After 45 minutes, I had full mana and stamina. I used my new healing spell three times to bring my health up by 45 more points, and I figured that I had enough to explore the ruin.

I decided to inspect the hammer, as it definitely didn’t belong to the boss orc, and its flavor text could give me some help.

Kangor Warhammer - +25 damage, requires 30 str. Made of Kangor, an ancient metal that can be found in many ruins and temples. Mana conductivity: minor

Well, it was a good thought at least. The hammer seems pretty cool too, I guess. The thing about mana conductivity was especially interesting, as I hadn’t seen it yet.

Mana Conductivity: Determines the limit on the number of enchantments applied to items.

That was important to know. I need to find some raw steel to check and see if it has mana conductivity. If not, it would surely mean that the only really valuable weapons would be those made from new materials. If I find more of this Kangor, I should definitely take it with me.

I rose to my feet, leaving the large metal hammer behind. I would certainly take it back to the apartment, but I didn’t want to be weighed down by the thing when I entered the ruin. I didn’t think the ruin could be particularly large considering that the only one inside was the big boss orc, but still. The second wave system message talked about traps, so I wanted to be as careful as I possibly could.

The entrance to the ruin faced east, vaguely looking off towards the city. The sun was high in the sky, and there were very few shadows cast. I could get a really good look at the whole area now that I wasn’t running for my life from a pack of orc. The ruin aboveground appears to be something along the lines of a destroyed Greek temple, though instead of the rectangular shape that Greek temples tended to have, this one seems to have been built in the rough shape of an oval. The entrance to the ruin is in the very center of the oval, but it looked like it was hidden by a large circular stone. Luckily the large orc moved it out of the way for me, because that thing is gigantic. The circular door was almost two feet taller than I am even after my growth, and a full foot thick.

Looking into the opening to the temple, I could only see a stairway leading down about one story before disappearing underground. Trying to plan ahead, I grabbed a handful of rocks to try and depress pressure plates or activate traps and then headed into the dark.

Entering the dark space, I was overwhelmed by a musty dry smell, like mold that had started to spread through the air. The space underground was full of dust particles that drifted lazily about, reflecting the light off of my hair and face. I bet it would almost look like I had a halo to anyone else around me. It was pitch black further in the ruin, and the light cast from my body barely made a dent. Luckily I planned ahead, and I had brought a nice LED flashlight in my backpack. Retrieving it from my bag, I clicked it on, and swept the beam through the hallway.

The walls of the temple were covered in beautiful carvings of people and elves, and some foreign language acting as captions. Whoever lived, or I guess worshipped, here before was clearly dedicated. The script was nothing like anything I had ever seen before, but I was no ancient history buff so there were many options. I couldn’t determine if this was a place that was real and just transported to Texas, whether this place was based on real places and was an approximation built by the system, or whether the language was just made up altogether. I grabbed some paper from my bag and a pencil and quickly took a rubbing of an interesting symbol I found on the walls that repeated often. It looked similar to an ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. I also copied down as much of the script as I could so hopefully someone smarter than me (probably Cindy) could do something about maybe trying to translate it.

The hallway extended in front of me, moving downward at a slight incline much further than I thought it would. After about 50 meters, I started seeing doorways to the left and right. A quick glance to the left showed a room that was once a bedroom. The remains of the bed were absolutely destroyed, and I could see some rough deer pelts thrown onto the ground, as well as the remnants of a fire. This was definitely where the orc boss slept.

The room on the right was another bedroom, but this one was largely kept intact. There was a small chest at the foot of the bed that looked particularly interesting. Moving towards it, I lightly shocked it with my Electrokinesis. The last thing I wanted was to encounter a mimic. I opened the lid from the side so that if something shot out of the chest, I wouldn’t be hit.

It’s a good thing I did though, as opening the chest let out a puff of air, and I could hear the slight *tink* as a dart hit the stone wall of the room. Yet again, D&D comes in for the save. The inside of the chest was mostly empty, but there were two small bags in the bottom.

