A Soldier's Life - 169 - Something Brewing (Patreon)

Chapter 169 Something Brewing

Through the pain, I kept trying to tell myself that it was not as bad as when I consumed the apex earth essence in Macha. Maveith’s voice echoed in the back of my mind as he tried to communicate, but the pain was taking all my focus. I bit my tongue, the metallic coppery-tasting blood filling my mouth. As the pain ebbed away, my clenching muscles relaxed. I rasped out, “How long?”

Maveith was kneeling over me, “Less than a minute. Are you okay, Eryk? That looked unpleasant.”

There was no way that was only a fucking minute. I moved to a sitting position. “Shit.”

“What is it, Eryk? You smell horrible, like rotten eggs, and your skin is slimy.” Maveith voiced his concern but still backed away.

“Yeah, I shit myself too. If I ever do this again, I am going to make sure I have purged both ends before.” I spat the residual vomit from my mouth and tried not to move my ass too much. My throat was sore, and I used some healing on my damaged tendons and ligaments from clenching so hard. The fouled clothing and shitty underclothes were going to be left behind in this dungeon.

I recalled the conversation with Kolm, “The harpy room had some water. At least they said they were fishing there. We should be able to get past the earth drake as it hasn’t been a day yet. There is also a reward chest in there to claim.”

“I will walk ahead of you,” Maveith said, scrunching his nose. I was going to retort that I had put up with his body odor for a long time, but then again, my own odor was making me nauseous and causing my eyes to water at the moment. We climbed the stairs, which was not fun with the soiled clothes. The dead earth drake was still here, and we crossed cautiously into the other corridor. The corridor curved slightly before arriving at the harpy room.

The harpy room had a mix of short green trees and tall deadwood trees. I didn’t see any sign of the legionnaires, and the stone reward chest was visible next to a large pool in the center of the room. Without my armor on, I had Mavieth lead, “You go first, Maveith. I have enough aether to handle one problem.” He nodded, and we passed the short trees with red berries on them. 

Mavis ate one of the berries and immediately spit it out. “This is bitter, Eryk, don’t even try it.” I picked one of the berries anyway and inspected it. It kind of looked like a small cherry, but it obviously wasn’t. I squeezed the small fruit, and a bean was inside the husk. The bean was white and looked oddly familiar.

“Maveith, I think this is a coffee bean. We have them in Tsinga.” I didn’t know if that statement was one hundred percent true. From my reading, I found there was a dessert beverage that was described like it was coffee. They roasted, crushed, and filtered water through seeds to create a black, rich beverage. It had certainly sounded like coffee. I hadn’t found coffee in the Telhian Empire, but many tea varieties were available. 

We both walked to the pond in the center of the chamber and looked into it. It was maybe 20 feet across. And Kolm had been correct about there being fish in this room.

This variety of fish was not as large as the eels or other fish I had already discovered. These fish were rotund and just larger than my hand. They bobbed to the surface before diving deep into the depths of the pool and disappearing. I guessed the needed air to breathe, and that gave the harpies a chance to swoop down and grab them from their perches in the dead trees. 

I gratefully stripped, tossing my clothes in a pile for the dungeon to reclaim. The water was cold as I tested it with my foot. A sheen of oil spread across the surface of the water from my exposed leg. Whatever my body had extruded was oily in nature. The fish also seemed to oppose my scent as they suddenly stopped coming to the surface.

As I settled into the water, there didn’t appear to be any threat. “Maveith, why don’t you check the chest in the center of the chamber while I clean up.” Surprisingly, the goliath didn’t seem as excited about treasure as most people. He nodded, accepting the task reluctantly.

I started scrubbing as best I could in the water with a sock. With no detergent left, it was difficult for me to clean myself. Soon the entire surface of the pool was covered with the oily film from my efforts. I scrubbed my skin raw, trying to free myself of the foul stench.

