Sword of Justice Part 9

10 K a day has defeated me.  My wrist gave out, too many words.  Good news is that 5k doesn't seem to bother it so I'm going to slow down over the weekend and see if I can pick back up on monday.  Going to hover at 5k and see how that works out.  

Chapter 34:  Impact crater

“You are a big baby,” said Justice as I looked at the stars, through the hole in the roof that I made when I jumped over the wall.  I attempted to land on the wall, but realizing the guard would see me I continued my momentum and hopped over the other side and fell two stories into a roof.

I hoped the ringing bell would mask my sound, but at this point I didnt’ care if the orcs found me.  I flicked my finger into the large chunk of wood shoved straight through my midsection.

Cracking it off was not working, so shoved Justice under my body and then used my elbow like a fulcrum with Power to lift my torso off of the spike.  Unfortunately didn’t give me enough reach to actually pull myself off of the bloody thing.

“I believe you are going to reimpale yourself,” said Justice.

Unwilling to do that I burned two points of stamina, and a point of mana.  I used dexterity and power combined with magical strike to cut off the wooden stake and then rolled onto my front.  With my last dregs of power and dexterity I found the part still sticking out of my back and pulled it free.

Now I was bleeding out with a massive wound that was far in excess of my body’s capacity to survive, for about three seconds.  Then I was… bleeding out less.

“What happened to heal,” I moaned.

“There are limits to the spell, and you are over them,” said Justice cautiously.

“So what are my options,” I groaned, and then felt the spell cast a second time.  That time it took, or finished the work form the first spell.  In either case the wound was gone and I felt like I had sufficient blood to survive.

Looking around, aside from the roof damage I made this place look like a murder scene.  I must have bled out gallons in this places and the wound splashed it everywhere when I pulled out the spike.

“They are going to have a bad day tomorrow,” I said picking up a small red doll that had just bit of white still showing.  The orc on it read, ‘baby’s naming day’.

“Yes, I believe that the pile of silk stopped your fall,” said Justice.  They were in an exquisite wooden crate that screamed special order.

“Or the teddy bears,” I continued, standing and checking to see where everything was.  I was tempted to cast magical armor to fix my shirt, but I was down one point of mana for the next hour and decided not to risk it.

I grabbed a silk garment to replace it.  It was obviously a woman’s shirt, but the orcs men’s department was way too large for me.  “You realize that shirt says Mommy knows best.”

“Yeah, I caught that,” I said.

“What are the clips on the chest for,” asked Justice.

“Making me regret life,” I replied, ensuring the nursing snaps were all snapped.  I’d have grabbed another shirt, but they were even worse.  Orcs were direct, bordering on vulgar, and shirts with messages sewn into them were apparently the vogue thing.

“Why would a mommy be for rent,” asked Justice.  “Is she renting out her services for childcare?”

“No,” I said, walking to the outside door and opening it, leaving the strange maternity shop behind.

Once I was on the streets of Kenin, everything was easier.  The inside of the town had many of the same problems as outside, but looked to be less patrolled.  It took me a moment to figure out why, but it was obvious when I saw several of the doors.

“Orcs live here,” I said as I cut down an alleyway.  “There are no humans living here so they do not expect any trouble.”  In retrospect, I could make the jump between the building and the wall.  Without power or the ring, that wouldn’t have been possible.

“I see movement,” said Justice and I stuck fast to the side of a wall as two orcs walked by talking about boats.  Both looked older, and slightly out of shape compared to the orcs I was used to seeing.

“Orc non-combatants,” I said, shaking my head.  Somehow I always pictured them as being warriors until the end, instead of seeing old orcs.  Or women and children.  “Oh this is going to be bad.”

“What do you see,” asked Justice.

“An atrocity waiting to happen,” I said.  Still I needed that potion trainer and that potion, so I was trying to make my peace with this.  It wasn’t going well.  My sister would be horrified if she realized what I did to get this cure.

So I was really going to have to not tell her what I did.

In the meantime, I needed to find these caves.  Which of course, was what I was doing because I knew what needed to be done.

“So any ideas,” I asked.

“None at all,” said Justice.  Presumably some of these building have basements, we could start there,” said Justice.

