Chapter 27 Depths

Waking up next to a lamp in a dark cave, Jay was startled awake as he found himself surrounded by three skeletons – before realising they were his own minions.

“How long was I out for…” he wondered, looking at his arm. The wound was still tender, but his left arm was functionally fine. Checking his HP, it had recovered to 57. Jay wasn’t sure what his health regeneration was but based on the dampness of his pants, he was out for a few hours.

Grabbing a stone, he threw it into the darkness, splashing into the lake as it triggered the whole lake to light up once more.

Jay sat there for a moment, captivated by the shallow lake once more as he slowly woke up.

“Hmm. It was late when I left Losla. I’ve got to do a dungeon with Mark and Kel tomorrow…” Jay looked at his skeletons, still guarding him “I probably shouldn’t risk using the skeletons… oh.. I guess they would see my class if we were in a party.” shaking his head, Jay made a decision

“…I’m just going to ‘forget’. They’ll be leaving with the military troops in a day or two anyway, so maybe I won’t even see them again. I should probably say goodbye, but… oh well.”

Jay felt a little sad as he detached himself emotionally, but he reasoned that they had only met a few times briefly and they probably wouldn’t even remember him anyway.

With a sigh, Jay grabbed his dagger and stood up while getting his skeletons into formation again – two in the front, another carrying a lamp at Jay’s side.

Walking through the winding crevasse, more of the blueish crystals periodically dotted the walls and ground. Dimly glowing back when the lamp went past, they were creating a faint glowing trail behind him.

Suddenly the two skeletons at the front pounced into the darkness ahead. Jay stopped, raising his buckler and then slowly moved forward.

He heard a whelp from the darkness.

“Another silt-wolf”.

Just as the skeleton’s fighting came into view, a glow came from Jay’s right side. Feeling the ambient mana being sucked into the glowing light, goose bumps went up Jay’s back as he sensed danger.

Stepping behind the skeleton at his side, Jay snatched the lamp and raised his buckler in the direction of the light.

Peering over his buckler, Jay looked at the glowing light as three folds of flesh opened up to reveal the bright light, an undulating orb gathering mana. Suddenly, the ball of light began to wildly contract, the light getting brighter – then suddenly it exploded. A pulse wave was released, a golden sphere of light expanded, washing over the minions and seemingly going through their bodies before hitting Jay.

[-10]

[Debuff resisted][Debuff Resisted]

The pulse had no physical effect on anything as it passed right through his buckler, but mentally Jay felt like his brain was punched. His hearing was ringing, the mental shock was so great that he passed out for half a second and woke up while hitting the ground.

The skeleton by his side had already rushed over to stab at whatever the light was.

Jay’s vision was blurry as he looked up, trying to make sense of his situation while his brain felt scrambled – two minions were fighting a silt wolf, while another was frantically stabbing at something in the dark – whatever emitted the mental attack.

Not willing to take any risks, Jay activated his bone ring to give him more defence as he retreated back to the cave entrance. If a siltwolf wanted to grab him now, it would have to make it through the floating bones, exploding unstable teeth and a freshly re-summoned level 2 minion.

It didn’t take much time for the siltwolf to die; the new ossein swords proving again to be far deadlier, their wide blades causing so much damage that they almost disabled parts of the wolf’s body during the fight due to the massive holes and gashes.

[200 Exp]

Without a sound it died, falling to the ground as the glow from the unknown creature was beginning to start again.

The two feeble creatures rushed over to stab at it – whatever it was. Stabbing and slashing noises sounded while Jay waited patiently, looking at the intensity of the glow as he stood near the entrance, ready to take cover behind layers of stone in case another mana pulse was about to go off.

The light grew bright once more, yet this time something different happened. The pulse was physical. An orb of red expanded, a thicker wave travelled a shorter distance compared to the golden one. The cave walls seemed to tremble as the minions were sent flying into them.

This pulse didn’t travel through objects so it didn’t injure Jay who was hiding, but he had other concerns as he looked up.

He could only hold his breath while looking up into the darkness above, as if looking up would stop a rock from killing him as he held his buckler above his head.

The minions had dropped their weapons from the force of the physical pulse, some of which were now lodged into the walls nearby.

The minions fell off the wall and stood up, returning to the formation Jay had them in previously. Three swords were missing. Jay sent out his creatures, each with one sword to finish off the monster – yet they didn’t bother to move. Apparently the creature was either dead or escaped – though Jay couldn’t tell in the darkness.

“Did it suicide?” he wondered, “I didn’t get any exp…” raising a curious eyebrow.

With a resigned expression, Jay had his minions search for their swords. Only two were recovered, apparently the monster escaped with a sword embedded in it.