I reached in and brought them into a better light, opening them up on the floor. The first one was full of gold and silver coins. I counted at least 20 gold coins and 40 silver, so I was basically loaded at this point. The other bag had a fine powder that I didn’t recognize, but it must have been valuable, or it wouldn’t have been stored in a chest with silver and gold.

I inspected the white powder.

Xanthil Powder – a useful ingredient for making beginner potions. This powder is made from grinding up parts of various monstrous insects.

I placed both bags into my backpack in a safe pocket. There was more loot to be had.

The temple now opened into a large antechamber. There were four doors opening into this room, including the one I came from. I grabbed a piece of rock that I had brought and scratched an arrow on the floor pointing to the way out so that I wouldn’t get lost unless some serious fuckery happened. In the center of the room sat a large statue of a man. The man wore a toga and carried in his left hand a sword. In his right he carried a large book, and it was open like he was reading with one hand. It didn’t look like any god I knew from mythology, and I knew Greek mythology pretty well. I was startled out of my introspection by a system message.

Alert!

You have gazed upon the mage god Zald and have thus been judged. Your skill with magic is weak overall but is impressive for someone in rank 1. Considering that you are the first one to enter this temple, Zald has decided to grant you a reward.

Current Status Increased!

+2 Luk

+2 Int

Maximum Status Increased!

+1 Int

+1 Wis

+1 Cha

“Wow, um. Thanks a bunch, Mr. Zald, sir. Your godliness. I really appreciate the help. I hope you don’t mind if I look around some more?”

After saying that, I looked at the statue's face. It seemed to almost have a more jovial expression, but it might have been my imagination. I should definitely take Taylor and Cindy here. They would find this place to be super useful, that’s for sure, considering that they are both mages. Maybe it would give them a hand when they started to get more into casting different kinds of magic.

I decided to take the right pathway first. The hallway didn’t extend too far, but I ended up reaching something super useful right away. From what I could tell, this was some kind of library or book storeroom. As I searched through shelves of books and walls of scrolls, I began to drop a bunch of Identify trying to look for something interesting. Eventually, I found some things that hadn’t deteriorated yet.

Recipe: Catalog of Beginner Zald Enchantments – single use

Recipe: Beginner Red Potion Crafting Guide – single use

Recipe: Zald Paladin Light Armor Manual – single use

Fucking yessss. That’s what we needed. If we could find someone to craft some armor, and someone to drop some enchantments, we could be in a really good position as a group. This was definitely an amazing find. I really wanted to try and get some armor made. Running around in full plate heavy armor sounded freaking awesome. The only bummer was that all of the crafting manuals were only single-use, but if that was the way these things worked, I would just have to go out and find more. I placed the recipe scrolls into my pack, and continued on my way.

I left the right-hand corridor and moved directly ahead of me down the left corridor. The corridor behind the statue could wait for a while. It was definitely the final area to this temple, and it should totally be saved for last.

The left corridor was still marked with elaborate carvings, but they were much more familiar and easier to recognize. There were many images of people working at benches, and people hammering on ingots on an anvil. This must be a crafting space. At the end of this hallway was an area where the walls widened just a bit. Taking a closer look at them, I noticed strange depressions all over the reliefs. Very suspicious….

I bent down and took a look at the ground in front of me. It was a tiled floor but randomly spaced throughout the next thirty or so feet were places where the tiles were a bit too high off of the ground. Definitely pressure plates. I could just fly over them, but I wanted to figure out what the trap did, so I grabbed a few rocks out of my collection and chucked them at a plate about ten feet away from me.

On the third try, the plate was depressed, and with almost no sound I saw a field of darts shot out of the walls on either side of the path. Very Indiana Jones. I activated flight and just flew over the area until I found myself in a large dome. The dome had a diameter of about 20 meters, and it was depressed in the ground by a set of stairs to accommodate its great height. At the very top of the dome was a metal grate that probably functioned as a kind of vent. In this pit around the dome were many different tables. I noticed three distinct sections, one with an anvil, one with what I assumed was a brewing stand, and one with a set of tools that I recognized as being for wood carving.

