《Witch's pet》CHAP 24: Frozen abyss III
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I woke up, refreshed and ready for another day of exploration. I left before Lein even woke up and sneaked past the few early birds I met in the hallways. I didn't really need to but the extra stealth proficiency is always welcome.
You have been detected!
What?
Did someone see me? I don't see anyone around.
As my tiny heart started to pump blood to react to the stress induced by a situation with a potential threat I looked around me. And I saw her, Veria looked at me, grinning from behind a flower vase.
I felt a bit upset by her victorious smile and jumped from the ground to a window, then a ridge then the roof and continued where she couldn't follow me. Except she did.
I might have been wrong when I said, or thought, that she was fine staying here. She seems bored and it's making her anoying. She kept smiling like an idiot while chasing me, which is making this even more of a pain.
I dashed toward the entrance in the staff of the statue with Veria following me closely. While we were moving I noticed that she is doing way more unnecessary movements than usual, probably to stretch or maybe train.
She won't be able to follow me on top of the statue anyways. I climbed just like last time and glared at my pursuer from the safety of my high ground. Veria smiled back and pulled something metallic from her belt.
The grappling hook turned around the statue's head before catching it's own rope and tightening around the statue's forehead. Veria then proceeded to climb the statue. She sliped on the ice three times but never fell. Then she climbed on the statue's shoulder and smiled at me again.
I never saw her behave so childishly, I need to find a way to get rid of her.
Actually, do I? She probably won't tell Lein and could be of help in the cave. Plus it'll spare me the time waste of losing her and coming back here. I just hope she won't be as annoying as she is right now. I liked the solo adventure though.
I took me a few more minutes to decide. I choose to go with her, mostly because I couldn't escape her quickly enough to still have enough time to go adventuring. I jumped on top of the staff and went inside. There were no sounds at first but Veria managed to get inside and I could hear her footsteps if I focused on sound.
When I reached the cave, I hid behind a rock and waited. She came not long after me and looked around the cave, she looked completely lost at the sight. I took the chance for a little revenge and sneaked up on her then hissed. She was startled and even pulled out a dagger from her belt, looked at my triumphant face and put the dagger back.
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"I guess you win this time. This place is gigantic, I did think there would be some interesting places around but didn't expect a giant cave filled with monsters right under us."
No one would expect it. Expecially the machine to make bricks.
I started heading toward the shack near the drake's den, with Veria as back up it shouldn't be too dangerous to go there.
On the way we crossed the path of several monsters but managed to stay out of view from most of them. The only exception being a ice bat that veria skewered with a throwing knife the moment it came out of a cave in our backs.
Once we reached the stone hill on top of wich the shack is, we started being more on the lookout. Several drakes flew near us but none noticed us.
Or they just didn't care.
I reeached the shack first, though it didn't look like one. Calling this a chaotic amalgam of rotten wood would be an understatement. There are at least ten holes I could easily slip through to get inside. Also the door is gone, only the hinges are left.
I stepped inside, only to find an empty room. The only thing worth noticing here is a wooden sheeperd staff. Just touching it made it crumble into pieces. Veria looked as puzzled as me when she came in. We were ready to leave when I used curse perception out of curiosity, revealing a strange shape on the stone floor.
The pattern drawn on the ground with ethereal power looked like a map of some sort. I could see the towers, the lake and the greenhouse, the stairs and even this shack. Two other intriguing places were marked on the map, one hidden in the rocks behind the greenhouse and one close to the shack, up north, or maybe south, there is no way to know down here. Veria was looking over my shoulder, incapable of seeing anything. Me suddenly staring at the ground with a focused expression must have surprised her.
"What are you looking at?"
I obviously didn't answer and just headed toward the strange place north. She followed me hesitantly as I was going inside the drake's territory. We both made sure we were as stealthy as possible.
I'm glad I am so small, Veria had to walk in the open several time because she couldn't fit between rocks. She still managed to go undetected but I'm glad I avoided the extra danger.
We saw drakes fly right above us, not minding what happens on the ground in the slightest. At one point one was so close that Veria could have touched his belly.
