider. Enough so I can run across it,” Victor asked.

“Maybe?”

“And then collapse it,” Victor added.

“Uh… that’s a big ask, but I could-”

“Good enough for me.”

“Wait, that wasn’t!”

“You’ll figure it out as we go. Now push it so the rest of the guys can cross,” he told them while stuffing his gun back in his pockets. Victor stretched his legs while Leo focused on the ground.

With a bead of sweat running down his face, Leo was able to widen the platform enough for the group. He’d thought it would’ve been much simpler, but just placing it haphazardly would result in a number of structural instabilities. He’d had to carve the stone in a somewhat natural formation, something that gave him a deeper understanding of all minerals, he supposed.

Victor trusted it after barely a glance at it.

“Seems fine enough,” he said. Leo thought it madness still but he followed Victor. The man had basically made himself leader of the operation anyhow.

Once on the other side. He focused on the metaphorical pin of the plan. The little blockade that stopped an avalanche of rocks from filling the deep trench. And then he waited.

Victor stepped forward into full view of the Metamorphs and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Hey, clayface! What’re you searching for there?” he taunted. Victor didn’t know how smart they were but it worked.

Immediately, mud shot out for him. But Victor dodged to the side. He pulled out his pistol and charged it with Infuse Attack. The hammer hitting the bullet echoed with an arcane twang. It ripped through the first of the monsters cleanly. Though the ability took a lot from him, Victor felt a resurgence of strength at the sight.

Then he turned tail and ran. To their credit, the Metamorphs slid across the ground faster than him. But the distance was too great to overcome. Victor stomped down Leo’s ledge as if it were stable and worn.

He crossed the entire length of it even as more mud flings came raining down. The others had their own troubles keeping the Metamorphs at bay until Victor crossed.

“Now, Leo!” he shouted.

With a single movement the platform came falling apart. A second moved removed the blockade and started the avalanche. The entire cave shook with the sounds of rolling stones. Some of the Metamorphs took flight in response to the shaking but only a few made it to the skies.

The Brute was not among one of them. It instead fell under the avalanche and was buried in the hole. For a second Victor thought it wouldn’t be the case, so he took precaution with another Infused shot.

The other Metamorphs stuck to the skies. But their mud wings only carried them so far. They were easy pickings and in no time, the group was safe once more.

They stowed their weaponry and picked up their bags off of the floors.

“That does it for them,” Victor said. He dusted off his hands just as a new notification greeted him.

[Ability Unlocked: Trap Ward]

Though it was a boon, Victor was beginning to grow a bit annoyed with getting things just after he would’ve needed them. That wouldn’t stop him from sating his curiosity about its function, however.

[[Trap Ward]: (Requirement: Successfully set a trap) You can touch a surface and rig it to explode whenever something touches it. It lasts this way for 24 hours. This process requires 5 minutes. The strength of the explosion depends on your Structural Sense stat. Tricks for the lowly, but if it helps them realize their full potential, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it.]

Another tool in the box for him. Victor spotted Leo stepping from foot to foot as if the ground would swallow him up.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“They’re still down there, you know? Squirming… it’s nasty.”

“As long as they’re not squirming over us, it should be fine,” Amadeus said.

“In all that rubble can you find a Seed, Leo?” Victor asked.

“Not a Seed detector, Victor. Just rocks,” Leo chimed back, though he did a cursory look.

“Maybe if we bring you closer?” Amadeus said.

He then walked over and picked Leo up like a stick, pointing him towards the filled trench.

“Beep… Beep…” he made obnoxious noises with his mouth all the while Leo looked down at the dirt. To his surprise, no one else there found it very much funny.

“…Can you please put me down?” Leo asked, his face inches away from a turned over worm.

“Alright, alright. Was just trying to lighten the mood a little…”

“Point to be noted, Amadeus. I’m the funny one,” Victor told him.

“Funny? Only jokes you’ve told have made the monsters target you!”

“See? They’re running over themselves to hear it,” Victor replied. It got a chuckle out of Lillie somehow.

“That’s one,” Amadeus grumbled before moving ahead. The group climbed over the newly formed pile and made it once again to the other side. Once they reached the open area the Metamorphs had been working in, they found a sign.

Victor wiped the dust off of it, but found only an alien tongue hidden behind.

He looked at his settings menu for something resembling a language setting. He did find one, although the options were between English, Hausa and a few others he knew a smattering of words in.

Tsk, worthless. He instead joined the others in their search. There were several holes dug around the opening, and an area to the side where ores were stacked up. Tents littered the area and the walls reached high.

Some of the ores glowed with an angelic light that Victor had to hold his hands up against.

“Who would have a whole mining operation down here?” Victor thought out loud as he bumped into Ashley.

“Ouch. You’re solid as a brick wall, you know that?” she shot at him.

“Not my fault. Blame the Seed,” he said, pointing to his heart. That’s where he felt the roar of the Weaponsmith Heart the greatest.

“Hmph, wish I had one,” she said with a look of longing.

“That’s what we’re here for, aren’t we?”

“Me and mine, sure. But what does your crew intend to do once this job’s over? From the looks of it, you didn’t seem keen on sticking around,” Ashley pointed out.

He’d almost forgotten why they were here at all. Even though it’d been a few days at most, he’d grown comfortable beside these people. That was the trap, wasn’t it?

“Moving towards Washington. Have some family me and Amadeus need to meet,” Victor replied curtly.

“We’re still going there?” Isabelle piped up.

“Yes?”

“Oh, I thought… never mind, we’ll talk about it later,” she said, resorting back to digging through the ore with her cloth threads.

Victor also resumed his search, but he didn’t have to for long.

“Hey guys! In here!” Lillie shouted from inside one of the tents. It was a circular looking one with supported in the side and a ring of black in the middle of its white cloth. The others gathered before its entrance before turning the flap and entering inside. Once there, it looked remarkably human, almost to an unnerving degree.

But the point of interest was the case placed on the carpeted flooring of the home. Lillie struggled with the locks on the thing for only a moment before flinging it open. And laying there cushioned so perfectly were two more glowing Seeds.