I looked around and spotted the nicest looking building nearby and crept over to it.  The orcs obviously followed the locks make good neighbors philosophy of living, and the locks here were quite effective.  Not that I knew how to pick a lock, or had any tools to do that with.

“There is a window open on the second story,” said Justice.  It was an draft window, designed to vent hot air while a second window on the first floor took in air, except the one on the first floor had a metal grate on it.  The one on the second floor was only about a foot tall so squeezing in was going to be a challenge.

Fortunately I loved challenges, and getting out of the street.  With the ring and power, I could make the height of that jump.  The problem is that I couldn’t make the finicky level of technical movement to actually get in the window from that, that’s why I added dexterity to the menu.

I leapt up and onto the adjacent building, before kicking off and wall jumping to the draft window.  It went perfectly, except I totally gouged out a chunk of the wall on the first house and cracked the window.  Also, the draft window was at the top of the stairs, and I ended up rolling down about half way.  Perfect.

The inside of the orc house was surprisingly nice.  I was at the landing in the middle of the stairs, carefully assessing what was going on and what my next steps should be.

“Are you conscious,” asked Justice.

“Just checking to see if this wood paneling is cherry.  Tastes like it is,” I said feeling my teeth to see that they were all there.  They were, though there was an obvious imprint of my face on the smooth wood.

“I don’t see what that’s important, but you do you friend, also there is an orc coming this way, he sounds angry,” said Justice.

I drew my sword in one quick pull and waited as a burly orc elite stomped around the corner.  He saw me and raised his short blade to attack, but I was ready.  I lashed out, and he sidestepped, showing that he too had dexterity.  He swung and I burned dexterity to avoid the strike.

“Who are you,” hissed the orc.

“Your worst nightmare,” I replied.

The orc sighed, “Let’s just finish this.”

We both slashed again using dexterity.  He was bigger, and his normal strikes were more powerful than mine, even augmented with power, but I had a sword.  He had an oversized knife with delusions of grandeur, it wasn’t even enchanted.  I ended up using Magical Strike and cutting through it, him and part of the banister.

“Do you think anyone heard that,” I asked.

We waited several seconds as a wet sloshing sound went down the stairs.

“I think we are clean, there is someone else in the house though,” said Justice.

“Great,” I muttered.  I’d just killed an orc in a home invasion.  They were racist assholes, but there was stills something wrong about that, but ‘in for a penny’.  “Let's go kill the other resident.”

I didn’t like this, maybe I could knock them out and tie them up?  That was  thing right, I could kidnap them and take them with me down the tunnels, except Elana would certainly kill them as soon as she saw them.  Meaning I might as well do it.

This was the part they didn’t talk about in stories.  Sure the evil minion signed his heart over to the evil organization, but the hero just dropped all of them without even caring about any of them.  Those minions had families, big unknown families that you couldn’t even put a face to.

I opened the door and was greeted by the sight of a tied up naked orc woman’s backside.  “Thank you mighty warrior for dealing with that noise, I, a meek and servile female, shall reward you with that you most dearly seek.”

The lady orc was laying there, naked. She was tall, lean and green.  Anatomically it was interesting, she had a set of abs that a boudy builder would kill for but enough curves up top that they were about the perfect shape if you were into muscle mommys.

“YOU,” she growled, staring at me.

“Kilva, I lived,” I said, pointing Justice at her.

Her well muscled arms flexed and she was indeed tied to the bed.  “Oh no, I’ve heard stories like this.  Where is my husband?”

“Um,” I began.

“Oh you killed him?  Again?” she groaned.  “I don’t know what I ever did to you such that need to kill all of my husbands, but it is getting annoying.”

“You knocked me out!”

“I had you knocked out because you were trespassing in my bedchamber, again,” she said looking around and drawing her legs up to hide her nakedness.  I threw a blanket over her and she relaxed somewhat.

“Don’t play innocent, I know what you are doing.  You and the female orcs are really running orc society and this is just some sort of play so you can establish matriarchal dominance over the orcs,” I said.

“What are you on about?”

“The books, you stole them because you knew about the ritual!” I retorted.

“I stole them?  They were my dead husbands and I needed something out of that match, I sure didn’t get any children.  Could you untie me?”