While I was bathing, Maveith returned with 12 silver coins and a potion, handing them to me. I studied the runic script on the potion before announcing, “As best as I can translate, it says see in the dark. This is a potion of night vision.” Maveith looked impressed, “Keep it, Maveith. It should be good for years.” I did send the coins to my dimensional space so he wouldn’t have to carry them. I put the fishing kit on the shore for him.

Maveith looked disgusted at the pond that now had an oil slick coating it, “Eryk, I don’t know if I want to fish this pond.” I looked into the water, and it looked like some of the fish were having trouble swimming. Whatever impurities had been released from my body had fouled and poisoned the water.

“Can you harvest the berries for me? I think they have a use.” Maveith looked at the two dozen trees and nodded. I think he was happy to find an excuse to get a good distance from. I continued my efforts, getting as clean as possible before dressing in clean clothes. A few fish were bobbing in the water, clearly dead. I tried the collector on three small fish, and only one gave a minor essence of constitution. I handed it to Maveith before putting my armor back on.

My legion armor was not in great condition. The red lacquer on the metal helmet was peeling. The leather pieces soaked in resin had warped slightly. The armor even had gouges from the talons of the harpy. It looked like whoever had worn this suit had been through a lot. I had a new set of legion armor in my space, but I couldn’t wear it or risk revealing my space to the company. I helped Maveith fill a large tarp with the coffee berries before tying the corners together and sending it to storage. I had no idea how to turn the small berries into actual coffee, but what you had a lot of in the dungeon was time.

There were two exits from this room. The one to the left led to Flavius and our legionnaire companions. The one to the right was probably where the goblin had come from. I had to make a choice. Should I reunite with Flavius and the others or search for Castile? We still had hours before the harpies would respond. 

I debated internally for a long time before announcing to Maveith, “We are going to go that way.” I pointed in the direction in which the goblin most likely came from. Maveith looked back at the entrance that led to the legionnaires. Then, back at the entrance, I chose for us. His confusion made me feel I needed to explain myself. “Flavius cannot know that I have the collector, and the extent of my other abilities need to remain a secret.”

Maveith understood. “I will take your secret to my deathbed, Eryk,” his deep tone was reaffirming, and I was a little worried. He said it too loud like he was making an oath, and I glanced at the corridor, relieved that no one was standing there. After my decision, we didn’t waste too much time leaving the harpy room.

As we went, the corridor curved left and right, but the familiar flowing lights on the ceiling and floor were reassuring. I wondered where the goblin had come from and why nothing was pursued from the room we approached. When we reached the end of the corridor, it opened into a wide sandy room. Little dust devils of sand dotted the room.

“Maybe there is something underneath the sand?” I guessed to Maveith to my right.

Maveith was studying the sand as well. His deep voice speculated, “There certainly are a lot of environments within this dungeon. I traveled the Scorching Waste before. There were carnivorous beetles, scorpions of all sizes, and different varieties of elementals. Those sand swirls could be minor elementals.”

I studied the swirling clouds of sand more intently. They didn’t seem to move, and I could recall no books that referenced elementals. “If the goblin was able to pass through the room, should we try?” Maveith looked behind us, probably considering there were five legionnaires and the Scholar back there. He eventually returned to look at the sand scape.

“If they are elementals, they should be affected by our runic weapons,” Maveith said. I took that as a yes and stepped out onto the sand. The chamber suddenly felt hot, like I was in a scorching desert, and the sand eddies started moving toward me. Maveith stepped behind me, “They are not elementals, Eryk. Something is moving in the sand beneath them.”

Maveith was right, and the sand formed a mound moving toward us. It was easy to get distracted by the mini tornados. They moved with a decent speed and were spread out and coordinated. “Back out of the room,  Maveith.”

We both exited to the corridor’s safety, ready to retreat to the harpy room. All five mounds converged on us and stopped by the entrance. A dog-sized beetle emerged from the sand, impressive mandibles snapping in the air. It appeared uncertain about leaving the sand before submerging itself once again.

