“I’ve heard of an Igneoheart and a Frostheart; is a Diamondheart something similar?” Rai asked.
“It is. Diamondhearts are formed in the bodies of certain subterranean monsters.”
“I’m assuming that these monsters are powerful, rare, or both?” Isa said knowingly.
“You assume correctly. They’re quite rare. Small ones can be found inside creatures called crystal scorpions, but I’m not looking for a small one. I want one the size of my fist.”
“We could probably sell that for—”
“Ah, but then you wouldn’t get my information on your magic rock, now would you?”
“You told us you don’t have any info yet!”
“If that magic rock of yours is in the city, I’ll find out. You can rest assured of that.”
“So you’re not giving us an impossible task because you hate saurians?” Isa challenged.
“No, just a really hard one that benefits me greatly. Girl, I don’t care if you were a kobold – if anything, that makes it worse, since you actually seem to think you have a shot at becoming a dragon. Take it or leave it.”
“If we can’t find it on our own, and we come across a Diamondheart while in the mines, we’ll make the trade. But only then!” Isa said.
“Acceptable.”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Quartz,” Rai said.
“Ah, just call me Old Man Quartz like everybody else does. I’m one of the oldest people in the city, after all. I’ve got a decade of life left at best.”
After departing, they headed for the mines. The entrance that they had marked on their map was in a lower part of the city and not terribly far from Old Man Quartz’s home. There, they announced their intention to work clearing the new mines, showed their Identification Cards, and were officially signed up for the job. They opted to use the eating and sleeping arrangements near the top of the mine for that evening and night and head down to the depths the next day. They were surprised to learn that many different parts of the mines were connected by a teleportation network, so they wouldn’t have to waste too much time on the descent itself. The new mines were actually connected to natural underground caverns, so they wouldn’t be traipsing through artificial tunnels so much as sweeping through those caverns.
The next day, they ate breakfast and immediately headed to the deepest part of the mines, orbs of light floating around them and ahead of them to light the way. They weren’t alone; three dwarves and a human accompanied them, other fighters doing the same job, as well as a single kobold wearing robes, a third circle healer. Other groups of “sweepers” or “cleaners” as the job was called, traveled the first part together with them before splitting off in different directions.
The caverns were surprisingly filled with life for being so deep underground, though at first it was just vermin and bugs. Many of the walls were streaked with metal ore and/or gemstones, which a couple of the dwarves eyed greedily, but none of them were equipped to do any mining themselves, so they carried on. Eventually, they entered a cavern with a height of about fifteen feet that was filled with stalactites and stalagmites, as well as a bunch of mushrooms and bioluminescent moss.
“Is… this normal?” Rai asked. “I’m no expert, but I thought this sort of stuff only formed around limestone?”
“The further down you go, the weirder it gets,” one of the dwarves said as they walked through the forest of stalagmites. “A lot of the terrain and life makes no sense.”
“No kidding,” the human said. “You see all kinds of crazy stuff down here. For example, Corroders.”
The dwarves all shuddered.
“What’s a Corroder?” Isa asked curiously.
“The nightmare of everybody who lives in Ferrigen,” a dwarf replied. “They’re buglike critters, four legs and a propeller tail and giant feathery antennae, bigger than a wolf. They touch metal with their antennae and it corrodes away – even noncorrosive metals. They eat the leftover ‘rust.’”
“In a city of metal, which lives on its metal mines, that would be terrifying indeed,” Rai agreed.
“Yeah, I—”
Without warning, a nine-foot-tall stalagmite some thirty feet away came to life, opening a large eye and giant toothy maw as it shot a half-dozen inch-thick strands out with lightning speed, aiming one at each person besides the kobold. Only Rai reacted fast enough to attempt to dodge, but not being in a combat stance already, even he was too slow to actual evade. Each of them was hit in the torso and immediately subjected to a growing numbness spreading out from the point where the sticky strands adhered, then jerked and dragged half a dozen feet in only a few seconds. Rai felt his strength begin leaving his body as though his muscles were being sapped of their power. He slashed at the strand with his sword, easily severing it, and watched as the others did the same with their own weapons – axes and swords, or in Isa’s case, her claws.
Rai and Isa stepped into combat stances and turned toward the offending false stalagmite. When the instantly-retracted strands, which seemed almost like half-melted wax instead of flesh, shot out again, they were both ready this time. Rai dodged like a leaf in the wind, then charged forward alongside the already-retracting strand, dodging again as the strange creature tried to bite him when he got close, and lunged, plunging his sword through its rocklike outer layer. The lightning along his blade did nothing, but its flames appeared effective – or as effective as the relatively weak fire of his sword’s enchantment could be against something so clearly tough as this aberration.
Isa reacted similarly, striking the strand before it reached her with a shout of “Sword Breaker!” Berserk Mode activated, and she immediately then charged as well, crying, “Wrathful Rush!”, the name of one of her new fifth tier arts. Her powerful downward diagonal swing cut right through the creature’s hide and inner flesh, spraying red-black blood everywhere as it created a massive rent from which the fluid gushed out. The creature reeled from the massive damage, unable to do much of anything as Rai and Isa followed up with twin slashes each.
