Chapter 169: Something Brewing
Through the pain, I kept trying to remind myself that it was not as bad as ing the apex earth essen Macha. Maveith’s voice echoed in the bay mind as he tried to unicate, but the pain ed all my focus. I bit my toasting the metallic, coppery blood that filled my mouth. As the pain finally ebbed away, my g muscles rexed. I rasped out, “How long?”
Maveith was kneeling over me. “Less than a minute. Are you okay, Eryk? That looked unpleasant.”
There was no way it had been only a minute. I moved to a sitting position, every part of my body ag. “Shit.”
“What is it, Eryk? You smell horrible—like rotten eggs—and your skin is slimy.” Maveith voiced his but still backed away.
“Yeah, I shit myself too. If I ever do this again, I’m going to make sure I’ve purged both ends before I start.” I spat out the residual vomit and tried not to move my ass too much. My throat was sore, and I used some healing on my damaged tendons and ligaments from g so hard. The fouled clothing and filthy underclothes were definitely staying behind in this dungeon.
I recalled the versation with Kolm. “The harpy room had some water—at least they said they were fishing there. We should be able to get past the earth drake si hasn’t been a day yet. There should also be a reward chest to cim in the harpy room.”
“I will walk ahead of you,” Maveith said, sg his nose. I was going to retort that I had put up with his body odor for a long time, but then again, my own smell was making me nauseous and causing my eyes to water at the moment. We climbed the stairs, which was no fun in my soiled clothes. The dead earth drake was still there, and we cautiously crossed into the corridor. It curved slightly before arriving at the harpy room.
The harpy room had a mix of shreen trees and tall deadwood trees. I did not see any sign of the legionnaires, and the stone reward chest was visible e pool in the ter of the room. Without my armor on, I had Maveith lead. “You go first, Maveith. I have enough aether to manage one problem.” He nodded, and we passed the short trees with red berries on them.
Maveith ate one of the berries and immediately spat it out. “This is bitter, Eryk, do not try it.” I picked one of the berries anyway and ied it. It looked like a small cherry, but it obviously was not. I squeezed the fruit, and a bean was ihe husk. The bean was white and looked oddly familiar.
“Maveith, I think this is a coffee bean. We have them in Tsinga.” I was not pletely sure, but from my reading, I khere was a dessert beverage that sounded like coffee. They roasted, crushed, and filtered water through the beans to create a rich bck drink. It certainly sounded like coffee. I had not found coffee ielhian Empire, but many tea varieties were avaible.
We both walked to the pond in the ter of the chamber and looked into it. It was about twenty feet across, and Kolm had been right about there being fish in this room.
This variety of fish was smaller than the eels or other fish I had already discovered. They were rotund and barely rger than my hand. They bobbed to the surface before diving deep into the depths of the pool and disappearing. I guessed they needed air to breathe, which gave the harpies a ce to swoop down and grab them from their perches in the dead trees.
I gratefully stripped, tossing my underclothes in a pile for the duo recim. The water was cold when I tested it with my foot, and an oily sheen spread across the surface from my exposed leg. Whatever foulness my body had extruded was oily. The fish seemed to be repelled by my st, suddenly stopping their trips to the surface.
As I settled into the water, there did not appear to be any threat. “Maveith, why don’t you check the chest in the ter of the chamber while I up?” Surprisingly, the goliath did not seem as excited about treasure as most people. He nodded, accepting the task relutly.
I scrubbed myself as best I could ier with a sock. With ergent, it was difficult to off. Soon, the entire surface of the pool was covered in an oily film from my efforts. I scrubbed my skin raw, trying to free myself of the foul stench.
While I was bathing, Maveith returned with twelve silver s and a potion, handing them to me. I studied the runic script oion before announg, “As best as I tra says see in the dark. This is a potion of night vision.” Maveith looked impressed. “Keep it, Maveith. Dungeon potions should be good for years.” I sent the s to my dimensional space so he would not have to carry them and put the fishing kit on the shore for him.
Maveith looked disgusted at the pond, whiow had an oil slick coating it. “Eryk, I do not know if I want to fish this pond.” I looked into the water, and it seemed some of the fish were having trouble swimming. Whatever impurities had been released from my body had fouled and poisohe water.
“ you harvest the berries for me? I think they have a use.” Maveith looked at the two dozen coffee trees and nodded. He seemed happy to have an excuse to get away. I tinued my efforts to get as as possible before dressing in clothes. A few fish bobbed on the surface, clearly dead. I tried the collector on three of the small fish, and only one yielded a minor essence of stitution. I ha to Maveith before putting my armor ba.
My legion armor was in bad shape. The red cquer oal helmet was chipped. The leather pieces soaked in resin had ed slightly. The armor even had gouges from the harpy's talons. It looked like whoever wore this suit had been through a lot—the puy had been frozen, burned, crushed, and cwed. I had a new set of legion armor in my space, but I could not wear it without revealing my expansive space to the pany. I helped Maveith fill a rge tarp with the coffee berries before tying the ers together and sending it to ste. I had no idea how to turn the berries into actual coffee, but ohing lenty of in the dungeon was time.
There were two exits from this room. The oo the left led to Fvius and ionnaire panions. The oo the right robably where the goblin had e from. I had to make a choice: reuh Fvius and the others, or search for Castile? We still had hours before the harpies would respawn.
I debated internally for a long time before announg to Maveith, “We’re going that way.” I pointed in the dire from which the goblin had most likely e. Maveith looked at the entrahat led to the legionhen back at the one I had chosen. His fusion made me feel the o expin myself. “Fvius ’t know that I have the collector, and the extent of my other abilities o remain a secret.”
