I duck just before it reaches me with its claws and, as it lands, I hit Blitz hard in the neck. Unfortunately, he moves so fast that I only get a shallow cut before he moves out of my reach. I see his movements, but I haven't timed the hit right.
As he moves away from me, I turn to face the other two, one at my back is better than two. They are almost on top of me when I turn around, one jumps and the other stays low. I'm lucky they work together and use tactics.
I jump up and back so that one passes under me and I meet the other in the air. I again miss again with a punch and only pierce his chest superficially. But the blow is enough to deflect it past me instead of hitting me. I land and quickly look for the third one, who should have already turned around to attack again.
He's in the air when I see him, so, with no other choice, I drop and roll underneath him before leaping back to my feet. I'm glad I got this new armor, as with my old one I wouldn't be able to dodge as easily. I dodge the next couple of attacks, not trying to hit them, just getting their timing.
⟨⟨-DING-⟩⟩.
- Congratulations. The Dodge skill has reached level 4.
√ Dodge
√ Level 4
- Defense +4
- Your agility allows you to dodge attacks.
The next time one jumps at me, I change tactics: I dive underneath it, roll to my feet and charge the one behind it. I manage to surprise him and, with a strong blitz, cut off his head. As I strike, I notice the last one approaching from behind, so I dive to the side as soon as I finish striking.
As I roll, I feel the claws pass inches from my side, and when I get back to my feet, I see the last one lunging at me. I'm already moving toward him, so when he jumps I slide underneath him while holding Blitz upright. He lunges at Blitz as he passes over me, and as I stop and start to get up, I see the last one out of the corner of my eye.
With no time to bring Blitz upright, I step away from him and side kick him in the chest. The kick stops his momentum and the rebound propels me away from him. I drop into a roll and stand back up in front of him with Blitz in front of me.
Surprisingly he hasn't come for me, he's still standing where he was, but he's crouched down and gasping as if he's having trouble breathing. Not wanting to miss this opportunity, I leap towards him, knock Blitz down as I land and chop his head off. As he falls, I look around, reach over and finish off the gutted one.
When calm returns to the cavern, I examine myself and am surprised to find no wounds. I've managed to dodge all the attacks, and considering how fast those things are, I'm pretty impressed. Especially with how badly I was hurt by the first one I killed, maybe this demon isn't so bad after all.
I quickly set about butchering the three bodies, as delicious as they are I don't plan on leaving any of the meat behind. Once all the meat is put away in my bag I take a look at the three beast cores.
Ruby says "Okay, good. Where are we?
"We're a couple of miles downstream from where our camp was."
Ruby says "More scouting then? I thought you were in a hurry to get out."
"Yeah, but I don't want to have to come back later to scout."
Ruby says "I guess that makes sense."
"In fact once I get out of here I don't think I'll want to go back into another cave."
Ruby says "Yeah, I'm pretty sick of caves myself."
Drog says "They don't bother me."
"Yeah, but I bet you won't go near any ice."
Ruby laughs as Drog winces and shoots me a pained look. With the two of them to watch my back I walk over to start examining the ruins. There's not much left, but it looks like there were three or four buildings in this cave at some point.
The first interesting thing I find is carved into the floor of the middle building. It's a single word, but it's not in the language of the ancient empire. I pull out the journal and start flipping through the pages.
As soon as I think I want a blank page, the book automatically opens to a new page and a pen appears in the binding. It's very handy, you can tell the archmage thought things through when he made it.
I take the pen and carefully copy the carving, I can't decipher the word but if I find enough examples maybe I can start to decipher it. While I work on the buildings Ruby searches the rest of the cave, Drog is nowhere to be seen. In the second building I find more writing carved into the stone, this time it looks like a sentence so I copy it into the journal.
"Ruby, keep an eye out for any writing carved into the stone, also look for any unusual stones".
Ruby says "Ok, but they all look like stones to me".
Drog says "I found the nest of those things, can you make something tasty out of eggs?".
Hearing a howl of pain I look up and see Drog standing at the mouth of the nearest tunnel. Another bird thing is leaning over him with its mouth on Drog's neck. As I draw Blitz and run towards them, the bird lifts Drog by the neck and shakes him like a rag doll.