After Jason, Aria, and Belman harvested what they could from the three scarab corpses, Jason was given the task of dragging the remains away so that any scavengers wouldn’t make their way directly into the central courtyard.

They’d used some kind of oiled, leathery tarp to do their messy work, and all Jason needed to do was just drag it away and dump it somewhere, so he elected to take the remains all the way outside the temple walls. He asked Kera if he could borrow Ceri to keep an aerial eye out for him.

It turned out to be a good thing, too. Jason was just unrolling the tarp and dumping the contents when Ceri let out a warning screech from above and dived down to land on Jason’s shoulder.

Searching about, Jason quickly located the source of Ceri’s distress: A crystal serpent not unlike the type Kera had taken the form of a few days prior.

This one was clearly not Kera, though. Ceri puffed up, hissing angrily in Jason’s ear as the huge snake slowly shifted its bulk towards him and, presumably, the meal it wanted.

Backing away carefully, Jason pulled out his wand and drew one of his tanglefoot bombs. When he reached what he felt was a moderate distance away from the scarab corpses, he waited to see what the serpent would do.

The beast snaked forwards, glittering in the early afternoon sunlight. It paused only a moment to investigate the dead scarabs before it turned it’s gaze in Jason’s direction.

Seeing that the beast wasn’t going to leave him alone, Jason bit down on the thin strip of leather that worked as a sort of activator pin for the tanglefoot mixture, and pulled it. He tossed the bag to the ground just behind the serpent’s head.

With a puff of white smoke, the bag’s contents exploded outwards, releasing hundreds of thin filaments coated in a sticky, web-like substance the color of mud. It drenched the serpent’s head and front, which caused it to recoil backward in surprise. This only served to further coat the creature in the quickly-solidifying tanglefoot.

Soon, its front half was completely immobilized. With a push of his now-free hand, he launched Ceri at the trapped serpent, who immediately charged with static and began laying into the creature with his claws. Being made of rock-hard crystal, Ceri’s claws and teeth seemed to do little to phase the creature, even as it lashed madly with its tail end, trying to free its head.

The small Drake’s lightning seemed to be doing a real number on the creature, though. Unfortunately, lacking Kera’s class skills, Jason didn’t have a way to tell Ceri to hold back and build up a larger charge, so he called the drake off and began to unload on the serpent with his wand.

The shadowbolts didn’t do as much damage as Jason would have liked, and his mana was quickly drained. Trapped as it was though, eventually the serpent grew still and Jason was rewarded with a levelup notification.

Level Gained: Alchemist 10. Skill Point acquired. Stat Point acquired. +1 Class Point acquired. Hybrid Class, Level 10 Milestone reached: +100 Maximum Mana awarded. +5 Skill Points awarded. Skill Specialization acquired: You may now choose a crafting or gathering Skill appropriate to your Class to advance to the next tier. Level Gained: Artificer 9. Skill point acquired. You have acquired a new Class Skill, [Metamagician] [Metamagician]: Artificers are masters of bending enchantments to their will. With the proper application of arcane powder and an infusion of mana, you can temporarily alter the normally-rigid base function of a magic item, causing effects to last longer, attacks to strike further or wider, and other such enhancements.

Jason set aside his new skill to look into later, instead focusing on the mention of a skill specialty. A quick look into his status told him he needed to choose an existing skill that he could raise from Basic to Advanced, or Advanced to Expert .

Might be worth picking one at random and dumping points into it when we get back and the testing out the respec potions, he thought.

While he was standing there reading his screen, Kera jogged up to him, tailed by Aria and Belman. Kera didn’t seem like she was in any particular hurry; clearly, Ceri had already informed her the fight was over.

“Everything clear now?” she asked.

“All good,” Jason confirmed. “The thing didn’t even get a chance to strike,” he said, gesturing to the snake’s trapped head.

It took a bit of work for Jason and the two [Hunters] to free the creature's head so its fangs could be extracted. The fangs looked an awful lot like crystal knives to Jason, but they had no alchemical property. The beast’s hide however, provided a second source of the [Prismatic] trait, and they were able to harvest some additional bloodgems from it.

After disposing of that carcass as well, the four returned to the camp, where it was time to unseal the door.

Lumi took up a defensive stance in front of the door. Pelk stood nearby, wielding a large, black steel hammer. The two hunters stood well back, holding the reins of the horses; their arrows would do little against the scarab’s tough shells.

“Here goes,” Lumi said. With a wave of her sword, she dismissed her ice and shoved open the door.

