Imperious, Chapter 013 - The Lumbering Mines (Patreon)

Anna woke on hard packed dirt, her labored breathing kicking up dust as she curled into a ball on the ground. There was no light and barely any sound beyond her breaths and the distant dripping of water somewhere far away. She coughed and tried to open her eyes, she felt so tired. Her skin felt cold. Bloodloss, she managed to think and fixed her attention on the searing ache in her abdomen. The arrow was still pointing out of her. She winced when she looked at it, knowing what she had to do but not wanting to do it, her mind recoiling from how much it was going to hurt.

She bit her lip. She knew she didn’t have a choice.

She reached down and grabbed the shaft of the arrow with both hands. Anna groaned as even the slightest pressure sent a cascade of agony through her. She saw white for a moment, sweat streaming down her face as she grit her teeth. She pushed with one hand, holding the other steady as the throbbing in her guts continued. Come on, come on, come on, break! She felt one of her teeth crack in her mouth as she did everything she could to restrain the scream building in her chest.

SNAP!

She gasped, her head spinning, and looked at the arrowhead in her hand. Oh, I got it, she thought numbly before shaking herself out of the stupor. No, focus, not done! She chastised herself and reached around, grasping at the other end of the shaft poking out of her back. She tapped it and winced, another mind numbing shock of pain washing over her brain. She grabbed hold and pulled with all her might. She couldn’t hold it back anymore, she screamed as the arrow came out the way it had entered, her eyes watering, her body heaving and twitching.

She tossed the arrow aside, It’s out.

The next thing she knew, she was still laying on her side in the dirt. Her body aching but otherwise feeling much better. She reached down and ran her fingers over her waist and coughed, noting the smooth skin where the hole had been. I didn’t bleed out, she thought, relieved, and checked her resources.

Resources:
HP: 12/65 | SP: 34/65 | MT: 1/65

My health didn’t recover, only my wound, fuck I don’t know how any of this works. She grumbled and rolled onto her back before glancing around. She couldn’t see very well but she could tell she was in some kind of cave. This must be the dungeon. She thought, flexing her fingers as she tried to pull herself up to a sitting position. Her stomach growled as she got her bearings and she reached for her bag, thankfully it was still slung over her shoulder. She pulled a pair of cans of cold ravioli out, a few bottles of water, and quickly ate even as nausea threatened her body. Need to replenish, she reminded herself, Stay alive.

Full and suddenly very sleepy, she pulled herself back across the floor and leaned against the wall. She closed her eyes and the face of the devil sprang up in her mind, the collar in its hands. She opened her eyes with a gasp and glared at her hands. Bitch. She snarled inwardly, feeling her blood heat up a little. I’m not gonna die in here, I swear it. She thought, more for herself than as a threat. She lowered her hands and rest her head against the rocky wall again, First, I need sleep, she thought and turned down her presence just in case.

THUD THUD THUD

Her eyes shot open again and she looked up, squinting through the darkness. There was some kind of ambient light that she couldn’t locate the source of, but it provided enough visibility to make out shapes at least. At first all she saw was stone in the small slightly rounded room she’d arrived in, but soon she made out what looked like an arch leading into a tunnel beyond the room. In the tunnel she spotted movement. She shifted back a few more paces, pressing herself against the wall as the movement drew closer. She reached for her cudgel and froze when it came further into view.

A moving mass of stone marched into the room, hunched forward with arms as thick as tree trunks. Its body lurched now and then, its motions almost mechanical.

Lumbering Mines Golem, Level 6

It’s huge. She thought, eyes wide with mixed wonder and terror. She shifted back as far as she could go, pressed fully against the rear wall of the room now. The golem stepped into the room and paused, sweeping its body to the left and right as if searching for something. It paused for a moment and then turned away, lumbering out of the room without a second glance. She watched it go with shock before a small smile spread across her face. It doesn’t have eyes. She realized with a grin, This might not be so bad.

Even with that twinge of newfound confidence, the relief was far more pronounced. She exhaled hard and rest her head against the wall again, letting her eyes fall shut.

