The next few days passed by in a flash. There were a few larger monster attacks where almost every defender joined to repel them, but otherwise, it wasn’t very hectic. Most monsters that came close were quickly dispatched or fled after being injured. A few bronze ranked monsters passed by, but only one had attacked the walls, which was odd and these were reported to Captain. It was the night before their days off that Gaia brought the subject of the ruins back up.
“Are you guys alright with going back to the ruins in the next couple days?” She asked a bit hesitantly.
“I’m fine with it, but only if we truly stick to the first floor.” Fergus stated.
“Same.” Stephanie replied.
Everyone turned to Griff who was still silent.
“Fine, but we’re sticking to the entrance. At least for a few days if we go back again, alright?” He asked.
“Sounds fair. I just want to test out my hex skill today.” Gaia said.
“Shall we go tomorrow then?” She asked.
The others agreed and the night went by quickly. They awoke the next morning and got ready to enter the ruins again. Only this time they had a couple people joining them, as they saw Fern and Francois waiting for them.
“We heard that you guys were going back to the ruins today. Figured we’d tag along if that’s alright.” Francois said.
“Douglas wanted to come himself, but I convinced him to stay by saying I’d go myself.” Fern explained.
“I won’t lie, it’s nice to know we’ll have you two in there. Even if we’re only planning on going to the first floor and staying by the entrance.” Gaia said.
“Then lead the way.” Francois stated and the group left the inn.
They made their way to the southern gate and were let out a couple minutes later. The group swiftly travelled through the surface ruins before arriving at the hole in the center. They slowly walked down the steps, Gaia riding Malachite and attempting to ignore the open air under the steps. Once they were in the tunnel Gaia explained to Francois and Fern what she wanted to test.
“So you can use that mana now? Well, let’s test it out. You have me curious about what it’ll do.” Francois stated after hearing the explanation.
“You’ve piqued my interest too, but be careful. I don’t want anyone to be inflicted by accident.” Fern added.
“I’ll do my best. I’m not sure what’ll happen, that’s why I wanted to try it where there were a lot fewer people.” Gaia replied.
They moved in a bit and Fergus fired an arrow at a lone monster to catch its attention. It took a moment for it to get close enough for Gaia to sense it. This monster was a large cricket. It entered Gaia’s senses from midair as it landed around thirty feet from them. It was massive, like everything else on this floor and had some large mandibles. When it landed, Gaia tried out her hex skill. The skill was odd in that nothing happened at first when she reread the skill she realized what went wrong.
Hex – Skill. Allows the user to inflict a hex on target through contact. Inflicts the Miasmic Hex condition. A small percentage of damage dealt by condition is returned to user in the form of healing.
Miasmic Hex – Condition. Deals low damage over time and lowers defenses. Instances can be refreshed and stacked. Damage dealt can not be healed unless purified or healed with holy attributed mana.
“I have to touch them? That makes this a bit harder.” Gaia muttered.
She dashed towards it a moment later and touched it with her hand as it shot a leg at her in a kick. Shadow jumped in front of her and blocked the kick with no difficulty as Gaia analyzed the monster to see if the condition worked this time. It showed it had been inflicted so she backed up and paid close attention to the mana around the monster. She could sense the mana of the hex as it was a black spark to her senses. She could see it within the mana of the monster as it slowly spread. She also noticed that she felt something flow through her body. It was flowing through her veins and felt like it should be able to heal her slightly. She decided to try and slash the monster with her vines to see if it would be able to inflict the hex. It worked. She sensed the spark from the hex darken and spread slightly farther.
Her poison was also working on the monster and it had started bleeding from her vines. She continued slashing with her vines and saw the spark spread further and further within the monster until it had spread to about a third of the monster. Then the monster crumpled down and died from the conditions she’d continuously inflicted. After she’d confirmed the monster was dead by the feeling of souls being collected, she turned to her friends who were standing behind her.
“So did you guys notice if there was a haze? I couldn’t sense one, but you never know.” She asked them.