Even when we reached the end of the cave, a wall in front of us and drake nests all around, none of them noticed us. The pride of those lizards really make them blind. They may be the strongest beasts down here, but letting me and Veria come close to their nests where the young, weak ones are is stupid.
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I tried to remember where the place we are looking for was on the map when I realised it isn't here. Or it isn't where I though it was. The entrance to that place isn't on the ground, it's in one of the drake's nest.
It's not that high up, but we still need to climb about thirty meters of rocky wall. I could climb by jumping from rock to rock and going through rifts and cracks. The same didn't apply to Veria, too many holes were too small for her to go through and, as nimble as she is, she couldn't do all the jumps. The worst part was a large jump that one had to make to reach the nest's ledge, I would probably need to gigantify.
Using Veria's grappling hook was a good idea but she couldn't throw it that far. So I took it in my mouth and began ascending. Every time I went through a hole I had to drop the hook, go through the hole and then use telekinesis to grab the hook and bring it up to where I could catch it.
You have unlocked a new perk: Teamplayer(Achievement).
That's a new one. I guess it's the first time I help my allies so much. It must come from an accumulation of all the time I fought alongside Lein and Veria. I reached the last jump. Gigantification made my muscles grow and I leaped perfectly and landed without a problem. I placed the hook between two rocks and, while Veria was climbing scanned the place.
Eggs, three of them, are sitting in a corner of the small crevice. I can see a hidden path behind one of them. The problem is that the mother is right on top of those eggs. I could try to wake her up and get inside, but there is now way I can fight her. I can't afford to be detected.
Veria gripped the ledge and climbed up. Her eyes instantly locked on the threat and she quckly grabbed her hook and hid behind a pile of rocks. We both circled the young mother to find a way in without waking her but couldn't reach the place without having to make an opening by waking her up.
Veria rumbled through her belt's pouches, probably to grab a smoke bomb or something like it when I felt it.
You have been detected!
It's not Lein this time. I can feel a heavy, moist breath from behind. Dad's home. It didn't notice Veria behind the rocks but saw me in the middle of the nest. I need a plan right now.
The male drake shrieked from the top of his lungs and nearly ruptured my eardrums. It woke the female that instatly covered her eggs, and the hidden passage, with her wings. I panicked and threw a frost bolt at the male.
Target absorbed the spell. No damage were dealt.
This is bad. I ran toward the mother to avoid the male's ice breath. She tried to bit me but Veria kicked her jaw before she could. My savior then threw a smoke bomb on the ground, grabed me and slid between the female drake and her eggs to get in the hidden path. We could hear the loud sounds of the two drake thrashing everything aside from their eggs.
Veria catched her breath while I used wound reduction on the bruises she received from rushing blindly between two angry drakes and some sharp rocks.
Once I was done, I looked around. The crevice seemed empty but magic sight sensed a hidden door. I had no idea how to open it though.
I used several spells and opening sigils but none worked. I couldn't find a way to open that door. Then I remembered that the map was drawn using curses. With curse perception I could see an incantation on the wall.
New curse learnt: Cold shivers.
Using said curse on the door obviously opened it. Now to see what's inside.
I waited for Veria to bandage her wounds and led her inside. We walked through a long, empty stone hall and reached another door. A normal one, with a handle.
Veria opened it and we entered a small living room with a few bookshelves, a table and chairs. There are three other doors I can see. One leads to a small room with only a bed in the middle, the other to some sort of magic powered kitchen with some stranges enchanted systems and the last one is a study.
Veria went in the study and I followed her. Most of the books here are about ice magic, but there is a few exceptions about curses, fire magic and even one about cooking meat.
We then searched through the kitchen. Several small mana powered stoves on top of a large oven and some strange ice powered food storage were the only noticeable objects, the other being simple food and cooking ustensils storage.
Then we enter the last room, filled with a simple wooden bed. And on the wall, in a place you could only see from inside the room we saw a huge glass tube filled with water. And there was someone inside it.