The thing collapsed, still leaking blood, and the four strands that had been attached to the others fell to the ground.
“W-what the hell was that thing?” one of the dwarves exclaimed. “It sucked the strength right out of me!”
“Same here. I’m weak… weaker than I’ve been since a I was a child.”
“It got me too.”
“And me.”
“I’ll assist!” the kobold said. “Sounds like you all need a couple Recovery spells.”
“Me too, if you have enough spells,” Rai said. “Though I was only hit once.”
“I should have just enough, with one left over, if I use all my second and third circle spells available for the day. That’ll leave me with only seven first circle and one third circle for healing.”
“Well, we can’t exactly go on as weak as kittens,” the human said.
“Wait. Did that stalactite just move?” Isa said suddenly.
A stalactite that reached down to around Rai’s head height suddenly scurried across the ceiling until it was close to Rai and swung at him, a mouth opening near its bottom. It’s maw closed in around his neck.
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“Rai! Acid Strike! Dragon’s Wrath!”
Isa used her second new fifth tier art, then burned her star energy in her qi core to quickly use the fourth tier art as well, desperate to deal as much damage as possible to the creature as quickly as possible before it removed Rai’s head from his body. Green-and-red acid-blood splashed all over the creature as she stabbed it, then ripped her halberd through its body. It collapsed on top of Rai, crushing him to the ground. Isa dropped her halberd, stuck her claws into the dead creature, and heaved the thing, which had to weigh at least a literal ton, off of him. Rai lay groaning on the ground, his neck shredded – but somehow not bleeding, perhaps thanks to a quirk of reaching fifth realm – and his body twisted in painful ways.
“Rai! Can you hear me?!”
He let out a gurgling groan.
“I doubt he can talk. I’m impressed he survived that,” one of the dwarves said. “I thought it bit his head off.”
“If the saurian hadn’t killed the thing so quick it probably would have. Holy shit did you see how fast she took down that thing? What tier are you, saurian?”
Isa’s Berserk Mode evaporated, and she sat down heavily next to Rai. “Hold still, Rai.”
Three beads of third circle Blood Elixir formed in her palm and she poured them into Rai’s mouth. In seconds, his body returned to mostly normal, leaving nothing but red marks around his neck. She gave him another dose of first circle Healing Blood, and he returned to an uninjured state, except for the weakness from when the strand hit him.
“I’m fifth tier,” she answered once Rai was sitting up and rubbing at his neck. “And fifth circle.”
“Did you just give him magic blood to drink that healed him?” the human said incredulously.
“Yes.”
“All right, everyone, let’s get you Recovered,” the kobold interrupted. “She can be our backup healer if I run out of spells.”
“I ain’t drinking no saurian’s blood!” one of the dwarves said vehemently.
“Well, I’m not going to force you,” Isa replied.
After determining that there was no loot to be had from the corpses, the group double-checked the rest of the cavern to make sure there weren’t any others of those creatures, which one of the dwarves decided deserved to be called String-Throwers, then continued on.
The swarm of giant, three-foot-long crickets with fungus growing all over them in the next cavern with giant, tree-sized mushrooms caught them by surprise. There were a dozen of them, and they leapt out of the mushroom forest together and without warning. Rai and Isa were on the left of the group with the kobold, while the other four were on the right, and the crickets came from the right side. Three crickets attacked each of those on the right, jumping through the air and clawing at them with all four feet, significantly injuring all of them. They sprang into action, each cutting down a cricket with a pair of swings of their weapons, but the remaining crickets were undeterred, using their front legs to claw and their mouths to bite.
“…Should we help?” Isa said as they cut down the second third of the cricket swarm.
“I think they’ve got it,” Rai answered as they fighters exchanged final blows with the rest of the crickets, finishing them off.
The dwarves and human were roughly equally injured, so the kobold proceeded to drain all his magic on healing them. The human, who was the last to be healed and therefor not healed as much as the others, swallowed his pride and asked for Isa to heal him as well. Only after she had complied did Rai mention he could also heal a bit; he used his healing bolt to finish healing everyone.
“Well, I’m useless for the rest of this. We still continuing?” the kobold said.
“Yes. We haven’t found anything valuable yet. I mean, some of these mushrooms might be, or they might be poisonous, who knows?”
They continued onward once more. Hours passed with only mild annoyances to deal with, but eventually they entered a cavern filled with crystals and gems, with an especially large deposit that reached from floor to thirty-foot-high ceiling in the center. The occupants of the cavern noticed them at the same time: hulking fifteen-foot-tall hunched-over giants with long arms ending in claws and stony skin covered in crystals.
“Rock Trolls!” one of the dwarves cried. “Jackpot!”
“Some of the crystals on these things are quite valuable!” another chimed in.
“They’re tough, though, and there’s half a dozen of ‘em. We’ll need your help.”
“Time to take down some trolls and get some real loot!” the human crowed.
The four of them charged at the closest troll on the right.
“I’ll take the three on the left!” Isa shouted, charging.
“Then I guess I’m taking the other two on the right,” Rai said to himself.
