Chapter 8

I woke early, the sun just kissing the horizon, like a mother to her child, before she leaves on a journey, a fitting start to my own.

A quick breakfast, with a cup of aeldra to perk me up, gets me going, it’s time to start moving, “up and at them” as my mother used to say.

I had packed a bag of food, my sleeping mat and a couple water pouches as well as a small tent the night before and they filled up the saddlebags on my horse to the extreme. I would have liked to take more, but if I could buy it if necessary.

I refitted my chest piece and scabbards. Put together my axe, grabbed my dagger and had a quick run around the house to check if I had forgotten anything. I hadn’t, not that I’d know of course but I felt like I had the necessities.

I smiled and stepped across the threshold, into the morning air. I sighed, slapping my head in annoyance.

As it turned out, I had in fact forgotten something. A map and compass would be quite useful for navigation, essential even.

I exited into the fresh morning air for the second time and breathing in a cold lungful I allowed myself to smile again. There was nothing quite like the eerie quiet of the early morning, the world came alive around you and time past in the blinks between moments. You felt alive, and at peace, serene.

I loved it.

My smile soon faded as the pain of riding my horse gripped me, shortening my breath and making me gasp with each jolting step.

Fucking horse! I swear it was dancing a fucking jig on purpose.

“What do you want? I give you a nice stable and food!” I asked rhetorically, of course it wouldn’t reply, couldn’t even.

Fucking horse!

As I travelled I said farewell to the few people up at this hour, farmers most likely. Though I tried to keep the swearing to a minimum it crept out a little.

Wincing, I headed off down the road at a leisurely pace, bracing every time the horse shifted or jolted around on the uneven path.

Fucking path!

As I went, I started humming, a good tune could take my mind of the stabbing pain and watching the gravel, trees and hills go by distracted me enough that progress started to creep in.

The sun started to slowly crawl across the sky, rising properly as the land came to life. The birdsong faded, away and the wind picked up from the dead calm to a cooling gentle breeze that pressed me forwards, giving me a nice shove, “get on your way” it seemed to say.

The leaves rustled, disturbed by said gentle breeze, it carried the smells of the country across my nose, from the woody earthy smells to the ones of freshly cut grass and hay to the more unpleasant ones from the animal manure of the nearby farms.

“Lovely!” I said sarcastically as I wrinkled up my nose to try hide the pungent smell. Still, I preferred it to the squalor and rush of the towns.

Off to my right, a small brook babbled and bobbled along on its way to the sea. It took a few meandering turns under bridges and across fields and paths.

I would have to cross it several times before reaching Oar’s Rest. Whilst the small stream eventually ended up joining a rapid ravenous river that ate up the land as it cut and forced its thrashing, lashing water towards the sea.

The river then widened at its end, as it was calmed by the gentle lapping of the sea against it and all returned to the natural bliss of nature.

The sky, a nice, rich, pale-blue, had nary a cloud in sight. Instead, just a few wispy vapours coloured its marble blue surface. They rolled and played gently with each other - like two kits do - in the far distance, and where they met the ice white of the horizon they faded away, an echo.

I felt at peace. As one with nature. And I whistled merrily as my joyous mood escaped through my mouth hopefully to infest the world.

I looked down and marvelled at the little wispy tornadoes kicked up by my mounts hooves on the loose gravel track. It settled down quickly leaving little evidence we had passed through, but the swirls of dust laden air were fascinating and again it passed the time and distracted me as the leagues passed me by.

The sun rose higher in the sky as the day blended together, and my horse marched on under the heating day, a tireless soldier carrying its friend to safety.

Soon it was time for lunch and a rest, she had done well and despite her dancing a painful jig she had carried me safely all day.

I pulled up in the shade of a tree, near the bank of the stream. Picketing my horse so that she could graze on the lush grasses that fed off the stream and take a nice refreshing drink, I washed my hands and face in the cool water before slicking my hair back and rooting through my pack as the water trickled down, soaking into the shirt and making me gasp as droplets rolled down my back tracing my spine with their ice cold fingers. I shivered despite the heat and started to cook.

A deer stew was easy to heat up using a mage powder fire and it was delicious. The horse got two handfuls of oats, a carrot and an apple as well as a brush down. I pulled my hat over my eyes and drifted off to sleep for a few minutes nap.

==========

[Dungeon]

The construction of floor seven had gone smoothly and floor eight had gone much slower, though just as smoothly. After sliding down the seventh floor, ice maze, they would end up sliding down to the eighth floor, I thought it was a fitting way of getting down and it changed up the stairs that I had used so far.

If they didn’t slow themselves down, they would just slide straight off the platform and plunge into the icy cold water of floor eight, a very likely death followed that.