Furrowing his brows, Jay decided to upgrade another skeleton with better bones using the new silt-wolf corpse.

“Come here” he said, a white-bone minion approaching. Jay grabbed the ossein swords from it and desummoned, adding its bones back into the ring as he cast “Raise” on the silt wolf before retreating to cover.

The new feeble creature that awaited him was a little different – it’s bones were still cobalt-blue, but it had specks of red in them.

“Hmm… probably was eating different coloured rocks?” considered Jay, guessing as he decided to name it “You’re Red. Literally red, but that’s also your name now” he chuckled to himself before turning to the other one “And you’re…” Jay thought about naming it something stupid like ‘brown’, almost laughing before he could finish his sentence, but realizing it could be confusing later on, so he decided to be logical “Blue.” he smiled “Red and Blue.”

Looking at the one skeleton he had left that wasn’t upgraded “For you, we’ll have to wait till we can see the next bone’s colours.” he shrugged, picking up three more metal plates from the wolf’s corpse.

Jay went over to inspect the are the mana pulse came from. As he neared, there was a ring of dust and soil that had been blown out, while no blood appeared to stain the ground.

“Must be another silt wolf type” thought Jay as he deconstructed the information “Hopefully we can kill it next time.” he squinted with revenge, looking around the cave.

Sitting on the ground, Jay pulled out some cobalt-blue bones and formed three more ossein swords, one as a replacement for the missing one, and two more for emergencies.

He had plenty of bone to make daggers, but not many blue bones left; He could make swords from the normal bones too, but they wouldn’t be as strong. Still needing at least one more siltwolf to fully upgrade his party, many more were needed still for future weapons as well as the possibility of an emergency re-summoning.

“I guess since I’m planning to ditch Mark and Kel, I can stay a bit longer.” Thought Jay as he looked towards a cave entrance on the other side, some of the crystals glowing “Whatever went past it caused them to glow” Jay reasoned, beginning to hunt whatever it was.

—

“Hold the ladder steady”

“I’m holding it” Tamara looked up at her dad awkwardly pulling the snakeraven sign off it’s hooks, she firmly gripped the ladder.

Hearing a carriage coming, she saw Bertram coming.

“He’s back dad, the fat guy.”

“Good. His patronage will keep us going for months. Here, grab the sign.”

Grabbing the sign off her dad, Tamara took it inside just as Bertram pulled up.

“Hello, you’re not closing are you?”

“No no, just cleaning the sign.”

“Wonderful. Same deal as last night please.” Bertram smiled, thinking of the juicy steaks he indulged on in the previous few nights.

Devin nodded, “See you inside. Same price.” as he picked up the ladder, going through a gate on the side of the inn, taking the ladder with him. “I’m gunna need some more food” he thought as he brushed his moustache with his fingers.

“Hmm, I’ll need to make sure to tell Tamara that the official excuse for taking the sign down is for cleaning. We don’t need to risk offending the soldiers”.

Devin was closing the inn while the soldier troops visited for collection in the next few days, knowing that they would likely cause trouble with Tamara. It was well-known what soldiers did to people they considered peasants, and no one with enough authority to punish soldiers would care about some innkeeper’s daughter in a distant, worthless village.

“They can stay in their tents, they’re soldiers after all.” Devin reasoned as he went inside, waiting for Bertram at the counter.

—

“So, you think it was the boy?”

“Yes. The bandit’s corpse was killed in a similar fashion to the forest beasts.” Sullivan replied, taking a sip from a silver goblet.

“I see… I’ll have him show me one of his skeletons the next time I train him.”

“Thanks, Viladore. I’ll be watching this time, I’m curious. We’ve never battled a necromancer in all our travels”

“Count it as a blessing that we have never crossed one. That boy’s levelling up fast, and without any help, even Anya can’t keep up” Viladore sighed “Seems like the mystery of the forest is coming to an end. The men will be happy with reduced patrols.” he looked out the window, taking a sip from his own goblet.

“Mm.” Sullivan agreed, taking another sip while gazing at the glowing torches working their way through the village “I don’t want the military soldiers to find out about the incidents, tell the men to keep quiet. Make sure they know these are my orders, and I’ll be watching.”

Sullivans voice still sounded as smooth as silk, yet with the power of an army behind it.

“I will.” Viladore replied this time directly into Sullivan’s mind “Any news of the ingredients I needed?”

“The association hasn’t replied. We can only wait.” Sullivan shook his head.

“Mm, I see. Thanks.” Viladore had a pessimistic expression as he finished the rest of the wine in his goblet, setting it down on the large wooden desk in Sullivan’s office “Hopefully they reply soon.” he said as he left the room.