Ravensdagger_Cinnamon_Bun - страница 45

Chapter Seventy-Nine — Happy Dance

Chapter Seventy-Nine — Happy Dance We all just... stood there and panted as the glass golem’s body cracked and snapped apart under its own weight.“Awa, we did it,” Awen said.I felt my lips twitching up. “We sure did,” I said.Congratulations! You have shattered Glass Golem, level 10. Bonus Exp is granted for breaking a construct above your level! Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!“It’s dead for real then,” I said.Bing Bong! Congratulations, your Cinnamon Bun class has reached level 8Health + 5Resilience +5You have gained: One Class PointYou have unlocked: One Class Skill Slot“I levelled up!” I cheered.“Awa, s-so did I,” Awen said. She blinked a few times and her eyes refocused until they fell on me. “Th-thank you, Broccoli.”“Pfft, don’t be silly, you did your part.” I gave her a big thumb’s up, then, because I still had a whole lot of adrenaline, I skipped over to her and glomped her. “Ohh, I’m so happy.” I said as I let go.“M-me too,” Awen said.I started to dance a little, shaking my hips from side to side while pumping my arms up and down to a happy beat that only I could hear.“What in the world are you doing?” Amaryllis asked as she walked down the hill.“I’m happy dancing!” I said. “It’s what you do when you’re happy. You should join in.”“Absolutely not.”“Awen! Let’s use peer pressure on her!” I cheered with a laugh. “C’mon, dance, dance!”I started walking the Egyptian around an increasingly flustered Amaryllis. It only got worse when Moon Moon joined in with a happy bark. His own dancing looked more like a bouncy ball caught in a drier but it was definitely dancing.“Awa, I don't know h-how to dance like that,” Awen said.I rushed over to her side. “It’s easy. See, you stand up like this, then you shake your booty.” I demonstrated.Awen, the poor soul, went very red in the face.Ding! For repeating a Special Action a sufficient number of times you have unlocked the class skill: Dancing!I paused mid swing. “Oh, hey.”“What? Did the world do us all a favour and dislocated your hips to stop you from swinging them in such a debauched way?” Amaryllis asked.“Nope. I got the Dancing skill. As a class skill. That might be handy, right?”Amaryllis sighed. “If it means you look like less of a fool, then certainly. I’m certain Awen here would love to teach you how to dance.”“Awa!” Awen said. “I-I wouldn’t mind, really. Um. I’m not that good though.”I snorted and waved it off. “It’s fine. We can look into that some other time. Did the glass golem drop anything neat?”Amaryllis shook her head. “Dungeon made monsters outside of a dungeon act like normal creatures. I’m certain someone could find a use for all this glass, but otherwise, this is all a bit of a waste.”“You can’t eat it,” Moon Moon said. “It hurts going in, and it hurts more coming out.”“Yeah, I can imagine,” I said. I decided not to think of the poor drolls that were sacrificed to discover that. “Well, we’ve proven that we can take them down when working together.” I walked over to the golem and yanked my shovel out of its side with only a bit of wiggling to get it loose.The edge of the blade didn’t have any chips on it, but it was still a little hot to the touch and there was a slight warp to it. Obviously it wasn’t made to have Amaryllis levels of lightning running through it.“We should get moving,” I said. “We might encounter more of them before reaching the dungeon.”Moon Moon nodded. “They used to always be three, and all near the dungeon, but now they’re moving out of their territory.”I nodded. “Cool. We worked really well together, by the way! I’m proud of all of you.”“Stop being such an idiot, we’re burning daylight,” Amaryllis said as she stomped by. I think she was only miffed because my pride in her made her back straighten even though it was a very silly thing.Orange strutted by my feet, tail tall and noble as if I had included her in the people that I was proud of.