Chapter 15

Training # 4

Along the way Torger and Rome told Brun about their last three years. They each built a two story keep out of stone, lifting each stone with levitation spells. They described the terra forming process, of being with Ristopan when they were lifted in the air, and new rolling hills made to be like the trolls’ home world. After their apprenticeship they became governor’s of a region, Rome was to the north west and Torger was in the southwest. They could detect all life forms in their region using a scrying globe, and they told of how the tyters came in and systematically killed the trolls three times each. Watching their teamwork was impressive and they never used their lasers once. They drank no potions and worked in pairs to track and kill trolls. The tyters used their antennae to communicate with each other over long distances. After the hunt the team left to go back to their home planet and terra formers came and changed the landscape to a rocky terrain, looking like obsidian long after a volcano erupted. Billiks were placed in caves and large rats were scattered around for their food. There were no rivers but multiple deep pools of water.

They arrived at the cave just as they started describing killing the dragons. Much to Tyler’s dismay, Torger said the story would have to wait until after they explored the cave. Brun looked and saw why it was so important. It was a rated cave, just like on Nuva. A prompt came up.

Cave. Level 6.

Brun pointed at it and said “Analyze 2” but he didn’t get the night vision to see inside it and he didn’t get the prompt like it was on Nuva asking if he wanted to conquer it. Analyze 2 seemed to do nothing, but the holographic letter floating in front of the mouth were clear as day.

“OK guys, do you see the prompt?”

The others shook their heads to Torger’s question. “Brun, Rome and I see a prompt above the cave mouth. It says level six. That means ten fighters level six have a ninety percent chance of successfully clearing it. Rome and I are level forty-seven, and Brun has dropped all the way to level thirty-two. He was level sixty-eight when he left Nuva, but it costs twenty-five levels to teleport. We’ve used analyze one on each of you. Gary you’re level eleven, Joe is ten, Susan eight, Nikko and Tyler are level two. As you gain strength and stamina you will gain levels. Chances are you’ll never learn magic, and possibly your gained ability points will be auto distributed for you. I’ll tell you the story of the glass case in Yuma later. Just stand back here and let the three of us do the fighting. You are not part of our squad, so you may not get experience points.”

Torger started walking in but Susan said “This is a load of crap. Levels? Magic? Please. I’m not going in there. You’re all delusional.”

Torger smiled and said “Gentlemen, shall we demonstrate?”

Rome and Brun smiled. They each walked into the jungle and found a good branch to use as a club. Torger and Rome faced off first. Rome swung his club overhand, then Torger blocked it and rammed the butt of his own club into Rome’s nose, breaking it. Blood splattered everywhere and Susan shrieked, but they kept fighting. They swung at each other with tremendous force, shattering the branches when they impacted each other. Torger being the better melee fighter grabbed Rome’s broken branch with his left hand and with his right hand shoved the broken branch into Rome’s face. Brun called out “Cure two” while pointing at Rome. A gold light flew out of his fingertip and Rome’s face halfway healed instantly. Rome countered by pointing at Torger and saying “Lighting two.” Electricity shot out of his finger and stunned Torger for a second. Rome used the opportunity and cast Fire 2 then Ice 2. Torger cast Shield 2 at Rome who was entrapped in a mostly clear bubble.

They nodded to each other then cast Cure 2 on themselves, fully healing all their scrapes and bruises. Next Brun stepped up to face Torger. Torger ran forward with his broken club and Brun cast Shield 1. Torger couldn’t stop and ran into it, taking another Lighting 1 shock. When he hit it the shield cracked a little, then he drew back and punched it hard. It shattered but he got shocked again. As Brun was casting another Shield 1 Torger threw the broken club. It hit Brun in the face, knocking him to the ground. Brun stood up and nodded to Torger. They cast Cure 2 on themselves and turned to see complete silence and confusion from the spectators.

“As I was saying, you guys stay behind us and let us do the fighting.”

Without caring if they followed him or not, Torger cast Analyze 2 on the cave and walked in. It was his habit to cast Analyze 2 on any cave since it let him see everything in black and white clear detail, which was way better than their early attempts at making crude torches. But it did nothing for them here.