When a horde of giant scarabs emphatically did not come swarming out, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright. I’m on point,” Lumi said. “Jason, Kera, behind me as usual. Pelk, you’re in the back. I’m sure you know your way around that hammer, but our job is to keep you safe. Don’t jump in unless you need to or it’s time to lure them out of their nests.”

Lumi then turned to Kera. “You leveled off those scarabs like I did, right? Got anything that will help us locate these things?”

“I think so.” Kera replied. “Not from leveling, though. Last night I decided to drink my skill potion, and finally picked up that unique I earned from uh, trying to be ‘one with the snake’ so to speak. Apparently, it’s a synergy skill between my Monster Magic skill and my class skill, Evolution Surge.”

“It’s called [Morphic Modification], and it lets me add special physical traits from any monster forms I take into my Monster Magic list, like a spell. So I can cast the whole ‘feeling sound’ thing from my belt without actually needing to use it. Check it out:”

“Morphic Modification,” Kera commanded.

Jason quickly activated his [Analyze Spell] skill as a blue glow suffused Kera’s body briefly. Surprisingly, Jason received a notification that he’d learned a new rune, Perception, as Kera’s spell took hold. It would seem effects from her [Monster Magic] skill counted.

When the glow faded, Kera’s eyes and hair had changed entirely to crystal, and a thin dusting of tiny particles coated her skin, causing it to glitter when it caught the light.

“Whoa,” Kera commented, trying to run her fingers through her hair, which to Jason now looked like long, crystalline dreadlocks. The strands of her hair made a chiming sound as they clinked together.

“Less examining yourself, more searching,” Lumi ordered. “We are on the job here.”

“Right,” Kera replied, “Sorry.” She dropped her hands to her sides, extending them slightly outward, while she closed her eyes and began to slowly turn in a circle, ‘listening’ to the sounds all around them.

Then she pointed vaguely off in one direction. “That way. They’re easy to pick out. Lots of clicking and tapping with those sharp legs of theirs.”

Lumi nodded. “Can you lead us?”

“Yes, but we’ll have to hurry. This skill drains my stamina something bad.”

“Stamina? Not mana?” Jason asked.

“Yeah, I dunno why,” Kera replied as Lumi began to advance down the passageway, occasionally depositing new Mage-lights to light their way.

Twice, they passed branching hallways that appeared to lead off into different areas of the complex. Each time, Kera stopped the group and slightly lifted her hands in the direction of the passageway, fingers flexing. Then, after a moment of feeling at the air, she motioned them onwards.

The third time they reached a turnoff, Kera indicated they should take it. This one lead them into another, larger cellar. This room was vast, easilly a good fifty feet to a side, with occasionally spaced pillars for support.

Jason looked around at the small crystal growths that had pushed their way into the room in places . “I think this is under what used to be the main structure. Strange they they’ve got so many underground rooms here.”

Lumi simply shrugged. “Does it matter?” she asked.

“Not really. Just wondering if this was used as a servants’ passage or something.”

“Probably storage and wine making,” commented Pelk from behind.

Kera shushed them. “This is where all the nests connect,” she whispered, pointing to several large gaps in the wall masonry. Dirt tunnels could be seen behind each gap.

“Those lead down into several individual nests, she said. “Each one has... well several scarabs living in them. I can’t tell if there’s eggs, or exact numbers. Too many legs and too many similar sounds.”

“It’s like trying to count the number of people marching in a platoon from the sound of their collective feet,” she finished with a shrug.

With a wave of a hand, she dismissed her spell. The blue glow of her magic enveloped her a second time, and when it faded she was back to normal.

“Alright, my turn then,” Pelk spoke up from the rear. “I’ve got sommat that’ll bring em all right out of the burrows, fighting mad. It’d be best if we could get them all at once, so be ready.”

“All at once is good,” Jason said. He drew another one of his Tanglefoot bags.

“Kera?” he asked. “You want to lay down some thorn traps and I’ll drop these on any that get bunched up trying to avoid them? Then we can all go to work on the stragglers?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she replied. She called Ceri to come land on her shoulder, out of any potential danger.

Pelk pulled out an opaque, wax-sealed glass jar, several small pouches, and a few lengths of twine. With a grunt, and popped the seal on the jar, and Jason could see a fine-grained, dark-colored powder.

“Is that... gunpowder?” Jason asked curiously, craning his neck to look.

Pelk paused, looked at him.

“Indeed it is. You know of it?”

“I know plenty about it,” Jason replied. “I even know what goes into it, enough to make my own if I wanted. Not that I have any idea where I could get the sal-“

Pelk susdenly leaned in towards Jason and covered his mouth with one hand, dropping the empty pouches to the floor.

