IM1: Chapter #50 (Patreon)

Since Akira knew roughly where the traps were, the team was able to avoid most of them, but when they got down to the end of the passage, she stopped and gestured to the wall.

[Master, this is where the laser is. If you step over this point, lasers shoot down from the ceiling and then go zip zip and try to cut your tail off! Well, not your tail, I mean, you don’t have a tail. But they are super hot!]

“Do they only come down from the ceiling?”

[Yes, I think. I only went through twice, once going that way, once coming back.]

“I think it's best if we just teleport over. Are we far enough from the plant monster to use our mana?”

[Um, I don’t actually know? I haven’t been using my flames since I got here. The stupid plant monster doesn’t like this area, but we are totally inside its detection range.]

“We’ll have to risk it.”

Turning to the others, Thorn gestured for them to come close.

“I can get us to the other side, but you’ll have to group up.”

Once everyone had gathered, he had everyone grab onto him and then cast Shadow Step, vanishing from the tunnel and emerging on the far side by the locked door that had stopped Akira the last time she had come down the tunnel. Letting go of Thorn’s arm, Zelix brushed off his robe and shook his head.

“I’ve got to get that spell. It's so useful being able to just skip past trouble.”

“It is, though it only works like that because of the density of the darkness mana around here. Otherwise, I don’t think I would be able to bring you along,” Thorn said, examining the door that blocked off the way forward. “But I’d be happy to teach it to you when we get back. It's pretty straightforward.”

Just like the door leading into the ruins, this door was made of an unknown alloy and split diagonally. Reaching out with his staff, Thorn tapped the circular metal disk in the center of the door, watching as the runes lit up. Seeing a variety of numbers pop up, Thorn frowned and asked Eve if she could crack it.

[Already on it. Give me a second. Okay, got it. Four, seven, one, nine, eight, seven. This is the ruin that Maido was talking about in that recording.]

“Somehow I expected that,” Thorn said, punching in the code.

With a hiss, the door slid apart, revealing an open area around thirty feet wide and eighty feet long. Dim light filtered from mana stones that lined the ceiling, revealing the tightly fit stone floor and walls. There was a gloomy air to the room, largely due to the skeletons that lay scattered near the entrance. Drawing in a breath, Thorn stepped into the room, his mental sense scanning the room. Toward the other end of the room there was a passage leading off to the left and opposite it, the room turned to the right, in an ‘L’ shape. Sensing some tables with devices on them over in the other part of the room, Thorn walked past the skeletons to peek around the corner.

Stone tables set against the wall held a profusion of different types of alchemy equipment, the potions and tinctures they once held little more than dried grime on the inside of the glass. A number of the bottles were turned over and some of the beakers were scorched, leading Thorn to believe that whatever had killed the robed skeletons collapsed at the edge of the table had struck silently and all at once. There were a few books on the table, but Thorn was afraid to touch them as they appeared to have lost their magical protection.

Unsure how old they were, and what would happen if he bumped them, he instead let his mental sense sink through them slowly, attempting to go page by page. There was no way he could actually see the contents of the pages like this, but he wasn’t relying on his own abilities here. Capturing every possible piece of information that he could, he handed it off to Eve to see if she could reconstruct an approximation of the text using the depressions caused by a writing implement on the page and the location of ink vs regular paper.

“What do you think? Is it doable?”

[Yes, but it will take some time,] Eve replied.

Regrouping with the others in the center of the room, Thorn jerked his hand at the books that were still sitting on the table.

“I was worried that touching them would turn them to dust. Any thoughts on a good way to save them?”

“No, that’s not my area of expertise,” Zelix said, glancing at the other two adventurers who both shook their heads. “Typically, once a ruin is cleared, that’s when the preservation team moves in, but that might be hard considering what we had to do to sneak in here.”

“Most of the time, you want to look for items that still have a hint of magic, since that means they’ll stay together long enough to get them to the artificer’s guild,” Gorrell said, nodding. “Which is why people tend to focus on artifacts when diving a ruin. Research is worth a whole pile more, but getting it out is always a problem.”

“Should we leave it or give it a try?” Thorn asked.

“I vote we try to take it,” Aloxal said. “If we don’t, it will likely fall apart either from a fight or because we just unsealed this space.”

“That’s a good point,” Zelix nodded, “and we could always try injecting mana back into it.”

Seeing that Gorrell agreed, Thorn returned to the books and looked over them once more, just to make sure that he did not miss anything. Following Zelix’s suggestion, he very carefully began to insert mana into the book, trying to be as gentle as he could. The process was painstaking and when the first book crumbled apart, turning into a pile of dust, he couldn’t help but groan. Thankfully, the second one went better, and apart from losing some of the back cover, Thorn managed to keep the whole thing intact.

With his mana inside of it, it was a simple matter to reapply the enchantment that would have preserved it all those years ago, allowing Thorn to look through it before handing it off to the others. After seeing that it was written in runes, they all just waved it away and handed it back to him for him to store in his bag. Though it was impossible to know if the book had any value, the three adventurers were all ecstatic that they had managed to get the whole book, as it meant that they had already met the threshold for their extra payment. On top of that, the fact that they had just entered the second area and found something so valuable meant that this ruin was truly untouched.

After double checking to make sure that the area they were in did not contain anything valuable, the party moved on, walking carefully down the hallway that sat opposite the alchemy area. As they proceeded, Aloxal checked for traps, not finding anything. Just to be doubly sure, Thorn used his mental sense to scan the area as well, but found that everything remained normal. That made sense, considering that if this was, as Thorn suspected, a laboratory, it would be exceedingly dangerous to the researchers to leave active traps in the hallway.