When they entered, it was nothing like a cave on Nuva. There were glowing orbs in sconces on the walls of a perfectly circle room. It was clearly hewn stone, not a natural cave. Once they all stepped in, the mouth closed up with stone grinding against stone. To the left was a touch screen embedded in the wall at the height of a tyter’s neck. A stone table was to the right of that with a machine over the stone table. A hologram of a young female tyter appeared. She was dressed in a bright white cloth dress.

“Welcome to cave four. What is your question?”

Torger asked “Who are you?”

“My name is Elora. I am the host of the caves. Have a good fight.”

She disappeared and the back wall opened up as stones slid apart from each other. Torger called “Wait come back! Elora!” She did not reappear. A tunnel opened up, and Torger could see into the darkness because he used Analyze 2. It seemed to work only after talking to the hologram.

There was a sound of clacking on stone. Torger looked in and coming towards them were billiks. The overgrown cockroaches with sharp feet hurried towards them. Gary and the others tried to bang on the stone wall where the cave mouth had been and they called out for help. Torger and Rome just had the heavy blanket to wear, and Brun had his combat boots and sweatshirt. None of them had a weapon, except Brun’s shrapnel that counted as a knife, and their mana was low from the previous demonstration. They felt a little nervous, but they had superior strength.

They each cast Shield 1, and the billiks hit it. Other billiks behind kept pushing forward. The shields finally shattered, but three billiks were dead from taking multiple Lightning 2 strikes. Others were wounded from being in contact with the leaders. Torger rushed forward and broke off a dead billik’s leg. He could feel the significant loss of going from a strength of twenty-one to a strength of fifteen. It took all his power to break off the leg, but once he had it he stabbed the closest billik in the face and through the brain. He tossed the leg to Rome then began breaking off another one while Rome held the chargers at bay.

Soon all three of them were stabbing billiks relentlessly as they worked their way to the back of the cave. Once the last billik died all the corpses disappeared and the mouth of the cave opened up. Torger insisted they take the time to check for loot, but there was nothing but bare rock. They walked back to the round room near the entrance and on a wall was a touch screen display.

Well done hunters. Your score is 68. Total points available to spend:68

Training cave 4 difficulty: 5.8

Squad strength: 31.3

Time: 12 minutes

Would you like to make a purchase?

As Torger read it Tyler asked “What are you looking at? It’s just a bunch of weird symbols.”

“That’s because you don’t have the translate ability. We can read and understand any language known to the tyters, which seems to be all of them. I don’t know what you see, but it’s English to me. It’s probably written in the tyter language. We gained sixty-eight points for clearing this cave, and we can spend the points.”

Tyler smiled broadly. “No wonder there was no loot! Dungeons always have loot. But there was no boss monster.”

“Tyler, do us a favor. Shut up. This isn’t a game. In case you didn’t notice, we’re not sitting in a chair clicking a mouse. Let’s see if I can buy a sword. This menu is new to me.”

Torger read out loud for the others. This was the list:

Orb light 2p Dagger 3p Large knife 3p Short sword 8p

Scimitar 9p Long sword 12p Spear 11p Halberd 14p

Takinu 21p Helm 5p Pauldron 5p Mail shirt 10p

Chest plate 12p Mail skirt 9p Bracers 5p Gauntlets 6p

Greaves 5p Boots 9p Mace 12p Round shield 19p

Axe 12p Dimensional pouch 28 p 1 Strength 4p 5 Stamina 5p 1 Mana 21p for the first, 2p each additional 50 Health 16p

Respawn 65p Touch here for spells

Touch here for enchantment gems Battle mesh 999p

Displayed prices are for copper. 2x the price for iron, 4x for steel, 8x for mithril.

Torger guessed that battle mesh was the Kevlar suit the tyters on Nuva wore. He didn’t know what Takinu was, so he touched it.

Only the squad leader can purchase items.

Rome had formed the squad, so he touched it. A picture of the tyter’s gauntlet with halberd attached showed on the display. The laser attachment was an additional 45p. “Should I try to give a strength point to Tyler? He looks like he could use it, since his is two.”

Brun said “Go for it.”

Rome touched strength and three names came up. It seemed the observers were not part of their squad. “Sorry guys, you’re not able to be given upgrades. I wish you could form your own squad.”

Gary walked up and touched the screen randomly. He happened to hit 1 Mana. A message he couldn’t read came up, but Rome read it to him. “Your squad has not registered at the entry point! Return to the entry point to properly form your squad, or none of your achievements will be logged.”