If they managed to stop in time, then they had two options, they could walk up the stairs that followed the slide side-by-side to get back to floor seven and then fully backtrack, or they could press onwards, exploring floor eight and those beyond. Obviously, I had yet to make those, but I didn’t expect anyone to get down here in so short a timeframe.

If they decided to press on, they would have to navigate their way across floating blocks of ice and static platforms to get to the other side. The blocks would roll in the water and the platforms wouldn’t. I couldn’t make them all roll as otherwise there would be no battles here and therefore no reason to give them treasure and hence the level would have been pointless. So, the blocks were the path to the platforms where they would have to face a battle.

This level was the most linear in regard to how it was explored, since the water was pretty much impassable they would have to take the ice paths and though there were several routes it was still fairly straight forward. I thought that perhaps a skilled mage may be able to magic up some solution to the water, but I wasn’t expecting it.

For the battles on the platforms I had thought of many a creature, but I eventually settled on polar bears. The penguins, though cute had been far far too weak, I might incorporate them later but for now it hadn’t worked. The ice constructs didn’t feel right and they took a lot of mana to work, unlike the phantasms and the dragon I wanted something that was always active and a solitary threat.

Polar bears fit the bill fairly well and as such they were the main threat to the adventurers.

But, of course I couldn’t leave it that simple, I was creative and glorious and that simply wouldn’t do.

Worse than the polar bears were the orcas, though the bears were mandatory fights and the orcas weren’t if you encountered them it was basically game over.

That was why this floor was so slow going, it was the largest cavern by far, it had to be in order to house the orcas. So, at 1800m across and 700m wide no matter the depth it would have taken me a while, but at 200m deep the amount of stone to move was ridiculous. But I had put in the work and the level was nearly complete.

Swimming in the chilled water were two pods of orcas, ten in each. They would periodically scour the blocks and platforms for large food and come crashing down on them, presumably killing any adventurer unlucky enough to be there.

To sustain them, the water was rich in krill, fish and seals though balancing out the ecosystem proved to be quite challenging with such large creatures.

Up in the roof, 50m above the perilous waters, seabirds roosted. They would divebomb the adventurers to try and get them off the ice and into the waters, floor two had inspired me to reuse the divebomb and I felt it fit here quite well.

Getting them nested was quite difficult and I had to create another level above the cavern to accommodate them, a small grassy knoll with a height of five metres and enough grasses and plants that they could build their nests in the stone walls of the main chamber, their young could then grow up in peace.

Though this wasn’t going to be the secret of the level, if anyone managed to get up here then well done them, it was almost impossible to see anything, and the fifty metres of air would be quite a challenge for anyone. As such, I placed a chest with rare jewels, equipment and money, far more than anything I had given out so far, though I exceed it may be hundreds of years until it was found.

There were a few other rare creatures, inhabiting my sea. They were worth lots of money to the alchemists apparently, I wasn’t so sure, but they snapped up the remainder of my points and I felt it was worthwhile.

Crabs in the depths and various crustaceans could be fished for, their carapaces and claws or eyes were valuable, though I didn’t expect that anyone would spend much time fishing. Greenland sharks and white sturgeon swam in the depths surfacing occasionally. These basking goliaths rivalled the orcas for size and were worth far far more money. The Greenland sharks swam in the frigid waters of the south and they were the only large creature that managed the cold that well, they formed a layer of mana infused fat that shielded them from the biting cold that was the only known source of pliable mana.

My waters were nowhere near that cold and so the white sturgeon and orcas could survive. The sturgeon had hardened spikes that ribbed their body for protection. These were often used for inscribing and enchanting as they were hard enough to etch most materials and they could carry a mana current easily.

Considering that the creatures held a lot of value to the right people, there were no treasure chests on the ice course. They had to use their ingenuity here to eke out a profit, and I was hoping the lack of treasure meant that some of them would have a closer look.

Right now, I was pondering what to do about the now required hidden secret. I had included one in every level so far and I was planning to continue that tradition here.

I was well and truly stumped on this one though, there wasn’t much here. But in the end, it came to me as it always does.

When the orcas crashed down every 2hr they would set a lump of ice rolling. The lump of ice would be hollow and inside was a room with two treasure chests. The adventurer would have 2 minutes to get in and out before the entrance would be submerged for another 2hr.

I was done.

It took me a couple more hours of trouble shooting but I had soon actually finished the level.

It was virtually impossible to avoid the orcas and so, as an early warning system, twenty seconds before they came crashing down a bitterly cold wind that blew spray around would blow.

