Chapter 8: Dungeon Crawling, Looting and Magic Weapon
"Pies for breakfast? You could've asked me to conjure something to cook."
"The princesses are getting impatient about getting the elements, said they need it before Discord organize his forces to counter-attack," Asriel said, taking a bite of his pie as if it was a hamburger, "that is if he has an army, to begin with, but they don't want to take any chances."
"Probably he just animates some rocks to make a golem army or combine different creatures to make chimeras, who knows" I shrugged, bitting my own pie. "speaking of which, Moon Booty, did you get a hai- er manecut while we sleep? I have to say it doesn't suit well with your image of a princess unless you're going for a tomboyish look."
If looks can kill I would be dead several times over with how hard she glared at me but could she blame me? Well aside from being the one who gave her a 'mane cut'. Her mane is...how do I put this, the only way I can describe it is ragged, there are strands of her mane poking out here and there like bed hair but the tips of it are black, covered in soot black. There are traces of being burnt here in there on her coat, though with her dark color fur it's not that noticeable.
"Do not be so full of yourself, Demon," she sneered, not that I can take it seriously with that pie crust covered muzzle, seriously you have a universal stick lodged on your skull, use it to clean your mouth "I assure you it will be the last time you step on my domain."
I snorted, "as if you have complete control over the dreamscape, flash news princess, you're not the only one who can manipulate dreams," while I don't know how exactly I transport my consciousness to the dreamscape, it seems I have some sort of control over a dream, still need more research, probably the Journal has something on it, "if I remember there is a ritual to enter someone mind and since dreams are formed in mind it can be entered with the same ritual, albeit modified a bit."
While I don't know in-depth how the ritual actually works, I knew it can enter someone's mind but the show only limits it to the memory banks part of the mind. If I had to guess that part can be used as a medium to connect the mindscape to the dreamscape...realm or whatever Luna calls that place, I need something consistent regarding that place. Anyway, why the heck is sheohhellno-
"You can worry about that later, I'm the only one who knows how to do it so stop pointing your horn at me," should've shut my mouth about that ritual thing, I'm not too keen on finding out if my regeneration ability carries over to the real world.
Of course, being hotheaded she didn't heed my call until I pulled something rectangular from my inner pocket and flash her a challenging smirk, she reluctantly backed down and goes back to munching her pie but still glaring at me.
I noticed Nox glanced at me and shook his head in what seems to be a disappointment, "what am I going to do with you, Bill," he muttered.
"She attacked me first, it's only fair I defend myself," I said, stuffing the green card back, though I'm sure it's just a regular card, "sides' it was in the dreamscape so there's no harm at all, besides the obvious."
He doesn't look convinced and give me that 'we'll talk later' look, I rolled my eyes and went back to eating. We spent the remaining breakfast in silence.
"Huddle time everyone!"
Without a word, we, as in me and Asriel, dump the tinfoil warping to the still-lit, magic probably, fireplace and gather toward the chronomancer with the princesses and Gerindha following behind. Our little group formed a small circle, the displaced, except Chrysalis who perch on top of Nox's shoulder, on one side, and the locals on the other.
Without a word, I cast an illusion of a 3D cave map, colored accordingly depend on the depth. It was way different from the show where it's a straightforward way leading to the tree but when I cast 'Sonar' last night there is a whole maze underground, countless twists and turns, most can't be reached without climbing tools, a lot of branching paths and dead ends, not to mention the almost uncountable string thin ones littered along the way.
All and all the whole place looks like an ant colony nest on steroids.
While the way to the tree itself is a straight way, there's something blocking the way, a wide square chamber that's definitely wasn't formed naturally, there's something on the center of it but I'm not sure what it is, all my spell caught is a pile of something with jagged tip. From my experience playing tons of games, that room just screamed 'boss area' to me.
While I can see the reason behind putting a boss room to guard the tree and put only one way to go in and out of the chamber, I think whoever design it forgot to reinforce the room containing the tree, there are at least five almost paper-thin ways connecting the tree room with the rest of the cavern system, probably that's how Nox's little machine able to take a look at the tree.
Now that I think about it, we could hypothetical, dig our self a hole leading straight to the Tree of Harmony, if we can avoid causing a cave-in.
"That's larger than I expected," said Asriel now in adult form, "and complicated too, its gonna be a hassle walking down there."
Nox chuckled, "trust me, walking is going to be the least problem here," with several beep-beep noises from his mask, he projected a round screen from his palm, it shows a small bipedal creature the size of a child holding a makeshift club, it has green skin and the only garb it wore is a small patch of dirty brown cloth covering its crotch. While it's hard to make out the detail of the creature's face I can clearly see its pointed ears and a pair of fangs jutting out from its mouth.