“What does that mean?”

Tyler ventured a guess. “It seems they mean party. In some games you can only form a party in a city, not on a battlefield. We should find the nearest town and form a party. Rome where were you when you formed the party?”

“I formed the squad at the entry point, the portal the tyters use to enter this world. We’ve seen no town or city on this journey. It seems the whole planet is a battlefield, as you call it.”

“What about safe zones and PK’s? And where would we respawn if we die?”

Rome sighed in frustration. “Tyler, the only safe zone here is next to us three. I don’t know what a PK is, and if you die you’re dead. It costs sixty-five points per person to buy a respawn, and our total for clearing this cave was sixty-eight points. These prices are insanely high. It didn’t work like this on Nuva. We gained experience and could spend ability points. Killing anything at all gave us experience, fifty points per level of monster killed. We’re going to have to get used to this system together. First thing is to go back, far to the north and form your squad.”

“We’re not going north” Gary interjected. “I’ve got a couple hundred people way to the south to look after. You want to buy knives and swords? Come on that’s ridiculous. Somewhere in that rubble are rifles and cases of ammo. Let’s go dig it up. Besides, Tyler has a computer to build.”

Tyler looked sad at not being able to fight. “Transmitter to build. I would love to swing a sword and kill the cockroaches. You guys looked bad ass. I want to do that too. I’ve done some larping and it’s a lot of fun.”

Nikko laughed, but he was the only one. “Larping? That is so lame. Guys you don’t know? That is Live Action Role Playing. People use nerf swords and throw cups of water at each other like they’re spells, and have a big battle scene in a park. If you want knives and swords, I’m your guy. Don’t spend points on that stuff. I’ve always liked fire and there is plenty of metal on that ship. Bring me lots of firewood and a big hammer and I’ll pound out some swords. They may not be great quality, but it’s better than punching the cockroaches.”

Tyler shook his head. “Great, we’ve got a novice crafter.”

Rome decided to take a chance on Nikko and didn’t buy anything. Torger had his map marked of the first cave they had passed and they would try out Nikko’s crude swords in there. But then Rome changed his mind and quickly tapped Respawn and selected himself. It seemed that it was sixty-five points for one respawn, not unlimited respawns. That could get very expensive.

Susan threw in her thoughts. “All of you are so rude! The one in charge here is Commander Jones. We follow his lead, not yours Rome. I don’t know what happened to you people, but casting spells, reading an alien language, speaking gibberish to a hologram. You’re all cracked in the head. I can’t wait to get back to normal, civilized humans.”

Torger exaggerated a bow. “As you wish, your majesty. Gary, lead on.”

Gary looked around. All the dense vegetation looked the same. He had no training for this. “Brun, you’re the scout. Take us home.”

Brun felt like he and Gary could become friends one day, except that he had murdered his family. That would come out sooner or later. Might as well make it sooner. As they camped that night, Brun told his story.

“We arrived back on Earth. Teleported in to the same spot we left, came to completely naked as usual. Arden and Jex were gone by then. Me, Antic and Graul started walking down the mountain path. Other hikers made fun of us being naked, called us queers, but one of them must have called the rangers. A couple hours later we were in squad cars hand cuffed. Now we’re registered sex offenders. Arden and Jex had got caught too, same punishment.

“Jex had a beautiful healthy baby and named her Emma. She grew just like any child. Jex and Arden got jobs, and they hired a babysitter to watch her in the day. One day, just before she turned one, I came over to see her. The sitter and I were playing with her all day. In the afternoon we took her to the sitter’s mom’s house, a change of shift. I had to get to work and so did the sitter. While we were saying good-bye to her, Emma sneezed. A fire came out of her nose. Not huge, but like a cigarette lighter. The women panicked, and I knew my niece had to be protected. She wasn’t fully human, and we don’t know how her spells would develop.

“I did what I had to do. The women were calling the doctor. The news couldn’t get out, and they would never keep quiet about it. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. With great skill I stabbed Vicky back of the neck, at an upward angle severing C one and C two and continuing into the brain. Nicky turned at the noise and I walked up to give her a hug, hiding her from her dead daughter. During the hug I again drove the knife into the back of her neck also and gave it a twist, ensuring she was instantly paralyzed. Each died instantly and painlessly.”