“Be silent,” He hissed under his breath in Jason’s ear. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. You and I are going to have a talk later. I don’t know who’s been going about telling you dwarven secrets, and I’m not one to judge a man for accidently stumbling across something, but by the gods if you’ve-“

Lumi hauled Pelk backwards away from Jason with her free hand, forcing her frost-covered shield between the two. She then released Pelk and brought her sword up under his chin.

“Do we have a problem here?” she asked in a sickly-sweet voice, showing her teeth in a false smile.

Pelk froze, but Jason motioned Lumi to put her sword away. She looked at him for a moment longer, as if confirming he was sure, then stepped back.

“It’s fine, Lumi,” Jason said. “I think I understand what’s going on here.”

Jason looked over at Pelk with a frown. “I wasn’t aware it was some big secret, but I swear to you I haven’t stolen the knowledge or coerced it out of someone or anything like that. Gunpowder is common where all three of us are from. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lumi and Kera at least know what’s in it, even if they don’t know how much.”

Lumi slightly raised her free hand with a nod, indicating she did. Kera merely shrugged.

“If it will make you feel better, we’ll pay a visit to Therissa when we get back and borrow her truth-teller, and I’ll answer your questions if you’re willing to answer some of mine, alright?”

Pelk searched Jason’s face for a few moments, looking for any sign of deception. Of course, he found none. Grudgingly, he nodded once, and with a gruff, “My apologies,” he turned away and picked up he pouches from the floor, and began filling them with a small few handfuls of black powder.

Each cloth pouch was threaded with a piece of treated twine across the top to serve as a fuse. Pelk explained that with only a little powder in each bag, lighting and tossing them would release a lot of noise and smoke, which would anger or scare the scarabs and drive them out of their nests, without doing any real damage to the potential iron deposits or the overall structure.

He passed the bags, two each, to Lum, Kera, and Jason along with a simple flint and steeling had them take up positions near a burrow. Pelk then withdrew what looked like a giant tuning fork, saying that with all the smoke and sudden loud noise, the noise vibrations of sound from the fork would serve as a target for their anger.

Kera laid down a thorn trap in front of each burrow, while Pelk jammed the waist high, pronged rod into the ground like a spear, and tapped it lightly with his hammer, causing it to ring like a bell.

Then the three adventurers lit the fuses on the bags and chucked them as far down into the burrows as they could, then everyone retreated to the doorway.

A series of muffled thumps echoed up from below as the bags ignited, and smoke billowed up out from them, followed by enraged scarabs.

They scrambled madly out of the the nests, only for several of them to be seized in Kera’s thorn traps. Jason likewise threw his tanglefoot bag into a group of three scarabs that had been pushed together by the thorny vines erupting from the ground, while Lumi launched a jet of flames at one who’d managed to escape.

That scarab however was only singed by the girl’s attack. Just as it turned to leap at her, Kera launched a silvery bolt from her staff, slamming the creature to the side.

“Don’t use fire or light spells on them,” Kera shouted over the noise as she launched Ceri into the fray. “Temperature doesn’t do much to them, and the light will reflect. Use dense stuff.”

With a nod, Lumi switched back to using spears of ice as she had in their previous encounter with the creatures.

Jason meanwhile was flinging shadowbolts left and right with his wand, having already downed a [Least Mana Potion] so that he would slowly refill over the course of the fight. On his side of the room, the scarabs’ attempt to escape the nests had been backed up by the combination of thorns and quick-drying tanglefoot, and he was simply able to snipe at them one after another as they struggled to push their downed brethren out of the way.

Kera seemed to be having no trouble either. While Ceri’s claws didn’t do much against their crystalline carapace, the pair’s electrical shocks still conducted quite well, and with the beetles scrambling madly over one another to get at them, the drake was able to hit multiple scarabs at once with a single, charged-up attack. Kera’s staff helped her stay out of reach, as well: it seemed she was fully capable of channeling her [Static Shock] Spell through her weapon or clothes just as well as her skin.

Lumi however, was having some major difficulties. The beetles near her had managed to push their fallen comrades out of the way, allowing nearly a dozen to come surging out of the nest all at once. The girl had placed herself in the way, and gone full-on defense, with multiple barriers spinning around the girl, in an attempt to prevent the scarabs from surrounding her.

Jason hadn’t even realized she could do more than one at a time. He wondered if she’d gained something new from leveling, as he watched her shield slam a scarab in the face with her floating bracer-shield. She’d changed its element to stone, and the result was that what passed for the scarab’s face was crushed inwards by the impact.

Two other barriers surrounded her as well. She’d put up a wall of ice to one side, forcing the scarabs to funnel towards her, while both of her flanks were protected by a second barrier seeming made of solid light and fire.