Anna woke an indeterminate amount of time later. She could have checked the Integration timer but she really didn’t want to look at it and realize how much time she’d wasted. Instead she took a moment to check her resources and was satisfied to find them filled and her body more or less refreshed besides a neck ache from sleeping against a stone wall. She rubbed her neck and tried to clear her head and figure out her priorities. 

First thing’s first, I’ve got free points I think? She thought and checked her stats and indeed found that there were nine points to spend. I need to be faster, even by a little. I should also put some points into vitality. I haven’t even gotten close to pushing my mana tolerance yet and I get passive points that increase it. I’ll focus on those two. She paused, and a few more points into presence of course. Three points into Agility, three into Vitality, and three into Presence. That’ll do, she thought and confirmed her changes.

She pulled up her character sheet.

Name: Anastasia Flitt
Race: Human - Terran
Class: Caster
Profession: None
Level: 2
Tier: Mortal
Heritage: Imperious Monarch

Resources:
HP: 70/70 | SP: 75/75 | MT: 0/74

Attributes: Available Free Points: 0
Strength: 12 | Agility: 10 | Intellect: 10
Vitality: 14 | Endurance: 15 | Willpower: 15
Awareness: 10 | Insight: 11 | Presence: 22

Titles:
Youth of the Integration (Common), Precursor of Earth (Common), Pre-System Warrior (Epic)

Skills:
One-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons (Common-Base), Identify (Common-Base), The Human Spirit (Uncommon-Base), Adaptable (Uncommon-Base), Heavy Armor (Common-Base), Personal Firearms (Common-Base)

Spells
Mana Barrier (Common-Base)

A marginal improvement, she was getting somewhere though. She was also relieved to see that when her maximum health went up, her current health went up with it. The analytical part of her concluded that leveling up worked off percentages rather than hard numbers. It was good to know at least. She licked her lips and looked down at her feet. Now that she was feeling better she took a little bit of time to think about how things had gone. There was little she could have done about the devil with the bow at her level. It still irked her that she had to flee.

She looked up at the darkened archway and gripped her cudgel. If the golems can’t see me, like the skeletons, I might be able to hunt them for some fairly easy exp. If I can figure out how to kill them. She reasoned, getting to her feet and slinging her bag over her shoulder. She didn’t know if she’d be back this way so she decided to take it with her instead of creating a campsite. She pat the gun on her waist as well. There was no way it would be any help against creatures made out of stone, but it was good to know it was there.

As prepared as she could possibly be, she marched into the darkness, keeping her presence turned down as much as she could. The first thing that she noticed when she entered the passageway was that the ambient light that had existed in the entry room was nonexistent in the tunnels in this place. She quickly found herself pressed against the wall, using the stony surface to navigate as she rounded corners and slowly crept down long stretches in the tunnels. Not being able to see was rough, but she was glad she was able to hear.

THUD THUD THUD

A golem passed her by not once but twice as she made her way through the tunnels. They seemed to pop up all of a sudden and stop nearby, looking around before moving on. She was beginning to wonder if they had another way of detecting her when she kicked a pebble on accident just a third encounter took place. It had initially passed her by, but as soon as the pebble hit the ground changed direction. In a flurry of motion it spun around and brought one of its enormous arms down on the spot where the sound had come from, pulverizing stone and leaving a tiny crater in its wake. Holy-

BOOM!

A secondary shockwave of force rippled out from the point of impact an instant later, sending a spiderweb of cracks out through the stone beneath her feet. She had to catch herself on the wall to keep from falling over. She stared at the damage, marveling at it. What the hell was that? Some kind of skill? She thought, trying to wrap her head around what she’d seen. The golem simply stood there for a moment before turning away and lumbering down the passage again. No, seriously, how did it do that? I want to do that! She thought, changing her intended path and deciding to follow the golem instead.

That turned out to be the best decisions she’d made so far down here. The creature paid her no mind as she tailed it, creeping slowly along and trying to stick to its arduous ambling pace. After several long passages and two hair-raising turnbacks the golem meandered towards what looked like a source of light. She squinted against the intensity as she got closer. There were reds and blues and greens, all sorts of colors glinted and shone within the room up ahead. She tried to peek past the golem but she couldn’t see through its bulk.