“Hmpf,” I said as I jogged after them. Awen caught up soon enough and Moon Moon ran off ahead of us to act as something of a scout. “So, how was your first fight? Was that your first fight?”“Awa, I guess? My uncle once brought me to the plains to fight these giant ant monsters with an arbalest. They were very weak, and it wasn’t much of a fight. Um. He just wanted to let me play with the Shady Lady’s new weapons, I think.”“I didn’t notice anything like that on the Lady when I was on her,” I said.“They were given to a caravan in the north when they were about to be attacked by some roving raptors. It’s one of my uncle’s favourite stories, I think.”“Awesome,” I said. “You’re lucky you have such a nice uncle,” I said.“Th-thank you? I guess I am. He’s the reason I got to meet you.”I pulled Awen into a sideways hug, but let go when we had to step over a few rocks. The terrain grew increasingly rocky as we moved North. Then the rocks were replaced by large craters, the smallest of them a few meters across. The centres were black marks on the landscape and the edges had sharp demarcations and jutting spikes, as if someone had hit a plate with a hammer.“What made these?” I asked as I gestured to the dozens of craters dotting the landscape.“Dragons,” Moon Moon said. “A long time ago.” The droll pointed ahead. “That hill, then we’re near the dungeon.”The hill wasn’t a hill at all. It was the outside wall of a crater, one wide enough that an entire village could have filled it.The ground was bright, sparkling with glassy reflections that showed where the sand and dirt had been worn off by wind and rain. The bottom of the crater had turned into a desolate valley of sorts, one where nothing grew. And all along the edges were pillars of stone, their interior sides turned to molten glass.“Whoa,” I said. I couldn’t begin to imagine the power of whatever had created the crater. It had to be something like a bomb, but immensely powerful.“This is where the dragons fought,” Moon Moon said. He pointed to a spot along the edge of the crater where there were quite a few more glassy pillars. “That’s the place with the dungeon.”“Are all dragons this strong?” I asked.Amaryllis hummed. “Just about. This looks like it’s decades old. Maybe even more than that. Were it closer to civilization I’m certain the area would have been stripped already. Moon Moon, do you know which dragons fought here?”Moon Moon nodded. “Yes. Lesdenthree, She Who Rules Over Sandy Lands With Her Claws of Iron and Her Breath of Electric Flames, the Lady of the Brightest Plasma. And Knight Dragon, Shmug, Eater of Caerbannog Bunnies.”“Those are some titles,” I said.“Dragons are like that,” Amaryllis said. “I think both of them are still alive, so this fight wasn’t enough to kill either one.”I swallowed and looked over the landscape that looked like it had endured a low-yield nuke. “That’s kind of scary.”If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.“The first bit of common sense to pass between your ears. Let’s check out that dungeon.”Amaryllis hopped off the side of the hill and flapped her way down. The rest of us were a lot slower in making our way down. I could have jumped, but I wanted to make sure that Awen and Moon Moon made it down safely.Goosebumps crawled up my arms as we crossed the valley at a slow walk. Everytime the wind blew it made the pillars around the crater humm and sparkling dust would twist and twirl around in the air.Amaryllis stopped next to a sort of tunnel in the forest of glassy pillars. It was a dark passageway that seemed to go deep into the side of the crater. “We’ll check on our things now,” she said.I nodded and brought up Mister Menu.