“Not until you answer my questions,” I said and she started struggling against one bond.  The dead orc tied her up good.  “If there isn’t some conspiracy, why did you get remarried so quickly.  You couldn’t have met that orc more than a few days ago.”

“What?  I’m an orc woman in prime breeding age,” she said staring at me.  “He had all the qualifications of a good mate.  He had a nice house and working equipment.”

“I understand the equipment, but the house?”

“I’m trying to give birth to little baby orcs, it is much easier in a house.  I even setup a new nursery, I have a load of silks and teddy bears coming from a nearby port that should be here any time now,” she said.

“At the shop at the end of the road,” I asked.

She stopped struggling.  “You can’t be serious?  That’s why I sold the books, to pay for the nursery!”

“But they contained parts of a ritual to empower your species,” I said.

“I don’t care, I don’t read spell books.  They were valuable and Corgo was buying them,” she said.  “I’m going to have to tell my father that a stupid human is coming and slaying all of my husbands.  You realize that I’m going to living in an apartment, a studio one instead of a small mansion.”

“So the females aren’t in control over everything secretly,” I asked.

“No, that sounds like so much work and we could just be having babies.  They’re cute, and funny, and you can nibble on their toesies,” said Kilva.

“I have have misjudged this situation,” I said as the orc went back to trying to get her wrist free.

“Do you want me to untie you,” I asked,.

“No, now that I’ve thought about it, that would be like asking the dog to crawl all over you while you are naked and I’m not that particular kink.  I just like making my husband happy like a normal wife.”

“So you aren’t into this,” I said.

“Role play?  Eh, I mean, I’ll play along, whatever puts babies in here, but seriously why go through so much work in the bedroom?  Capture princess?  So complicated,” said Kilva before finally giving up.  “Great, this is my worst nightmare.”

“That you are tied up at my mercy?” I asked.

“Let me put this in human, I’m naked and there is a dog in the room,” she said, baring her teeth at me.

“That’s kind of insulting.”

“I know, that’s what I was going for, you fucking dog,” she said.  She glared at me with fire in her eyes.  Daring me to do something.  I did.  I closed the door.

“Can she get out of those knots,” I asked.

“Probably not, I mean if she scream hard enough eventually someone will hear her,” said Justice.

“Okay, lets check the basement,” I said and walked to the stair.  I hopped over her former husband and easily found the path to the basement.  “One second.”

“I stepped my heel into the blood and walked over to the front door and unlocked it.  I opened it enough to sneak out and took a few steps outside into the dirt before unsummoning my boot and sneaking back in.

“Why did you grip the door handle on the outside if you weren’t going to close the door,’ asked Justice.

“In case they have fingerprinting,” I said and checked to make sure I wasn’t leaving any tracks before heading into the basement.  If there wasn’t anything down here, I’d have to go to another building and try again.

The basement was more of a wine celler and food pantry.  There was enough in here to feed a family of four for a month.  I didn’t touch any of it.  “CAn you detect anything?”

“Not right now, have you managed to reverse the disks yet,” asked Justice.

“Not yet, but I’m close,” I said.

“Do so, and I’ll be able to help,” said the sword.

I concentrated on my mana halo.  I had the rings spinning at different speeds now, with the inner disk spinning faster than the outer disk.  That was supposed to balance the mana load, but the next step was reversing the outer disk so that it was going at the same speed it was now but in the current direction.

So far I’d managed to slow it.  Slowing it is was horrible, and felt like you were going to die.  However, I needed this and desperation was a great motivator.  I focused again, felt my power pressing up against the outer ring, and as it slowed I felt a great welling of power behind my eyes as I stopped the flow of mana in my body.  I continued pushing, and pushing.  I needed this or I would have stopped.  I needed this or I wouldn’t have done it.

Finally, when I thought I was at my limit and it felt like my eyes were going to pop the ring suddenly skipped, and then started spinning backwards.  I collapsed to the floor, and Justice healed me.

The healing took away most, but not all, of the blinding headache.  I shook my head and got back to my feet, I could taste blood and Justice cast cleanse.

“You have managed it, I can now teach you a new spell, Amplify!” said Justice.

I stood up shakily.  “How does that work?”

“You can cast Amplify when I am using another spell and it will increase the spells power in unusual ways,” said Justice.

