The Runesmith

“How does it look?”

“Nae guid, laddie.”

(Not good, boy)

Dalrak answered Roland while hitting the collapsed passageway with a pickaxe that he grabbed from the ground. He was a dwarf so he knew a bit about living underground and in caves.

“It's gonnae tak' us at leest a day tae clear thes it ur moor.”

(It's going to take us at least a day to clear this, or more)

The tunnel that they came from was in shambles. Dalrak also mentioned that he was unsure how deep it had collapsed in there, they could very well have to spend days digging themselves out. This wasn’t the biggest issue though as the real problem were the ant monsters that could come from any of the other tunnels that connected to this larger cavern.

The area they were staying in had about fifty meters in diameter and three meters in height. There were four tunnels connecting to it and they branched out into more. Some were dead ends and some led to places like this one. They had two options, either digging themselves out in hopes that the passage that they previously took didn’t collapse in any other section. The other one was going through the tunnels that connected to another exit.

“I don’t like this, they never mentioned that this place suffered from earthquakes.”

Roland voiced his opinion while the rest of the party gathered. Everyone was on high alert the elf was standing closer to one of the corridors and was listening for any approaching monsters.

“You think it was something else?”

Orson asked while kicking a rock that tumbled down the rocky cavern. It produced a small echo that traveled through the large open space.

“Not sure, could have been one of the other teams fighting the ant monsters under or above that corridor.”

He gave his opinion. Maybe the other teams were fighting strong foes and used some explosive magic to get away. Things like spell scrolls were common enough and the party with tier 2 adventurers could have had some tier 3 ones with them.

“Aren’t ants good at digging? Maybe they just dug under that tunnel?”

The half-gnome girl chimed in, this was also a possibility. That didn’t explain the loud sound before the tunnel collapsed though.

“Either way, we need to get out of this shit hole.”

Orson proclaimed while removing some blood from his large sword. He was finally able to swing it around in this larger cave.

“No use staying here, as the mage said, we just need to follow the map to the exit.”

“Hey! His name isn’t mage, it’s Roland!”

Helci shouted out at Orson who flinched a bit, but he quickly recovered while looking maddened. Roland was surprised by the girl’s short outburst but he just nodded at her as a thank you. The half gnome was bashful about the gesture as she turned her head to the side while blushing slightly.

“Whatever...”

“The ants aren’t posing a problem yet, we could try moving forward. There is also the possibility of them swarming us from all those tunnels if we wait here.”

Said Roland while the party continued to discuss the situation. Finally, they all agreed that waiting here and digging would probably not be the best option. The ants could endlessly continue swarming them from all directions if they stayed too long in one spot. They could also dig more tunnels and come from below or from above.

Roland placed the map on the ground and looked at it along with Selanar and Helci. The girl was eager to learn some map reading and she was also interested in the conversation the two were having.

“We are here, the collapsed tunnel that we came from is here.”

He had something akin to red crayon with him as well as a pencil to scribble on the map.

“The closest exit should be here…”

He marked their destination on the map, by the length of the tunnels he could tell that it would probably take some time to get there.

“We could probably take a break here at this junction that connects to more tunnels, it's about the same size as this cavern…”

The two warriors from the group didn’t care much about what Roland and the two trackers were discussing. They stood to the side while keeping watch over them, Selanar nodded while looking at the path they were going to take. Helci just scratched her head a bit as she wasn’t really knowledgeable with reading maps or measuring the distance. This would be something she wanted to look up when she got back to the city. After witnessing these two she was slowly realizing what a good scout should be able to do.

There wasn’t much to pack up beside the ant antenna and the larger mana stones that the evolved version of the worker ants had. A monster that had gone through at least one evolution in their life would always possess a monster core. The more evolutions the larger and denser they got. The size wasn’t always an indicator of quality as the mana stones could be rated similar to the runes, from lesser all the way to legendary.

The mana orbs of light floated forward right above Dalrak’s head as he entered the new corridor. The whole party ventured forward but now they had to account for attacks from the back. This made Orson move to the backline to protect his squishy party members.

They journeyed forward, slowly into the unknown. They didn’t know if the other parties were okay but the basic worker ants didn’t pose much of a threat to any of them. The problems started when the acid-spitting ones came into play.

It took about another half an hour for them to encounter another group. This one was also mixed, having the advanced variants sprinkled into the mix. Dalrak received a couple of acid shots with his shield while Roland cast a defensive barrier around the party with an actual incantation this time.

He had given up on grinding his skill at this point. He needed to save the one time use scrolls for later. It was unknown how many of the ants there would be and even having one more scroll could turn the tide towards their favor.