'It's a goblin,' I concluded, scratching my chin, while it's common to see the small green creature appears in fantasy stories, I wasn't expecting them to exist in this world, the only creatures resembling humanoid are the minotaurs, 'but how can they be here? The show didn't have any clue or sign about the-'
My thought was cut as a section of the ground in front of the goblin opens up and a fucking spider the size of a car comes out, one of its legs lash out and pierce the goblin's gut with ease, the green creature let out a gurgle of blood before getting dragged down the hole.
There's a moment of silence, most of our group stared at the screen with a mix of horror, the locals, bewilderment, clearly seen on Asriel's face, and surprised, though that last one is mostly mine.
I lean toward the goat monster and whisper "Think you can light the whole cave on fire?"
He gives me a deadpan stare, "If I can the whole place would've been on fire already."
"There are other creatures than giant spider and goblin in that cave, slimes, golems, giant bats, and insects, just to name a few. And if I'm not wrong one of those chambers is a hydra nest" Nox listed, dispelling the screen. "The deeper we go the more dangerous it will be, I can search for a safer route it will take some time."
"...a Dungeon," someone muttered beside me.
I took a glance, it was Gerindah, her eyes glued to the illusion I cast. A dungeon? Like one of those areas filled with monsters and loot? Huh, this is getting way different than an ordinary Equestria, probably something that was affected by us being here.
Didn't the Wakfu animated series base on an RPG game with the same name? Probably that explains the existence of dungeon but it still doesn't explain why such creatures would exist here, well there are some monsters that resemble slimes, golems, and insects, but goblins? The closest World of Twelve has to them is Ogrest but he is more close to Ogre both in name and appearance.
But why asking a question to myself? I made a deal with Gerindha after all, it would be a waste not to use it.
"A dungeon?" I asked, "mind telling use non-local what actually it is? I had a feeling we're not talking about the same thing"
She startled at the sudden attention, "I-its an u-underground area with a core that attracts m-monster, it takes s-some of their magic and p-provide anything they n-need to build nest and b-breed. S-s-sometimes certain plants and m-mineral can only be f-found inside it."
"So the whole place is basically a monster nest," Asriel concluded.
"Aren't you a monster yourself?" The sun princess asked with genuine confusion, "you claim to be the prince of monsters, such knowledge should be common amongst your kin."
The Monster shook his head, "nope, like dungeons, our definition of monsters is different from yours, to us Monster is just the name of a species, like ponies and dragons, rather than the bloodthirsty beasts you seems to be familiar with." he clarifies, "say, when you killed a monster what happens to the body?"
"It would rot like any others," she answered, "it would decay much faster if their magic core is taken."
Magic core? Maybe the journal has something on them, there might be a bestiary section I haven't look into.
"That's another difference, us Monster is similar to spirits, both of us are made out of magic except we Monster is more 'solid' than them. If I were to be killed, my body would turn into ashes, and rather than this 'magic core' we have souls to keep us together."
"Speaking of monster," I suddenly cut in, "Nox, are you sure there isn't any other way to the Tree without running into them?"
"That's impossible, the whole place is crawling with them," he sighed and shrugged, "There are tunnels all around the cave but it only fit enough for my Noxin to move around, other than that I can look for a safer way with less monster."
"That is unacceptable," Luna butted in, her horn flashes once and my hologram now has a purple color on one of the more direct ways toward the Tree, "if the demon words are to be trusted, these artifacts could stop Discord before his power corrupt more of our land, we could not waste any more time."
"While I see your reasoning, the way you choose is the 'main road' of the Dungeon, the monster there is more powerful than any other area and also higher in quantity." his hand once more projected a screen now showing a cave swarming with monsters, from oversized bugs to more 'common' type of monster in a fantasy world like orcs and...'is that a hydra?', "while I have no doubt about your skill, there are some of us that are less than capable of handling our self," no doubt referring to his daughter and the griffoness.
"Splinting up is out of the question," I added, gesturing to the wide crater I made yesterday, "there's a chance our scuffle attracts some bigger monster, who knows what will comes after us."
"Bill, don't you have any spell for a barrier or something?" Asriel asked.
"I can cast Bubble Shield and Barrier but I'm not sure that would be enough. Sun Butt, Moon Booty, got any defensive spell?"
"Why You-" "Yes, I am quite proficient on that," Celestia cut her sister off, sending her a look, "as you said it your self, Luna, we can't afford to waste any more time so I suggest we listen to him."
Huh never thought she would take my side, I guess Discord is being more of a trouble than I expected, or maybe Luna told her what happens in the dreamscape, either way, works for me.
"Excellent then, Celly you're on guard duty, I trust you can protect both Chrysalis and Gerindha?" she nodded in response, "good, now I have a rough plan so if you got a complaint then speak up, so everyone pays attention," they did so, Nox dispelled his screen once more and backed off, giving me a little bit of breathing room. With a hand gesture, the map replaced by 7 color-coded dots, 5 of them formed a circular shape while the rest is in the middle, "since I assume you princesses don't trust us enough to watch your back I'll put you both on the back, all you got to do is make sure the monster doesn't flank us, understand?"