I decided to check out the brewing stand first.

Beginners Potion Tools – used to made potions of mediocre and beginner quality

Well that was handy. They were pretty big so there was no way I could carry them out of here while exploring, but if I found a nice box, I could probably manage it. There were also a few bottles on the stand, and I inspected those as well.

Beginner Health Potion: Restores 50 Health

Beginner Mana Potion: Restores 100 Mana

All in all, I got three of each potion type, and I was satisfied. This was exactly what I needed, and these potions were just the reason that I decided to go ahead and risk exploring the temple anyway. These could save a life if used correctly and having them now was better than having them later. I wrapped them in a dirty t-shirt and placed them into a safe place within the bag.

The small forge was pretty neat too. There was an anvil there as well, and from what I know about anvils, the nice ones were harder to come by. I would guess it was about 300 pounds, so not particularly large as far as anvils go, but still expensive and useful. I would definitely have to come back here with some friends and loot the place further. The crafting equipment was too handy to not have. On the forge there was a hammer that looked interesting, as well as several ingots of that bronze metal that the large hammer was made of.

Lucky Blacksmith’s Hammer – 10% increase in item quality while being used

Kangor Ingot – a hard metal used primarily to make weapons. Mana conductivity: minor

Considering the color that inspect produced, I think it’s safe to say that the potions and the Kangor ingots were uncommon, while the lucky hammer is rare. If I find more loot, I’ll be able to see if the standard rarity conventions apply. I took five ingots and the hammer, placing them into my bag which was starting to get pretty full, and I moved to the final crafting station.

This looked like a place that was made to make staff. There was one staff still there, as well as two pieces of wood stock that were prepped on the crafting shelves, and still of decent quality. The staff had what looked like gold inlaid in it in some kind of runic pattern, and at the head of the staff was that familiar ouroboros symbol made of more Kangor.

Zald Priest Staff – Increases effectiveness of fire magic by 10%

Not useful to me, but I bet Cindy or Taylor would get a kick out of it. I tied it to my pack using the paracord and flew through the hallways towards the main room. It was finally time to tackle the final room behind the statue. My pack was heavy with loot, and the darkness was starting to get to me. I wanted to hurry out of here.

As I returned back to the central room, I double-checked to make sure the big statue hadn’t moved at all. It probably wasn’t animated, but honestly, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I didn’t like my odds against something made of stone. At least orc had a bit of give when you punched them. I think my fists would probably break before the rock did if it came to it.

The hallway behind the statue had another stairwell going down. I sent the beam of my flashlight back down the steps and noticed that the steps themselves were covered in large amounts of dust. This was pretty weird, considering that nowhere so far had dust like this. I took the staff off of my pack and started using it to scrape my way through the dust, one step at a time. On the second step from the bottom, I felt the end of the staff snag on something. I immediately froze and bent down to that step to check it out.

Hidden beneath the inch of fine powder was a tripwire. If you just walked down the steps, you would kick up the dust, and not notice that it was there. It was matte black, so it reflected no light, and it blended into the dust on the stairwell wonderfully. I grabbed my knife and while bending as far away from that step as I could, I cut the wire.

As the wire broke, a hiss sounded through the hallway, but unlike with the darts, it didn’t stop. It was gas! I turned and flew up the stairs, pinning myself to the wall away from the hallway. With a massive bass *whumph* a fireball lanced through the room, scattering against the back of the statue. Glad I caught that tripwire.

The stairs were now clear of dust, and a faint lingering scent of gas was left in the room. The temperature was very high, but it was still bearable as long as I avoided touching the walls or floor with anything besides the soles of my shoes.

At the end of that hallway, the space opened once again. I could make out a large altar in the middle. Surrounding the altar were various jars and urns that were obviously placed there to tempt potential robbers. I decided to avoid them for now, maybe checking inside of them on my way out.