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System Savior
System Message Hello, I am System 7 (31129758). 🙂 I am here to save you. I have already begun changing your world to make it more suitable for the coming war. I am mighty, yet I alone will not be enough. Ironically, though I am eternal, an aspect of the universe itself, all my creations are ephemeral. This is why I need your help. I need you to get strong so that one day you may fight and save your planet. It will not be easy; many will perish. But if you don't fight, you all will. So I ask you to fight. I am sorry in advance for any deaths my actions cause. But my inaction would be responsible for even more. So I act. I intervene. I change your world into something hostile and dangerous. Dangers like you have never seen, except in your darkest horrors and worst nightmares. I will aid you as much as I am able. The trials begin now. It is time for you to cultivate. It is time for you to become immortal. Only then will you have a chance against the eternal foes.
8 168Ars Magica
Our vision comes back into focus. Our eyes, while being able to perceive the immediate surroundings, still leave us with our minds uncomprehending towards what is actually occurring. Sure, there are definitive things that we can focus on, like the fact that we're either out upon the open sea or the open ocean, there not being much of a difference with no land in sight, as well as the fact that we appear to be upon a haphazardly constructed metal boat, whose seams are barely able to keep a hold of themselves in the crashing waves. However, that does not let us understand what exactly is causing the waves in the first place. If we were to rewind time, we'd find ourselves upon a calm sea under a peaceful sky with the only difference, being a small whirlpool that would be the precursor towards this uproar around the boat. Lightning flashes in the sky, with no clouds being near, and anyone actually manning the boat has either died towards the cause of the smashing tides in the first place, or are fighting amongst the flashes of lightning, all while trying not to become devoured, demolished, and utterly decimated by the beast roiling in the whirling waves. To better understand exactly what is happening here, there is one singular event that needs to be understood, that needs to be explained, and that is the arrival of a creature named Dave. Stepping back from current events and going towards this creature's first appearance in the world, we begin to hear the sound of water slowly dripping across rocky ground. The cavern is utterly silent except for this one constant, its cause feeding channels downwards, sloping towards cracks in the rubble along the floor from broken stalagmites and stalactites. And there, lying on top of something which had fallen over recently, judging from its cracks, is a person, the creature named Dave. His form is fast asleep, either from the impact or from an intoxication, judging from the smell upon its breath. A bright light suffuses into it for a second, giving life towards the pale skin, before it slowly dies down back to the comfortable black of the cave that it's within. Before this moment in time, Dave did not exist in the physical world. At least, not in the reality that he finds himself born into. We do not know whether or not his existence is simply a cosmic joke, or something that is being played out on purpose. All that we do know, is that one moment, the body was not in the cave, and simply formed in the next. The actual earliest time that we know Dave exists, is the interpolation of the memories of J-209, which we'll begin looking into shortly to gain context towards the coming narrative that is being written and hastily trying to keep itself written. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Warning: This story has several things which might turn its readers away. The first is that this story has shifting points of perspective. Don't worry about that previous sentence too much though, as the main character will always have a first person perspective associated with them. However, any other character from which we're viewing the story from will either be in third-person, as we are not necessarily in their shoes at the moment, or in first person, given that the narrator is an actual physical presence within the story. For the most part, chapters will be self-contained with their perspectives, so there will not be an abundance of switching perspectives within the same chapter. The most that an average reader would have to worry about is the fact that perspectives can switch between chapters. The second thing is that the main character is a bit on the 'special' side of things. He's not exactly mentally there most of the time, so there will be some times that his personality or his thoughts do not actively align with his actions. The third, and final thing of importance, is the fact that past the first couple of chapters, nothing has been planned in advance. There are arcs and plots that I want to do, want to implement, or have already been set into motion from our main character's introduction to the world, but the method that I use for my story writing and generating leads towards a bit more random chance being enabled. Basically...there's a lot of dice rolling behind the scenes. To not complicate the story further than its regular LitRPG elements, the rolls will not be publicly available. However, there will be knowledge within the author's notes on whether or not there were positive or negative critical rolls that had occurred within the chapter. You have been warned. Updates: Mondays & Fridays (Schedule permitting) Typical Chapter Length: (2,000-3,000)
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