They both nodded, I let out a low sigh, glad both of them cooperating, I half expected Luna to complain about why am I the one giving out orders but I guess she can read the situation.
"Now for the three of us, we're going with the usual three-member party strat," my brothers' perks up at the familiar term, "Nox, seeing you can form a strong barrier you'll be Tanker, Asriel you're on DPS role, I'll cast some buff spells and support from behind."
The time wizard nodded while the Monster raises a hand, I made a 'go on' gesture for him to speak up, "why aren't you the attacker, wouldn't it be much faster if you throw some spells from afar?"
I point a thumb toward the crater and raised an eyebrow.
"...right, forget I asked that."
I rolled my eye, "Anyway, now on to Chrysalis, since you're still a nymph," I ignored a shout of 'hey! ' "and I doubt you have any combat experience, you'll be sticking with Gerindah in the middle and sit tight, got it?" she pouted but nodded nonetheless. My eyes then landed on our newest party member, "I assume you can at least defend yourself?"
"Y-yes, I can cast a few s-spells."
"That's good enough I guess, now let's decide which route we're going to take, in favor of taking the shorter route say 'aye', if not say 'nay'."
As expected Luna voted with 'aye' without hesitation followed by Celestia shortly. My brothers and Gerindha voted with 'nay' which earned them an ire look from the night princess.
"Two against three, we're taking the more saver route," I said with a tone of finality, "Nox, how much time do you need to scout around for another way?"
"Perhaps five to ten minutes," the Xelor answered."
"Alright you heard the man, everyone gets prepare we're leaving at a moment's notice."
With the strategy meeting done, I dispelled the illusion and everyone dispersed to make themselves ready.
Since I can't throw spells carelessly without causing a cave-in, I focussed on some more defensive and support spells, maybe practice on how to control my magic output while I'm at it.
Hopefully, everything is going smoothly.
"Ew, this place stinks."
"We're in a monster nest, Chrissy, being messy is normal for them."
"Ahem."
"Well, present company excluded."
A quick glance to the ground illuminated by orbs of light circling our group, I could understand why the Changeling nymph couldn't handle the smell, aside from the wet, damp, and dank usual characteristic of an ordinary cave, a good portion of it is littered with bones and rotting carcasses of different size creatures, though I suspect those aren't the reason why the whole cave smell like a sewer.
When we entered a rather large part of the cave, the ground here is a little bit...brown and wetter, I thought it was normal but that was before the smell hit us. Turns out the tunnel Nox choose is a dumping ground of some sort and not just 'leftover prey' or trash type of dump.
'It's shit.'
There's no other way to put it, the ground is simply a layer of monster droppings mixed with other types of excrement, I wasn't expecting my first dungeon-crawling experience to be walking knee-deep in monster dung. In most comic and manga I've read, every place that fit the description of 'dungeon' has this picture of a normal cave filled with monsters, while there are some bones scattered around but it wasn't this bad.
This poses no problem for 3 of our member that has wings, though Chrysalis is too young to use her wing however she's light enough to be carried by Gerindha without too much trouble, and could easily fly with how tall the ceiling is. As for the rest? We have to improvise.
Nox clearly has the ability to fly as seen in the show when he fought Grougaloragran, an ancient dragon from another planet, but I guess he hasn't figured out how yet. As for Asriel? The only time he ever 'flies' is on the final battle and that is questionable since the whole stage is taken place in 'between the timelines' which is an endless black void with no hard ground.
For me, I can easily 'willed' myself to fly by using Chaos Magic or cast 'Flight' but without any prior training, I'm not too keen on slamming my face against the wall or crashlanded face-first on the dung covered ground. So instead of flying over it, I made a small moving hexagonal platform for us to stand on by using 'Barrier' spell and command it to go forward.
Unfortunately, while I maintaining the movement of both the see-through platform and the light orbs, I can't cast another spell without breaking my concentration, fortunately, we haven't encountered any monster yet.
"Be on your guard," Nox alerted, his sword pointed at something far ahead in the darkness, "five goblins ahead, none of them has ranged weapons."
Whoops, jinxed it.
With a wave of my finger, I sent one of the orbs down the dark cavern lighting up the way ahead. Not far ahead a group of green-skinned creatures crouched around a half-eaten rib of...something, all gnawing on it like a pack of hyena. Before they could react to the sudden change of brightness, Asriel summoned his Chaos Sabers and flung them toward the goblins, the sabers then dissolves into multiples sparks, raining down on the monster.
You know, the game never actually shows how the attack damaged the player other than lowering the player's health and the usual 5-second-invincibility-blink, there's no blood or gruesome animation since the whole battle part has only shown the player's 'soul', but here? Those 'sparks' aren't just 2-dimensional sprites pictured on a screen.
Like a bullet, the sparks tore the goblins apart as if they were made of wet paper, chunks of flesh here, dismemberment there. It was as if someone fires a machine gun with mini saw blades as ammunition. The green-skinned creatures died in an instant, their body seems like they just got put through a grinder.
