Chapter 21: Mileth Crypt [6]

7th floor of Mileth Crypt…

Sarcophagi littered the room. The materials were carved from the stone in this floor. It laid on the floor and on top of each other without a care for tidiness. These box-like corpse containers had little to no detail on the surface. But each and every single one of them did have one depiction in common: a very detailed drawing of a skeleton. The stones and everything else on the box was shabby at best, but the skeleton art was held to the highest standard. The entrance to the floor beneath was visibly located in the center of the scattered sarcophagi.

Gratt led the way, and Morr, Priscilla, and Pontiff followed behind. The deepest he had delved was the 7th floor, the floor they’re on. After informing the group of how often he had hunted on the 7th floor with his other adventurers, they trusted him to guide them through it. Just by seeing the amount of death coffins confirmed Gratt’s information.

“There are enemies in those boxes?” Priscilla asked.

“Yeah.” Gratt walked near one of the sarcophagus. “We’ll take them one by one, for safety.”

Gratt kicked a nearby sarcophagus multiple times before it began to rumble. A bony hand devoid of all of its meat pushed the lid over and stood up from its slumber. It held a shield on one hand and a broadsword on the other. A spike helmet protected its cracked skull. It stepped out of its coffin, shaking off all the sand that’s been built up from years of erosion.

“[Wind Blade]” Gratt downward-slashed his two-handed sword and three crescent arc of turbulent winds shot forth. The skeleton held its shield up to block it, but a crescent arc of turbulent wind attacked its elbow and detached it from the rest of its body.

“Use wind!” Gratt commanded.

“[Wind - 2: Beag Athar]” Priscilla pointed her wand at the skeleton and a green magical circle appeared beneath it. A flurry of wind shot forth from below, cutting its bones. The spell didn’t seem to have any effect; the skeleton marched forth, ignoring the weak spell underneath it.

Gratt swung his blade and clashed with the skeleton’s sword. He overpowered the skeleton with sheer strength and forced it back. It stuttered backwards, and upon using [Wind Blade] again, the turbulent winds disintegrated it. A shiny bone dropped from where it died.

Morr picked it up and stashed it inside his bag.

“You’re still using beag?” Gratt shook his head. “That was fine for the first and the second floor but… Have you learned the next tier of spells yet?”

“Still tryin’.” Priscilla said. “Studying the next tier and applying it is a lot harder than you think. Practice, practice, and more practice, like Dar would say.”

“I thought you would’ve been more useful.” Gratt boldly mentioned. “You guys seem so confident on the previous floor that I thought it was because of you.”

“What?” Priscilla glared.

Morr walked off and kicked the nearby sarcophagi. Five skeletons woke from their slumber, all equipped similar to the previous skeleton. With a sword and shield in hand, they menacingly chased after Morr.

“Practice on these guys, Priscilla.” Morr ran towards his party and stopped ten-feet away from them.

“What are you doing?!” Gratt exclaimed. Five [Wind Blade] were used to destroy their shields, and he used five more [Wind Blade] to finish them off. The sudden action from Morr forced him to use his skills even more than he wanted to. He panted and supported his body upwards by placing his hands on his knees.

“If she needs practice, then let’s help her.” Morr ran off, gathered his chakra to his foot, and made sure to rattle ten coffins before he ran back to his group.

Ten skeletons awoke from their slumber; eight of them held a sword and shield, and the other two held a bow in hand with a quiver at its waist. Their black, empty sockets all focused on the young man who abruptly disturbed their sleep. The skeleton archers fired arrows at him, ignoring the front-line skeleton warriors. Arrows flew towards Morr’s general direction, some getting stuck inside the bones of the warrior skeletons in front and others just completely missing.

“Man, you’re crazy!” Priscilla casted [Wind - 2: Beag Athar] with a smile.

The spontaneous action by Morr spurred her to utilize this situation to its fullest. Arrays of green magical circles consecutively fired one after the other. Their impact was low, but there were many. The magnitude dialed up from 2 to 20, from 20 to 40, 40 to 60, 60 to 80, and 80 to 99. The power grew stronger, but it wasn’t enough to kill in one hit.

