“Sure neither of you want to come with?” Standing before a narrow hole in the mountainside, I examined my two companions. Far from looking battle ready, the two of them were each hefting around a large, poorly made cloth backpack.
“I am afraid I must decline.” Clearly unused to having to carry just about anything, Verin kept casting small glances to the straps on her shoulders, as if her ire would somehow lighten her load. “I have little desire to be underground, and even littler to be in an area without light.”
The latter point had turned out to be the real reason for our current predicament. In general, every inch of the dungeon was lit, from desert crypts to forest caves to jungle temples. Without any sun to begin with, the dungeon didn’t tend to differentiate between indoor and outdoor areas.
At the same time, each region operated by its own logic. Sure, there was no sun, but that didn’t stop the desert from being uncomfortably hot. By and large, anything went as long as the dungeon decided it made sense.
And in this case, it had decided that tunnels inside mountains were meant to be dark.
Not even bothering to gradually grow dimmer, the opening before us went black almost immediately. With my own darkvision, courtesy of my Illuminated Sight boon, that didn’t mean much to me, but it was less than ideal for the others. Between me and Cal, we had enough light spells to dispel the worst of the darkness, but any way we spun it, the tunnels were a hard sell for the others.
On the flip side, with my darkvision, ability to breathe no matter the circumstances, and my ability to create water and stave off starvation, I was perfectly set to make it through without a scratch. Pair all of that with my Mining, Move Earth spell, and my Arcane Storage to clear any rubble from a possible cave-in, and it had been quickly decided that I’d be attempting a solo clear this time around. Or at the very least, I’d be going in alone for now to scout it out.
As for the others, they wouldn’t be idle either. With a thought, I pulled Tal’Ket’s summoning disk out of my storage and tossed it to Verin. The roc couldn’t fly all the way through regions where we hadn’t defeated the boss, but it was perfectly capable of picking and dropping us off from them, provided they bordered regions we’d cleared.
“Be safe. Make sure to come back fast if you start to run out of food. And Cal, remember to listen to Verin.” The latter sentiment drew all manner of grumbling from Cal, but if I trusted one of them to not do something outrageous, it certainly wasn’t her.
“We’re not even doing anything that risky! We’re just going to try clearing out any easy regions we find bordering the forest. If we run out of food, we’ll just go back to the prairie and hunt down some scorpions. I promise I won’t make us fight any actual region bosses without you…” As if I didn’t have super hearing, Cal then rapidly muttered an addendum under her breath. “Unless-they-look-really-easy-or-we-get-bored-or-we-get-trapped-or-I-really-want-to.”
I fixed the princess with a look, but before I could properly chastise her, she grabbed the summoning plate from Verin’s hands, activating it. As if a co-conspirator to Cal’s mischief, the massive Roc appeared in record time, and she practically shoved Verin onto his back before jumping on herself.
“Bye Tess! Good luck! Although, let’s be honest: The real challenge is seeing how long Verin can stand to be alone with me before she tries killing me. I’m voting four days. Does that sound about right? What do you think Ver-”
Whatever she said next was lost to the wind as Tal’Ket took to the skies. I spared a sympathetic thought to Verin before recalling that it was she who had suggested we split up in this way.
Ultimately, they’d be fine. Cal had solo-cleared a region already, and Verin’s defense was remarkably robust. As long as they didn’t choose a region that made no sense for them -- like fire, for instance -- I had full confidence they’d be able to survive or run away if need be. Even Cal, for all her gentle ribbing, took things seriously when need be.
And besides, I had my own worries to consider.
With one last look at the retreating figure of Tal’Ket, I spun about and began my journey into the dark underbelly of the mountain.
All in all, I’d spent more time within mountains than most people. Having taken a mining class back while I was in Sylum, I was no stranger to being beneath the earth in occasionally tight confines. Depending on how you looked at it, my experience in more traditional dungeons counted too.
Still, it felt bizarre how entirely normal my walk was turning out to be. I’d hardly expected some massive display of magic as soon as I took a single step, but thus far, I would have believed I wasn’t in a dungeon at all.