"Bullseye!" Asriel exclaimed with a fist pump. I have to admit, with this much distance hitting those goblins would be hard, then again most of those sparks did miss the target.
"That was awesome uncle Asriel!" a childish voice cheered, I took a glance behind and saw the changeling's eyes sparkled in awe, her ride, however, has a different thought with how green she's, thankfully she didn't falter.
'Strange, shouldn't the griffins be considered predators? A little bit of blood shouldn't bother her that much right?' I mentally shrugged, disregarding the thought. While it seems gross I don't actually feel anything other than a slight discomfort, similar to when one would find a squished bug under their hand.
Probably some side effect of being displaced I guess.
"Stop," Nox said suddenly, his hand pointing to a hole in the wall surrounded by stalactites, if he didn't point it out I would've missed it, "through here, there are a few monsters so be careful."
Finally some action, I thought we'll be just walking around avoiding monsters.
Nox pulled his Dial Clock Sword from his back, testing it with a few swings, and summoned the Eliacube in the other hand. Fireballs popped out of thin air and circled around Asriel, a pair of freshly conjured Chaos Saber in his hands. As for me, I open the Journal right at the beginning of the support spell section, note to myself, look for another weapon aside from a cane-sword, maybe a staff or wand.
Before I can send in an orb of light in, the clock wizard jumped off and landed on the hard, definitely not dung, ground, and stabbed his sword down, he brought both of his hands forward and charged the Cube, both hands made an upside-down 'ok' symbol with both the tip of the thumb and index fingers connected causing a wave of blue light washed the surrounding, in the shadow I can briefly see silhouettes of various monsters.
With a simple hand wave, I sent down a few light orbs to illuminate the area, a hand full of goblins, some of them are tall as a human adult, hob-goblin I remembered, standing still mid-motion as if time has frozen surrounded the chronomancer.
While it seems it would be an easy group of mobs to deal with, these goblins and hobgoblins are more equipped although judging by their condition I guess they scavenged it from some sort of ruin. Most of them wore some kind of resemblance of armor made out of leather and metal, half of a shoulder pauldron here, a chest plate full of cracks there. Their weapon also looks like they could break at any moment, broken swords, dull axes, chipped blades, half of a spear, and other types of weapon in severe lack of maintenance.
Asriel waste no time jumping off from the platform and began cutting down the green-skins, his moves are mostly erratic and half the time he swings blindly but with the monster stood still there's no need to dodge or deflect, added the fact his sabers sharpness is out of this world, any kind of protection the monster have means nothing. Nox followed soon after and unlike Asriel, the Xelor swings his sword without any excessive movement, each time he swung it cut clean through the goblins as if they were made out of paper.
I, as a support mage, stayed back on the platform, watching my brothers made short work out of the monster. To be honest I would rather jump in and take part in the action but with how little control I have over my power, I cant cast offensive spells without putting others in danger, even with these inhibitors.
Taking a look at the journal, I idly skimmed through the pages, finding a suitable support spell to use, just as I was about to cast 'Haste' Gerinda landed beside me with a squawk, her brow is dotted with sweat tears, as her passenger is buzzing her wings in sheer joy, or at least that's what I thought with how sparkly her eyes are.
Should I be worried about her in awe of how good Nox is at killing?
...Nah, that's Nox's problem, if she grew up to be a tyrant that's on him.
Besides, this world isn't the same as in the show, as far as I know, this place is where life can be taken easily with all the monsters roaming around so there's no harm teaching her how to defend herself. Not every problem can be solved with the power of friendship and rainbows with crap tons of glitter.
While on that topic I wonder how Gerindha handles herself in combat, as a griffon I assume she can handle close quarter combat but with her only weapon is a staff I guess she's more adept in magic unless she has a hidden knife tucked somewhere under her feather since I found nothing of sort when I strip her off.
That came out a bit weird, which is out of context since I use magic to remove her things.
She's clearly proficient enough to cast some healing spell making her a White Mage but her species as a predator that relies more on their physical traits would make her a Brawler Mage, a type of mage that can enhance their strength and favor hand to hand combat rather than cast spells.
I take a glance at Gerindha, looking for any sign of muscle on her rather thin body for a griffon which is hard to do because most part of her body is covered in fur and feathers. The only part I can clearly see is her front legs, there is certainly a small amount of muscle but- oh who am I kidding, those are chicken legs, no other way to put it.
"You, alright?" I asked the griffons.
She nodded, "y-yes, a little bit tired, but I-I can manage," she said, gasping for air in between sentences.
"Listen, if you need to rest, tell us ok?" I told her, "it would be bothersome if you got caught by an ambush, you're carrying a VIP here."
There was a snort as Luna landed near us, "and here I thought you have some shred of empathy but you just acted in your own interest, typical of you demons."
"Oh really? And who suggested us to take the most dangerous way, knowing we have a non-combatant in our group?" I shot back with a light glare, "and I have a name you know, use it, meatbag."
