B01DCAV4W2 (S) (27 page)

He also doubted that kobolds were the most dangerous things down here.  In stories, underground monsters were usually bigger, meaner and
toothier
than their aboveground counterparts.  There was of course, no way to be sure that even the faint light Futen was exuding wouldn’t be seen, but it was certainly less conspicuous than his Light spells were.  He decided that he couldn’t send Futen back until he found another way to see in the dark, but it was good to know that he had the option.

He went back to working the problem.  He had been trapped underground for weeks when unlocking his Life mastery.  During that time, he and the sprites had eaten most of the dried rations that were in his Bag of Holding.  He had enough left for perhaps a week, but no more.  Checking his food stores brought the fact that he hadn’t eaten in a day to the forefront of his mind.  His frantic pace while riding the okami hadn’t lent itself to eating, and then his fight with the Assassin and Warrior had exhausted him.  He had felt the pangs of hunger, while he had rested under the tree, but sleep had seemed a more pressing priority.  After that, his frantic escape from the rock giant had driven hunger from his mind again.  After burning what must have been thousands of calories though, his belly was now starting to turn in knots.  To emphasize how much energy he had expended, his stomach gave a loud growl.   In the silence of the tunnel, the sound seemed overly loud. 

Richter took a travel ration from his Bag.  Before eating though, he carefully broke it in half and placed the remainder back in the Bag.  He would have to ration until he found another source of food.  That being said, he looked at the remains of the some of the animals around him.  It all smelled terrible, but he realized that such scraps could very well be the difference between life and death in the near future.  Picking up a piece that seemed less rancid than the others, he examined it.

You have found: Spoiled rabbit meat.  This can be used as bait for carrion feeders.  You will most likely become sick if you eat this. 

Richter dropped it in disgust.  He wasn’t
that
hungry yet.  Further examination of his inventory showed he had several skins of water.  Fresh water hadn’t been a problem in the last dungeon because of an underground lake so he had never needed to dip into his stores.  At least he didn’t have to worry about that for a while. 

Looking through his inventory revealed something else, the Sustenance Belt. He had all, but forgotten about the item.  It would allow him to exist on 50% less food and sleep.  Right now, he wouldn’t forgo the +4 that his Belt of Strength gave him, but if he ended up being caught underground for weeks then the sustenance belt might save his life.  

The last preparation Richter made was to fill the Ring of Spell Storage.  He decided to use
Charm
this time.  His fight with the giant had showed him that the ring could let him cast the same spell in succession, cooldown or not.  The idea of being able to convert two enemies quickly to his side rather than just one was something that he couldn’t pass up!

With all immediate concerns taken care of, Richter’s mind finally stopped racing.  The battle with the rock giant and the run through the forest started to take its toll.  His head felt like it was spinning and he had to sit down so he didn’t fall down.  Not able to fight off his exhaustion any longer, he pulled his Cloak of Concealment around his body and dropped into unconsciousness.

Richter slept for several hours.  His dreams were plagued by sadistic women with butcher knives and eighty-foot tall giants that slowly ripped off his arms and legs.  When he awoke, he was covered in sweat and his heart was racing.  He immediately stood and drew his shadow dagger.  His breath came out in ragged gasps as he looked around for enemies. 

Futen spoke up, “I have been scouting the tunnel ahead.   No enemies have come near.”

Richter exhaled in relief, “Thank you Futen.  How long was I asleep?”

“Only a few hours, my Lord.  I need to remind you that your time to allocate your points is almost elapsed.”

Richter nodded.  He was fairly sure that he wouldn’t be making it back to the village in the next day.  He decided to invest in his most advanced skill again.  100% went into Herb Lore. 

Congratulations!  You have reached skill level 39 in Herb Lore.  Herbs are 3% more effective. Increased chance of finding higher level herbs.

Dismissing the prompt, Richter got up and looked around.  Nothing caught his eye so he activated
Stealth
and started moving down the tunnel.   The path twisted like a snake and in several spots, Richter had to squeeze his body through tight junctions.  At one point he was stuck for a heart thudding series of moments, but he was able to wriggle free and continue onward. 

For the first couple hours, nothing happened.  That was not to say that Richter’s travel was stress-free.  Just by the fact that he was completely enclosed by tons of rock made him apprehensive.  The air had a stale quality, lacking the movement of wind that he barely noticed when above ground.  He had to force down his mild claustrophobia several times.  Occasionally, he heard a scratching or scrabbling, but when he looked there was nothing there.  He kept searching for traps, and when he finally found one, it was only luck that kept him from triggering it. 

The tunnel had branched several times while he was walking, but he never deviated.  The course he was following terminated in a blank stone wall.  The tunnel itself continued, but it required jumping or climbing to a ledge eight feet above where Richter was standing.  Undaunted, he jumped and was easily able to grab the lip of the ledge above, but when he pulled his head high enough to see over the edge, a red trip wire glowed not two inches away from his fingers.  If he had thrown his arm over the ledge to pull himself further up, the trap would have been triggered. 

Richter froze.  His eyes darted back and forth searching for more threats, but nothing else started to glow red.   He started to experience the slightest of tremors in his fingers from supporting his whole weight while his arms were flexed.  It was clear that the trip wire was only meant to cover part of the tunnel.  The entrance to this new segment of tunnel was five feet across and the trip wire was only four.  Richter moved himself to the right until he reached the section where he wouldn’t risk triggering the trap and then carefully pulled himself up. 