The biggest downside in this strategy was that his party members had to contribute a lot more now. He had blasted through the ants with runic spell scrolls but now he was conserving them by casting regular incantation based spells that needed time to prepare.

“Dalrak, duck to the side!”

“Aye laddie!”

“Mana Blast!”

A large concentrated orb of mana traveled past the dwarf and connected with two acid spitting ants. There was a small explosion that caused the two monsters to lose parts of their thorax. This left them incapacitated but not dead, this was enough for the party’s tank to plunge his halberd onto their heads.

Mana Blast was the most powerful spell a newbie tier 1 mage could muster up. It would be later replaced by the commonly used fire blast spell that packed quite a bit more punch while causing a massive explosion. If he was able to use that, he could probably have been able to kill those two in one shot.

After clearing out about ten of those ant-like monsters they heard Orson’s shouts from behind them.

“There are some fuckers behind us!”

Everyone besides Dalrak turned around, the dwarf was still keeping the front protected. He couldn’t let the party be overrun from both sides. Luckily it was only a couple of the normal ones so even Orson was able to take them out with the help of his sidearm. He had placed his two-handed sword onto his back for the time being as it wasn’t optimal for fighting in these tight corridors.

“Fuck, I’m never taking another mission in a blasted mine or caves!”

“You know that most adventurer jobs are in dungeons, right?”

Helci quickly replied while sighing.

“Shut up!”

While Orson was complaining and spitting on the ant corpses the Sun elf from the party did something peculiar. He pulled out a bottle of some sort and started pouring its contents onto the dead ants that were behind them. The part looked with interest but their silent party member didn’t look like he felt to explain his actions. The most interested person was Helci that in turn looked to Roland wondering if he knew something.

Before Roland answered a peculiar smell invaded his nostrils, it was the smell of peppermint. It was severely times more intense than regular peppermint which caused him to back away. He remembered something from his old life, which prompted him to voice himself out.

“Think he is trying to cut off the monster ants chemical trail. If it works the ants that come here won’t be able to follow after us.”

Roland looked to Selanar who nodded, he probably didn’t have much of that oil and used it only now after ants were appearing from behind.

They continued while stopping with the dissecting of the monster corpses, they did nab the mana stones that Roland was able to pick out though. This saved them some time while also allowing them to get something for their troubles. The elf continued to spill the strong-smelling oil here and there in the hopes of masking their smell from the monsters. It seemed to be working as no more ants appeared from the rear.

They managed to get to a junction with more tunnels going in various directions. It looked to be clear on the inside so they ventured forward while keeping vigilant of their surroundings. The time they had spent in this mine was reaching five hours.

“Do you think they will send a rescue party?”

Helci asked while looking at the magically lit cavern and the scattered minecarts.

“Probably not, unless one of you is some kind of noble or rich merchant’s son that is.”

Roland commented while the guys laughed. To the half-gnome girl, this was new, she thought adventurers were a tight-knit group of excitement seekers. In reality, they were more or less mercenaries that wouldn’t move unless a lot of money was on the line. Unless someone made a request to save them, no one would be coming.

“If we hurry we can reach the next exit in two or three hours.”

Helci was a bit saddened by the realization that no one gave a mole-rat's ass about them. She could only steel her resolve and move forward at least the guys that she was together with felt more genuine than her last party.

Roland looked around, he could see that his team was getting tired. The tunnels were stuffy and they had been wandering through them while fighting monsters. Still, it would be better to continue towards the exit as soon as possible, resting in this cavern could be a death sentence if more ants appeared.

“We need to follow that corridor.”

Roland pointed at the next one that they needed to use, they continued forward while Selanar used up his oil behind them. If the adventurers knew beforehand what they were going against ant monsters, they could have brought more of that oil that the elf was using now.

They arrived at another larger cavern, this time around they were greeted to a gruesome scene.

“What is this?”

“Hey, isn’t that one of ours?”

Orson called out while looking around. Here they saw many large ant monster bodies dead on the ground. There were a lot more than what they encountered and besides them, there were also other bodies, the dead remains of two adventurers.

They quickly assessed the situation, the other team must have gotten into a big scuffle and suffered casualties. All teams had at least five people with them, so the rest must have escaped.

“Shit…”

Roland looked at the map and then at where the corridor that led to the other exit was. It had collapsed and was blocked off, it was probably safe to assume that the other adventurers set off some kind of explosion while running away. Roland was beginning to think that he made a mistake in coming here, his skills were leveling up already but things were also looking grim.