Huh, I just realized, I never address someone as 'meatbag' since I got transported, but I got to say it rolled off the tongue rather easily. Luna glares back and I return it twice as hard, if this was caught on camera there would be one of those lightning effects between us.
"KIIIIEEEEEK!!!"
A loud shriek broke our staring contest, I look past the pile of bodies littering the cave just in time as the last hobgoblin hit the ground, his arm followed shortly after a couple of feet away, the green-skin tries to crawl away with its remaining arm but a blade through its chest puts an end to it.
"That's the last of them," Nox stated, pulling his sword from the hobgoblin and giving it a swing to flick the blood away, "hopefully that won't attract any more monster, Asriel, any trouble with yours?"
The Monster in question stepped away from the recently beheaded goblin, avoiding the bloody fountain spray, and dismissed his Chaos Saber in a blur, "against these guys? Nah, they aren't that much of a challenge," he lightly kicks one of the still intact corpses aside, "besides, these guys are mob monster, canon fodders at best, there's no way something like this I can't handle."
With the area cleared of monsters, save for one, the rest of us entered the hole. I jump down, dispelled the translucent platform once I touched the ground, and inspect one of the goblin's corpses, there's a huge gash on its chest and which has stopped bleeding. Picking up one of the many blades on the ground, I poke and prod the wound, trying to find where its magic core is, once I hit the spot where its heart should be I felt something hard, a bit of wiggling and prying the mysterious object popped out from the monster's chest.
It was a round thing no bigger than a marble and looks similar to gemstone or crystals with its rough edges, the surface shines as it emits a soft white blueish glow. Picking it up I can feel something radiating from it, there's warmth but it wasn't just that, there is something I can't quite describe, probably magic.
If this were a common Isekai manga, this would be an equivalent of a power source used for different purposes depending on how much magical power it contains, ranging from common AA batteries to nuclear power plants.
Though that might be a stretch, however, there are some mangas that have beings with the title like 'Eater of World' or 'World Destroyer' so who knows, I might be right.
In any case, I can see this can be useful in the near future, whether it be a power source for a tool or sell it for bits, heck maybe I can use it for others things.
Now that I mention it, I could probably make some sort of staff that use these cores rather than my own magic to keep the spell from overcharging and possibly misfired, but then again there might be something that can use as a filter or power adjustment more efficient and easier to use compared to my shackles.
So much to do with so little time and this is not the right place to do it, right now I should focus on getting as much magic core as I can. I snap a finger, conjuring a rather sharp but simple dagger the size of a kitchen knife and a brown pouch.
Placing the magic core inside the pouch, I walk toward the other goblin corpse, this one missing its head, with the dagger tip resting on its chest I began to cut it open, tearing away the flesh as if it was wet paper.
Or at least that's what suppose to happen before a single thought passed my mind.
'Why should I do it?'
Well I mean besides the obvious, but why should I do the physical work of gutting it open and collect the magic core from the still-warm corpse. Sure, I can snap my finger to cut it open with magic and clean the core but I think this isn't just a one-time thing, who knows what happens if I left behind a body that has been exposed to Chaos Magic.
Plus, the thought of getting blood on my clothes doesn't sit well with me.
I open the Journal, hoping to find some sort of spell that can automatically process the goblin's corpse. If this was one of those 'a main character transported to another world as a Gamer' stories there would be a skill or ability named 'Dismantle' or something like that to somehow able to skin, butcher, and debone whatever animal or monster they killed.
Then again, it could be the author decided it wasn't worth the time to put the whole scene in.
Before I knew it, I had reached the end of the Journal spell part, and not once I found a spell that can be used, well there are some spells to cut things like 'Wind Slash' or 'Aqua Disk', I was tempted to just cast it and see if that would work but with my current condition, this place would be one big grave for us all.
I could ask one of my brothers to do it for me like, you know, a little brother would do, they don't seem to mind the blood while they're chopping the monster left and right but since they're our main frontline I don't think it would be a wise to leave a hole in our formation. The same thing goes for the princesses though I suspect they wouldn't even consider getting their hooves dirty with blood, although judging from the way they carried themself I guess they aren't stranger to roughhousing.
So that leaves me with the griffoness, which is actually a reasonable thing since she's a former bandit and a predator so it would make sense if she can skin and process her prey with just her claws alone. Besides, I got her under a deal so I might be able to change it up a bit, I'm sure she wouldn't mind a few extra works.
"Oi, Gerindha!"
Five minutes later all of the corpses are missing their core and she didn't even use the knife I gave her.
Dungeon crawl, a term that usually used to describe when a fantasy-themed roleplaying game has a scenario where the player is exploring a labyrinth or some kind of ancient ruin most often than not underground with monsters lurking and crawling on every corner, avoiding hidden traps which can end someone in a painful way and most importantly-
"Dad, Dad, look! There a lot of shiny gems in here!"
Plundering whatever treasure or valuable object inside the dungeon.
