Chapitre 32: The Oresnatchers

Elizabeth and I have resumed our adventuring activities. I had been hoping to devote all our time to working on the celestial magic, but after several weeks of hard work, it became clear to the Vol and I that we had farther to go than I had initially thought.

So why adventuring?

Unfortunately, we're running out of the mana stones that we use to create the AM-stores, which have been breaking with every failed attempt. We don't have nearly the resources that we did at the magic academy. Even if we went back, supply lines are still down, so there'd be little point.

The way to solve this little conundrum is adventuring. Some monsters - but not all - contain a mana stone within them. They're mostly found in inorganic creatures, such as golems.

Heading into the forest, Elizabeth and I pass by the lake where we tested the manacaster. The area is kind of a mess now. Any wildlife in there has most certainly been disintegrated by our lightning tests. We walk deeper into the forest.

The boundaries of the forest, nearest Tayde, don't have any inorganics, so we need to go farther. We see some of the usual creatures; goblins and slimes, primarily. Finally, we reach an old mineshaft. Word is, it was built by dwarves a long time ago, but it was abandoned after it was picked clean.

This is a very good spawning ground for golems and oresnatchers.

Golems can be theoretically anything. Rock, sand, gravel. The only requirement is that enough mana has concentrated in one location to form a mana stone. It's a bit like a black hole in that way.

Oresnatchers are more interesting to me, personally. I haven't hard of them before. I had initially believed that it was just a weird name for a golem, since they're also known to form from things like iron ore, but when Elizabeth gave me a description, it was clear that it was something else.

Entering the mineshaft, Elizabeth turns on an oil lamp, which she has hung from her waist. The reason why we're not using magic to light our way is simple; we need it for the manacaster.

We've only used the manacaster in tests, so this is its first live trial against monsters.

The darkness thickens around us as we head further down into the mine. I notice that the mana levels seem to increase slightly, the further down we get. I fantasize about the core of the planet being a gigantic mana stone for a few minutes, and how that would impact the planet, when a noise pull me back to reality.

It's a scratching noise, like something is dragging a ton of gravel over the rocky floor.

"Turn up the lamp," I whisper to Elizabeth.

She does so, and the light of the lamp bounces off the walls, luminating the cave.

There, standing stock still, just a few meters ahead of us, is a monster. I recognize it from Elizabeth's description.

"An oresnatcher?" I ask her to confirm.

"Mmm," she nods.

The creature is extremely tall, though it's hard to say exactly how tall. The roof of the mineshaft is easily a meter above me, but the oresnatcher is taller, and has to bend at an odd angle to fit. It doesn't seem uncomfortable, though. It's just standing there.

Its skin, if you can call it that, is stretched across its body, almost too tightly. It also seems to be glittering slightly in the light.

The weirdest part about this creature is that, despite it being mostly humanoid, it has no head. The body just stops, and then there's nothing. It's uncanny.

It reminds me a bit of the greater monster that attacked Rosewood. This one is slightly creepier, though. We've been standing here for several seconds, a bright light on it, but it still hasn't noticed us. We haven't exactly been quiet, either.

I wonder if it uses mana to see, like the greater monster?

I can't sense any mana waves, like the ones the greater monster radiated, though.

"It might be blind," Elizabeth whispers.

"Maybe. Let me try," I whisper back.

What I'm about to do could be very stupid, but let's go for it anyway. I take a deep breath.

"HEY!!!"

My yell reverberates around the mineshaft. The oresnatcher spins around. Its skin really does glitter.

Okay, so it has ears. Somewhere. Good to know.

Or maybe it just sensed the vibrations?

I'd like to experiment some more with this creature, but then I realize just how cramped it is in the small cave. Might as well kill it. We're just here for the mana stone, after all.

"Stand back," I tell Elizabeth, who moves behind me, hand on her sword.

Holding the manacaster in front of me, I switch the gear to the fire symbol. I then promptly change my mind, when I remember the level of heat the fireball gave off last time.

Lightning is out, since it comes from the sky. The tidal spell is out, since we would drown.

Agility isn't much use in here, either. I can't move around the creature at all.

None of them work in this close proximity. It's starting to dawn on me that we might need to add another spell once we get back.

Well, that only leaves one spell, doesn't it? The barrier spell. I look at the monster, its back bent to the breaking point.

I switch the manacaster to the symbol of a shield.

"Equeralliex."

The barrier appears, not in front of me, but below the monster's feet. The oresnatcher just stands there. It doesn't even seem to notice when the ground beneath its feet starts to move.

The barrier moves upwards. It's slow, and the oresnatcher could easily escape, but it just stands there, slowly getting pressed together.

This might be a bit uncomfortable.

Like a hydraulic press, the tall creature is slowly squished together until-

*Crrrack*

*Crrick*

*Snap*

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Chapitre 33: Emperor

The amount of time it took for the creature to actually die was surprising. It seemed to hold onto life forever, despite most of its bones being broken. Finally, it lies still in a heap on the ground, not far from Elizabeth and I.