It was only after a long descent that anything changed, and even then, I didn’t immediately see anything to cause me alarm. The long downwards tunnel spit me out into a wider chamber roughly the size of the prairie cabin. A few copper veins could be seen peeking out through the surrounding walls, although they were entirely uninteresting in the face of the room’s other feature.
On the far side of the chamber, it looked as though another tunnel led onwards. Only, it was hard to tell, because the entrance to said tunnel was entirely blocked off by a lumpy pile of perfectly pure copper. Already refined, the metal looked as though the world’s worst abstract sculptor had gone to town before plopping their coppery creation directly in my way.
“So… Am I supposed to melt it down? Or attack it, maybe?” Lacking a clear path forward, I decided to look around a bit more before trying to brute force my way through.
Looping around the cavern, I switched between all of my vision variants, seeing absolutely nothing besides a few odd density readings from Tremor Sense. Chief amongst those oddities was the misshapen statue itself, as it registered as far denser than it should have been for standard copper. Still, I didn’t spot any hidden passageways or deadly monsters lying in wait, which brought me firmly back to square one. As it was the only variant to give me any good info, I decided to keep Tremor Sense on.
Without any particularly bright ideas, I was mostly ready to try whacking the copper mound, but while I was here, I had one other goal. While I would eventually have to figure out a way to melt and work with it, I’d been hoping to get my hands on some metal for a while now. Outside of a few veins in the darkness labyrinth, this was the first ore I’d seen in the entire dungeon. Choosing a spot as far away as possible from the mystery mound, I summoned my pickaxe and my Miner’s Mitts, striking into the rock.
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The very moment the metal of the pickaxe made contact with the wall, something changed.
Deep within the rock, one of the strange dense patches I’d noticed began to move. More importantly, it began to move towards me. Jumping back and reflexively overloading armor and weapon alike, I eyed the wall closely, ready for any manner of beast to lunge out at me.
Even so, when a section of rock began to flow like a thick taffy and a creature stepped out, it wasn’t at all what I’d expected.
With a flattened stone head no larger than a volleyball and four stubby limbs assembled from small rocks, the monster which greeted me looked nothing so much like the evolved form of a child’s pet rock. A few flecks of copper ran through its body, the only deviation from its otherwise unremarkable gray appearance. Lacking any eyes, it still managed to convey a sense of looking around as it swiveled its head to and fro before seeming to lock in on me. At a speed that was more endearing than threatening, it began to toddle over, giving me plenty of time to identify it.
Ore Munchling (Copper - 6%), Level 13: 900/900hp
A natural cousin of the standard earth elemental. Drawn to consume any metal or ore it encounters, the munchling concentrates and condenses consumed metals within its body to strengthen itself. Gradually, these consumed metals leach back into the surrounding earth, creating veins of unusually pure ore.
As most creatures are, the munchling is instinctively protective of its food sources, attacking anyone who attempts to mine any nearby deposits.
If its diminutive form wasn’t proof enough, its level made it clear that I didn’t have much to worry about. Just to be sure, I enhanced my armor to the max and let it complete its journey. Upon reaching me, it didn’t even reach my knees. Despite the obvious size disparity, it brought back one of its tiny arms to punch me. For all of its earnest efforts, I barely felt the impact as it connected.
Bit by bit, I lessened my Overload Armor until I dropped it altogether, relying only on the base Arcane Armament. When this, too, proved to fully negate the munchling’s attacks, I couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed on its behalf.
“Mr. Munchling, do I have moral qualms about killing you?” I mean, I probably didn’t need to. It wasn’t like it could actually hurt me, and it didn’t seem to be aggressive unless I tried to mine.
On the flip side, strangely cute or not, it was a dungeon monster, not all that dissimilar from the metal slimes I used to kill back in Sylum. And just like them, it would probably be a real nuisance if enough of its siblings got a chance to pile onto me. Plus, despite moving around, as a dungeon elemental, it was soulless. At the end of the day, it wasn’t any more conscious than a regular rock.
And if I do get swarmed by twenty of these and end up dying, I’m going to feel really, really dumb for letting it live just because it looks silly.
“Okay, that settled it. Sorry, Mr. Munchling.” Down my pickaxe descended, slamming into the animated rock monster.