Not far from our last encounter we came across whats looks like a large open space with what seems to be a small encampment, makeshift tents made out of pelts from various different creatures are set up around a giant fireplace. There wasn't much interesting stuff at first glance, a few drying racks with questionable meats hanging off of them, a pile of weapons and armors in poor condition, and discarded bones littered the ground.
The princesses suspected it might be a post of some kind that was used by the goblins, which turns out to be a pretty common thing in a Dungeon with multiple species of monster considering most of them are pretty territorial and it is clear that we're in their territory.
Nox suggested we use this for a temporary resting place, which after a thorough searched by the princesses using a rather useful spell to detect any form of lifeform, we all agree on.
While Asriel and the princess duo gather anything that looks flammable and start a fire, Nox, Crysalis, Gerindha, and I began searching the tents for something useful which isn't much, so far we only found some tools made out of bones and rock, a couple of black rocks which turns out to be flint, a rack full of dried herbs and makeshift ropes.
That is until we look inside the biggest tent.
The first thing that catches our eyes is a throne made out of bones and skulls, it might be more imposing if it isn't the size of a kiddie stool, besides it is rather large, compared to the bone throne, wooden chest with a metal frame and locking mechanism securing the loot inside it. I was going to search for a spell to open it but Nox beat me to it, a jab and a twist, the wooden container showed us its content.
True to the young changeling's words it's filled with precious gems such rubies, emeralds, diamonds, topazes, and other shiny gems that I couldn't remember the name, not only that, there's a good amount of gold coins, or should I say bits, sprinkled among the shiny rocks
This, of course, raised more questions regarding this world, where do the goblins obtain this? Why did they collect them? Is there some sort of economic value to them? Maybe they use this as some sort of currency? But that would mean there's some sort of civilization down here.
"This doesn't make any sense," I muttered to myself but still loud enough for others to hear.
"What was that uncle Bill?" asked the little changeling.
I wave my hand in a dismissive gesture, "don't worry about it, I was just talking to myself," picking up one of the gold coins, I inspect it closer, "I was wondering why monsters had these, I suspected it holds some kind of value to them but from what I see, they're as smart as animals."
Taking a closer look, these coins couldn't be possibly made by these goblins, it is way too detailed for a creature like them to make, on one side there's a carving depicting a side-way view of Celestia with her cutie mark, the same goes for the other side but with Luna.
"..uh..um..." Gerindha began shakily, "I-its just a theory, b-b-but there are scholars that speculate it was a-a sign of s-s-strength, s-similar to that of d-dragons."
Despite her stuttering almost made it hard to understand, it actually made sense why the monster hoarding things like dragons. If I remember what the Journal said about those fire-breathing winged lizards, one way to gauge how strong a dragon is is to simply look at its hoard, the bigger the pile means the more powerful the dragon is.
But that leaves another question behind, are dragons considered to be monsters or it's simply the monsters who imitate dragons' behavior? If I had to guess its probably the latter, the Journal stated the dragons are sentient creature so that removed them from the 'dumb beasts' group.
As for where they got the coins? Well, let's just say we're not the first who explore this cave and leave it at that.
"Hmm, we should take this with us," Nox suggested, closing the chest with a loud clack, "it might be worth some money if we're planning to go to a town, Bill can you carry it?"
I stared at him with a raised eyebrow, after pocketing the gold coin I snapped my fingers, and immediately the ground under the chest began to ripple and began to rapidly sink as if the wet dirt has been replaced by a patch of quicksand.
"You do realize I have something similar to an 'Inventory' right?" I asked dryly.
"I think a hammerspace would be more fitting since none of us have the system," he answers back dismissively and stood up, "if you aren't done taking everything that isn't nailed down, I'll be waiting with the other. Come on Chrysalis, I think Asriel is preparing those pies if my nose isn't wrong."
She let out a little cheer, following her father closely with a skip on her step, "oh, oh, can I have the blueberry one? Princess Luna took all of them before I tried it."
Whatever Nox's answer goes unheard as his voice grew faint, still I could help but felt ticked off hearing his little jab, I'm not going to take everything I can from this dump, most of it is considered trash in my book, sure I might take a few things that seem useful but I'm not going to take a whole pile of flint rock, I'm not a hoarder for Chaos sake.
Letting out a huff of air, I look around the tent once more and the only thing that worth noting is a short, single-edged sword resting on a meat rack off to the side, actually calling it a sword might be inaccurate, a machete is more fitting. I pick it up by its leather handle and immediately felt there's it is something more than a 'rusted piece of metal'.
Looking closer at the rust and dried blood-covered blade, there are vague traces of lines near the blunt side, grabbing a nearby rock I began to scrub the filth off so I can take a better look. At first, I thought it was some kind of decorative carving but what stuck out the most is how diverse the patterns are and each of them is separated by symbols of some sort.
For all I know, this carving could be a script of some sort, written in a different language I haven't see. I was about to open the Journal and crossreference it but another thought crossed my mind.
