ALL NOVEL Chapter 161
“Very well, we shall inform the laborer's of their new task and have them start digging a hole into the city. We will contact you the moment we have broken through along with daily reports on our progress. I hope we will have better news for you the next time we speak father.” Lyra gave a little bow as she finished talking, her father noticed this as well as the tone of her voice and thought to himself. ‘I will need to speak with her once she returns.’
“Of course, I look forward to what you find.” In what he said instead moments before he ended the call leaving Lyra and Citro on their own in the tent.
“Hey, are you alright? You sounded disappointed in yourself about something. Don’t tell me you are sad about not finding a way in without digging one.” Citro asked as he walked over to his friend and kneeled down to match her height in her chair.
“Of course I am, I was given one job and I couldn’t do it correctly. Now we need to dig a hole into the city ruining the defensive capabilities and possibly opening ourselves up to an ambush from the outside while we are all inside. Who knows who would try something if they knew of our situation.” Lyra’s eyes started to slightly fill with tears as she explained why she was unhappy with the situation.
Suddenly Citro moved forward and hugged his friend forcing a quick yelp of surprise from Lyra. “You worry too much about these things, if it wasn’t the door that wouldn’t open then something else would have been bothering you. You father and the crown just want someone to enter the city and bring back anything of value while securing for possible colonization. Do you really think they care if they need to fill one hole with bricks?”
Lyra smiled and wiped her tears as she thought of the absurdity of the fact of someone being angry over filling a hole. Anyone who would be settling this abandoned dwarven city after they secure it would have just about everything they needed here, the only thing they would actually need to build would be a wall to close up that hole.
“You're right, I do worry too much. We should probably go tell the laborer's of their new task and put them to work.” Lyra quickly stood up while Citro ended the hug and followed her outside the tent to start delegating the new tasks to the laborer's.
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With an audible thunk I placed the last barrel containing those brown mushrooms that I had been eating for my breakfast, lunch and dinner off to the side of my new bedroom. I had also brought along the barrel full of honey so the mushrooms could actually taste half decent. Now that I actually had some off where I would be staying it would become less of an issue for the time being and I could instead put all of my time towards killing any goblins I come across as I continue searching through the various floors of this dwarven city.
But another important factor required my attention before I would go back out again, the ten points I just earned from reaching level four.
‘I have my intellect at thirty which for the time being is good enough, my mana will naturally increase as I increase my level further. But I also intend to use my sword for the time being so strength, dexterity, vitality, and constitution are needed more than if I were just a mage. For now I feel that my dexterity is good enough but my strength could use some improvement to make carrying all this stuff as well as wearing my armor less burdensome. Vitality will give me more energy to move around with and will help me heal faster. I don’t really need more constitution all that much at the moment because my armor can protect me pleasantly for now. So that makes a five point split for both strength and vitality the best move for me at the moment.’
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Strength 20
Vitality 15
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I smiled as I saw the number go up, though I wouldn't feel the effects until I rested for the day I knew I was getting stronger and eventually if I played my cards correctly even demons would be trivial enemies that I could defeat with but a wave of my hand.
But before I could think on the topic any further I opened my mouth wide and yawned deeply. Once I was done I looked around the room along the walls for a clock, when I didn’t see one I entered the office and found one, but it was both very old and didn’t work any longer. Even if it did work, it used a very different style of time measurement that I didn’t understand.
‘Well this is rather unfortunate, I don’t know what the time is. I wonder if there are any spells that can measure time, something like that would be useful when you are stuck underground for a long period of time. If I had to guess, something like that would be an alteration or an illusion spell depending on the specifics of how it worked.’ Looking back towards the bed I could feel the physical and mental exhaustion slowly creeping up like a wolf hunting a deer, so I took off my armor while the yawning increased and placed it off to the side of my bed. My sword on the other hand was sheathed and placed on the other side of the bed where it would remain within my reach at all times.
But before I went to bed I had a few mushrooms covered with honey as a quick dinner, I used my geomancy to conjure up a plate, knife, and fork to eat my dinner in a half decent manner. When I was done I simply dismissed the plate and utensils and walked over to my bed and slid under the blanket.
When I woke up here both times I never really paid much attention to it, but now that I was sleeping on it I realised just how comfortable it was, especially after the bed in that temple. It was so comfortable in fact that I didn’t even realise that I had fallen asleep until I woke several hours later and my mana had fully recovered.
When I awoke I slowly sat up on the bed and looked around the room, everything was as I left it and I felt the strength in my body was greater than it was yesterday. Practically jumping off the bed I rushed over the barrels of mushrooms and began scarfing two down. I didn’t know how long I was sleeping but given how hungry I was it must have been a while.
When my belly was full I turned back to my armor and donned it once again, to test myself I walked around the bedroom while wearing it and I moved around in certain ways to see how noble I was with the armor. I found that for the most part I was just as nimble and flexible as I was without the armor, the armor also felt much lighter than it did yesterday.