To my shock, the munchling proved to be considerably stronger defensively than its lacking power would have suggested, forcing me to charge a followup strike with some mana. The second strike was enough to split its main stone in two, revealing a small crystal within. As soon as I shattered said crystal, the expected notification finally arrived.
You have defeated an Ore Munchling.
I feel like both Cal and Verin would have done the same thing, but somehow, I’m glad they weren’t there to see that. Oh well.
Bereft of its guardian, the ore in the wall quickly succumbed to my efforts, earning me some copper to play with. On a few occasions, more munchlings popped out of the walls to impotently bat at my shins, but much like the first, they were easy to dispatch.
I would have continued for longer, too, but unrefined ore took up a lot of space. Not wanting to completely fill up my storage, I kept my mining to a minimum.
Throughout the entire endeavor, though, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something. Over and over again, I kept looking back to the pure copper mound blocking the exit. Partly, I just wanted to think about it more. Was it really just a mundane metal barrier? The dungeon rarely made things quite so easy for me.
More than that, I had the bizarre feeling that something had changed each time I looked back. Not the shape. That was pretty constant, I thought. Not the distance. The copper wasn’t slowly creeping closer or anything like that. There was something, though, straining both my God’s Mind-enhanced memory and my powerful Perception. When at last I decided I’d had enough mining, I walked a bit closer and sat down, staring directly at the copper without averting my gaze.
When a full minute passed without any visible changes, I was nearly ready to admit that I was being paranoid. Right as I was about to commit to more direct measures, though, I finally saw it.
There. It was faint, but now that I knew what to look for, it was unmistakable. Ever so slightly, the coloring on certain patches of the mound was fading.
But why would it-
Fueled by the new knowledge, a switch suddenly flipped in my brain, and the shape of the barrier made sense all at once. Belatedly, I realized that God’s Eye would likely confirm my guess, but from what I’d read, there was another way to check.
Taking out a piece of ore, I aimed for one of the faded sections of the barrier, lobbing the metal-laden rock. It landed right on the mark before tumbling away.
Tremor Sense perked up as the mound emitted a small vibration. A moment later, a tiny section of the copper peeled off from the rest, quickly resolving into a newly familiar form. With two stubby legs, it waddled over to the ore I’d thrown before thrusting one of its arms directly into the rock. As I watched, the copper in the ore began to disappear, even as the faded patch I’d noticed returned to its perfect copper hue.
“Neat. So that’s what they look like when they’re full.” Out of curiosity, I finally hit the munchling with an identification.
Ore Munchling (Copper - 98%), Level 18: 1100/1100hp
Unfortunately for my forward progress, it looked like the munchlings had a habit of napping off their meals. Normally, that would have been fine, but they just had to choose to pile up directly in front of the only way forward.
Well, no biggy. A bit more fighting, and then I can continue deeper.
Done with its meal, the munchling looked like it might return to its original position, only to freeze as it seemed to notice me for the first time. Whether hoping for another snack or correctly identifying me as a threat to its food source, it began to approach.
Unworried, I stood up and summoned my pickaxe, slowly charging it up with mana. Just like its rockier siblings, the munchling waltzed right up to my left leg and reared back an adorably lumpy arm, sending it forth only to-
Ore Munchling has punched you for 72hp!
The sheer force of the blow sent me stumbling backwards, and the very moment I put any weight on my left leg, I collapsed as the entire limb erupted with pain. I hit the ground hard, only now processing my wound. Having somehow broken through my armor enhancement, the munchling had caved in part of my leg armor. Bits of steel poked into my flesh, likely mingling with shards of bone from what was undoubtedly a fractured tibia.
How- What-
Any further thoughts were put on hold as I spotted the munchling ambling over, making a beeline for my head. I tried and failed to get my feet beneath me to pull off a Spatial Step, only managing to fall back to the ground in agony.
Pain Resistance has reached level 18!
Move. I’d already seen what one punch could do to a leg. What would that same force look like if turned to my skull? Involuntarily, I shuddered.
Reduced to frantically crawling across the cavern like a baby, I fled as fast as I could as the tiny statue pursued.
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