After the battle’s conclusion, Taloc guided Isla through the process of using the loot commands to search for any special drops from the Stone Ogres. The only option was essence extraction, and she assigned Vultressant and Vanya to the task. Apparently, they could have done the extractions without her instruction, but this would send them a prompt to do so.

As they set about their tasks, Isla took a moment to check her own notifications from the encounter. Among the expected alerts about her depleted energy and a few skill increases, she was surprised to find a notification for a new skill: endurance. This newfound skill promised to mitigate the amount of energy lost during physical activities.

“I learned a new skill,” Isla announced. “It’s endurance.”

“I have that one too,” Maroftis said. “My energy bar usually doesn’t drop below 80%.”

Isla looked at him, feeling confused. “This was the first time that I could see my bars,” she said. “I just thought it had to do with being the party leader.”

“This was probably the first time that you accessed them,” Vanya said. “I have my interface set up so that I always have my basic info visible, and when I’m grouped, I have miniature ones for all of you. I need to be able to see your health bars to make proper healing decisions.” She looked over at Vultressant, who looked like he had been in the melee instead of casting and shooting arrows from the back. “I’ll start on the essences; you rest and get your mana back.” He nodded and sat down to rest. Isla sat down next to him as Vanya turned her attention to the first Stone Ogre that they had killed.

Taloc and Ewtain went to scout the rest of the cavern. They went to the end of the ledge and began to head down the sloped path to the cavern floor. Vanya had extracted one ruby essence and was working on another Ogre by the time Vultressant had replenished enough mana and energy to assist her; they were still working on the last one when Ewtain and Taloc came back.

“We didn’t check the entire cavern because it’s pretty massive, but it looks like we’re alone for now,” the Ranger said when they were close enough to be heard without shouting. “We also found two exits, one on either end.”

They decided to rest and settled in the safety of the tunnel. Ewtain and Taloc took turns keeping watch at the entrance to the cavern. Vanya had exhausted her mana on her last attempt, but she still managed to acquire four ruby essences.

When Vultressant had replenished all of his mana, he began casting a spell, but he was staring at the ground and gesticulating in a manner that Isla had never seen him do before. She watched his mana drop slowly, but he continued for almost a minute without any discernible effect. Isla had almost given up on watching the Wizard when a small creature popped into existence before him. The creature was tiny and surrounded by a soft glow. Isla had seen the creature before; it was a summoned Fire Sprite that Vultressant would summon and talk to on occasion.

“Does that spell usually take that long?” she asked.

“That’s actually the quickest that I’ve ever done the summoning,” he replied with some pride in his voice. “Oeister said that with practice, the summoning spell casting times decrease—it gets easier to pull the target out of its plane of existence or home planet.”

The tiny Sprite twirled in a circle as she hovered effortlessly. After completing a full 360-degree rotation, she crossed her arms and tilted her head, fixing Vultressant with an expectant gaze.

“What do you want of me?” She inquired in a lilting voice that sounded a bit like how the Dwarves spoke, yet with a unique accent and a remarkably high pitch.

“Hello Elida,” Vultressant said, bowing to her. “We’re in a cave system, and I was hoping that you would be able to do some scouting for us.” Wow, he’s nicer to the Sprite than any of us. Elida pondered his request, cupping her chin with one hand as if deep in thought. After a moment, she nodded and flew up the tunnel towards the surface. “Not that way!” Vultressant called. She spun around and flew back, continuing into the cavern. He ran to follow the speedy, winged woman.

"What the hell are you doing?" Taloc exclaimed, grabbing Vultressant’s arm as he tried to enter the cavern.

“Following the Fire Sprite,” Vultressant replied, gesturing toward her.

“Get her back here.”

Vultressant approached the edge of the ledge and called out to Elida, but she seemed fascinated by the crystal dust scattered across the cavern floor. She scooped up handfuls of crystal dust and tossed it above her. Isla gasped as the dust descended and settled onto the Sprite. The light that she naturally emitted was now a soft purple glow, the same color as the crystals of the cavern.

The rest of the group had gathered outside the cave to witness the spectacle. Elida continued to gather and coat herself with the dust for about a minute before finally returning to the Wizard’s side.