"Oi Gerindha, c'mere for a sec, got something to show you," with a squeak, she walked toward me and glancing toward the machete I'm holding with warry, her big eyes make it easy to read her. I offered her the rusty weapon handle first, "there's something on its side, got any idea what it is?"
The griffoness carefully takes the machete, but once her talons touch its handle she let out a small gasp and suddenly yanked it out of my grasp. Gone was the timid eyes look, replaced by sharp-edged observing pupils, inspecting every single inch of the blade. She ran a talon over the carving and picking off any filth covering it.
I look over her...erm where the shoulder should be to get a better look at what she is doing, "so?" I question her.
Without taking her eyes off the machete, she replies "I'm not sure what it says, I've never seen writings such as these before but some of these, I recognize it. See this one here," she taps one particular 8-pointed star symbol, "it means 'magic' in unicorns tongue, and this one," this time she circles her talons around the chicken scratch pattern part, "is a statement written in my language, that is the griffins language, which says 'to cut'."
While her explanation gave me a rough clue to what the machete actually is, the only thing that came across my mind is, 'who is this and what did you do to Gerindha?'
It was as if a switch has been flipped in her mind, there isn't even a trace of the timid and meek griffoness, even her speech is different, don't get me wrong, its a good thing since I don't have to decipher whatever coming out of her mouth with all of the stutterings.
Still a bit unnerving in my opinion.
Anyway, back to the machete, based on what she's saying I guess it's some sort of magic weapon, enchanted with some kind of spell to cut everything. However, I had a feeling there's something more than that, there are more patterns, which are actually letters in another language, etched on it.
"So it's an enchanted weapon," I voiced my thought, "got any idea on what it actually does other that, y'know, cut things like an ordinary machete?"
She let out a hum and flip it around, looking at it from every angle, "there's more enchantment written in different languages," she answered, confirming my doubt, "usually something like this requires more power than the ambient magic alone to activate it, be it from the one who wields it or, ah here it is," at the bottom of the pommel is a hole big enough for my pinkie finger to fit inside.
"Or a magic core," I finished, pulling out the brown pouch containing the cores from earlier out of my inner pocket.
Taking a core out, I handed it to the griffoness which in turn insert it into the slot, with a click the core fit perfectly inside. There was a faint humming sound as the writing began to glow a soft bright yellow-ish light, shortly after that the weapon began to vibrate.
Gerindha let out a gasp of surprise and drop the machete as it began to shakes harder, imagine our surprise seeing the rust and blood-covered blade sink half of its length into the dirt. Then as if the rust was somehow magically changed to water it began to 'trickle' down the blade.
The both of was silent trough out the whole process, after a minute or two it gave a final shudder as the last speck of rust falls off, seeing the griffoness stares at the machete as if it would suddenly bite her I simply went and pulled it-"whoa!"
Turns out, it didn't take much to pull it off.
Thankfully I didn't fall on my butt like an idiot and managed to get my balance on my feet.
The once filth-covered blade is now clean without a single stain on it, not only that it looks like it was freshly polished with how shiny it is, I can even look at my reflection on it. Giving it a few test swings, I can tell it's properly balanced and the leather grip is quite comfortable. As for how sharp it is, I test it against the meat rack and it felt like I just take a swipe at the air, granted it was made out of wood, and in bad condition, so I couldn't actually tell how effective it will be in combat.
Oh well, I could just test it on some unfortunate monster that we'll meet later, for now, I think Asriel finished heating up the pies.
With Gerindha in tow, we walk back to the center of the camp where I could hear the fire crackling, she seems interested in the magic weapon so I might lend it to her later.
During the break, there wasn't anything much to talk about other than Luna occasionally jabs at me with her sharp tongue which I responded back kindly with my own and my brothers asking me what did I found.
I showed the machete and pass it around our little group, bar Chrysalis which made her pout, so everyone can take a closer look, I asked Celestia if she can read the writing on it, and surprise-surprise, she could.
Probably the perks of being royalty I guess.
Turns out it was written in 4 different languages which are griffon, minotaur, unicorn, and surprisingly, dragon languages. Each language gives a different kind of enchantments on it, with the exception of unicorn's.
I'm sure there's a proper noun for each language but at the time I was too busy stuffing my self so I only heard the snippet of her explanation.
The first enchantment was written in minotaurs which roughly translated to 'return to the origin', Celestia explained it was an archaic version of a self-repair enchantment but an effective one, the next is in griffons language which is a sharpening enchantment hence 'to cut' statement.
Those first two are fairly common enchantments found in weapons, the ability to keep it tip-top shape is more than useful and cost-effective since it doesn't need much maintenance, but the last one? Completely out of the picture.
Turns out there are only a handful of spells and enchantments wrote using dragon language because who needs it when you can crush an entire building, have the ability to fly, and breathe fire. And because it was created using their language, whoever created it assumes only their kin would use it because it consumes a lot of magic, something other races are lacking, thus no one has ever used it, well aside from the winged lizard themself.