All she got was silence and the feeling of everyone staring at her for a few moments before Francois replied. “Uh, no. There wasn’t a haze from what I could tell.”
“What happened? Does your hex skill have something else it does?” Griff asked a bit incredulous.
“What do you mean? The skill does siphon a small bit of damage for healing, but I wasn’t hurt.” She replied.
“Well, it seems to do a bit more. You remember how one side of you looked a bit skeletal. It looks like it had before, aside from being like obsidian. It looks the same as the other in musculature and such.” Stephanie explained.
“Really?” She asked as she touched her left arm.
It did, in fact, feel like it had before the miasma had hurt her. She felt her face and leg, they too were back to the way they were before. It was odd since she didn’t feel any different than before the fight just now. If she had to put it into words, she felt a bit more energetic maybe, but otherwise couldn’t tell a difference outside of the physical appearance. She did feel like she looked a bit less creepy like this. After this discovery she asked Griff about his miasma bound attribute.
“So did you get a skill or anything from it?” She asked.
“Not like you did. Mine is called Corrupted Surge and does two things from what I can understand. It makes my physical attacks deal some extra Miasma damage, which is unable to be healed, unless it’s purified or healed using holy attributed mana. It also boosts my strength based on how much miasma is in a creature. It gets stronger the more attacks I’ve dealt. I’m assuming like yours is, right?” He asked.
“Yeah. I think mine changed because of my class somehow. That may have also been what happened with yours. I don’t really get how skills from bound attributes work. Like if I didn’t have my class would it do something different?” She asked.
She heard Griff take a deep breath and she could tell one of his lectures was about to start so she quickly spoke. “Well, we’ve finished my test shall we hunt a few monsters? I figured it’d be a bit of a waste to just come and fight one. We won’t go far in though. Also I do want to hear your explanation but let’s talk about it back at camp.”
“Fine. It would be a bit of a waste to just take care of one monster. Shall we split up a bit and deal with a few each?” Griff suggested.
“Yeah, but everyone stays within view. If everyone agrees to that then we’re good.” Fergus stated.
“Alright.” The others replied in unison.
Fern and Francois stayed in the middle of the group that fanned out. Gaia was just in front of them with her bonds. Her bonds moved forward and spread out as well. They got monsters attention by firing a magic shot at them before leading them to Griff and Gaia. Fergus and Stephanie just picked off any monsters they saw with a few well placed bullets and arrows. Shadow stayed between Griff and Gaia so she could block for them if she needed to. The monsters were of a lower level, but they could still get a good attack in that could wound the party.
Liv fired poison shots from on top of Gaia’s head and tossed some trapped webs out in front of them. The monsters would rush towards Gaia and Malachite who were the biggest targets and where the attacks came from before being caught in the webs strewn along the ground. Antonio would fire his phantasmal spikes and psychic stings at the trapped monster. Gaia would slash at them with her vines while bleeding and hexing the monster. Malachite fired water shots and ran around Shell bashing monsters with his spiked armor out.
Griff would dash in and out of the monsters range while landing punches and kicks before backing up and lashing out with ranged kicks. His attacks slowly built up power as he struck the monster. What started as a basic punch or kick that just hurt the monster, turned into devastating hits that caused the monster to stagger or even break whatever he hit. His sustained battle efficiency had skyrocketed since getting the new skill.
Fern would run around checking on everyone and healing any injuries they incurred, including small scratches. Francois stayed by Griff and gave him pointers on things he could fix, but would run around killing monsters whenever he got bored. They continued like this for a few hours before they grouped back up and moved towards the camp. None of them had leveled up in a while because of the low-level monsters they’d been facing and the difficulty of raising their level the stronger they got.
The only one of them that had leveled up recently was Antonio and he’d just gotten to level thirty. He’d gotten a new skill a few days earlier but hadn’t gotten to use it yet. It was called Neural Wave and was an area of effect skill. It allowed him to create an area of about ten feet around him that would deal damage and decreased enemies accuracy due to extreme pain. It also caused healing to be less effective for a time as the damage came from a curse. The Curse was called Tormented Blight. It was something that used up a lot of his mana so he could only do it a couple times before needing to recover his mana.