“I do thank you for bringing me to such a marvelous place,” she fluted. “Where do you wish me to scout?”

“There are two openings down there,” Ewtain said, his voice echoing softly in the cavern. “One near the slope down to the bottom and one at the other end of the cavern. I can’t see what’s behind some of these plateaus, so there might be other passages.”

The Sprite looked over at the hooded Night Stalker and then back at Vultressant. “Is he your captain?” she asked.

“No, he’s the scout,” Vultressant replied, gesturing towards Ewtain. “Isla is the party leader.” He pointed at Isla, and Elida regarded both of them with interest.

“If this one is your scout, why do you need me?” She asked, waving a hand in Ewtain’s direction.

“He’s not much of a scout,” Isla chimed in, a playful smile on her lips. Though Ewtain’s face remained hidden beneath his hood, Isla was certain her jibe had hit its mark.

“Why do you employ a poor scout?” Elida asked Isla. “A good captain can recognize talent.” It sounded to her like the Sprite emphasized the word ‘good’ there. Isla refused to take the bait, and she was not familiar enough with the Sprite to know her temperament. Not knowing what she could safely get away with, Isla employed caution. Normally she had little care if she riled up someone, but Vultressant had made quite an effort to be respectful and cordial to this diminutive woman, probably because he wanted her cooperation without forcing her to do things. Vultressant had a proven track record of ruffling feathers by insulting people, and Isla was unsure whether it was that he didn’t care about the feelings of others or that he just failed to realize that what he said might upset some. Having known him for a few years, Isla believed that it was a bit of both, but she had also known him to try to irritate people intentionally. She reasoned that if he was taking extra care to treat the little fairy woman with respect, then she was certainly not going to do anything to cause problems for him.

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“Please check out what is down each passage,” Vultressant said in what was close to a pleading manner. “Don’t go too far, and try not to bring a bunch of monsters back here.” Elida shrugged and flew down the exit closest to them. A few minutes later, she flew back into the cavern and streaked towards the other passage, leaving a small trail of crystal dust that resembled the tail of a comet in her wake. She emerged from that tunnel a short time later.

When Elida made it back to them, she landed in front of Isla and said, “The caves are empty.”

Isla supposed that the Sprite was addressing her instead of the Wizard because she thought that Isla was in charge. “Thank you, Elida,” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster. “We are looking for creatures that eat crystals. Are there more crystals in the caves?”

“The north cave has many crystals.”

“Which way is north?” Isla asked the group, and Vultressant pointed to the cave that went back to the surface.

“Thank you, Elida,” Vultressant said before dismissing her. She vanished, and a small pile of crystal dust fell to the ground where she had been hovering.

Vultressant scooped up the dust and put it into a pouch. “What are you doing with that?” Ewtain asked him.

“Huh? Oh, she seemed to like the stuff, so I’m keeping it for when I summon her again.”

As they traveled through the tunnel to the north, many crystals illuminated the area with the same purple glow. The crystal dust coated the ground as well as the lower parts of the walls and swirled around them as they walked. Vanya maintained her blessing buff on the group as they walked, and upon noticing the icon for the spell on her display, Isla debated which of her party buffs to use first and when to use it. She had chosen the offensive version first in the previous battle, but for the next encounter, she thought that the defense would be a better choice to start with unless they found more of the Stone Ogres. The added protection could help them weather any special ability attacks the new creatures might lead with, and after the duration of the ability ended, she hoped to have a better idea of when to bring in the attack buff.

The tunnel emptied into a large 40-foot-high cavern that was split into two parts. They chose to explore the left side. They had gone maybe the length of a football field when a creature that resembled a Stone Ogre came into view. It was a bit larger than the Ogres, and instead of being coated with protruding stones, this one appeared to be covered in crystals. The crystals lacked the glowing property that the other crystals in the cavern had, but they had smooth facets that dimly reflected the light in the cavern. This was clearly one of the Crystal Devourers.

The creature was lifting a large crystal to its mouth when it suddenly whipped its head around to look in their direction. Isla hesitated a moment as she considered running her offensive party buff to see if they could remove the single threat quickly, but she ultimately decided to go with her original plan and use the defensive version instead.