I concentrated and found that I when I started casting amplify it tried to latch onto Justice, but not the whole sword.  The gems in the pomel seemed to attract the effect.  One glowed slightly as I felt it out and I cast amplify on that one.

The wall’s briefly flickered such that I could almost see through them, almost.  “Shit, that almost almost worked.”

“What do you mean,” asked Justice.

“I could see through the walls, briefly.  I think there might be a cave down there someplace,” I said pointing.

“Oh, we could do that, but there is a much closer cave on the wall behind you to the left,” said Justice, who had perfect recall of every moment of his life.

“Or that, that works too,” I walked over and found a wine rack sitting next to a carpeted wall.  The rack was mostly empty so I grabbed a few bottles and tossed them into my storage before pulling the rack aside.  It was lightweight enough without the wine on it.  “How far in?”

I drew Justice and lifted the wall hanging, which revealed a porous red almost claylike stone.  Pressing Justice into it, the sword only got about two feet into the wall when he chuckled.

“I am in a cave,” I said.

Chapter 35: In a Cave

“Will I fit,” I asked checking the minimap.  The answer yes, but I better not be claustrophobic.  Fortunately it didn’t take very long for the cave to open up significantly.

It took about thirty minutes to cut open a passage.  I used Justice to carve out long bricks which I carefully set on another wall hanging.  After I was done, I had a hole large enough for me to fit through and I crawled through that.

The passage beyond was cramped, but I could easily fit through it until I got to a thicker passage.  I opened it up slightly in several passes as I brought the bricks with me and finally I set the wine rack back in place and covered the hole with the hanging.  I left enough brick chucks there to stop airflow and hoped that no one went to the back corner of the pantry for some time.

“What was our reach on the pulse?" I asked.

“Only about fifty meters,” said Justice.

“See anything else interesting,” I said as I crawled through the hole.  The fact that I couldn’t stand was not comforting.

“Chin up, chum!  There is water ahead and that passage is much larger,” said Justice.

For twenty meteres I crawled on my hands and knees through a dark and unused passage until finally I got to the end, where it was a blank wall.

“The chamber is a bit further in, you might have to dig,” said Justice.  That took an hour, mainly because the dirt didn’t really have anywhere to go and each time I struck the red dust threatened to blind me.  Eventually though after nearly six feet of digging I managed to shove Justice into another cave.

“We are good to go, the cave is thankfully empty,” said Justice.

“Wait, what,” I asked, as aI pulled justice back and started thrusting him through the wall several more time.

“There are no monsters, which are a problem underground,” said Justice.

“Of course,” I replied.  As the hole got bigger, it expanded faster.  That was mainly because I could just push the dirt into the much larger cave, and partially because I was getting frantic.

Finally one big power assisted push broke a me sized hole through the cavern wall and I fell into a large tunnel with a small stream of water running down it.  I didn’t know where the water was coming from, but I had a pretty good idea of where it was going.

I spent a moment unsummoning my armor and washing off in the cool water.  It was chill, but not freezing by any stretch.

“Water underground is of a consistent temperature,” said Justice.  The water now had a reddish twinge from all the clay that I’d disturbed and that wasn’t going away anytime soon.  We followed the stream and I was using him as a torch and he began giving me a rundown of what to expect during his Justice podcast.  In short, if he’d mentioned any of it earlier I wouldn’t be down here.

“So Kobolds are real,” I said, sliding the sword against the side of the cave as we walked.

“Yes, little dog men,” said Justice.

“I thought there were little dragons,” I said.

“This is reality, not fantasy,” said Justice.  “So are goblins, those are pesky little creatures who like to eat fingers.”

“They sound unpleasant,” I said as we continued down the pipe.

“But they are not the only monsters one might encounter,” said Justice.  “The most dangerous thing is a large body of water.

“Define that,” I said.

“Anything larger than an American swimming pool,” said Justice.

“Why did you bring that up all of a sudden,” I asked as I turned the corner, and there was a small lake.

“Because you should be prepared,” said Justice.

I looked at the map.  The stream I was following was healthy sized, at at least one more tunnel ended in this lake.  All of the water was being poured out of a relatively small exit tunnel on the end.