One scarab managed to somehow climb up on top of her ice wall, and looked about to leap onto Lumi, but Pelk intervened, reaching overhead and smashing the creature into fragments with his steel hammer. Seeing how effective the weapon was against the creatures he moved to aid Lumi, who in turn rotated her shields as soon as she had some free space, protecting the dwarf’s flank as well as her own.

Together the four of them quickly defeated the beetles, as many as there were. Jason was done with his side first, as his shadowbolts made relatively quick work of the scarabs and he hadn’t needed to spend time dodging attacks. He then assisted Kera, who only sustained superficial injuries in clearing her burrow. After dosing the girl with the healing wand he’d made, the two stood back and sniped away at Lumi and Pelk’s assailants, and the scarabs were soon dead.

After Kera used her magic to determine no more scarabs moved about the nests, the four then took a few minutes to catch their breath and replenish their stamina and mana. Then Kera activated her sound detection a third time, and she, Lumi, and Ceri entered the burrows to double check the nests for eggs or stragglers.

They shortly reported back to Jason and the others that while they hadn’t found any remaining live beetles, they had found eggs, and weren’t sure what to do with them.

“Let me take a look,” Jason said. “Never know, might be harvestable for something. In the meantime, someone should go fetch Aria and Belman, and watch the horses. We’ve got some major work to do.”

Jason crawled on his hands and knees to get down into the nest area. Fortunately, the tunnel was just barely wide enough for him to enter, and the nest itself opened up a fair bit, at least enough that he could stand.

He caught sight of what must have been the radiant iron immediately: shimmering, orange rock deposites sat in various corners of the room, surrounded by clutches of eggs. He looked at the ore, noticing that it had a somewhat balled-up look. It took him a moment, but he realized he’d effectively accepted a quest to gather what amounted to beetle poop: the scarabs were eating whatever they could, excreting a high iron content dung, and then rolling it up with other substances in their nests for the young to feed off of when they hatched.

He sighed inwardly. First dissecting giant bugs and snakes, and now digging through solidified rock-poop.

I should’ve guessed the whole Alchemist class thing was going to be a bit gross at times, he thought to himself. At least it’s Pelk’s job to dig it up, not mine.

He turned to examine the eggs. There were a great many, with perhaps a half-dozen clustered around each deposit of iron. They looked like perfect opal spheres, not unlike rock-hard fish eggs made of the same shimmering, prismatic substance which made up most of their bodies. These were opaque, however; Jason couldn’t see inside.

“Analyze Item,” he commanded.

Prism Scarab Egg: The immature egg of a Prism Scarab which will not hatch for years. Prism Scarab Egg Traits Learned: Prismatic, Swarm

Swarm? Jason thought. I guess Kera’s book was wrong. Well, sort of. There were a lot of them, but I guess not thousands or anything.

Then again... he thought, pausing to look around the nest. There’s a lot of eggs in here and it’s only one of three nests.

Shrugging mentally, Jason began to climb back up the tunnel. Whatever the case, maybe he could leave all the hide and chitin to Jerrik, and use the eggs for his alchemy instead, if they didn’t have a use for crafting other things. He’d have to ask the others.

Crawling his way back into the cellar, Jason stood up to see Aria and Belman entering alongside Pelk. Kera had apparently returned to keep watch on the camp with Serif, while Lumi had remained behind in the cellar.

“Good news,” Jason announced to them. “Lots of radiant iron down there, a good five major deposits plus eggs in this nest alone, plus some extra that looks like it was used to help form the walls. Don’t know how much is needed to make one sword or anything, but it looks like a lot to me.”

“Eggs?” Aria asked.

Jason nodded. “That’s right. Lots of em. I wanted to ask if they’ve got any use for you guys; my harvesting skill didn’t really give me much other than how to remove them safely. If you guys don’t need them, I’ll want them. They have a property useful to one of my enchanting skills.”

Belman shrugged. “Fine by me. Best ask Tobias though when we get back. But we can take them if you think it’s safe to.”

“It should be,” Jason replied. “I’ll want to check each egg individually, but the one I checked down there wasn’t even close to hatching. If my lab’s set up by the time we get back, that won’t ever be an issue.”

With that, Jason and the others got to work. Serif and Kera remained with the horses while Jason, Aria, and Belman set to the messy work of harvesting the chitin and bloodstone. Lumi used her magic to try and clean up the worst of the mess while they worked.

