Spiteful Healer: Book One - A LitRPG Adventure, page 43
“Yeah, yeah, I was hoping for something more treasure-like, though.”
“I think this might be where the golems came from,” Rakkan suggested, having finished scavenging books and jumped to land beside them. “Y’know, if I had to guess. I don’t know how the tower might’ve ended up upside-down in a mountain, but it looks like the wizard who lived here was the one who made the golems.”
“Makes sense. Must’ve been a powerful wizard,” Aegis replied.
“How do we know he’s not still here?” Pyri suggested, to which they all froze. Looking around the room, Lina saw that there was a trapdoor on the ceiling they were standing on, a few inches of broken ladder sticking up from it. She pointed it out to the others, but no one was eager to open it.
“Why’d you say something like that, Mom?” Aegis complained. “Now we’re all scared some big ancient wizard is waiting to attack us.”
“What’s the big deal? It’d be fun,” she smiled as she walked toward the trapdoor.
“Do you have any idea how much iron ore we have in our inventories? If we die at level 30, there’s a good chance we’ll drop it all.”
“Okay, maybe we should go back now. I don’t want to be stuck in this cave again,” Darkshot replied.
“Don’t be such wimps, we’re not even in a dungeon right now. How bad could it be?” She waved them off before yanking the trapdoor open. All of them but Pyri held their breath.
Pyri peered through the trapdoor down below, but after a few moments, nothing happened. The sound of rushing water echoed up from below, but no other sounds could be heard.
“Water?” Lina whispered in confusion.
Curiosity got the better of them, and they all moved around the trapdoor to look down as Pyri motioned the Cinderbolt through the hole to illuminate whatever was below, waving her staff around to control it.
There was nothing. It was empty black space in all directions, with nothing for the light of the Cinderbolt to reflect off. Its light didn’t cover a large radius, but the lower Pyri moved it, the more anxious they got. It wasn’t until she’d lowered it approximately 100 feet down that they finally saw something reflect the light—rushing water.
“Some sort of river or lake down there?” Darkshot suggested.
“Wait a second. Rakkan, remember when we fell down from the spider boss?” Aegis looked at Rakkan, and his face lit up with a realization.
“There was an underground river and a waterfall,” Rakkan replied.
“Yeah, that waterfall that almost killed us dropped into a big open cave. You think that’s this?”
“It’s gotta be. We’re not that far from there, right?”
“Jeez, this big open space is underneath Rene?” Darkshot looked on in amazement as Pyri moved the Cinderbolt around to try and see anything of interest. Eventually, she found a rocky shore, along which broken pieces of a structure were visible.
Pyri motioned to the pile of rubble. “I found the rest of the tower.”
“Wait, what’s that?” Darkshot motioned to something giving off a strange, glistening shine amid the rubble of the tower. It passed through one broken wall and over another chunk of the tower before disappearing into the water.
Rakkan squinted at it curiously. “It looks like a plant root of some kind.”
All but Aegis leaned in to get a better look. He was pacing and scratching his chin while pondering something instead.
“I was wondering why the Land Management menu is still saying the territory is hostile, even though no monsters are around. I guess it’s because of these caves,” Aegis shrugged.
Lina and Rakkan jerked their heads toward Aegis with expressions of horror.
“Wait, it says ‘hostile’?” Lina asked him with wide eyes, her face going pale.
“We gotta go,” Rakkan whispered aggressively as he backed up through the trapdoor and climbed up the bookshelves.
“Huh? What do you mean? What’s wrong? Why?” Aegis asked, confused as he turned from watching Rakkan flee to looking at Lina’s expression.
“If you wanna keep that iron, we gotta go—now!” Rakkan called down.
“Land status has a lot of different values. Peaceful, neutral, contested, wild… Of all of them, hostile is the worst,” Lina replied. “Rakkan is right, we should go.”
She motioned for Aegis to follow Rakkan’s example. All of her shyness was gone, replaced with genuine fear.
