Chapter Twenty One

John woke up early and set off ready to raid the dungeon. After spending more than two weeks just training and patrolling the camp he was ready for some excitement. He Sam and Camille at the edge of camp and asked

“You guys ready to go?”

Sam nodded as she said

“The healers got me all patched up a week ago and I even got a new bow with a heavier draw weight in case we run into something like that bear again.”

“Sounds good. What about you Camille?”

Camille patted her first aid kit and said

“I’m still not as good as the full time healers but I think I can at least help patch up any wounds. Plus now that we have the runes for resisting mana pressure I’ll be able to help a bit with my own spells instead of sitting there and blocking mana for the three of us.”

John replied

“That’s great. I haven’t been idle myself. I’ve gotten good enough with the water rune that even if I can’t use it in combat we don’t have to worry about bringing water with us. On top of that I think I’m in top condition after sparring with all the new adventurers.”

As they started walking towards the dungeon John turned towards Camille and asked

“Can you tell us what spells you’re going to be using? It’ll make cooperating a lot easier if I know what to expect.”

“Ah sorry about that. Sam already knew so I forgot I had to tell you. I’ll mainly be using blind so be ready to look away when I tell you I’m casting. Other than that I am able to use some of what i’ve learned about healing to attack but I have to have skin to skin contact for that so I’m hoping to avoid it.”

After that they just joked around until they arrived at the dungeon. Once there they dashed in and started working their way towards the valley. They still didn’t know which of the plants shot pollen and Olivia had told them to focus on getting blood river flowers so they ignored the plants growing at the entrance. Next they slowly walked through the corridor avoiding all the pit traps along the way.

Before too long they reached the familiar entrance to the valley. After climbing down the rocky slope they were surprised to find that no demi-humans or wolves were waiting for them. They looked around everywhere but didn’t see anything, so they counted themselves as lucky and walked towards the first flower patch.

John had just kneeled down when Camille tackled him to the side. They landed on the ground tangled together. John was about to ask why she had tackled him when he saw a massive moose pass through the space he had just been in. It came through with its head down at a full sprint and probably would have gored him instantly. The strange thing about it was that the moose made no noise. It also left no prints behind it despite its massive size and high speed.

While John and Camille were busy struggling to get up Sam started to shoot the moose. She hit what should have been good shots to the lungs and heart but the arrows didn’t penetrate all the way through. The moose made a wide circle and then charged at Sam. It took a second to build up speed so she was able to dive to the side before the moose reached her. She got back up and shot the moose twice more before she heard Camille yell

“Blinding”

She shut her eyes and waited until the light coming through her eyelids was gone before opening her eyes again. She got a few shots off before the moose charged at her again. The charge was less accurate this time, but it was still on point enough that she had to stop shooting it and move out of the way. She got back up and fired two more shots at the moose and got ready to dodge again, but she didn’t have to. Apparently the moose had enough and was done with the fight. It ran off into the woods looking like a massive pincushion with all the arrows sticking out of it.

Once the moose was gone all three of them rushed to harvest the blood river flowers. They harvested all of them and started to harvest the other valuables around when they heard the demi-humans warcry. They looked between themselves before coming to an unspoken agreement to give up on harvesting anything else.

They made a careful retreat through the dungeon and managed to get out without any mishaps. Once outside they headed straight back to the settlement to tell Olivia about the good news. Since none of them were injured they went straight to Olivia’s office and put their harvest down on her desk. John grinned and asked

“Do we get to have a victory feast now?

Olivia had a wide smile on her face after seeing their success and said

“Unfortunately we don’t have time for that yet. If you manage to make a few more good harvest before the next supply ship comes we might be able to manage one then.”

As Olivia finished talking the doors burst open and Adrian came into the room

“So? What happened? Did they manage to get a good harvest?”

Olivia gave Adrian a stern look

“Please knock before entering my office next time.”

She resisted the urge to gloat before continuing

“They just informed me that they did manage to harvest some flowers. They were going to tell me the details now if you would like to listen in.”