In the back of the altar room, there was a large bedroom. This was probably the quarters of the head priest. Searching the room, I didn’t manage to find much. There was, however, another two bags of assorted gold and silver, which I added to my collection, as well as a cut ruby about as big as a strawberry.

The two rooms off of the main priest’s lodgings were much more interesting. They seemed to be rooms left for paladins of Zald who guarded the high priest, so the things in them were much more in line with something a warrior would have. In the one to my left, I found a kangor sword and shield, which I lashed to my backpack next to the staff.

Kangor Shield – 10% resistance to flame, requires 10 str

Kangor Short Sword - +10 damage, requires 10 str, agi

The room on the right was definitely the best though. At the foot of the bed there was another chest, similar to the on I found in the previous room. Carefully opening this one, I thankfully didn’t get hit with a poison dart.

Initiate Zald Paladin Gauntlets - +5 unarmed damage, +10% resistance to flame, requires 20 str, 20 agi (Heavy Armor)

Initiate Zald Paladin Boots - +5 unarmed damage, +10% resistance to flame, requires 20 str, 20 agi (Heavy Armor)

Finally, an item I can use. This was a matching set of kangor metal gauntlets and boots. The gauntlets moved up the arms to the elbow and the boots went up to my shins. They were carved with interesting spiral patterns along all of the plates and were in incredibly good condition. The fingers of the gauntlets were sharpened to look similar to claws, and the boots had a pointed toe, and what appeared to be a three-inch heel. I wasn’t a fan of the high heel, but it would probably hurt like a bitch if you got kicked with it. It looked like I needed only a single point in strength to equip them, which shouldn’t be too hard to manage.

With that, I had cleared every room. I returned to the altar chamber and went to check the urns. I was very careful, only opening their lids while flying. For the most part, they seemed to be full of ash, or long rotted food, so I was definitely not going to bother with them. There was however a small urn in the middle of the pile which was full of some strange spherical slightly glowing crystals.

Lesser Monster Core – rarely dropped by monsters after death, these cores are used in the crafting of magic items.

Within the jar there were ten cores, so I took the whole jar and added it to my backpack. I got everything ready and flew the rest of my way out of the ruin, deciding that I had gotten basically all I could fit in my pack and all I could carry. I still had the large hammer outside to deal with as well.

Finally, I returned to daylight. According to my watch, I had only been exploring for about an hour and a half, but the tension made the time stretch on and on. I was just glad there weren’t any monsters in there to fight. My health is still recovering from slaying the orc, and if there were any in there I would have been forced to run away and come back later.

Alert!

Ruins of Zald’bathatr cleared!

You have gained 500 exp!

Lvl 30 (MAX)

Multiple Bonus Rewards Available; Please choose one.

- Random Skill

- 2 unassigned status points

- 100 gold

That was a lot to think over. The clearance experience was barely anything, so I wasn’t super mad about losing it. It was also important to note that lone wanderer didn’t seem to increase by exploring, only by discovering and hunting, as I didn’t get any levels working my way through the ruin as I did by finding it.

As far as reward options go, the status points were definitely the safe choice. The money would be nice but was not particularly helpful in the current circumstances. The only one that seemed interesting was the random skill. I focused on the menu and chose the first option.

Generating Random Skill….

Skill Alert! New Skill Unlocked!

Archetype Skill: Fascinating Eyes – lvl 1/20 – When you look someone else in the eyes for more than one minute, you can grant a minor charm status. Grows more powerful as the level increases. Costs 10 mana.

Huh, I guess the skill really is random. It's not a particularly useful skill at the moment, but I could see how it could come in handy later.

I grabbed the hammer, and holding it in my hands, took off into the sky. It was time to head back to the apartment to see how things were progressing there. We needed to try and plan to rescue James, and the fourth wave was coming soon. It was better to be prepared, after all.