Milo tenderly felt at his split lip. It was already a little swollen. He winced, then nearly winced again when the expression caused him more pain. Schooling his face to stillness, he checked his mana.

Seven. He should probably get going soon.

It was too bad he’d only killed a single one of the eight creatures on the switchbacks; if he’d gotten just one more he would have reached level 5, which struck him as an important level that might give him an extra boost. There was no guarantee, of course, but he could hope.

After some reflection, he’d decided that he wasn’t super worried about whatever had hit him; it was clearly nonlethal. He’d simply add ‘projectiles’ to his active Skim prompts when he next engaged so he’d have a better chance at dodging them in the poor lighting. Doing so would also hopefully give him more information about where they’d originated from.

Clack. Clackclack.

Oh? It appeared the roos had followed him. They were tenacious, these denizens of The Tunnels Down Under. The roos, at least. Given their behavior hounding Backlebutt to his probable doom and the fact that they had tracked Milo here, they apparently didn’t give up once they had their quarry’s figurative scent.

That was actually good for Milo; he’d much prefer to fight them among the stalagmites than down on the ground. Maybe he could just kite everything to this room from now on?

Hmm…

It was an option. However, doing so would drastically prolong his stay here if the tunnels went much further. No, plan A was still just to plow through enemies where he found them. He could always fall back here as a plan B if needed, though hopefully he would stumble upon another defensible position further ahead to cut down on travel time.

Once he was up to eight mana, Milo took to the skies to see how far the skeleroos had gotten. He would have waited until he had nine, but he didn’t want to get caught with his pants down if they suddenly emerged into his delta area. The gradually louder clacks of their approach through the meandering stalagmite trail were getting to his nerves, despite the fact that the cassowary’s fear effect had been absent for a while now.

He activated Skim, prompting simultaneously for enemies, the shortest path through the stalagmites, and projectiles. Although, given the greatly enhanced lighting of the current environment, that last one wasn’t nearly as critical as if he were at the switchbacks.

Milo was unsurprised to see that all five of the roos had made it into the maze at this point, given the amount of hopping he’d been hearing as he waited. His Skim prompt for picking out the path had worked flawlessly, showing him that the true path took an extremely roundabout path through the huge cavern. He suspected, based on what he knew of the skill, that it wouldn't be able to do the same thing if he were down on the ground, unable to see the entire thing laid out.

The roos seemed to know exactly where to go, putting Milo’s earlier effort to shame. The two frontmost roos were on track to reach the delta within a minute or two, assuming they kept to the correct path.

He also noticed, now that he was looking for it, that each of the skeleroos was holding something in each of its forelimbs. Squinting, he realized what they were. Boomerangs.

They were small and white. Made of bone, probably. Bonerangs? Milo was suddenly envisioning a certain Avatar with tented pants before banishing the offending image from his brain.

So that’s what hit me. He felt fortunate, now, at how little damage he’d sustained; he remembered being surprised to learn once upon a time that the quirky weapons could supposedly kill small game. They were even used by aboriginal hunters to break the legs of—ironically—kangaroos. These looked like a relatively diminutive form of the weapon, however. Still, they have weapons now. Does that mean these are higher level?

Probably. It shouldn't make a huge difference.

Now that he knew what he was up against, he saw no further reason to delay. Milo descended silently to a stalagmite the two roos had just passed before slamming his textbook into the skull of the rearmost one, decapitating it. The second one paused, turning just in time to take the book right in its lower jaw. It deanimated into a pile of bones, joining its compatriot on the floor.

Amazing how much easier it is to aim when I’m not fighting the urge to run away.

It also didn’t hurt that he was closer, with a better viewing angle, in brighter environs.

Milo received two kill notifications, revealing that these roos were the highest he’d fought so far at level 4. He also received another extremely welcome message:

-

Rank up! You are now a level 5 (Elite) Scholar.

-

He was disappointed, however, when he realized that there wasn’t anything obviously exceptional about level 5, not even an extra skill slot. He’d gotten additional skill slots at levels 2 and 4, however, so perhaps he could expect another one at level 6. Getting a new one every even number was frankly a lot better than every 5 levels, so he'd take it.

Milo immediately placed his new stat point into mana regeneration, bringing it to one every six minutes and forty seconds, before checking to see if any new skills were available. It turned out there were two more, same as last time.

-

Reading Light: Summon a small orb of light that you may move freely within one meter of your body. 1 mana/5 minutes.

Polyglot: You learn new languages with incredible speed, and can even tease out meaning from ancient texts written in long-dead tongues. Passive.

-

Wow. Nice. Polyglot is pretty much a no-brainer...if I see another person before I die.

It was also good to know that he had an option should he ever find himself somewhere entirely bereft of light. Neither of them were skills he needed right this moment, however.