“Come here if you need healing.” Pontiff dropped to the ground and spread out his legs. He cozied himself into a comfortable position, but soon found it impossible with the amount of prickly pebbles and stones scattered throughout the floor. Nevertheless, he laid on the ground without any intention of helping.

Gratt flanked the archers, and as he noticed Pontiff lazing around, he shouted, “What the hell are you doing!”

“Go away.” Pontiff shooed him. “I can’t do anything to their bones anyway. I may as well store my energy.”

The chakra fully expanded throughout Morr’s body. Every swing from the warrior skeletons were precisely timed so that he dodged them at the last second. One came for his head, and he ducked below. Another came downwards, and he turned his body to the side. One swing turned into two, and two turned into four. Dodging them all became taxing on his body, but he struggled through it to see how far his limit goes. During the marauder battle it was painfully obvious how weak and powerless he was. To reach his limit and triumph it was one of the first steps he needed to do if he wanted to get anywhere. How much can his body handle? How far can his chakra take him? He wanted to know.

“Crazy bastard.” Gratt finished killing his third foe by decapitation. His body pleaded for rest; using [Wind Blade] so many times in such a short amount of time drained him of his energy. Sweat beads flung from his forehead as he mustered the strength for one more swing. A skeleton warrior, who surrounded Morr, disintegrated and dropped a shiny bone upon being decapitated.

“[Wind - 10: Athar]” Priscilla pointed her wand at the remaining skeletons, and a two-layer magical circle appeared beneath them, one after the other. A gust of wind attacked their bones, leaving behind noticeable scars in their bones.

The remaining enemies were eventually defeated by Priscilla and Gratt’s endeavor, who were both incredibly tired. Priscilla dropped to her knees and procure a bottle of water from her satchel. She chugged it down without a thought for anyone else. Gratt fell next to Priscilla and held his hand out. He formed a circle with his hand, impatiently waiting for her to kindly gift him a few droplets of water.

“Need… water…” Gratt said, exaggerating as if he’s on the verge of death. “Please…”

Priscilla placed her bottle of water in his hand. Looking up, Gratt saw that the bottle had approximately one-tenth of its capacity. He rolled over, opened his mouth, and tilted the bottle towards his face. It entered his mouth and splashed across his face.

“Thanks.” Gratt expressed his gratitude.

Morr sat down next to them and asked, “How was practice?”

“It was good.” Priscilla said. “Usually wizards can only practice at the training fields with dummies, but even then they want us to tone it down so that we don’t cause anything too crazy to happen. These monsters compared to those straw dummies are so much better, though. I can go crazy with my spells, and if I accidentally hurt anyone, Pontiff is here to heal us.”

“I’m used to seeing my party members get the crap scared out of them when they see these guys.” Gratt panted. “I’m surprised you three can act so carelessly around them like you’re on the 1st floor.”

“We’ve seen worse.” Morr said.

“Oh, you mean the marauder?” Gratt presumed. “Still, I wouldn’t place my trust in your priest so much. I mean, just look at him.”

Pontiff scraped the ground with his wand, seemingly bored out of his mind. It moved up and down, left and right, like he was drawing a picture. He turned towards the three and waved, then resume his previous activity.

“He’s fine.” Morr assured.

“Really?” Gratt doubtfully asked. “I doubt he even worships a God for power.”

Morr turned towards Pontiff and shouted, “Hey, Pontiff, what God do you worship?”

“No one.” Pontiff honestly answered.

“See?” Gratt shook his head. “Glioca may have granted him the priest path, but he has to go the extra mile and devote his practice to a religion. Otherwise, he won’t grow stronger by staying faithless.”

“Wouldn’t Glioca be a God he worships since he was given the power to use priest’s spells?” Morr asked.

“No.” Gratt denied. “Glioca is the patron God for all priests and priestesses. Much like how Ceannlaidir is the patron God for all warriors; and Luathas is the patron God for all wizards. We don’t have to necessarily believe in them; they initiate us into their powers by marking us with their symbol. However, priest and priestesses are different. To fully utilize their powers, they must devote themselves to a God.”

“Oh. I think I get the gist of it.” Morr clapped his hands and patted his pants. “But I’m sure Pontiff will be fine.”

“I hope you’re right, for your and his sake.” Gratt said.