The skill was useful but short ranged, so he only used it if monsters got within range. Sadly, most of the enemies they’d been dealing were either killed before coming within range, or too deadly to get close enough to. This meant the skill went unused until today when he used it on a monster that had gotten close enough to swipe at Gaia. He used the skill and the monster’s attack jerked upwards from a pained spasm in its limb, making the attack miss where it would have hit. As the party traveled to the camp Antonio was thinking about his new skill and what had happened within the last couple months, mainly from when his mom had been injured.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Antonio now felt like he could help protect his mom or rather the queen of his colony. He knew he could help her by attacking and killing the monsters that attacked her, but he was always worried for her safety. His siblings, the odd creatures they were, were very good at protecting her usually and he was happy they all felt the same towards her. The main issue was that she was too self-sacrificing if it was about them. When she took on the weird giant green ant, Malachite, and the equally odd large black ant’s, Shadow’s, injuries his heart shuddered. He could feel the pain his siblings were in through their bonds and when mom had taken them on he almost died from worry.
He had spent most of the time from when she initially took the injuries using his first aid skill, but it didn’t seem to do anything. He had felt useless as he watched his mother suffer the excruciating pain and he couldn’t do anything to help. Even afterwards she had been stuck in bed, and he couldn’t even get her food or anything else she needed. Now he had a way to help keep her from getting injured again. He was the only one of his siblings that had any way of healing and was determined to help keep his mom as safe as possible.
The group arrived at the camp and were let in after a couple minutes. They made their way towards the central square before hearing the telltale clanging indicating food was ready. They quickly beelined their way to the mess hall as they were all really hungry. After a nice meal they separated from Francois and Fern before they split up to go about their own business.
Gaia went to her garden where she checked on her plants and weeded with her bonds assistance. Her plants had grown quickly and were already grown enough to harvest thanks to some growth magic being cast on them regularly. They harvested the crops and took them to Yort who happily took the crops and gave them to the cooking staff. Gaia went back to her small plot and cast more growth magic on her plants. The crops could all grow multiple harvests before needing to be replanted. She finished with the needed upkeep and went back to the inn for a nap.
Fergus spent his time walking around the camp helping anywhere he could. When he wasn’t needed, he would practice some woodcarving and give them to anyone who was interested in them. He also went and sparred with Griff, working on his close combat using the arrow dagger. After that only a few hours had passed so he went back to the inn to relax. He met Gaia as she returned, and they talked for a bit before falling asleep while cuddled up in one of the rooms.
Stephanie spent her free time as she usually did, tinkering and forging. She had been working on her musket recently to increase its rate of fire. Every time she wanted to fire a shot she had pull back the hammer for it to spark the explosion magic. This was the only way to keep it from having the explosion magic constantly going, which had caused an early model to explode after a few minutes.
She had heard Gaia talk about a few different kinds of guns similar to her musket. While Gaia didn’t know much about them she did remember a lever action being a type of rifle. She’d described it as best she could and Stephanie had been working on trying to recreate one with her single shot rifle as the base. She felt like she was close and had been able to create the lever and make it load a bullet. She was having trouble trying to make a slot to reliably reload the bullets. She had heard Gaia call something a magazine that holds the bullets, but wasn’t sure how to make it or if it would work with the lever action. Stephanie felt like after another week or two of attempts she would be able to make them how she wanted.
Griff was reading through some more of the books he’d bought and spent sometime practicing with his new skill. It worked on training dummies, which were enchanted to repair themselves if they were destroyed. He was starting to get a good idea of how the skill worked and how much it could increase his strikes power. What had originally taken about a hundred hits to destroy now took about half as many, but it also seemed to have a maximum amount it could increase the damage to. He experimented with it for a while longer before sparring with Fergus. Then returned to his experiments.
The entire party didn’t get back together until dinner time when Gaia had to drag Stephanie to the mess hall and Fergus did the same with Griff. The two always got engrossed in their experimenting that they consistently forgot to eat or drink anything. They enjoyed a dinner together albeit to the annoyance of Stephanie and Griff at first. They returned to the inn and heard some of Legion’s stories for a while before heading to bed.