“Can you see in the water,” I asked.

“No, there is a material difference so I cannot see into the water without touching it, the vile icky stuff,” said Justice.

“What,” I asked.

“It causes rust,” said Justice.

“You are rustproof,” I grumbled dipping the tip of the sword into the water.  It instantly illuminated any significant amount of water from here to the full range of Justice’s scan.  I was having trouble parsing the 3d map, but they all looked like they were going the same general direction, and I could see almost back to the fort from here.  That meant I was somewhere around the halfway point.  I could even sense the stone from here, and it looked like we were on the right track.

I pulled Justice out and he sheathed, “No one should put a blade into water.  That is bad manners.  You have bad manners!”

“Fine, I’m sorry, is there a terrible monster under the water who will kill me,” I asked.

“No, I didn’t see one,” grumbled Justice.  “Also the water is shallow, only a few feet deep at the deepest point.”

“Phew, then we were worried about nothing,” I said as I stepped into the water and a massive tentacle shot down from the ceiling grabbing me around the waist.  “Oh, you dick.”

Suddenly I was airborne and heading towards a squid like beak that looked hungry.  I burned dexterity and slashed off the tentacle which caused me to abruptly start going down.

I landed in the puddle, which was far too shallow to really do anything to break my fall.  Thankfully I landed on my face and used that to break my fall.  I stood up almost instantly, but by then the first mass of tentacles dropped from the ceiling and snarled at me.

Fight or flight mode hit, but I was confident I could take one of these bastards.  Then the other two landed, blocking all the exits.  I charged towards the one in the middle, slashing at it with Justice in an effort to slay it before it was ready.  I failed, because masses of tentacles were always ready.

Several rocketed towards me and I began swinging Justice in short, quick arcs, slashing through several of them.  Unfortunately, cutting off the ends didn’t actually seem to stop them.  They just sealed up and tried again.  Worse as I was advancing forward another tentacle hit me from behind.

It would have been a glancing blow, but instead of suction cups it had some sort of sharp barbs and those shredded my skin while searching for a grip.

“Armor,” I yelled and felt my armor magically encase me as the three tentacle beasts came forward, waving their limbs hypnotically.

“Hold fast, friend.  We have this,” said Justice.

“Damn straight, I refuse to die to a tentacle porn monster,” I said burning dexterity and closing with the one by the door.  My first two slashes were ineffective, sure I hacked off tentacles but I didn’t score a lethal blow.  The third slash caused the creature to scream and stumble back as both other monster shot tentacles at me.

The wrapped around my chest and leg and started pulling.  The barbs found small gaps in the armor and latched on, giving them a terrific surface to pull with.  The used other tentacles to latch onto the wall and other surfaces and began pulling.

My armor groaned, as it was taking most of the load.  I was not having too much fun either.  I made several half hearted slashes with Justice, each slicing apart a tentacle only to have another tentacle replace it.

Soon I felt my leg pisces starteting to go and the tentacle monster wrapped around my leg even tighter as the armor buckled, so I cast Magical Armor.  All the rents, gaps and stretched straps instantly righted themselves, with the tentacle inbtetween them.

The creatures both screamed, trying to pull themselves free.  No longer focusing on pulling as hard as they could, I was able to get my arm into position and I slashed off both tentacles holding me, then activated dex and charged towards the first one.  I hacked three times, each slash cutting deeper until I found whatever the core mass of the creature was and slashed justice through the creature’s guts.

Turning I spotted the remaining two.  One was badly wounded, it's blood pouring out into the pool and dying it an orangish color.  The other one snarled and advanced towards me, tentacles at the ready.

With only one, and no distractions, I was able to start cutting until it started running out of tentacles.  Then it was just a matter of closing and striking at the creature’s core.  One slash on the smaller creature, and it perished leaving me all alone with it's dying friend.  I finished that poor creature off and wiped off justice on another tentacle.

“So were those goblins or kobolds,” I asked.

“Neither, weren’t you paying attention, those were cruel tentacle creatures of the deep, I have heard them called… keep those things away from me,” said Justice.

“Keep aways, gotcha,” I said looking at the slot in the roof of the cave.  They would just chill up there waiting for something to fall into the water and then snatch it.  That did not seem very productive, but I hadn’t spent enough time here to find out if that was a good idea or not.