Fortunately, the enchantment that was written on the machete was on the low tiered side so it only needs a small amount of magic to activate it, said enchantment was roughly translated to 'set aflame'.
In short, I now have a flaming machete, pretty cool huh?
As for the unicorn language, it doesn't have any notable effect on the surface but it acts as a universal adaptor for each language so the three enchantment works as intended.
After an hour or so of break, we continued going in deeper this time a little bit more on edge than before, with the knowledge we're deep in goblin territory everyone didn't utter a single word or make idle conversation ever since we left the camp. Nox told us we're past the halfway mark and should reach our destination in another hour or two if we didn't encounter any more monsters.
We had all of our eyes wide open in case any goblin tried to ambush us, Nox has a firm grip on his Dial Sword and Asriel has summoned both of his Chaos Saber and a couple of fireballs. I had my left-hand thumb marked the support spell section of the Journal and the enchanted machete on my right hand.
The locals were also on alert, both princesses had their horns charged up ready to fire spells at a moment's notice and Gerindha flapped her wings once in a while, favoring flight rather than fight since having a passenger would weigh her down when fighting.
So far we hadn't seen a single goblin or any other monster but I had this feeling in my gut that we're being watched, that feeling became tenfold as the ground around us begin to quake. I unconsciously stepped back as the shakes began to pick up the pace.
Seeing the ceiling can collapse on us any second, I used the machete as an impromptu wand and rais it up, "Barier!" a hexagonal translucent wall protected us just in time before any of us got crushed.
This continued for a few minutes, fortunately, whatever causing the shakes stopped before we got buried alive.
"What the hell was that?" asked Asriel, breaking the silence, "Nox, you sure there isn't anything above or below us? Don't tell me we're right under a hydra nest."
The time mage shook his head in a negative way, "no, I don't think so" he answered, summoning the Eliacube with one hand, "I think we should move quickly, whatever it was could come again so-"
*C-c-crack*
We all snapped our attention toward the source of the sharp sound, a part of the cave ground in front of us cracked as if something is forcing its way into the tunnel, I can sense everyone are holding their breath as the ground split open and five black tentacles arose, whipping back and forth as if looking for something, turns out that 'something' is us as the tentacle stop and 'stare' at us.
Then the quakes began again, this time stronger and closer, the ground around the tentacles began to bulges as if something big is coming, and with a loud thump it erupted, sending dust and rocks up that fills up the cave.
Thankfully we're far enough so the bigger debris didn't hit us but the dust dampened our vision a bit, Asriel doubled the number of his fireballs and held one of his sabers backward. Nox holstered the Dial Sword in favor of using the Eliacube, both of his hands already in a gesture, ready to halt time at a moment's notice. I simply flicked the Journal open, Haste, Penetration, Streght, and Sharp Reflex buff spell are wide open to read and cast.
As the dust settles, we can see something moving, slithering to be more accurate, up from the hole. The first thing that came up to my mind was it was big, actually calling it big would be an understatement, it might take four or five adults to completely encircle it with their arms.
The second thing is it was covered in brown scales but not completely as there are some pink spots missing its cover, the most prominent is a giant gash mark on its side. I followed the wall of scales up, and up and up, until I had to bend backward to see its head.
I have to say, I think we're getting either a juiced-up version of creatures from the show or a completely different package of monster, no it wasn't some kind of land serpent, a hybrid of dragon and snake or god forbid giant basilisk with petrifying gaze because we would be statues the moment we stare at its six eyes, each filled with hunger predatory intent.
No, wait, five eyes since one of them has a cut mark across it.
Still didn't make it any less frightening as the tatzlwurm bare its tripartite jaws, showing rows upon rows of fangs ready to shred any unfortunate prey it manages to catch. The dark scales covering the head are also battered up similar to the rest of its body showing how many battles it has been through, and probably won, the same thing can be said for its grey mane.
None of us or the giant monster worm moved an inch or make any sound, other than the dripping saliva, the tension in the air is so thick you could cut it and serve it as a meal. As if there's an unseen sign for us, the tatzlwurm reared its ugly head back and let out an ear-piercing screech, it's five tentacle-tongue whipping back and forth like they're possessed.
With its jaws wide open, the huge worm lunges with an intent to swallow us whole.
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Glad to have you back for now.
10902840
Whoops, forgot to change its name, sorry about that!
The story is good so far ..... please keep writing.
Glad that you're back, read this story a while back and always hoped that it would return. Best of luck with real-life stuff.
As for grammar errors, I did see some but not many that made the story unreadable. So I'd say that you're doing a good job with this fic.
Though if I can make one complain, I'm hoping that the brothers will keep a friendly relationship with Celestia and Luna, or at least something that will make the sisters trust them more. Maybe there could be another chapter within the dreamscape and Luna visits Asriel and sees his memories with Chara, for example.
Would you like some beans in these trying times
Is there gonna be more? Just wondering.