The next day Gaia convinced the others to go and train together for a while. This mainly consisted of sparring with each other. It started with the usual spar between Fergus and Griff which ended in Griff’s win. Then Griff and Stephanie fought, this one was a bit more evenly matched since Stephanie was able to seamlessly switch between ranged and melee combat. It ended in Stephanie’s win, Gaia and Antonio healed the smaller scratches on everyone during the breaks between each spar.
Next had Malachite and Shadow fighting. This was an interesting fight since Shadow could switch between being physical and not at will, while Malachite was fast enough to dodge and had strong enough defenses that most attacks didn’t matter. This one ended in a draw since neither could get a strong hit on the other. Antonio and Liv had a small spar on the side as Fergus went against Stephanie. Fergus and Stephanie’s bout was completely ranged until the end where Fergus dashed in and was able to bring his dagger arrow to her throat before her hammer could get close to him. Between Liv and Antonio, Liv won as she was able to ignore most of the effects of Antonio’s curses.
Gaia had a few bouts with everyone, but most ended in her loss due to her inability to deal damage without conditions. She didn’t use any outside of bleed since she was worried what would happen if she used any of the others. She did enjoy them as they helped her get further used to dodging different kinds of attacks while landing a few slashes with her vines. It also helped her to sense where projectiles were in her field so she could dodge them. This was one of the hardest things since many projectiles weren’t magical, like a basic arrow or Stephanie’s musket balls.
The spars went on until lunchtime and the group ate a good meal. This one was some kind of sandwich with a small fruit salad made from multiple different fruits. She guessed some of the fruits she’d grown had been used for a couple of the salads since there were some greenberries and some blissfruits in the salads. After lunch they all split up and went about their own business until dinner time. The group met up at the inn after dinner to discuss their future plans during the commission.
“What do we want to do on our free days now? Were pretty much stuck out here until the commission is done so we can either go back into the ruins every now and again or just do what we have been and not go back in.” Fergus asked.
“I won’t lie. I kind of want to go back and explore the ruins. The correct way this time so we won’t be stranded on a floor like last time. I am a bit scared of the Sinew Horror though.” Gaia replied.
“I’m of the same opinion as Gaia. I think we’ll be fine if we don’t take any shortcuts like we did last time. As for the second floor we just need to be extremely careful and hopefully we can convince Flora or Legion or some bronze rankers to join us for that floor at least.” Stephanie added.
“I’m hesitant to go back. Gaia, you got hurt really badly, and I only experienced a fraction of the pain you did, but it was enough to make me terrified of the Sinew Horror. I’m fine with the first floor, but I don’t want to go back down to the second until we are much stronger or have a couple bronze rankers who can help us.” Griff explained.
“We won’t go any lower for a while at the least since we’ll need to figure out how to open the gate anyway. So, are we all good to at least go and explore the first floor tomorrow and on our days off?” Fergus asked.
“Yes.” Stephanie and Gaia said.
“I’m good with that.” Griff stated.
“Alright. Then let’s plan to truly explore the first floor tomorrow.” Fergus finished.
The group made sure their equipment was prepared and went to bed early for the night. They woke up early the next morning and made their way to the ruins. They decided to all ride on Malachite’s shell after leaving the camp to save energy and he didn’t notice the extra weight as long as they weren’t floating. They entered the ruins and went straight towards the mural on the gate they’d seen the first time they were there. They wanted to study it since they guessed it had some way of depicting what needed to be done to open the way down. They reached it after about three hours due to a few hordes of monsters blocking their path that slowed them down.
When they arrived, they noticed that the hole they’d made was still there but was smaller than before. They figured the floor must slowly regenerate since it was still there but noticeably smaller after about two months. They didn’t get close to it since they all had a fear for the second floor. They focused on the images depicted on the gates. They could somewhat understand what the images depicted with the giants and paid attention to the other images they’d seen. Gaia had sensed the water drop symbols along the center of the gates and had guessed that they were the hint to the opening mechanism.