Once he was standing again, he examined the trap.  Unfortunately, the wire ran into the wall of the tunnel through a small hole.  Richter stared at it.  There must be a hollow space behind the wall.  He remembered that the kobold Tri’yerin had said his people were masters of traps, but the time and dedication it would take to drill through solid rock to set this trap up was both impressive and disturbing.  Even the trip wire itself appeared to be the same color as the dirt floor it rested above.  If not for the red glow from his Trap Detect skill, Richter doubted he ever would have seen it.

Richter swallowed, fighting against the sandpaper feeling that now characterized his throat.  If this was only the first trap he had come across, how much more diabolical would they become?  Richter looked around for what would have been triggered if he had touched the trip wire, a fall of rocks, a series of spears, or maybe a giant buzz saw that only the penitent man could pass, but he didn’t see anything.  Part of him wanted to bash at the wall to see what was behind it, but it was a foolish risk.  What if he triggered the very trap he was trying to avoid?  In the end, Richter just kept walking and left the tripwire behind.  

The trail of the kobolds was easy to follow thanks to his new Tracking skill.  Over the next couple of hours, his path continued in a serpentine manner and he encountered no less than ten traps and dozens of tunnel offshoots.  Some of the traps were pressure plates and others were trip wires.  Twice, he came across small caverns with cleverly disguised deadfalls.   None of them offered him a retrievable mechanism unfortunately, and most seemed to trigger simple darts, rock falls or trap doors.  Richter didn’t have too hard of a time to detecting and avoiding most of the snares.  That was until he discovered one
after
he had triggered it.

Richter was in a room where three patches lit up red.  He was stepping around one of them when he realized that he was sinking.  Looking around frantically he saw that instead of solid ground, he was actually standing on a heavy tarp that matched the rest of the floor exactly.  The ends had been weighted down, so his own weight would only overcome the anchors when he was near the center of the trap.  Richter made a lunge, which only caused the tarp to drop faster, but he was able to get a hold of Futen.  The remnant’s levitating power was not enough to fully support his weight, but it was enough for him to high step back to solid ground. 

Richter dropped to his butt when he was safe and looked at the deep cavity that had almost claimed him.  A few wooden bars circled the periphery, giving more support for the tarp that had hid the trap.  He sidled up to the edge of pit and saw that it went down at least 50 feet.  The bottom was covered in sharp rocks.  The walls sloped inward like a cone so that the base was twice as wide as the opening.  A broken limb would have been likely and climbing back up, with that angle… well it would have been a bitch and a half to say the least! 

None of that seemed as important as the fact that it hadn’t lit red though!  Richter didn’t know if it didn’t qualify as a trap somehow or if it was just so masterfully concealed that his Pierce The Veil skill just wasn’t up to snuff.  Whatever the reason, he felt like his chances of getting out of the tunnels alive had just been cut in half.

He allowed himself a few moments to regain his cool after the near miss.  He couldn’t just keep sitting on his butt though and, before long, he was forcing himself back onto his feet.  He slowly shuffled around the pit and tested each patch of ground before fully committing his weight to it.  Once he was on the other side of the cavern he followed the tunnel that had the greatest density of foot traffic and continued further into the earth.

Richter maintained
Stealth
constantly while he was underground, with Futen several dozen yards ahead.   Alma remained comfortably nestled atop his shoulders.  Side tunnels had been appearing with greater frequency while he walked, some even leading straight up into the ceiling or down into the floor.  He remembered how Tri’yerin had told him kobolds often dug out side tunnels for the express purpose of trapping intruders, though.  He decided to keep following the kobold tracks, reasoning that at the very least he wouldn’t be led into a blind alley or some kind of death trap.

More and more tributaries sprouted off of the main tunnel and not all were small little rat holes.  The tunnel forked again and again and soon the amount of tracks was equal in both directions.  When that happened, Richter chose the path that took him in the direction of the Long Fang’s territory.  His journey took him deeper and further into the earth.  Richter was painfully aware that every step was a step further into enemy territory.  One truth dominated Richter’s life now, though.  The only way out, was through.

CHAPTER 17

For the next day, Richter walked down through the tunnels in relative solitude.  At one point, he heard a loud roar followed by a shrill scream of pain.  The tunnels played tricks with the echoes, and he couldn’t reliably say if the noises were closer than twenty feet or further than a mile.  He sheltered in recessed section of the tunnel wall with his cloak over him for long moments, hoping whatever it was didn’t come any closer.  When silence reigned for a long period, he resumed his journey. 

Now that he was deeper in the earth, Richter’s progress was greatly slowed by all of the traps and blind ends.  He had to backtrack over and over.  The only good news was that his Pierce the Veil skill went up two levels, and his Traps and Trap Disarm skills both went up one level.  Though he occasionally heard more skittering sounds, he didn’t see another soul for the entire first day.  Richter knew that his luck couldn’t last forever though, and he was right.  He was disabling a particularly difficult series of traps, all level fifteen and above, when he heard the barking language of the kobolds. 

He immediately had Futen turn invisible.   He couldn’t be sure that kobolds couldn’t see the light the remnant had been emitting, even though it was so faint.  Of course, without the remnant’s ambient light, he was blind despite his
Night Vision
spell.  At a quick order, Futen moved ahead to find the encroaching party and then report back.  Richter found the wall of the tunnel and edged back into a small crevice.  He maintained
Stealth
and his icon indicating his effectiveness remained a green, closed eye. 

Richter waited.  He wished that he could cast his buffs, but it would just draw too much attention in the pitch black tunnel.  Alma shifted on his shoulders.

*
We may have some trouble soon, love.  If I light up the space, attack!*
he told her.