He did indeed receive an additional modifier point, continuing the trend of one point per level. He briefly paged through his entire list of skills, hesitating slightly over Improved Memory. He’d wanted the skill since he’d first seen it. If Milo guessed right and it was analogous to Improved Cognition, one of its modifiers would likely provide a bonus to the size of his mana pool. That would certainly be useful. However, that would mean filling up his last skill slot and likely using the last of his modifier points, which he wasn’t thrilled about. He once more put off taking the skill.

Closing his menus with a sigh at the lack of any major upgrades, he waited patiently atop the stalagmite for two more mana to trickle into his pool—slightly faster now with his improved regeneration—before continuing on to the next three skeleroos. They had conveniently spread out singly through the maze. That made it relatively easy to pick them off one at a time.

Only one of them saw him before his book swooped down, throwing its boomerang Milo’s direction. He was able to dodge it with a quick duck and killed the roo without further incident.

The boomerang startled him when it reappeared in his peripheral vision and impacted off a stalagmite not too far away. Oh yeah. Boomerangs do that. He was glad it hadn’t returned along its initial path and clocked him in the back of the head. Shaking his head ruefully, Milo glanced around.

That should be all of them...

He flew up for a quick check with Skim to make doubly sure before flying down to one of the piles of bones. He picked up one of the boomerangs, inspecting it.

It was relatively light. It was also not perfectly symmetrical, both halves shaped a little differently, with one of them slightly thicker and heavier than the other. Backing up to give himself a bit more of a throwing lane, he chucked it sidearm with as much strength as he could muster.

Disappointingly, it didn’t come whirring back to him. Instead, it seemed to catch the air and shoot upward for some reason before ultimately plummeting back to the ground. It did backtrack a bit, but not as much as he’d hoped. Either it was flawed in some way or Milo didn’t know the proper throwing technique.

I’m betting on the latter.

Thinking back to the skeleroo’s throw, he realized it had actually thrown the weapon overhand. He flew over to another roo pile and tried one of its boomerangs using the overhand technique. It worked better this time, not shooting toward the ceiling, but it still didn’t return. His final try, with the roo’s second boomerang, actually yielded even worse results. He aimed a little too low, the weapon glancing off of a stalagmite just a few meters in front of him. It clattered to the ground a couple seconds later, robbed of its momentum.

I’ll just stick with my book, then.

Milo spent another mana to fly up and out of the maze of stalagmites. On a whim, he found another roo and quickly picked up one of its boomerangs before flying over to the cavern’s exit with a couple seconds to spare. He tucked it away inside his pack, a souvenir. It’s not too heavy.

He was back up to seven mana by the time he reached the top of the switchbacks where he’d been before. He Skimmed for enemies, finding only the cassowary whose neck he’d broken. It was alive, but evidently unconscious. The other one had apparently rolled completely out of the room after Milo had dropped it from high in the air and been either unable or unwilling to make its way back.

Milo found a largish rock and dropped it onto the creature’s little head with a queasy-making wet crunch. 36 XP.

He slowly wound his way down the zig-zagging trail, recovering another mana just before he reached bottom.

The entrance to the next room was an open arch in the middle of the tunnel, whereas the final switchback terminated near the right side of the tunnel right up against the back wall. That gave Milo the opportunity to sneak to the edge of the opening and peek around without anything from the other room able to see his approach.

He saw the injured cassowary immediately, a few meters inside. It lay on its side, fortunately facing away away from Milo. One of its legs was very clearly broken, and it looked wet. That was understandable, given that the room was filled with water.

Said water wasn’t terribly deep most places, but it was everywhere. Boulders and spines of rock rose up sporadically just above the still surface. It looked like one might be able to pick a path through the room from rock to rock without getting wet, but it would be a challenge.

He realized he could hear a faint hum of flowing water. That river he’d encountered before must let out somewhere nearby, feeding into this room somehow.

Milo didn’t see any enemies aside from the cassowary just yet, but his view was limited to just the left side of the cavern. All he could see was a flat expanse of shallow water butting up against the mostly featureless left and rear walls. It seemed to be lit by the same magical mechanism as the stalagmite room. He decided to risk exposing himself a bit more in order to get a better view of the rest of the cavern.

Oh wow.

He ducked back behind cover before replaying what he’d just seen in his head.

There were enemies. Lots of enemies. Probably something like a dozen, mostly skeleroos with a couple of cassowaries mixed in. There had also been something big and dark lying close to the ground, but Milo hadn’t been able to make out what it was in his split-second glance.

They were all gathered abreast of each other in a ragged line about two-thirds of the way to the far right wall. Not a single one had been facing his way, however.

Milo poked his head out again, daring a longer look. Yes, they were all facing the right wall, lined up along the near bank of what looked to be a very slow-moving river.

And for some reason, they were all intently focused on something Milo couldn’t quite make out against the wall on the far side of that river.