Maroftis and Ewtain started running towards it, and Taloc released his triple arrow strike. His arrow split into three just before striking the target. One of them deflected harmlessly off of the heavily armored shoulder, but the other two struck flesh on its upper abdomen. Shortly after that, Vultressant cast a flaming bolt. The spell hit its torso, but it was preoccupied with removing the arrows from its belly and barely noticed the fire. Once it removed the arrows, it broke them for good measure before dropping the pieces on the ground.

The monster yelled and began to increase in size until it was about half again as large as it had been. It started to glow, and then it held out its arms—two bolts of lightning shot out from each of its palms. A bolt struck Maroftis in the chest, arresting his advance. Another targeted Ewtain, who dove away but still suffered a hit to his leg. The other two were directed at those in the back, and Isla was just able to put her shield up before the impact. Even with the protection, she still suffered a loss of over a quarter of her health, and her ears were ringing so badly that she could barely hear anything else. Isla quickly checked the HP of the group. Taloc had below half his health, so the last lightning bolt had obviously struck him; Maroftis was at 80%, and Ewtain was still over 90%. The lightning attack was powerful, and Isla hoped that the attack would be unavailable to the Devourer for a long time.

The Devourer picked up a large hammer that had been on the ground next to it, and it started moving towards the incoming party members. Maroftis had barely paused when struck, and he continued towards the now-charging enemy. Ewtain, however, was slow to rise and moved with caution. Isla hoped that he would still be able to dodge effectively. She broke into a run to help with the melee fighting. Generally, Ewtain could avoid damage, and Maroftis could soak damage, but it was clear that they would need some assistance for this fight.

By the time Isla made it to the Devourer, the fight had already begun, and she targeted the creature and looked at its status bars. It was just under 90% health, but more importantly, it was under 30% of its total mana. This meant that it should have to wait to cast its lightning ability again. She thought for a moment and then corrected her assessment: the size transformation could also be a spell or ability that required mana, so depending upon the mana costs of each, it might still have enough mana to cast the lightning another time. She just hoped that it couldn’t cast it again in this battle.

Isla noticed that neither Maroftis nor Ewtain were trying to circle around the Devourer to flank it, probably out of caution as it might have the same kick ability that the Stone Ogres did. She decided to circle around it before getting into melee range, and then she engaged it. The other two were enough to distract it for her, but her attacks could only really reach just above its legs, which were heavily armored with crystals. The encounter began to resemble the earlier fights with the Stone Ogres, with them slowly bringing down the HP of the creature. When the Devourer did connect with a hammer blow, the strike dealt more damage than the Ogres had, but its melee tactics were almost the same. The ranged assault seemed to be the most effective way to deal damage to the creature, and a steady stream of arrows from Taloc and fire spells from Vultressant were slowly but surely doing the job. Vanya had healed Taloc, who now had full HP, so it looked like they would win the encounter without much more effort.

They had reduced the Devourer to just 25% health when it let out a wailing scream. Ewtain had dropped his weapons and covered his ears a moment before the scream, but Isla’s other four companions appeared stupefied after the sound ended. It sounded loud to Isla, but it was clearly a directional attack, and she was behind the monster, so the attack had not affected her. Despite fearing a possible special attack, she circled the mob until she was next to Maroftis. There was no kick attack, so either it did not have that in its arsenal or it lacked the mana or energy to do so currently. She used her shield to block a strike that was intended for Maroftis and put herself between him and the Devourer to protect the stunned Korak from further harm. Ewtain got back into the battle first, and his presence relieved some of the pressure from Isla.

A cry came from Vanya, and Isla saw that the healer’s health had dipped under 50%. She turned, and she saw another Crystal Devourer back by the casters and Taloc. She triggered the bonus of 10% for offense for the party and tried to finish off her current target. It was not as effective as it could be due to some of the others being stunned by the scream, but they needed to kill this one as fast as possible, or the casters might not make it. Suddenly, the Devourer shrank back down to its original size. This allowed her to strike at its chest and neck areas, which were now within her reach. Ewtain sent a special attack its way—possibly his eviscerate attack—and the Devourer dropped to its knees. Isla finished it off by shoving her sword in its mouth and down its throat.