Turning the corner, they saw that the passageway extended down to a door and soon they were stopped in front of it. Thanks to his mental sense, Thorn could actually see two large spaces on either side of the hall, but the only way to access them was through this door. By now, the party was used to the process, so they all stood there and stared at Thorn until he reached out to touch the door. To his surprise, it wasn’t locked at all and as soon as he touched it, it slid open, allowing them to continue into the ruins.

Following the hall a bit longer, they soon came to a crossroads, with paths leading left, right, and straight ahead. The paths to the right and left both had doors while the path that went straight actually dipped further down into the earth. Looking at the others, Thorn got a bunch of shrugs in response so he picked left and the team made their way toward the new door. Despite being locked, the door only lasted a few seconds under Eve’s scrutiny and popped open a moment later. Seeing how easily Thorn opened the doors, Gorrell shook his head in amazement.

“You know, if this whole artificer thing doesn’t work out, you could probably make a fortune opening doors for teams in ruins.”

“It's true,” Aloxal agreed, “I know there are people who specialize in opening ruins, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do it like you.”

Beyond the door was a long, rectangular room with ten pillars arranged starting from their right and looping around the room in a rough oval shape. In the dim light, the team could make out humanoid figures standing in between the pillars and as they stepped into the room, they brought their weapons up, just in case. Their cautiousness turned out to be wise as the door behind them clicked shut and the humanoid figure that stood in between the pillars directly in front of them shifted. Thick wooden limbs creaked and dust fell as the large figure took a step forward. Dim mana leaked from its eyes and its arms raised, reminding Thorn of a zombie because of its stiff shuffle. Formed from a mixture of wood, vines, and metal plates, the creature stood at least ten feet tall and with every step it took, its body moved a bit easier.

“Uh, Thorn? What do you want to do with that?” Gorrell asked, lifting his shield cautiously.

Examining the lurching creature that was starting to close the distance, Thorn’s eyes narrowed.

“Eve?”

*ding*

Reading over the monster’s abilities, Thorn took a sharp breath as he turned to look at the rest of the room. In between the ten pillars were eight other vine monsters who were now starting to stir. Jumping down from his shoulder, Akira quickly grew into her battle form while the party drew closer together, getting ready for the battle that was sure to come.

“We’re in for a fight, team,” Thorn said, “so be careful. They’re all tier six.”

“Should we retreat?” Gorrell asked, his gaze sweeping the stirring monsters.

Thinking over the situation, Thorn nodded. If they remained in the center of the room, they would soon be surrounded, but by backing up into one of the corners, they would be able to control the flow of the fight a bit better.

“Yes, let’s move to the back right corner. Gorrell, watch our back. Akira, lead the way.”

There was one vine amalgamation directly between the party and the right corner of the room and it had just started stirring when Akira barreled into it, her claws flashing with crimson light as she slashed a dozen times. Splintered wood, fractured stone, and molten drops of metal flew through the air as she bowled the monster over, ripping at it with abandon. To its credit, the vine amalgamation did not just roll over and die, instead using its vines to try to pierce through Akira’s fur and skin. Though its attempts were thwarted by the flames that sprang up around her, it never stopped trying, even as the party ran past it, quickly reaching the corner.

The monsters did not move quickly on their feet, but once the vines that made up their body came close to an enemy, they gained a swiftness that was startling. Seeing the two closest monsters closing in, Gorrell narrowed his eyes and lifted his shield, focusing his attention on the monster in front. At the same time, Aloxal and Zelix got their attacks ready and Thorn lifted his staff.

Zelix was still using the darkness attributed mana stone in his bracer, but seeing the darkness that each of the monsters carried, he decided against it at the last second, swapping his black mana stone for a gleaming red one with adept movements. While he was doing that, Aloxal had already begun releasing her arrows, sending them burrowing into the closest vine amalgamation. It was hard to hit them precisely since their bodies were not made up of a solid form, but instead were a combination of shifting vines and seemingly random pieces of metal and stone.

With a drawn out hiss, three arrows flew through the air, cutting apart the vines they touched and driving into the center mass of the monster. Muffled explosions rang out as the mana arrows detonated, sending splinters flying. An angry bellow echoed in the room, picked up by all of the vine monsters as they surged forward, moving a bit faster to try to get to Thorn and the others. Though her three arrows had been on target, Thorn had been watching carefully and it was clear that the explosions had not actually done much damage to the monster. There was a strange enchantment that swirled through the vines that made up the body of the monsters, connecting them together and sharing the damage that they suffered.

Tapping his staff on the ground, Thorn cast his first spell, causing a stone hand to burst from the ground, wrapping around one of the monster’s legs, forcing it to stop in place. About to follow up with another attack, Thorn was stunned when the monster’s body bent forward and reformed, its arms becoming legs. Within a blink of an eye, the vine amalgamation had escaped the grip of the stone hand, leaving only a single piece of a vine behind.

Grimacing, Thorn quickly cast his next spell, sending a series of stone spikes into the reformed enemy’s legs, only for the vine monster to slide around them. Though he managed to deal a bit of damage to the vines that made up the creature’s legs, the vines were tough and apart from a few cuts and gouges, it was entirely fine. Still moving slowly, the vine monsters drew closer, surrounding the party on two sides as they pressed forward, their waving arms reaching out.