The only thing good in this situation was the sheer amount of mana stones remaining in those insect corpses. There were even some of the larger looking acid ants sprinkled into the mix. Maybe digging back that tunnel when they had the chance would have been the better option.

“What are you doing?”

Roland asked as he spotted Orson going through the dead adventurer’s belongings. He even saw him nab his storage bag and attach it to his belt.

“What? Not like a dead man needs this.”

The dead person looked like some kind of archer or scout by the light armor he was wearing. The other was a warrior, his long sword was to the side embedded in an ant’s body.

‘Strange that those ants didn’t drag those bodies away, they must have killed them all before escaping back and setting off the detonation...which would mean...Shit…’

Just as he expected something showed up. The sound this creature was making was different from the other ants. Soon it appeared out of one of the corridors, its large head barely fit through it.

This ant was larger than a horse. Its head was something that stood out the most as it was quite gigantic. The mandibles were really big and they looked like they could split an adult human in half in one bite.

Roland could somehow use his identification skill to see the monster's name and HP counter. The moment he saw the numbers he frowned even more. There was a threshold monsters reached just like the other races.

A monster would evolve just like a person. The first evolution was past the 25th level and then the second past the 50th which was similar to going through your first tier 1 class. This monster was something that was on the level of a tier 2, its lower HP count indicated that it had suffered some damage before but it looked that it regenerated most of it now.

“Watch out!”

Everyone took up a fighting position, two fighters in the front with the range attackers in the back. The elf was the first one to give of a shot and his arrow traveled through the dimly lit cavern hitting the monster on the head. To everyone’s shock, the arrow just bounced away without leaving more than a scratch on the monster’s hard exoskeleton.

After the hit, the monster was alert to their position and it gave out a high pitched scream before charging forward. It was surprisingly fast for its size and Dalrak would probably have a tough time blocking its approach. The robust dwarf wasn’t willing to dodge though, he lowered his center of gravity and grabbed his shield with both hands. He put himself between his party and the monster like a proper defender.

“Come tae daddy ye hackit bugger.”

(Come to daddy you ugly bugger)

The monster’s large head slammed into Dalrak’s heater shield. The shield buckled under the pressure and the muscular dwarf was pushed back, his feet made a streak in the rocky ground below. The monster started biting with those large mandibles, the thick shield was unable to stop the massive pressure as it started giving out.

Orson didn’t wait for his party member to just die there, no he mustered up all of his strength and brought his large two-handed sword down on the monster. It was a clean hit to one of its legs which flew right off. He was sure to aim for the weak spot in the joints and his aim was true. He tried swinging further aiming at the more armored parts. The second swing was blocked by the exoskeleton that only showed a slight scratch.

The monster abandoned the shield, Dalrak used this chance to back off. His hands and legs were shaking as he was barely able to take this evolved monster’s charge head-on.

The ant turned its head towards the other warrior, maddened after losing one of its legs. It was still able to keep its balance thanks to the remaining five. Its mandibles opened up again as it tried to bisect the attacker. Orson was too slow to react; he thought that he could at least topple the monster after taking out its leg. Luckily a red bolt of fire magic landed on the ant monster’s head before it could go in for the kill.

The monster screamed in agony after receiving Roland’s Fire Bolt spell to the face. This was a common grade spell which was in the tier 2 ranking of spells. The monster’s antenna along with its eyes started to melt. This was enough to cripple the monster’s senses and making it more or less blind.

It didn’t stop there, Roland used another fire arrow spell and aimed for the head yet again, this finally made the monster drop down. Dalrak went back into action and used this chance to swing his halberd down on the twitching monster. Orson followed right after as he brought his two-handed sword down in a similar fashion. The two continued and Helci along with the elf also joined in. All of them finally stopped after the monster’s legs finally stopped twitching.

Everyone was sweating and panting after defeating the tier 2 monster. They looked to their mage that surprisingly could use an advanced spell type.

“I brought some spell scrolls…”

He explained himself while the others nodded, their conversation ended prematurely when they heard the ominous sound of insect feet coming their way.

“Ah hawp ye brought mair o' they, we ur aff tae need thaim…”

(I hope you brought more of those, we are going to need them...)

A drop of sweat ran down Roland’s forehead. He did indeed bring more of those scrolls with him, but if he had enough of them to last through this entire mine expedition wasn’t something he was willing to bet his life on. For now, he gathered more mana into his hand while reciting an incantation. A blue sphere of mana formed in front of his right hand while in his left he was holding his binder like magic book, this fight was only beginning.