Maveith uood. “I will take your secret to my deathbed, Eryk.” His deep tone was reassuring, though I was a little worried—he said it too loudly, like he was making an oath, and I g the corridor, relieved no one was standing there. After my I had voiced my decision, we did not waste much time, leaving the harpy room behind.
As we went, the corridor curved left and right, but the familiar flowing lights on the ceiling and floor were reassuring. I wondered where the goblin had e from and why nothing had pursued it from the room roached. When we reached the end of the corridor, it opened into a wide sandy room. Little dust devils of sand dotted the room.
“Maybe there’s something underh the sand?” I gestured to Maveith on my right.
Maveith was studying the sand as well. His deep voice specuted, “There certainly are a lot of enviros within this dungeon. I traveled through the Scorg Waste before. There were ivorous beetles, scorpions of all sizes, and different varieties of elementals. Those sand swirls could be minor elementals.”
I studied the swirling clouds of sand more ily. They didn’t seem to move, and I could recall no books that referenced elementals. “If the goblin was able to pass through the room, should we try?” Maveith looked behind us, probably sidering the five legionnaires and the Schor back there. He eventually turned back to the sandscape.
“If they’re elementals, they should be affected by our runic ons,” Maveith said. I took that as a yes and stepped out onto the sand. The chamber was sweltering hot, like I was in a scorg desert, and the sand eddies started moving toward me. Maveith stepped behihey are not elementals, Eryk. Something is moving in the sah them.”
Maveith was right. The sand formed mounds moving toward us. It was easy to get distracted by the mini tornados. They moved at a det speed, spread out, and coordinated. “Back out of the room, Maveith.”
We both exited to the corridor’s safety, ready to retreat to the harpy room. All five mounds verged on us and stopped at the entrance. A dog-sized beetle emerged from the sand, its impressive mandibles snapping in the air in frustration. It appeared uain about leaving the sand before submerging itself again.
We both stood ready, but the beetles slowly moved away. Maveith’s baritone sounded, “I think they are sand scarabs. I have never seen them before, but sand scarabs use aether ah magic to burrow in the sand. If you try to fight them, they quickly sink you in the sand to attack you below the surface while you are immobilized.”
“That sounds utterly horrific. Getting trapped in the sand, uo put up resistance while they use those mandibles on ys—and other parts.” I shivered, uanding why Fvius and the others had not tried this room.
“They’re also fast, so it will be difficult to avoid them,” Maveith noted.
“We do not o avoid them, Maveith. They will not leave the prote of the sand.” I stepped into the room and waited for the first scarab to reach me before pulling a deep n of sand uhe vortex into my space. My aether bottomed out, and the beetle had resisted strongly, but I still succeeded. I stepped bato the corridor with Maveith.
We were both ready as the other four scarabs hovered outside the corridor, but they were still unwilling to leave the sand’s prote. I smiled at Maveith. “Now we just have to wait until I do that again. It usually takes me about two hours, but it has beehan an hour in the dungeon.” I guessed it was not just the dungeon but also the gains in my aether eling attribute that were speeding my recovery.
About forty mier, a sed scarab was killed. They traveled about a foot uhe sand, but the swirling sand above them made it easy to track their movements. After killing a third ohe st two surprised us by leaving the safety of the sandy room. Maveith wasn’t caught off guard—he crushed oh his hammer, and I was able to pierce the other between the mandibles with my bck bde. This was good, as I could use the collector o two, getting a major earth essence from both. I tried the collector oher three scarabs, getting one additional major earth essend one mih essehe first scarab had been dead for too long to yield anything.
We khe room was clear wheone reward chest appeared in the ter of the micro desert. “Easy peasy, Maveith.” I smiled at the goliath, who gave me a doubtful look as he tried to figure out easy” meant. I approached the modest chest and shattered it. Silver s spilled out, and a leather-bound tome y on top. It smelled strongly of seasoned leather as I ope.
Inside were pages of yered spell forms for some type of spell. I could not uand what the spell actually did without the Latin script expining it. After the first few pages of spell forms, the runic script on the following pages probably went into detail about the spell, but it would take me hours to puzzle out the transtion in the dreamscape. I noted a few symbols that seemed to indicate it was reted to the earth affinity. I held the book out to Maveith. “I think it might be ah affinity spell. Do you want it?”
“No, I already inscribed my earth affinity, Eryk. And I ot learn actual spells.” I shrugged and gathered up the silver s along with the book. We looked around the room, seeing only sand filling the oval space.
“Let’s move to the corridor, Maveith. This room wasn’t very difficult for us, and I would not miurning to get more earth esseer.” We walked into the unexplored corridor, and it was not long before we arrived at a familiar-looking room with two long, wide stone shelves.
Maveith grunted happily. “A rest room.” It was a safe room, unique in that there were three differes—not including the corridor we were standing in or the oily bck door tempting us to exit the dungeon food.
We moved in and started to unpack, but I immediately noticed dark letters in Latio the faded elven script on the wall: "Castile’s group went this way," with an arrow pointing to one of the corridors. We were close—but how long ago had that been written?
I turo Maveith, who could not read Latin. “Castile’s group was here.” His eyes went wide with excitement. He was clearly ready to get out of the dungeon. “Don’t get too excited. We don’t know how long ago they passed through here. Why don’t you get some sleep first? I’ll stay up and prepare some food.”
I pulled out the elven tablet table and some ingredients, including a handful of coffee berries. Maveith made himself fortable and was soon sn. With Maveith asleep, I grasped the edges of the table and activated the device. It was time to see what the major illusion essence had done for me.
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