Aegis was now feeling worried himself. “Wait, what does hostile mean, exactly?”
“Hey, check this out,” Darkshot motioned down the hole excitedly, interrupting them. Aegis moved to look and see what he was pointing at. Pyri was still staring down as well.
“Hostile means either that there’s an enemy nation or tribe in control of the land, or… it’s home to a powerful world boss,” Lina replied while Aegis, Pyri, and Darkshot watched what they initially thought was a glistening root slowly move, the tip of it receding from the rubble of the tower into the water until it was fully submerged and no longer visible.
“What was that?” Darkshot whispered.
“I don’t know,” Pyri replied. “I can’t move my Cinderbolt any further—that’s my max range.”
Suddenly, a second light source appeared in the cavern below.
A gigantic set of eyes, glowing light red, opened beneath the surface of the water, glaring up at them. The eyes were each easily the size of the entire tower room they were standing in. For a brief moment, [???] in red text became visible above the eyes.
“NOPE!” Pyri snapped her fingers to cancel her Cinderbolt spell. “Lumina!”
She lit up the end of her staff so she could see the bookshelves and ran to the nearest one to start climbing, followed quickly by Aegis.
“Oh hell no! Grappleshot!” Darkshot spun around and shot an arrow through the hole above, zipping over Rakkan’s head, and his skill magically created a rope attached to the arrow, giving him a way to quickly climb up.
“Shadowstep!” Lina teleported to the floor above after a few casts, reaching her hand down to help everyone get up faster. As she did, they all heard a horrendously loud, gurgling roar from below that shook the entirety of the tower and caverns around them.
As Lina pulled Aegis up, a large black tendril crashed through the ceiling of the second floor that they’d been standing on, destroying it completely and opening it to give them a clear view of a giant maw filled with teeth rising up through the huge cavern.
“GO! GO GO GO!” Darkshot shouted, the light of Pyri’s Lumina reflecting off hundreds of gnarled yellow teeth. It was hard to make out any real details of what sort of creature was pursuing them—they could only see that it had dark, slimy skin and was gigantic.
Entering Dungeon: [Caverns of Jia’nir – Level 25]
The message popped up as they all jumped through the upside-down doorway. Aegis quickly waved the notification off and turned around with the others.
“Shut it, shut it!” Aegis shouted. They all joined in to help push the set of large double doors shut. They moved slowly, grinding against the stone ceiling once more, and every second felt like ten.
With a last glimpse into the tower interior, they spotted a large black tendril shoot up through the first-floor ceiling and smash the wooden table that’d been bolted to the floor of the upside-down tower.
Once the door was completely shut, they paused for a moment to catch their breath, but only for a moment.
*Slam!*
The stone double doors shook violently as the tendril banged against them.
“I doubt that’ll hold it. Run!” Aegis shouted, motioning them all forward. No one needed to be told twice—the five of them broke into a sprint through the Jia’nir dungeon. It was a straight tunnel to the exit.
The slamming behind them stopped almost immediately, but none of them were willing to risk stopping. When the exit came into view, they could see the silhouette of a young female elf standing at the entrance, waiting for them.
“Hey guys! I brought more repair supplies from Orm!” Amlie waved to them as they sprinted toward her.
“Run, Amlie!” Rakkan shouted as they got closer and closer.
“Huh? What’s going on?” Amlie looked between them in confusion.
“No time to explain!” Rakkan said as they reached Amlie. Without stopping, Rakkan swept her off her feet and cradled her in his arms before jumping off the small ledge outside the cavern, the others by his side.
Outside again for the first time in a long time, the party kept running despite knowing they were well out of danger. They kept going, down the mountainside under the bright afternoon sun, past the scurrying wildlife, and through the tall green grass until they reached the outskirts of Rene.
“We... we’re back,” Aegis breathed out.
“Oh sun, how I’ve missed you!” Pyri blew a kiss up toward the sky.
Darkshot playfully slapped Aegis on the shoulder. “You always take me to the nicest places.”