Gary jumped up. “YOU! You’re the one who killed my family?” He ran at Brun and punched him in the cheek. Brun just sat there and took it. Gary punched him again and again. Brun just kept casting Cure 1 on himself. When his mana ran out, Torger and Rome took turns. Finally Gary exhausted himself, and had broken knuckles on both hands.

Brun continued as if nothing happened. “I put the bodies in my trunk, and was going to bury them in the desert. I strapped Emma into her car seat and started driving. I was an emotional wreck and was swerving. That cop pulled me over. What you don’t see on the video is I complied. I gave him my license and while he was checking it I wrote a quick letter. I pinned it to Emma’s clothes and cast teleport three on her, but I forgot I no longer had enough mana. That spell costs ninety mana, and after returning to Earth I had had a max of eighty. I couldn’t let the cop see the bodies and take her. What if she sneezed again and he saw the flame?

“I got out of the car and went to pick her up, maybe if I teleported myself holding her it would work. I was opening the back door when the cop told me to stop. He reached for his gun. I needed to stun him, so I cast lightning two, buying myself a second of time. Then I reached into the back and unbuckled Emma. That’s where the news feed stops. The rest of the video shows me picking her up and teleporting to Jex’s house. I left Emma there and teleported back to Nicky’s house, ran to the car, hit the cop again with lighting two, and drove the car to the desert. I buried the bodies, and drove the car off a cliff, casting fire two on it on its way down. Mid decent I teleported back home.

“An hour later I turned myself in. They never knew what was in the back seat, all they found was an empty car seat. I told them it was a futuristic teleporting device I had picked up and activated, but the videos clearly show electricity coming out of my finger, not from a device. They tied me to a metal board and put copper mesh gloves over my hands, then preformed countless brain scans, DNA tests, and two involuntary brain biopsies. All they found was I had mutated DNA, and I never cast a spell again. I never even looked at my diminishing stats as my muscles atrophied.”

Chapter 16

Devastation

Gary sat in shock long into the “night”. He mumbled to himself “They were innocent. They didn’t do anything.”

The others found it hard to sleep in broad daylight, and Torger figured they would need to sleep in caves once cleared.

After everyone got enough sleep, they walked for eleven hours until they came back to the crash site. Brun noticed there was no movement. No people running around, no triage center, nothing. As they came closer they saw a whole lot of craters in the sand. Brun told Rome and Torger there are sand snakes in the area. They scanned the horizon but saw no small dust clouds. Rome kept watch from the top of twisted metal while the others walked the area. They found severed hands and limbs, lots of bloody clothes, and twenty-eight rifles. None of them had a bullet left and most were bent. They counted nine dead sand worms.

Gary was devastated. “Their first attack, we killed all three. Their second attack, we killed all three. It looks like we killed three more during a third attack, but a fourth attack killed everyone. They must have used all five hundred bullets we brought, but we’re missing two rifles. We had thirty.”

Tyler went to where his techs had been working. There was a pile of new spare transmitter and computer parts, but it looked like a sand worm crawled over them and crushed them all. He would not be transmitting to Earth. The last they would ever see was the ship crashing into sand, not knowing what happened.

“Now what do we do?” bemoaned Susan looking to Gary for leadership.

He sat down and ran through possible options, but after a few minutes, he replied “I have no idea.”

Torger took the opportunity to shift command. “We’ve been in this situation before. When we entered Nuva, we arrived scattered and naked. We had a huge advantage of knowing the topography, and found water, and silver and gold mines. The dwarves helped us, somewhat. First we need to see if we can heal you guys with magic. Gary, with your permission I want to cast a cure one spell on you and see if it helps heal your knuckles.”

Gary asked what the risk was and Torger told him of the first time Graul drank a dwarf potion, before they were transformed in the tyter capsule. When a spell was cast on him, Graul went into convulsions. If the spell didn’t work, it could kill Gary. But they needed to know if it would work.

“That kind of stuff is why we brought so many prisoners, to test unknown plants on them. I’m guessing the military used them as shields against the underground slugs.”

Susan gasped. “That is awful! That is illegal in almost every country, no government would sanction that abuse of human life. Any judge would find all soldiers and doctors participating in that behavior guilty.”