Name

Broccoli Bunch

Race

Human (Riftwalker)

First Class

Cinnamon Bun

First Class Level

Age

Health

125

Stamina

130

Mana

115

Resilience

Flexibility

Magic

Skills

Rank

Cinnamon Bun Skills

Cleaning

B — 86%

Jumping

C — 100%

Gardening

D — 23%

Cute

D — 100%

Dancing

F — 05%

General Skills

Insight

C — 47%

Makeshift Weapon Proficiency

E — 89%

Archeology

F — 57%

Friendmaking

D — 100%

Physical Manakinesis

F — 43%

Skill points

General Skill Points

I had plenty of skill points, but I wanted to save three of them for Cleaning’s Rank A. As soon as that was done I would put the rest into Jumping. I could probably spare a point or two later for Gardening and Dancing, just to see what they did.My next General Skill point might go into Friendmaking, but that wasn’t immediately useful, not in a dungeon, I didn’t think. So that wouldn’t change either.Putting points into Cute was right out.I checked my gear in a hurry, then nodded. “I’m as ready as I can be,” I said.“Awa, m-me too,” Awen said.Amaryllis shook her head and poofed pen and paper into existence before she crouched down. “Broccoli, Awen, Moon Moon, how are your potion stocks?”“Ah, I’m fresh out,” I said.“I don’t have any,” Awen said.Moon Moon was chasing his tail.“Right.” Amaryllis scratched a few things on her paper and then sent it off with a poof. Moments later a book and eight trifecta potions appeared. “Two each,” She said as she gestured to the potions.I placed one in my bandoleer, the other in my backpack surrounded by some cloth to keep it from breaking. “Does your ring work in a dungeon?” I asked.“No, it won’t,” Amaryllis said. “Which is why I got this out now.”“Oh,” I said as I recognized the title of the book. Midhve’s compendium of Dungeons and Associated Classes. “Do you think this dungeon will be in there?”Amaryllis shrugged and started leafing through the book. Soon enough she went ‘aha’ and poked a page with the tip of a talon. “Here it is.”Awen and I both crowded around her shoulder to read. Even Orange jumped onto Amaryllis’ lap, though I think it was more to be in the way than to see what the fuss was.“Awa,” Awen said. She rooted around in her little hip sack and pulled out a pair of big round spectacles. “S-sorry,” she said as she slid them on. They made her eyes look huge.“Those look cute on you,” I said before returning to the book.The Path of Broken ReflectionsApprox Dungeon levels 5-7Suggested levels 10+Party composition: 3+Special warnings: Illusions. Mind GamesLocated North-West of Greenshade and along the Eastern fringes of the Ostri desert.At ToW this dungeon has three floors.The delve room is built in a large ravine with bridges spanning the gaps from floor to floor. Beware of wires between bridges preventing clever delvers from skipping ahead. Otherwise safe.First Floor: Puzzle room. Move pillars to move beams of light to the crystal above the exit. Each moved pillar summons a guardian Glass Golem (common).Second Floor: Narrow bridge over pitfall trap. Mirrors on sides will attract attention towards sides. Mental resistance suggested.Third Floor: Boss room. Large open arena where a Lesser Glass Wyrm (uncommon) awaits the delvers. Flying boss. Will strafe and use minor illusions.Loot rewards:Mirrors, small glass weaponsClass reward:Glass Cannon classSpecializes in ranged attacks and creating items out of glass.“Looks easy enough,” I said.Amaryllis shook her head. “No. Look at the date.” She poked the numbers at the end.“Um. And what’s the date today?”She sighed. “This is over a year out of date, nearly two. When I stood by the entrance it said the dungeon was levels seven to ten. We can expect one, maybe two more floors.”I nodded and looked into the dark pit of the dungeon. Part of me wanted to back off, tell the world to find someone else for its lame quests.A bigger part of me was excited to run in there and have an adventure.“Well then, let’s go fight a wyrm!”