In my experience being stuck in one of these caves was a bad idea.

“Any treasure up there,’ i asked.

“I already looted them,” said Justice.

I checked the list, “Why does he have gloves?”

“He is a monster, no one has ever been able to make hide or hair of what they have,” said Justice.

I pulled the gloves out of storage and put them on, they fit automatically and seemed to tighten onto my hands.  I expected that to be uncomfortable but as soon as I was acclimated to it I could scarcely feel them.

“They are gloves of sure grip,” said Justice.

I looked at the gloves and squeezed my hands, nothing happened so I focused on holding justice and felt something.  As I opened my hand I realized that small versions of the tentacles’ barbs were sticking out of the gloves.  With them active no one was taking my sword at least.

“I wonder,” I said, reaching up to the ceiling and extending the barbs.  They latched on and I lifted myself up, for about two seconds before the small chunk of ceiling I gripped gave out.  I landed on my feet, because why would trust that the first time.

I had to pat the ceiling out of the glove for several seconds.  “So not so good at spider climbing.”

“Probably not, the barbs dont’ hurt me but I imagine they would do horrible things to your typical hilt if given enough time,” said Justice.

Still they were something and I looked at the pool.  There was more than one tunnel out of the pool, it just so happened that the other one was smaller and totally underwater.  I brought up the water map again without shoving Justice into the water, and that tiny passage went on for at least another 100 meters, so there was no way I could dig my way through.  That left the other exit and I started that way, armor on.

That lasted ten minutes, armor was bulky and annoying if you didn't’ have a reason to wear it.

“You are finally up to level 4,” said Justice.  I considered that, I didnt’ feel any different and wondered what new amazing powers I’d gained.

You are a level four Magical Sword Squire

Strength: 19 (+1) | Endurance: 17 (+1) | Agility: 19 (+1) | Reason: 14 (+1) | Logic: 13 (+2) | Willpower: 18 (+1)

Mana: 2* | Stamina 4

Skills: Dexterity (rank 5), Power (rank 5), Conditioning (Rank 4).  Utility skills: Smithing (rank 5), Salvaging (rank 3), 3 available.  Magical skills: Capacity (Rank 1)

“What’s with the asterisk next to my mana and what are we going to do with Power,” I asked.

“Well, you have two points of mana, but yet your mana skills are not developed enough to support a second level of magical power,” said Justice.  You will have to keep developing your magical skills, I will impart to you the skill “Battery” will allow you to use more mana!”

“What does that entail,” I asked.

“Remember how your capacity required you to spin your magical disks in opposing directions?”

“Yes, it was horrible,” I said slowly.

“Now you must teach them to orbit your mind, like a planet around a star, made of rings, which are going in the opposite directions,” said Justice.

“That doesn't make any sense,” I said.

“Just wait until you see how complicated this skill book is,” said Justice.  “I make the other one look a primer.”

The book appeared in my hand and it was literally twice as thick as the other one.  I flipped into it a few pages and actually felt my brain seize up in rebellion against this new atrocity.

Anything for you, sis.

“Fine, I’ll get to it, what about Power,” I asked.

“Well, there are two options if you chose to exhaust a point of stamina.  You can either do a tremendous burst of temporary power, allowing you a singular mighty physical exertion, or you can instead choose to have a longer use of a power in a heightened manner.”

“So run super hard for one action or have generally extended power for about 15 seconds,” I asked.

“Yes,” said Justice.  “I withhold recommendation, there are advantages to both and you wished to choose one.  I shall support your decision, like a good sword supports his Knight!”

I had the dexterity version of the quick action ability, I could dodge any one attack which did seem useful, but generally when I just burned stamina I was able to dodge anything.  It seemed to me that the longer power would be more generally useful.  Fifteen seconds of power was the equivalent of burning 5 stamina, so mathematically it made sense.

“I’ll go with the longer version,” I said.

“Excellent, let me unlock your skill,” said Justice as I waited.  “Ahem.”

I held aloft my magic sword, “I have the power?”

“Why did you say that, you didn’t say that when you chose dexterity,” said Justice.

“I was doing a thing,” I said.

“Your things are silly,” said Justice, “and done.”