“You can put me down now,” Amlie said to Rakkan, her cheeks red.
“Oh, right, yeah, sorry. There was a big tentacle thing with teeth,” Rakkan explained as he gently set her down.
“I didn’t see it,” Amlie shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “So, does that mean you guys are all done adventuring?”
“We’re done for now, but we can’t leave that thing down there,” Aegis said between breaths as the others looked at him. “Is it weird, but when that creature was chasing us… all I was thinking was, I wonder what it’d be like to block that thing’s attacks?”
“Y-yeah,” Lina chuckled.
“Lil’ bit,” Rakkan smirked.
“You’re a masochist,” Darkshot sighed.
They all went quiet for a moment as they finished catching their breath, throwing each other random looks that slowly turned into big dumb grins.
“That was pretty fun,” Pyri declared on everyone’s behalf.
“Now, the best part!” Aegis said. “We have one last thing to do before we all set out to do our intermediate quests.”
“Oh yeah? It better not be more mining,” Darkshot groaned.
Aegis rubbed his hands together. “Nope, even better. Crafting new equipment!”
Chapter Thirty
THE FORGE
“So what happened next?” Amlie asked.
She was sitting by a campfire built off the paved road of Rene under the setting sun, entranced by Darkshot as he recounted their adventures in the dungeon. With them in a circle sat Lina, Aegis, Rakkan, Pyri, Tinsel, Luca, and Farlion. Luca was equally as captivated, hanging on Darkshot’s every word.
Beside Pyri was a stack of musty old tomes that Rakkan had collected for her, and in her hands, she held one open, reading it. Across from her, Rakkan did the same, a separate set of tomes beside him.
“I told them, ‘You must flee. I’ll hold it off. Don’t worry about me,’” Darkshot said in a dramatic tone.
“No you didn’t. You screamed like a girl and grappleshotted out of there faster than anyone else,” Aegis interrupted, causing Luca and Amlie to giggle.
“Whatever,” Darkshot waved him off. “The point is, we all got out safely.”
“Should we be worried about something like that living underneath us?” Farlion asked Aegis. He turned to Lina and Rakkan for an answer.
“Those types of bosses usually don’t leave their lair, so as long as no one does anything to provoke it, we should be fine,” Lina replied.
“The only way to make sure everyone’s truly safe, though, is to get rid of it,” Rakkan explained, and Aegis nodded in agreement.
“We’ll want our intermediate classes for that.” He leaned back and looked around the group. “Everyone know what they plan to do for their intermediate class quests?”
“Yup,” Lina smiled.
“Yeah...” Rakkan nodded.
“I think so,” Pyri shrugged.
“I’m going ranger,” Darkshot replied.
“From what I understand,” Aegis said, “the intermediate class quests are all difficult, and most need to be completed alone. So I’ll make sure everyone has the best equipment I can make before we all set out.”
“It’s not only that,” Lina added, and all eyes turned to her. “While you’re a beginner, the game assists you with your skills. Even if you have no idea how to use a dagger,” she said as she took out her dagger and spun it around dextrously, “the game skill will help you more and more based on how high level it is.” Lina sheathed her dagger again. “However, during most intermediate quests, the game will remove that skill assistance. Because of this, many players get stuck at level 30 for a long time.”
“So you’re saying I’ll need to learn how to use a bow and arrow?” Darkshot asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not completely. The skill isn’t entirely gone, but the better you are at it without the game’s help, the easier it is. It’s why people who are chefs in the real world have no problem passing the intermediate Cooking quest, but people who are bad at cooking in the real world get stuck on it or sometimes never pass it at all.”
“Yeah. It’s a bit different for magic classes like wizards and priests, y—” Rakkan stopped as Pyri put her index finger up.
“Ta-ta-ta… don’t give me any spoilers. Half the fun is figuring it out by myself,” Pyri smiled.
“Are you sure? For magic, it’s re-”
“Pssssht!” she shushed him. “If I’m not good enough to figure it out by myself, do I deserve to be an intermediate wizard?”