Their hunt continued in the same manner. Morr continued to aggravate the skeletons, and trained his chakra and body to dodge their swords and arrows. Occasionally he would accidentally kick too many coffins and awoke disturb more than ten skeletons. It became more dangerous, and he pushed his chakra and his body to the limit. There were more than a couple of instances that he couldn’t dodge an incoming sword attack, so he reinforced his arm with his chakra and blocked it. It cut deep, but not as deep as it would without his chakra. The more he got into the moment, the wilder things became. His body became restless during breaks, and he darted towards the coffins.

Priscilla launched her magical spells freely and uninhibited by needless worry. She previously gated the magnitude of her spell because of the fear of unwanted danger. Her current situation aided her mentally, in turn, aided her in her magical studies. [Wind - 50: Athar] was used as a power of reference. The destructive force of a 100 magnitude compare to a 50 magnitude would essentially be double the power. Her problem and worries no longer linked to her external environment, but she did ran out of mana frequently. This problem arose because of the increase of magnitude and tier spell, something she didn’t had trouble with before.

Pontiff relaxed behind everyone else. As always, Morr seemed to be the one who needed his attention the most. After many skirmishes, the amount of flesh wounds piled up for him to heal. [Light - 1: Beag Ioc] was used on the occasion that he needed his fresh injuries to be healed. When he did use [Light - 99: Beag Ioc], nothing much was changed; there was hardly any difference in its healing power. So, he stuck with [Light - 1: Beag Ioc] for their training session.

Gratt was baffled at how reckless this entire party continued to act. Rather than giving commands and leading them to victory, he spent most of his time running around, flanking the archers, and using [Wind Blade] to defeat them as quickly as possible. The longer a monster lived, the more dangerous it grows. Mental fortitude, fatigue, and strong will were some of the elements that he believed is essential to any adventurer. Watching Morr run around, activating more monsters than he needed, putting every in more danger than needed, quickly reminded that he doesn’t have the luxury to be a leader. He had to be a fighter, otherwise their party could quickly be destroyed before any of them suffer a physical wound.

Hours later, the room was entirely cleared of its inhabitants. The closed-sarcophagi had all been opened, all except one. Just one was left closed and out of reach. The wall above the stairway that lead to the 8th floor had a coffin jammed into it, 15 feet from the ground. From the view on the ground, it seemed like any other coffin with the same detailed skeleton portrayed on the lid of the coffin.

“Ridiculous…” Gratt panted and supported his body from falling by leaning onto the hilt of his stationary sword. “Utterly ridiculous… You could have killed us all!”

Morr looked around at all the empty coffins. Pontiff walked around with Morr’s bag in hand and looted all the notable items on the ground. Priscilla and Gratt were resting, desperately, from the hours of hell that they just experienced.

“Are you listening to me?” Gratt directed his anger at Morr. “No, of course you’re not.”

Morr turned around after confirming that all the coffins within reachable distance have been cleared. “What is it?”

“Do you have a screw loose in your head? You were being completely irresponsible.” Gratt taunted. “You’re lucky that they didn’t go after the priest or wizard.”

Morr saw that Priscilla and Pontiff were still operational and said, “They’re still alive.”

“Right now, yeah, I agree.” Gratt gasped for air. “In the future, with you? I doubt it.”

Pontiff finished his rounds and placed a bag full of items on the ground, next to Priscilla. Most of the items in the inventory comprised of shiny bones, quivers, and broken swords and shields. What filled the rest of it were the items collected from the 6th floor.

“What are they talking about?” Pontiff asked.

“Shh… Just let me rest.” Priscilla rested her head on the hard, cold ground and closed her eyes.

“Everyone’s fine.” Morr argued.

“Am I talking to a brick wall?” Gratt massaged his forehead out of frustration. “Is the word ‘danger’ in that thick skull of yours? Do you need to see one of them die before you finally realize what danger is? Un-fucking-believable.”

“Everyone is… in danger?” Morr murmured. A sharp pain attacked the innards of his skull, causing him to knit his brow and clutched his head. The pain was immensely powerful, producing a single tear that dripped down his cheeks. It finally went away when he changed his thought. “Do you still want our help?”

“We’re already this deep in.” Gratt said. “I want to retrieve my sword, but we are not fighting unless we have to. Understand?”

“Fine.” Morr agreed.