The orcas would come crashing down causing a wave that would make everything unstable and would start the entrance to the treasure spinning for its singular two-minute spin. Then everything would normalise for another 2hr upon which the next pod would come crashing down. The orcas could of course be seen at other times and occasionally they would breach and upset a platform as they surfaced, but that was purely by accident.

The difficulty was starting to ramp up now towards the serious adventurer rating and I would have to think carefully about what to do.

I was out of points and creating new levels would be much harder without them. They were used for everything, from buying materials and enchantments, to the treasure that I gave the adventurers.

I had one hundred left and I needed to preserve them for emergencies. You got points for achievements, progress and numerous other things including levelling up. It was why I had managed to make so much progress. Most new dungeons took ages to make new levels because they were restricted by mana and points in what the could do, and now so was I.

There was one more level to do before the boss level. After all woodland had four levels then boss. Starter, forest, swamp, rainforest and boss. Ice would have, Tundra with the dragon, Ice Run, Frozen Sea, something else and then boss.

The question was, what would that something else be? Frozen forest maybe. Or a frigid ice maze. No, the ice run was kind of a maze with the hundreds of different paths and I had had enough of forests for the time being. Something else on an ice level. What to do? What to do?

Got it! Pity I had no mana or points right now, I would have to wait. Besides, I still had to make a staircase down. I sighed, so much to do and so little time and mana. Hopefully once that fellow tells the guild I can get an influx of adventurers and points and start to make progress again.

==========

[Sigurd]

After my nap, I packed up and I was on my way in no time, setting the pace once again. I think the horse was glad to have had a break as she set off with considerably more gusto than she had had before we took our break.

I wanted to get to Oar’s Rest before sundown and so I pushed us on. Oar’s Rest came into view a couple of leagues later sitting on the horizon. I would be there soon, I couldn’t wait, getting a good rest and fixing up my rib were priorities.

Slowly the town separated from the horizon, and it wasn’t long before the smoke could be seen, rising up and over the wall. The smell of town life blew its way down to me and filled my nostrils. It housed around two-hundred-and-fifty residents and twenty traders at any one time compared to Littlebrook’s fifty and zero respectively, a town to our village.

As I made it further, the shapes of houses and shops began to distinguish themselves from the landscape and it wasn’t much longer until I could see the gate and hear the sound of shouting, the banging of hammers on anvils and the general hustle and bustle of a minor town.

Oar’s Rest was my destination as it had a transport pad to the nearby city of Barkamstead. Barkamstead was a minor city and as such it had lots of transport pads including one to the interchange. From the interchange I would go to the Capital and within the capital was my destination. The Adventurers Guild.

I entered the town towards evening and immediately went to the healers, it cost me one whole gold! A right scam I tell you! But if it healed the pain, I was willing to pay it, if begrudgingly.

Then to the inn to have a hot meal and spend the night. They served a good flagon of ale and a hearty beef stew with potatoes and steamed veg. It may not have been the best, but it was welcome and tasted pretty damn good to me, much better than my own fare that’s for sure.

I quickly headed upstairs, locked my door, shrugged out of my armour and slipped into some night clothes. Checked the bed and finding it satisfactory, I climbed in and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

It was at ten the next morning when I made it to the transfer pad. In a queue of three, I waited whilst their documentation was checked.

It took maybe fifteen minutes to get to me and a further five to get everything checked out, I paid the two silver it cost to use the pads and declined the explanation of how to use them before stepping up inputting the information and setting it into motion.

It was a short wait before my vision burst in white and I felt my stomach bounce around as I transferred. Landing slammed me down and the impact on my knees was quite hard, it wasn’t for the old and frail that was for sure, if they needed to travel it was by the old-fashioned system of walking or riding.

I was at the transport hub in Barkamstead. It was a minor city and like all cities it had that unique smell, much more hustle and bustle and a lot more ambient noise.

Looking around I quickly found a queue for the Interchange and joined the queue as fast as possible. Whilst it might have been fun to explore a little I wanted to get to the capital pronto. It was maybe one-hundred-and-twenty people long, but it split into five at the front allowing the staff to deal with the people fairly quickly.

One hour and ten minutes queuing and I was at the front. It took the standard two and a half minutes to get through and off to the interchange I went. Unlike at Oar’s rest this one was not programable and only went off to the interchange. This was why the time was much shorter. Small towns had the programable ones as they were more useful, the towns often didn’t have the money to buy lots of the pads and so the small ones worked well enough.

The interchange was even busier than Barkamstead and I hurried to the capitol lines.

About six-hundred people were using these. The transport pads here were the most efficient, they were for the capital after all. So, I was only left waiting a quarter hour to get to the capital. And in a flash, it was done. I was through and safely in the capital. The busiest, largest human settlement of them all.

Adventurer guild here I come!

Time to get rich… as a community of course.