We both stood ready, but the beetles slowly moved away. Maveith’s baritone sounded, “I think they are sand scarabs. I have never seen them before, but sand scarabs use aether and earth magic to burrow in the sand. If you try to fight them, they can quickly sink you in the sand to attack you below the surface while you are immobilized.”

“That sounds utterly horrific. Getting trapped in the sand and then being unable to attack them while they use those mandibles on your legs.” I replied and could see why Flavius and the others had not tried this room.

“They are also fast, so it will be difficult to avoid them,” Maveith noted.

“We don’t need to avoid them, Maveith. They won’t leave the protection of the sand.” I stepped into the room and waited for the first scarab to reach me before pulling a deep column of sand under the vortex into my space. My aether bottomed out, and the resistance of the beetle was strong, but I still succeeded. I stepped back into the corridor with Maveith.

We were both ready as the other four scarabs hovered outside the corridor, but they were still unwilling to enter. I smiled at Maveith, “Now we just have to wait till I can do that again. It usually takes me about two hours, but it is closer to an hour and a half in the dungeon.”

About ninety minutes later, a second scarab was killed by my efforts. They traveled about a foot under the sand, but the small swirling sand above them made it easy to track their movements. After killing a third one, the last two surprised us by leaving the safety of the sandy room. Maveith was not caught off guard; he crushed one with his hammer, and I was able to pierce the other between the mandibles with my black blade. This was good as I could use the collector on the last two, getting a major earth essence from both. I tried the collector on the other three scarabs, getting one additional earth essence and one minor earth essence. The first scarab had been dead for too long to yield anything.

We knew the room was clear of the scarabs by the stone reward chest appearing in the center of the micro dessert. “Easy peesy, Maveith.” I smiled at the goliath, who gave me a doubtful look as he tried to figure out what peesy meant. I approached the modest chest and shattered it. Silver coins spread out, and a leather-bound tome was on top. It smelled strongly of seasoned leather as I opened it.

Inside were pages of layered spell forms for some type of spell. I couldn’t understand what the spell actually did without the Latin script telling me what I was looking at. After the first few pages of spell forms, the runic script that followed on the following pages probably went into some detail about the spell, but it would take me hours to puzzle out the translation in the dreamscape. I noted a few symbols that seemed to indicate it was related to the earth affinity. I held the book to Maveith, “I think it might be an earth affinity spell. Do you want it?”

“No, I inscribed my earth affinity already, Eryk. And I can not learn actual spells.” I shrugged and gathered up the silver coins on top of the book. I stood balancing the coins as we looked around the room. There was just sand filling the oval room.

“Let’s move to the corridor, Maveith. This room was not very difficult for us, and I wouldn’t mind returning to get more earth essence later.” We walked into the unexplored corridor, and it was not a long walk before arriving at the familiar-looking room with two long, wide stone shelves.

Maveith grunted happily, “A rest room.” It was a safe room but was unique in that there were three different exits, not including the corridor we were standing in or the oily black door tempting us to exit the dungeon for good.

We moved in and started to unpack, but I noticed almost immediately, on the wall next to the faded elven script, that there were dark letters in Latin. It read: Castile’s group went this way, clearly written in charcoal, with an arrow pointing to one of the corridors. We were close, but how long ago had that been written?

I turned to Maveith, who couldn’t read Latin, “Castile’s group was here.” His eyes went wide with excitement. He was clearly ready to get out of the dungeon. “Don’t get too excited. We don’t know how long ago they came through here. Why don’t you get some sleep first. I will stay up and prepare some food.”

I pulled out the elven tablet table and some ingredients, including a handful of coffee berries. Maveith made himself comfortable and was soon snoring. With Maveith sleeping, I grasped the edges of the table and activated the device. It was time to see what the major illusion essence did for me.