“Yeah, my mom is right. Thanks for the information, but we’ll figure it out, right, Darkshot?”
“Huh? Yeah… sure… Maybe I should’ve picked an easier class,” he mumbled as he looked at his longbow and plucked the string absentmindedly.
“The first step for crafting our equipment will be the forge,” Aegis declared. “Everyone should take a rest for today. I’ll be heading back to Orm to get the last few materials for building it and see if I can’t get someone to help.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for the meal and the great story.” Farlion smiled as he, Tinsel, and Luca stood up from the campfire. “We’ll get some rest and prepare for work in the morning.”
“Goodnight,” Tinsel and Luca smiled, and the family of three headed back to their home. Once they were gone, Pyri stood up with the book in her hand after adding the other books to her inventory.
“I’m going to read a few of these to learn more beginner wizard spells,” she mumbled, walking toward her stables for some quiet.
“My parents want me to go and eat with them. Be back later!” Lina waved to the others. Everyone waved as she logged out, leaving four of them sitting at the campfire.
“I’m going to check on my new potted plants,” Amlie stood up. “I put some beautiful ones in my house, but they keep growing out of control.”
“I’ll come help.” Rakkan stood up as well, and Amlie looked at him curiously.
“You want to come to my house? Only us two? At night?” Her eyes went wide, a hint of red on her cheeks.
“Yeah. I can help with the plants.”
“You know a lot about plants?”
“No, not really…” He looked at his feet. “But I know a lot about this game, so how hard could it be?”
Her brow furled. “Oh, you’re saying you can do it better, even though I’m a farmer class?”
“Wha-? No, that’s not what I’m saying…”
“Hmph!” Amlie turned and stomped away toward her house.
“What just happened?” Rakkan looked to Darkshot and Aegis, and they both shrugged. “Wait, Amlie!” he called, rushing after her.
Aegis sighed at the scene. “Ah, to be young.”
“Pfft, you’re one to talk,” Darkshot retorted.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You and Lina.”
Aegis sat up straight. “What about me and Lina?”
Darkshot rolled his eyes. “Oh c’mon, you don’t have to play dumb with me.”
“No, seriously, what are you talking about?”
“Really? You’re telling me you don’t know she’s into you?”
“Nah, it’s not like that. We talked, and she said she likes playing the game with us. You guys are all trying to make it into something more, but it’s not.”
Darkshot tilted his head to the side. “Dude. She deleted a level 90 character to play with you. Look how hard it was for us to get level 30.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, though. Why would she like me?”
“Uh, duh? The same reason everyone else did in school? Even before all that Makaroth stuff. Pretty boy who exercises regularly with good grades. Well, you used to exercise regularly. We’ve been sitting in that cave for so long, grinding, I’m pretty sure that’s been dropped from your daily routine.”
“Yeah, I should probably get some exercise,” Aegis acknowledged. “Lina never talked to me outside the game, though...”
“I w-w-wonder w-w-why.” Darkshot mocked Lina’s shyness with a forced stutter. It went silent for a moment.
“Let’s say you’re right. What should I do? I don’t know much else about her…”
“Well, do you like her?” Darkshot asked.
“I…” Aegis thought about it. “I guess. I mean, I like it when she gets excited. Usually about the game. She gets this look in her eyes where you can’t look away. You have to listen. She’s smart and nice, but sometimes a bit scary… I mean, scary in a good way, but I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side, you know? I don’t know.” Aegis sighed as he chucked a small twig into the campfire. “She’s reliable. I’m sometimes worried I’m relying on her too much.”
Darkshot watched Aegis gazing into the fire as he talked about her. “Uh-huh,” he replied sarcastically.
Aegis let out a huff of air. “What should I do? I don’t know about this stuff.”
“I dunno, ask her out on a date and see how things go?”
“Like in the real world?”
“She’d probably like it in this world better.”
“What if she says no, though?”