“Do you guys think it has to do with the water drops?” Gaia asked.
“That’s my best guess but since there’s no color to the images we don’t know if it’s a specific kind of liquid or if any will do. Like could each require a different liquid, or each one requires a specific kind, or if water will work for all of them.” Stephanie said.
“For now I say we just go back to the entrance and search that ring since it’s the smallest. If we can find what the mechanism is we’ll know what to look for in the others which should shorten our search time drastically.” Griff finished.
While the other three talked, Fergus was firing arrows at the monsters that came due to the noise with Gaia’s bonds taking a few out, themselves. Not many monsters came, but the longer they stayed in one place the easier it was for monsters to find them. The blood from the monsters also attracted more due to the smell, even though they dissolved relatively quickly. They all hopped back in Malachite and they returned to the central ring to begin their search.
They spent the majority of the day searching the central ring with little luck. The buildings were massive making traversal hard and the central ring was also at least tens of miles in size. They had a few moments where they thought they’d found something only to discover it was just an oddity in the rock carving or where something had been destroyed. They continued searching until they got hungry and they sat down to eat.
“This place is massive and we’re not even sure what we’re looking for exactly. The only thing we really know is that it might have something to do with liquid.” Stephanie said after a deep swig of water.
“The monsters aren’t helping either. I mean they’re not hard, but there are just so many. We’ve killed at least a couple hundred alone today, haven’t we?” Fergus added.
“Yeah. I hope we can find the mechanism today. Just searching the other rings is gonna take forever, even if we know what to look for by then.” Gaia said before taking a bite of jerky.
“Luckily, we only have about another quarter of this ring to search before we can double check any of the areas we marked as possibilities.” Griff said as he finished his meal.
They had decided to sketch a basic map of the ring as they went and mark any oddities on it to recheck after they’d finished searching. They hoped that this way if they had to return to the camp before finding the mechanism they wouldn’t waste time by rechecking something they already had before. Then they would also know what to look for based on the sketch and where it was in this ring to see if it was in a similar area in the other rings.
They continued searching after finishing a quick lunch that was interrupted by a few monsters bothering them. The last quarter of the ring only had one possible mechanism based on their hunch from the gate. They checked it first after finishing the search. It was an odd indentation in the ground with a small channel coming out from it that moved underground after a few feet. They decided to try water as it was a plentiful resource they could easily replenish at camp.
They poured a small amount in, but nothing happened so they poured more in until it started flowing down the channel. They waited around twenty minutes to see if something would happen, but didn’t notice anything so they moved on. The next couple possible locations they discovered were similarly unresponsive and they stopped at the last. This one was different as it was a pillar around fifteen feet tall that looked like it had been a kind of pedestal for a giant.
They got on top of it with Malachite’s help, and a bit of time, and found it had a hole in the center, that was about a foot and a half in diameter, of a curved bowl. The bowl was about a couple feet deep at its deepest and consisted of almost the entire top of the pedestal aside from about three feet along the edge. They weren’t sure if they would need to put a lot of water in the bowl, but decided to pour a canteen in and see what happened. Nothing did so they prepared to get back down when they heard a few monsters climbing up the pedestal towards them.
The monsters arrived a few moments later and they killed them quickly. The monsters blood ran from them and down the bowl to the central hole where they saw something happen. The hole had started to fill with the monsters blood and it started to glow while Gaia sensed the mana concentration there. The basin apparently needed monster blood and the floor had hundreds if not thousands of monsters that they could lure and fill the basin with.
The next hours consisted of the party luring monsters up the pedestal and killing them within the basin where the monsters blood slowly started filling. It took them around two hundred monster kills with Gaia’s vines doing most of the damage to fill the basin to full. Once this happened the blood drained quickly down the central hole and a few moments later they heard a loud crack from the direction of the gate. They ran to it as fast as they could and the topmost water drop symbol had a large crack through it. They had figured out what the mechanism was and how to activate it. Now it was just a matter of time before they found the other mechanisms and opened the gate.