Then they arrived and she stopped at the entrance, a gasp catching in her throat.

There were jewels everywhere. In the walls, in the ceiling, piled in rough stacks on the floor. She stared at the piles in confusion. They were all rough, as if they’d just been ripped out of the walls and left piled there. She looked up at the golem again and watched it step up towards the wall furthest from her. It raised its arm, pulled it back, and threw a punch at the wall. The boom was immediately followed by a thunderous crunch as stone was pulverized leaving only a small outcropping of raw gemstone behind.

They’re mining it, she realized, scooting closer to one of the piles. It was a yellow stone of some kind. She knelt down slowly and picked one up, using analyze.

Inferior Raw Topaz (Common-Grade)
This raw jewel can be used in a variety of crafting professions. It is only slightly higher in quality than its mundane counterpart, able to resonate with a tiny amount of mana.

She jolted back, nearly dropping the gemstone. A topaz? Like an actual topaz? She looked down at the pile and then over at the other piles, there was a pile entirely comprised of translucent blue stones, reds, and even some crystal clear stone that made her stomach do a backflip. She swallowed, The description did say it was some kind of mine. I figured it would be iron or something. Not… this.

BOOM

The golem struck the wall again after digging out the crystals that it had found and letting them fall to the ground at its feet. The rock was pulverized again as the secondary shockwave ripped through the rock. She turned her attention away from the gems and focused on the lumbering thing, gripping her cudgel tightly. Pretty stones aren’t important right now. I want to figure out how that works. She thought and sat down in the corner, watching the golem closely. Again, it slammed its massive arm into the wall and the shockwave came rippling out. She squinted at it but she couldn’t figure out where the secondary effect came from.

She frowned and stared harder, There has to be a trick to it.

She watched the thing for several hours, watching how it stood, how it moved, how it swung its entire body with the strike. She observed until it finally stopped, stepping away from the wall and looming down over the pile of gems at its feet. It scooped them up with the flats of its handless arms and carried them over to each pile, sorting them before turning towards the exit of the room. She watched it go, listening as its footsteps grew further and further away. When she finally couldn’t hear it anymore she got to her feet.

My turn to try, she thought eagerly and moved over to a portion of wall the golem hadn’t been working on. She brandished her cudgel and took a stance. Okay it stood like this, she thought, emulating its stance and holding the weapon up so the tip was pointed at the wall. The posture felt a little awkward but she wasn’t getting the tingle that her proficiency used to tell her she was doing it wrong. She set her eyes on the wall in front of her and lunge, striking the wall with her mace. 

CLANG!

The tip of the mace bounced off the stone and nearly leaped out of her hand. Her fingers ached from the sudden shock that had gone through them. She frowned and stepped back, rubbing her hand a little as she examined the wall again. What went wrong? My proficiency tells me that the strike was done correctly but my gut tells me that I’m missing something important. She tried it again and got the same result. It’s not the metal, this bat is hard enough to break bone, it can crack a little rock. She tried again, An impact like that requires some weight behind it. Material and Weight, no, still not right. She tried putting a bit more speed into the impact. Speed, centrifugal force, these play a role in the impact a weapon like a cudgel or mace has.

She swung again, even harder this time, nothing. Is that not it? What am I missing? She tried experimentally opening herself to mana while swinging but nothing came, or to be more precise, she couldn’t just open herself at will. Her spell let her do it, but- she narrowed her eyes.

Wait a minute. Casting the spell requires concentrating on the outcome, where I want the barrier to be, how long I want it to last, it requires focusing on the specific diagram in my mind. In other words, I have to intentionally cast the spell. Intent. She looked down at her cudgel, I was just swinging this thing around hoping to cause damage, not really focused on the kind of damage I wanted to do, how I wanted it to impact my target. Could it really be that simple? She wondered and stepped up towards the wall once again.

Let’s give it a shot.