26 – Gyhlot the mighty and noble dwarf

He turned on the laser, the last residual charge of the battery swiftly becoming a deadly ray of electromagnetic radiation. The blue light cut through many of the creatures, and with Minecraft mechanics active they all went up in a puff of smoke, leaving behind many floating items.

Then, he took out the sword and began to swipe through the air, trying to aim his slashes at where the enemies were.

Two zombies approached from the side, and were pushed back by a powered slash. Meanwhile, a skeleton from the back was shooting arrows one after the other. Jacob dodged them, jumping and rolling to the side, a thing that was not possible in the game.

Then, seeing that his path was clear, he sprinted towards the skeleton and offed it with two rapid cuts of the diamond sword. He turned around just in time to see a slash from one of the other enemies, who looked like a minotaur armed with a crude sword, and he ducked to avoid being hit.

His armor clanged, and he lost a heart. From behind, he was being pummeled by the two zombies. He grunted, and gripped the sword tight. He got up and spun around, slashing like a madman.

Three puffs of smoke, and the enemies were all vanquished.

He quickly illuminated the rest of the cave with torches, and exhaled. He slumped on a rocky step, took out a potion and gulped it down. He was down to half health after only this fight. He watched the little hearts slowly being restored by the potion, and examined the drops from the monsters.

Some were pretty standard drops, but there were also many other items he didn’t recognize.

Rotten flesh x5

Bone x1

Arrow x2

Monster core (green) x1

Monster core (blue) x3

Monster core (yellow) x2

Achievement parser

Exp bottle x1

“Achievement parser?” He asked out loud.

The item description did not offer any kind of information on the nature of the item, leaving him quite clueless as to its purpose. He merely studied the little booklet, green with yellow empty pages, then put it back in his inventory.

“Hey, you!” A voice interrupted his musings.

Jacob, as soon as he heard the words, sprung to his feet with his weapon out. The light blue of the sword’s edge glinted dangerously in the pale orange light of the torches.

The figure put their arms in the air. “I don’t mean no harm, fella.”

“A dwarf?” Jacob exclaimed.

“Yeah, I am. Human.” The dwarf said, dragging the last word. “Never seen one?”

“Can’t say I have, no.”

“Good! Then you have the pleasure of meeting the mighty Gyhlot the dwarf. Who better than me to represent our noble race.”

Jacob blinked. “Yeah, sure. Know if there’s some marble around here?”

“Of course I do. But what will you pay me with if I tell you?” the dwarf asked.

“I can offer you a job to teach and help elves build a floating city out of that very same marble.”

It was the dwarf who blinked this time.

“Bloody hell. You’re shitting me.”

“Nope.”

“You are.”

“Am not.”

“How’s that possible.”

“Let’s make a bet. If I manage to impress you, you accept to work for me.”

“Too easy.”

“I’ll pay you. I’ll give you a smithy. And diamonds.”

His eyes lit up with a dangerous light.

“Lad. We are wasting time. Follow me, now!”

After they were done mining, Jacob took Gyhlot back towards the mining tunnel he dug. They had encountered a few monsters on the way, but Jacob had dispatched of them almost as soon as they appeared. The dwarf explained that they were still too close to the surface for cave monsters to actually be a threat, and that Jacob should be thankful he had encountered such a kind hearted dwarf while roaming the caves.

This led to Gyhlot narrating his own life story even as they were fighting, but only for him to be promptly interrupted by Jacob.

“Miniature hearts!” Jacob yelled, after killing a quite large and threatening black slime.

“Lad! I get that you don’t care about me and all that, but has it occurred to you that it’s odd to find someone roaming the caves alone, even if that someone is a dwarf?”

“Uh, yes it has occurred to me.”

Gyhlot scratched his beard.

“Then why are you trusting me so easily?”

“Because,” Jacob turned around. “I have full diamond-steel gear, a death ray laser, and potions. What do you have?”

The dwarf grumbled.

“Also, I bribed you with two things you desire. To work as you see fit, building a new town, and diamonds. Come on, now, we’re close to the tunnel.”

Gyhlot grumbled again. “I don’t like that you know the caves better than I do.”

“Force of habit. And I recognize the signs of me digging out the minerals.” Jacob pointed at a few sections of the wall where entire chunks were missing.

“Oh.”