Power, Initiate rank 4: Your strikes will be 50% more powerful, additionally you can spend stamina to briefly increase your weapon strikes impact by 90%.  You can exhaust one Stamina to increase your strike’s damage by 140% for 15 seconds.

Dexterity, Initiate rank 5: You are 50% more mobile, you can burn one stamina to briefly increase your mobility by 90%.   You can exhaust one stamina to heighten your ability to move by 900% against one attack.

Conditioning, Initiate rank 4: You tire 30% less.  You recover your first point of stamina in 12.5 seconds.

I flexed my hand and could feel the slight increase in strength that power granted me.  It was odd, considering the skill tip didn’t mention general strength, just weapon strikes.  The effect was that my whole body just got more powerful.  I didn’t write the tool tips, but whomever did was lazy.

Stepping out of the underground pool, I continued down the water bored tunnel occasionally dipping Justice into the water.  Every time he shrieked like I was torturing him, so I tried to do it as few times as possible.  I was marginally successful.

We didn’t run into anything else too terrible.  One more of the tentacle monsters, but this time we knew they were in the ceiling and Justice spotted it before we even entered the cave.

“Seriously, it is hiding in the ceiling,” I said sticking my head out just a bit and examining the roof.  The damn thing blended in, to the point where if Justice wasn’t highlighting it on the minimap I’d have ignored it.

“So jump in and attack,” asked Justice.

“I have a better idea,” I said grabbing a rock, nature’s quarter.  I flipped the rock into the water and the Keep Away went for it instantly, sending a tentacle right at the spot the rock hit.  I grabbed it, and then exhausted a point of stamina.

PUlling with all of my newly increased strength, I started yanking the tentacle monster ouf of the wall and into the hallway.  I was mainly doing it because i was curious to see if I could, but the secondary reason was also funny.

By the ten second mark I had the tentacle stretched out as far as it could go and the Keep Away was totally lodged into the cave, blocking the whole thing.  It was not happen, in the last.  I couldn’t see me, and the water was starting to pool where he’d clogged the pipe.

I walked up and thrust the sword into this head several times.  One of them worked and the creature stopped thrashing.  Of course that lead to the second problem.

“So is he just stuck,” said Justice.

“I imagine that eventually the water pressure would force him out,” I said as I smacked the large cork like creature with my heel.  It did not budge, or more specifically it budged everywhere at once which only served to stick it deeper into the walls and block the passage more.

“It is not moving, and I don’t think there was another one in there,” said Justice.

“We can carve it to bits,” I said, slashing at the creature several times.  It was coming apart in chunks, incredibly smelly chunks.  “Wait, you are on low powered fire mode now, could you get hotter?”

“I am carefully managing my mana so you can see, it is all I can do to keep up this low level of flame without draining anything, and the crystal is damaged,” said Justice.

“This is about to get gross,” I muttered and stepped closer to the Keep Away.  I knew how to butcher several kinds of animals, this one was by far the strangest though.  A Keep Away was about the size of a angus bull, but that was just a guess because those things didn’t have twenty limbs and a beak.  I removed the beak quickly, figuring that was something I didn’t want lying around and the water was already up to my knees.

By the time it was up to my waist I managed to slash through the cow’s anus using magical strike.  That split pen the whole creature and the guts that had been piling around me shot out of the tunnel into the room below.  I went with them because that was quite a bit of water.

I grabbed a tentacle and looked at the grippers.  They were full of rocks form the cave wall.  “Stupid thing was gripping everything.”

“Well, lets not do that again,” said Justice.  “Also the water ends soon.”

“The water ends, it doesn’t get into a bigger pool,” I asked as we continued and I found the answer.

As I stepped back into natural light for the first time in hours I looked around to the lovely river before me, and below me.  Well below me.  I was about fourty feet in the air in a tunnel that ended in a small waterfall that was almost directly over the river.  I looked around for a bit and finally found Elana fishing, patiently.

I got the rope out and pitoned inot the wall of the cave with about 6 more pitons that were strictly necessary before she finally saw me and walked over.

“Enjoy your trip,” she said.  “I have dinner.”

“Some cooked animal would be delightful right now,” I said as I climbed down and sat next to her to wait.