"That was strange," Elizabeth states, blankly.

"Frankly, I think we got lucky. It was just this one, and I think it might have been... broken."

"Broken?"

"It has no head or eyes, so it probably uses mana to see, like the greater monster we fought in Rosewood."

"You mean it had no mana left?"

I nod.

In spite of that, it was still very tough. We decide that it's too risky to continue and turn back. On our way back up through the mine, I decide to try probing Elizabeth a bit. She and Vol still haven't accepted my story. I figure I'd ask her why.

"It's an unbelievable story, Sebastian."

"How come? Am I really so untrustworthy?"

"No. I trust you completely. Vol does, too."

"So you trust me, but you don't think I'm telling the truth?"

"Hm..."

She pauses for a bit, seeming to think over how best to put it, before replying.

"I trust that you think it to be true."

It turns out that accidentally blowing myself up when trying to replicate celestial magic, combined with my rather unique story, has resulted in neither of my best friends believing me. It irritates me.

Still, I guess it doesn't really matter, in the end. They agreed to help me, after all.

Because they're my friends.

Arriving back in Tayde, Vol and I get to work on modifying the manacaster. At first, we discussed making a completely new one. However, we quickly decided that it would be both faster and cheaper to make an attachment to the current one.

After a day of discussion, and a couple of days worth of work, we completed the extension. It then took another two days to modify the manacaster to support the extension. Now, we can add any additional spell to the manacaster.

It has to be done in advance, though, since it takes about 10 minutes to properly attach it.

As Elizabeth and I return to the old mineshaft to hunt more monsters, I make a mental note to discuss a complete redesign for the manacaster. We should have come up with the concept of extension a lot earlier. If we had, we could have designed the manacaster to be fully modifiable.

A mistake on our part, in retrospect. No matter. We'll get to it soon.

At least this new spell should help take care of combat down here.

Passing by the crumpled remains of the oresnatcher, we proceed further down. After a while, the shaft spreads into a wider cave system. I sense mana down one of the branching paths, so we go in that direction.

It's not long before we run into a small group of oresnatchers. As expected, the encounter leaves us with just as little movement as the first. Luckily, it was for this very situation that we engraved a new spell.

"Suleiynert."

Instantaneously, the oresnatchers' limbs are penetrated by long, thin spikes, extruding from every surface around them.

It's a lower-mid-level spell, so it isn't usually that powerful. Luckily, the manacaster helps solve for that. As does the pure concentration of my mana within the AM-store.

After a few seconds, the spikes retract. I get ready to cast the spell again, but there's no need. All of the oresnatchers are dead, their corpses falling limply to the ground.

"Well, that went a lot faster than the first one," I say, as Elizabeth goes to remove the mana stones from their bodies.

She nods, "We should rename the manacaster to 'partykiller.'"

I give an involuntary smile at her terrible humor, mentally chuckling to myself.

We continue on through the cave system, choosing whichever branching path radiates the most mana, and occasionally running into more oresnatchers. Just like our previous encounters, they all appear to be completely blind, and don't even seem to recognize our presence there.

"Suleiynert."

Finishing up another encounter, we count up the total amount of mana stones.

"I think that's enough for now," Elizabeth says.

We've walked several kilometers by now and it will definitely take a while to get back, but something tells me to keep going.

"I sense more mana further in," I tell Elizabeth.

"More oresnatchers?"

"I don't think so. I've been feeling it for a while, but it's been getting stronger. I think we're getting closer to it."

"Something powerful?"

"Something powerful."

We agree to keep going. For another hour and a half, we progress deeper into the caves. The hallways have become much wider, occasionally leading into large caverns. Everything seems rather empty, though. There's not a single stalactite or stalagmite anywhere.

There are no oresnatchers in the large caverns, either. They keep themselves to the hallways, passages, and crevices, as though the large rooms were holy ground.

We reach another branching path. Sensing the powerful mana to the right, we go down that path.

I freeze. I hear Elizabeth's breathing close behind me. Her footsteps have stopped, too. The passage opens up into a ravine, spanning my entire field of vision. A ceiling of unstable rock sits far above us, threatening to collapse in at any moment, and the drop beneath us is far enough to break several limbs. Neither is the reason why we've stopped.

At the bottom of the ravine, lodged between the cliffsides, sits a colossus. A huge beast with long, thin legs, stretching in all directions. Each leg has more knuckles than I can count. Many of the legs dangle strangely in the air above, below, or beside its body - if you can call it that. Unlike the oresnatchers, I don't have to ask if this creature can see. Apart from the legs, it only consists of one other part. The main body; a single large, sticky eye, suspended in mid-air from its many legs.

This is not a creature that I ever want to witness in motion.

What a horrible place to run into a greater monster.