She turned back to the trio and held up the bag they put on her desk.

“Can you all please tell me how you managed to harvest these?”

John stepped forward

“Getting to the valley was normal. We just avoided the spike traps and didn’t take the route that goes up into the dungeon. Once we got to the valley we scrambled down the side and didn’t see any enemies. We were about to start harvesting the floweres when a giant moose came out of nowhere to attack us. Sam peppered it with arrows while we all dodged. Once she got a good number of arrows in it the moose fled and we started to get our harvest. We didn’t manage to harvest everything before the demi-humans arrived. We decided to not push our luck and left the dungeon instead of fighting them.”

Sam started to speak but Adrian’s exclamation drowned her out

“That’s it? The adventurer’s I sent in have had to fight killer plants and entire demi-human tribes. You’re telling me all you had to fight was a moose and you harvested more than the rest of them combined? They just got lucky..”

His tirade slowly trailed off as he noticed everyone else in the room was glaring at him. Once he was silent Sam cut in ignoring Adrian entirely

“We don’t think it was a normal Moose Ma’am. It was larger than normal, faster than normal, and didn’t make any sound when it moved. I can’t be sure but I think the dungeon might have started upgrading its defenders from mana enhanced beasts to creatures with full blown monster cores.”

Olivia frowned

“I’m assuming you didn’t see any obvious signs? No magic or anything like that?”

“No magic. Like I said it was just very fast and unnaturally quiet. It could just be a subtle moose that is in very good shape, but somehow I doubt it.”

Olivia frowned and looked at her safe with the communication crystals hidden inside and said

“That might make things more complicated.”

Gem

The gem woke up from its fatigued slumber and went about observing its territory. The first thing it focused on was the moose. Unlike the bear the moose did not have obvious changes. It seemed to be able to manipulate air mana but since it was far too heavy to fly it was unclear how useful this would be. The gem made the decision to test out its strength once invaders came. It would wait until there were invaders it recognized so that it would be able to accurately gauge the moose's strength. If it just threw the moose into a fight against random intruders there was a chance they would be terribly weak or god forbid, particularly strong.

With that decision made the gem moved onto watching the invaders in its territory and solidifying mana for creatures small enough that it would not have to rest afterwards. This continued for a week or two before it realized there was a problem, no incompetent invaders were coming into its territory. All the kills it had gotten so far were from invaders that had tried to continue onwards despite being weak. The invaders that were coming now were laughably cautious in comparison. They acted like they were expecting its domain to be undefended. Most backed up at the mere sight of its drybolds and wolves standing guard in its valley and none dared to enter its upper halls. This made the gem feel comfortable about its future safety, but the gem still had the instinct to increase its territory and the fastest way to do that was to kill invaders.

The gem was considering how to do that when one of the two adventuring parties it recognized entered its perception. It was the party that it had tested its poison spraying flowers against. They went through its territory cautiously avoiding all the traps as they went. They were heading towards the valley so the gem withdrew all the wolves and drybolds and sent the moose in to test it.

Surprisingly, the moose did not immediately attack them when they came out. It waited in the woods until their attention was focused on flowers and then it struck. It dashed out at high speeds and charged towards the intruders with its horns down. It looked like it was going to take one of them by surprise, but the female in the middle noticed just in time to get the others out of the way.

After that the moose continued to charge at them, but once it lost the element of surprise it was much weaker. It kept trying, but since it could only attack in a straight line the invaders were able to dodge every time. It was close once or twice, but unfortunately close isn’t enough to stop intruders. They continued to dodge and hit the moose with their ranged attacks until the gem allowed the moose to flee from battle.

Since the moose was fleeing the gem noted which flowers the intruders were harvesting and called for its drybolds to stop them from clearing out too many of its plants. The intruders continued harvesting for a short period of time only fleeing once the drybold were close enough for them to hear war cries. They managed to leave its territory without further incident and then the gem went back to considering its original problem. How was it going to get more incompetent invaders to show up?