Pelk immediately set to surveying the burrows, pulling out some basic mining equipment from the bag of holding he was carrying. Jason was kind of shocked when the dwarf managed to haul an entire wheelbarrow out of it; apparently the mouth of the bag could stretch to accommodate whatever was inside.

However, Pelk didn’t actually begin the mining process; by the time the scarab carcasses had been harvested, cleaned, and disposed of outside, the nests surveyed, and the eggs checked over and moved, it was quite well into the evening.

Dinner was a rather simple affair, being a cold meal of jerky, dried fruits, and bread. No one wanted to risk the scent of a cooking fire drawing larger predators when there was already plenty for the scavengers about. Plus, they’d been making enough noise as it was.

Evening turned to night, and the three adventurers drew lots to see who would take what watch shifts. Kera got the first one, and she ended up waking Jason and Lumi an hour in after Ceri alerted her to the presence of a trio of crystal serpents who’d shown up to try and get at the scarab carcasses outside the walls. With the help of Kera’s thorn traps, Jason used the tanglefoot bags he’d brought and the three adventurers made quick work of the beasts.

Jason elected to harvest the three himself rather than wake the others, so they rearranged their watch hours; Jason would take the next few while he worked, followed by Lumi, and then Kera. In order to help the girls fall back asleep quickly, he whipped together a dose of diluted [Serenity Tonic] for them to split.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, as did breakfast, and by late morning Jason and the others found themselves exploring the ruins while Pelk instructed the two [Hunters] in how to properly extract the radiant iron and discard the waste stone.

“How big is this place?!” exclaimed Kera as they entered yet another cellar-like chamber. “What did they need all this space for?”

“Remember what Pelk said?” Jason replied. “We found that mill-looking thing in that smaller side room, so I’m guessing wine, and possibly ciders or cordials too. As odd as it sounds, alcohol was a pretty common trade good for monasteries back home. It’s the only reason I can think of that would need so much space, because not only do you need the stuff to make it in, you have to store it for long periods.”

“Where’s all the glass, or barrels, or what have you, then?” Lumi asked curiously.

“Dunno. Maybe eaten up by the dungeon when it invaded?” Jason suggested. “Alcohol is made with yeasts, which is technically alive right? So it stands to reason the dungeon might have absorbed it all. Barrels could have just rotted away. Or maybe something else happened. I mean the whole place changed, right? And still is.”

They rounded another corner, and conversation trailed off as they came face to face with a great hunk of deep red crystal. It was similar to the quartz Jason had seen sprouting up all over the place, except for its color.

Jason stepped forward a laid a hand on it.

“Analyze Item.”

Earthheart Cluster: A massive growth of quartz heavily laden with dense earth mana. A valuable material in the enchantment of magical arms and armor. Can be broken into many smaller fragments or used as a whole. Synergy Information: Analyze Ingredient: Fragments from the same cluster can have variable earth-element traits depending on exact mana concentrations and should be analyzed separately. Earthheart Cluster Trait Discovered: Earth, Crystallize.

“Well Pelk will be happy to see this,” Jason said. “The hard part is going to be getting him to let me keep some. Too bad it’s probably too big for us to transport whole.”

“Whole?” Lumi asked.

He shared his results with the girls.

Kera barked a short laugh. “Ha! You should totally use this to power some kind of super-golem. You have that false life skill right? Carve one outta this baby!”

Jason grinned. “If only. I mean, I probably could, but for something like this? I’d want a better version. I’ve only got the lesser sequence.”

“I bet you could come up with something to give it some extra oomph,” Lumi said confidently. “I mean hey, get what’s-her-name to teach you some engineering skills. Give it some proper joints, maybe a motor, try and make it upgradable. You could use that respec Potion to reassign some points, yeah? Something like a big-ass golem would be useful to have around in a dungeon, I’m betting.”

Jason stood looking at the crystal.

“You know....,” he said thoughtfully, “I did just get a whole ton of skill points for hitting level ten, because [Alchemist] is a crafting class. And I get to pick some kind of skill upgrade too. If I can hit ten in Artificer and get something similar, maybe I could do something like that. Like you said, respec potion, too, if it turns out infeasible.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jason finally said after a moment. “We’ll have to consult with Pelk, see if it’s movable as a whole. I’d need to spend some time examining it and drafting ideas and seeing what feedback I get with my skills.”

“I get the feeling I’m going to want to pick Pelk’s brain a bit on the subject of vehicles and automata in general later,” he said. “If the dwarves of this world have gunpowder, and even call it that, then there’s a pretty good chance that a certain degree of higher technology exists in some rare form. Probably as a very rare class, if his reaction was anything to go by.”

“Let’s go talk to him. At the very least he can tell us if we can move this whole thing or not.”