Chapter Eighty — Path of Broken Reflections

Chapter Eighty — Path of Broken Reflections You are Entering The Path of Broken Reflections DungeonLevels 7-10 Your entire party has entered the DungeonSeal Dungeon until exit? “No thanks,” I told the screen before it promptly (heh) disappeared.“Any changes to your quest?” Amaryllis asked.Pruning the EvilYou have heard of the location of a corrupted dungeon. Explore it, find any signs of great Evil. Eradicate them!“None,” I said.Amaryllis huffed, then she insisted that I take the rear of the group, with Awen before me and Moon Moon at the very front. The droll had tackled the first level of the dungeon a few times already with his pack-it was a good source of a few trinkets they could either use or sell-so he was familiar with the first floor, at least.I imagined that five or six drolls like Moon Moon would tear through a couple of glass golems with no problem.“Should we get some lights?” I asked as we moved down the darkened tunnel that was the dungeon’s entrance.“I’ve got it,” Amaryllis said. She raised a wing, then paused. “Humans don’t lose their night vision to red light, right?”“Yeah,” I said.She nodded and light started to flood into a ball between the points of two talons. It hovered over her outstretched wing, glowing a bright red that illuminated the tunnel ahead and reflected off the hundreds of glassy facets growing all across the walls of the tunnel.Our group huddled a little closer together as our faint reflections passed by every which way in the walls around us.“Spooky,” I said. “I was expecting a bit more... I don’t know, something else. Not this aesthetic.”“Dungeons don’t need to comply with your sense of fashion,” Amaryllis said. Still, she was the one that looked the least comfortable about being in such a narrow tunnel.Then we reached a door. A large, circular doorway that looked more like a faceted crystal than a proper door, but it had large brass hinges on one side and a complex handle on the other.“This one needs turning,” Moon Moon said before reaching for the round handle.The door was pushed open without so much as a whisper of protest.“Whoa,” I said as I stepped out.We were in a ravine. A huge open area that was cut into the ground like a massive scar. It reminded me of pictures of the Grand Canyon. Walls of stone, nearly a hundred meters apart that sparkled as they caught the light from the blue-white sun above.We found ourselves on a small platform overlooking the rapidly flowing water way off at the bottom of the ravine. Glass spikes jutting out from around the churning waves, like teeth waiting for someone clumsy to trip and fall into their maw.Unlike the Wonderland dungeon, I couldn’t spot any path down.“That’s the first floor,” Moon Moon said as he pointed straight across from us.There was another platform there, with a glass door beyond it. “Um, how do we get there?” I asked.Moon Moon moved to the edge of our platform, then put a foot over the edge and stomped it down.There was a dull thud, and the shadow cast by his foot revealed a surface just underneath. I moved closer, then dropped to one knee next to Moon Moon and brought a hand down. From so close it was easy to see the foot-thick beginning of a glass bridge, but when I looked up I couldn’t see the tiny imperfections in the glass beyond a few meters. “We need to cross this?” I asked.“Yeah,” Moon Moon said. Suiting action to words, he squatted onto all fours and began padding across the bridge. It looked as if he was walking on empty air, kind of like how Orange did all the time.The cat in question yawned and started walking ahead of me, pausing a little ways down to look back and see if we were following.“Well, I for one can fly,” Amaryllis said.“The book mentioned wires making that dangerous,” Awen said. “Awa, I think I can see them.” She pointed off to the side.She was right. If I squinted I could just barely catch sight of razor-thin wires sparkling in the sunlight as the wind coursing through the ravine made them wobble a little. There were hundreds of them. And as the wind was sliced apart, there came a sound like a faint and distant hum.Taking my courage in hand, I stepped onto the bridge, then bounced on it a few times, ears perked for the faintest crack or splintering sound, but it was as solid as stone, if a little more slippery. “Well then,” I said. “let’s get a move on?”“Awa,” Awen said. She closed her eyes as she took her first step, then opened them and looked straight down. I saw her entire body tensing. I couldn’t blame her. Looking down to see a hundred foot drop under you was kind of spooky.“Hey, Awen,” I said. “It might help if you look at me instead of straight down, yeah?”Awen swallowed and tore her eyes up. “Oh-okay.”“Yeah Awen,” Amaryllis said. “You keep your eyes on Broccoli’s backside.”“Awa!”We crossed the bridge slowly, as if we were all in our nineties instead of teenagers. Each step was slow and placed just-so on the slippery glass surface, and I’m certain that a single ‘crack’ sound would have been enough to stop all of our hearts.“We have made it,” Moon Moon said as he hopped on the opposite ledge. “And no one walked off the edge. Good good!”“That happened?” I asked as I hurried up a little and stepped onto solid stone.“Walks Very Crooked did not make it back from his last trip. It was very sad. But we have made it.”I didn’t know quite what to say, so I picked up Orange and set her on my shoulder while the girls caught up with us.“So, this first room, it’s got a puzzle in it, right?”“Yes,” Moon Moon said. “It’s very easy. But we haven’t tried it since the dungeon went bad.”“Let’s try to form up, then,” Amaryllis said. “Broccoli, Moon Moon, you two at the front. Awen and I will take the back. Focus on knocking anything down, Broccoli. Awen can smash them, and I’ll fry anything that looks at me funny.”Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.“What if I look at you funny?” I asked.“You look funny period,” she said. “Now open that door. It’s evening already, despite the light in the Dungeon saying otherwise.”“Right-o!” I said as I moved over to the door. It had a big brass wheel in the middle, with spokes poking out of it and two rods that slotted into the walls on either side to keep it locked. A bit of grunting, some twisting, and then even more grunting later, the door was sliding open on a pair of hinges that were as thick around as my thighs.The room beyond the door was like a cathedral. Faint light illuminated the room from behind monolithic stained-glass windows and the walls were made of large grey bricks. The passageway we stepped into curved off to the left a ways, only stopping at a large device that looked like a sextant with about a hundred extra arms. There was another passage branching off that one and veering off to the right, but I couldn’t see far into that one without being at the intersection myself.Moon Moon moved ahead of us and pointed to the device. “That’s the thing,” he said. “You need to make the light go from that thing to the next thing.”“What light?” I asked as I approached the weird device. It was the size of a small car, and set atop a marble plinth as if it was a piece of art. It was certainly pretty enough.“That one,” Moon Moon said.I followed his pointing finger to the wall behind the device. A glowing gem floated, suspended between two glass hands just before the opened chest of a strange statue.“Amaryllis, can you shine some light that way?” I asked.“I’ve been demoted to team lamppost,” Amaryllis griped. Still, she pointed a light towards the gem and that end of the room lit up.The statue-thing holding the gem was a glass golem, similar to the one we had fought outside of the dungeon, but... warped. Its surface wasn’t made of as many clean lines, instead it was broken up and covered in tiny asymmetrical bumps and bubbles just under the surface, like really old window panes. One of its four legs even looked a bit shorter than the others.“When you reach for the glowing rock, it’ll eat it. You need to beat it up to get it back,” Moon Moon explained.“It won’t try to fight until then?” I asked as I took off my backpack and pushed it into a nook to the side. I carefully placed Orange atop it and gave the kitty a pat on the head.“No,” Moon Moon said. “But without its glowy thing you can’t move on. It’s like this three times.”It was right up against the wall, so there was no sneaking around it. In fact, the best place to fight it would be a little bit deeper into the corridor.I brought my shovel around and tried to think on how best to tackle the golem. In the end I went for simplicity first. “Okay. Moon Moon, you try to grab the gem. I’m going to kick it from behind. Amaryllis, hit it in the leg as hard as you can without making us all go deaf. Awen, if her attack doesn’t break its leg, you’ll do the honours. If it doesn't fall from that, we break another leg, then we dogpile it.”“I like this plan,” Moon Moon said. “Usually we all just jump on it and rip and tear until it’s done.”I grinned. “Everyone ready?”Amaryllis flicked her wrist, revealing that magic dagger she sometimes used, and Awen fumbled her hammer out of her belt and nodded at me.“Go Moon Moon!”The droll leapt ahead, tail wiggling behind him as he pounced onto the glass golem’s chest and swiped at the gem.It was sucked into the monster’s chest before he could so much as touch it.“Insight,” I muttered.A Glass Golem Gem Guardian, level 9.“It’s level nine,” I said before firing off towards the creature with a burst of stamina. I planted one foot on its head, then hopped towards the wall behind it. There wasn’t much space between the golem and the wall, which was exactly what I wanted.Spending all of my stamina on the first fight would have been silly. So I kept a bit in reserve as I kicked the golem with my back pressed up against the wall for support.The lumbering glass giant stumbled forwards a couple of ungainly steps.“Close your eyes!” Amaryllis screamed.I did as she asked while landing in a crouch behind the golem. I even pressed my hands over my ears for good measure.It was partially wasted. The clap of her lightning attack shook the room and left me with a huge greenish-white mark across my vision even through closed eyelids.It did a number on the golem though, sending a spider web of cracks through one of its better legs and turning its surface black.“Ah-awa!” Awen screamed as she ran over to the monster and with a full body swing to give her attack some weight, smashed her hammer into the creature’s leg.It splintered.The golem tipped.Awen’s eyes widened as the huge construct started to fall on a direct path towards her.I shot out of my crouch and dove across the floor to tackle her out of the way.Everything shook as the golem fell onto its side and exploded into thousands of glassy splinters that showered down on the two of us. I did my best to shield both myself and Awen until the last piece of glass tinkled to the floor.Then, as one, all the shards started to fade away.Congratulations! You have busted Glass Golem Gem Guardian, level 9. Bonus Exp is granted for breaking a construct above your level! Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!“Awaaa,” Awen whispered.I looked down to her flushed face and grinned. “Sorry about that,” I said.“N-no,” Awen said. “I don’t mind.”“That was easy!” Moon Moon said as he plucked the glowing gem from the fading remains of the golem. “No loot though.”I hopped to my feet, then helped Awen up. “I’ll take easy,” I said. “Now, let’s figure out this thing and keep on moving!”

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