Next I grabbed and strapped my sword to my hip and picked up my now empty rucksack and slung it over my shoulder. ‘I remember the twelfth floor was one big kitchen, plant, and animal processing floor. There were also a lot of goblins up there messing around with anything they could find. Since they didn’t have much in terms of weapons it shouldn’t be too much of an issue for me to deal with them on my own.’ I thought to myself and I opened the door and stepped outside of my bedroom before locking it behind myself.
‘There was also that big room that was full of overgrown plants and mushrooms towards the end of the big hallway. Now that I am actually thinking about it, the dwarves probably kept their animals there to eat and then whenever they needed to butcher them they could bring them over to the butchery spots and kill them. Too bad we never found anything still alive in there, who knows what kind of strange wacky animals they must have kept.’
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Up at the entrance of the city of Dom Badaher the sound of pickaxes chipping away at the rock could be heard throughout the camp as three of the five labourers were digging into the side of the gate looking for a way inside. Initially they tried to just dig into the gate and the gateway surrounding it, but even these dwarves must have had some sort of powerful magics on their side as their tools did nothing but slide right off.
Now they were digging around the side where there was just stone instead of brick in an attempt to find a way around the magically reinforced bricks and gate. The tunnel they were digging was wide enough for three people to walk side by side as the three labourers were all working side by side. At the moment Citro was watching as the three continued their digging, he took note of how tough the stone was at their current depth and how that was slowing their progress.
For the most part Citro was just alone with his own thoughts and he was a pretty big thinker. ‘Once we break inside the city and start exploring it the reputation of the Flock should be greatly boosted, not many mercenary groups are able to say they have led an expedition into a second era dwarven city. The valuable artifacts alone will be enough to make this expedition worth it, the money from the crown will just be the icing on the cake. I wish Lyra could see things the way I do.’
Lyra on the other hand was still at her desk within her own personal tent dealing with the logistical problems that came from such a long term objective. Making sure that there was enough food for the duration of the expedition and making sure that more can be delivered or collected if needed. But this was both a long and boring task that required a lot of time to finish which ultimately left her alone for a long time with her own thoughts.
She would think about all sorts of things during these long periods of work and alone time, she would think about everything from her father, her adopted family and everything happening within that, that fact that she would most likely outlive everyone that she currently cares about, the mounting problems with the expedition. ‘I wish things would just be simpler. I wish that I didn’t need to worry about feeding everyone and running this whole mercenary company to have a shot at having an actual inheritance from my own family.’
Like any sane person she would take frequent breaks from all the sitting and would exit her tent to get the closest thing to fresh air. Seeing all the hustle and bustle as everyone went about their daily tasks in the morning was one of the few things that gave her an ease of mind. She also enjoyed when these who fought with swords, spears, and any other melee weapon would practice their chosen weapon against each other in the small arena that was set up a day prior, while she wasn’t a physical fighter herself she could appreciate the skill that each of her mercenaries displayed as they blocked and parried each others strikes. A display of skill and dedication to the chosen weapon that she had cultivated in them.
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Three days passed as I slowly progressed upwards clearing three more floors of any threats I might have found. Most things of value that I discovered were just old trinkets of weapons wielded by goblins I killed in their stolen homes. Every goblin I slayed led me closer and closer to recovering my once lost strength and closer to reaching the front gate where I wondered if Lyra and her company of mercenaries were waiting.
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Level 7, 3600
Next at 4400
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I still had thirty points that I didn’t really know what to do with, since my level had increased three times in the past three days my mana reserves jumped up to twenty one units of mana. I was now able to cast three tier two spells back to back, or seven tier one spells back to back. With this I was relying upon my magic more and more than I did before, and it was shown with the corpses of the goblins I left behind.
But as I was standing on the tenth floor just about to start walking up the stairs to the ninth floor I suddenly heard something. It sounded like several pairs of footsteps all walking together several floors above, the footsteps were heavy and strong unlike the quiet and somewhat nimble steps of the goblins. Peering upwards I looked wondering if it was actual people I was hearing walking around.
But I wasn’t sure of what I was hearing as it was several floors above from where I was, that much was clear from the echoing and just how muffled the noise was. ‘There is always a chance that it isn’t people but instead goblins that found themselves some real heavy plate armor and they decided to try it out. But for the time being I should continue dealing with the goblins on the ninth floor and then continue making my way to the entrance.’
Walking up the stairs I was tense, I could still hear the footsteps from time to time and the occasional sound of yelling and shouting. I didn’t recognise any of the voices as they were too far to make anything out clearly, all I knew was something above me was hunting down the goblins as well. My previous experience with Lyra and her mercenaries might have just been in my head, and for all I know this place isn’t what I think it is.
Every so often I would take a small break which would allow my mana to recover and my mind to relax, I would take this time to have a small snack in the form of one of the mushrooms and listen to the sounds above me. As the hours passed by I noticed that they were getting close and closer at a very quick rate, far more than when I worked with Lyra.