The fighters clashed with the trolls, which attacked with claw and tusked bite. Isa’s charge ended with a shout of “Downing Rush!” and a swing that knocked the troll onto its back, thanks to a new fourth-tier art. Rock and crystals flew off of its skin as blood sprayed out. The other two trolls on the left stepped up to her and swung, two claws making it through her reinforced scales to draw blood, and she went into Berserk Mode.
“Down-n-skewer!” she shouted, smacking the back of her halberd into the ankles of one of them and stabbing it in the chest when it fell. The remaining standing troll slashed her again, but she ignored it in favor of finishing off two downed trolls when they tried to stand. It’s next combo only skittered off her scales, and she took it out with a double swing.
Meanwhile, Rai was doing just fine dodging around the strikes of the two trolls he was engaged with, using a fifth tier art to parry and counterattack, doing heavy damage with his counters and following them up with Acceleration-induced triple-hit combos. Even though their bodies were in pieces afterward, he could see that they were still somehow regenerating. At the same time, though they suffered damage, the quartet managed to bring down the other troll. One of the dwarves pulled out a flask of acid and smashed it against the downed troll.
“You gotta use acid to kill ‘em!” he said.
“Got it!” Isa called out, then shot the trolls Rai had defeated with acid bolts, her own trolls taken care of by her acidic blood on her halberd. She dropped out of Berserk Mode right after, then drank a Blood Elixir and a Healing Blood drop.
Then it was harvest time. The hours flew by as they worked.
“Isa… I had a thought.”
“Yeah?”
“How come this spot hadn’t already been cleared? It’s only a few hours away from the teleport spot.”
“The caverns are pretty tangly.”
“I guess.”
“Plus, didn’t they say that teleport spot was put up recently?”
“They did, now that you mention it. I wonder what some of these crystals are; not all of them are quartz or gemstones.”
Isa tapped a clear one with a claw. “Pretty sure this type is some sort of crystalized mana thing. Look at it with Mage Sight.”
Rai did as she said. “Huh. Yeah, that’s a super high concentration of mana. I think you’re right. I guess this is the same type of crystal we used in the artificing lab as mana storage, though those were colored.”
“Colored mana stones are more common than the clear ones,” one of the dwarves said. “Lower value in alchemy and artificing, higher value as gems thanks to the fact they’re prettier. The clear ones are better for enchanting and stuff, though, because they’re more concentrated.”
I didn’t even know mana stones existed until I saw them in Nara’s lab, Rai thought. I bet they only form deep underground, and there’s no mines that deep in the modern era.
When they finished harvesting the skins of the trolls, they went into the bodies to retrieve the “Quartzhearts.” These, Rai learned, were less valuable than Diamondhearts, but still quite useful in enchanting and would make them quite a bit of money. After a little bit of arguing, they agreed to split everything in half – Rai and Isa would take three Quartzheats and half the crystals and gems from the trolls, while the other five would take the rest; after all, Rai and Isa had done most of the fighting.
At that point, they decided to head back for the day. Rai and Isa decided to keep their spoils for the time being rather than turning them into coin at the miner’s outpost, simply receiving their daily pay, eating, and sleeping. The next day, they met up with the same group as before and took the same path. When they reached the crystal cavern, they discovered that it wasn’t unoccupied, but rather had new inhabitants: creatures that looked like scorpions made of clusters of translucent gemstones, many about the size of a large dog, but many more the size of a cat. A singular crystal scorpion was as big as a horse; this was the only one with pincers in addition to a stinger.
“Crystal Scorpions?! I’d say we’re lucky, but… that’s a lot…”
“Looks like a whole nest; look at all the young…”
“And that big one… that’s a queen! Think of the size of its Diamondheart!”
“Let’s do this!”
The dwarves and human charged in. Immediately, the crystal scorpions all fired off glowing magical bolts of various colors. It was pretty, but also terrifying, as there were a dozen dog-sized ones shooting two bolts each and a dozen and a half cat-sized ones shooting single bolts, as well as the queen shooting five bolts, which were larger (and each was a different color of the rainbow, minus violet and indigo). The bolts were fairly evenly spread amongst the four of them, so none of them went down, but they didn’t look good. The cat-sized scorpions immediately burrowed through the solid stone beneath them after shooting the magical bolts.
The dwarves and human teamed up to take down two of the dog-sized scorpions.
Then Isa and Rai acted, charging in after them. A single hit wasn’t quite enough to shatter Rai’s target, though Isa’s broke apart easily. The scorpions then swarmed the six of them. While Isa and Rai were fine, the others each got stabbed once, and now they were looking shaky on their feet. A double volley – a total of ten bolts – shot out from the queen, taking down the dwarves and human as well as striking Rai and Isa each once.
“Get in there and heal!” Rai shouted at the kobold as he finished off his initial opponent, used Accelerate, and then smashed another with a double-thrust. When the rest turned to attack him and charged, he practically danced, striking with sword aura as they approached, then hitting them a second time when they missed him, moving so quickly that he blurred. Isa took down the remaining two, leaving only the queen.
“Your turn,” Isa said with a grin.