“We’re not on Earth Susan. We came in knowing ethics would be, altered here. And no one on Earth would have ever found out. Besides each prisoner had a useful skill. They may have been criminals, but they were also mechanics, chefs, computer programmers, welders and such. And they were all expected to eventually die of old age in prison. You have to quit thinking of this mission as a civilized society working together. That aspect was only true for the scientists. Only a handful of us were to ever know the prisoners were even on board the ship. Now it looks like we’ll all die on this planet, be that in a week or years from now. Get this through your head. You are no longer a judge. Not here. We all now have the job of being wilderness survivors.”

“That’s where we come in,” said Rome. “I’m the squad leader of three of us, but we have to get back to the entrance point and reform our squad. At Tyler’s speed, we’re going to have to sleep three times before we make it there.

“Cool. I remember one time, playing Swords and Spells, we had to form a party in a town-“

Joe interrupted him. “Shut up Tyler. Nobody cares. Nikko, it’s time to show us what you’ve got. We’ll grab a bunch of broken metal shards and see what we can scrounge up. Let’s see if you really can forge a sword over a campfire. First, about that spell. I’ll volunteer.”

Rome cried out “Joe don’t! I haven’t seen you in six years and I can’t watch you die from one of our own spells.”

“We all understand now you’re in charge Rome. You’re the squad leader. The rest of us are all equals, and my life isn’t more or less important than anyone else’s.” Joe said this looking at Susan, who shyly looked away.

Rome nodded. “I’m going to take a walk.”

When he was a few hundred yards away Torger sliced Joe’s hand with a metal shard, then cast Cure 1. Instead of healing seven health, his wound opened even more and he lost seven health. Brun cast Analyze 2 and saw Joe’s stats.

Human Level 10

Health 83/100 Strength 6 Stamina 55/55 Mana 0

“My guess is you have to have one Mana point to have Mana work in a positive way. If we can get you into a squad, you can buy the first Mana point for twenty-one points, then we can cure and heal you with spells.”

Rome agreed with Torger. “It’s obvious we have to go all the way back, but it’s dangerous here.”

They found a first aid kit and bandaged Joe’s hand, and loaded up satchels with first aid supplies, water filters, food, and metal. They couldn’t find a big hammer for Nikko, or any hammer. Torger and Rome were sad that their levitation spell they learned from Ristopan was lost when they came to 1PX, and their elf duffle bags didn’t transfer with them. They had to carry everything the old fashioned way.

As they were walking towards the jungle edge, they saw clouds blowing in. It was going to be a rainy day.

Torger and Rome were insistent that everyone get dressed in military clothes. With good boots and tough clothes, they travelled faster through the jungle, not getting scraped by all the foliage. Not far into it, they stopped to rest. The light rainfall felt good, removing some of the oppressive heat, but in the desert the rain instantly turned to steam when it hit the hot sand.

As Rome kept watch, he saw movement in the brush. He stood up and grew far more attentive. Nothing happened for a few minutes, and as he settled down again, a purple beast like a panther darted towards them. Rome cast Shield 2, and the panther slammed into it, cracking it and getting zapped by Lighting 2.

Torger and Brun jumped up and saw the beast. Torger channeled mana into the shield to strengthen it, then they all circled it. The beast had huge claws and was saber toothed. It slammed into the shield again and again, and finally broke through, but Brun was ready. As soon as the shield shattered he cast Poison 2. That cut the beast’s maximum health in half and gave it a mild venom, slowly taking down health points.

The panther lunged forward and tackled Torger. He was out of his element without a sword. Rome and Brun cast Fire and Ice spells in rapid succession until the creature died. Torger was a bloody mess. He was the only one with mana left so he cast Cure 2 on himself three times, then he was low on mana, but near full health.

“That was awesome!” exclaimed Tyler. “You have amazingly high spell cast times, what’s your regeneration?”

Brun answered “There is no spell cast time. I just point and say the spell and it works. By regeneration, I think you mean how fast does our mana fill up. We gain one mana point per minute. It’s always been that way.”

“Wow, so maxed out cast times with horribly slow mana regen. What about health regen?”

“We gain health points while sleeping. Five hours of sleep gives us full health, unless there’s an amputation. It takes two nights of sleep to re-grow a hand.”

Just then another panther darted out of the jungle. It tackled Susan and began dragging her away. Torger reached into his satchel and grabbed a shard of metal. He ran forward and stabbed it in the eye. The cat swiped at him, ripping open his stomach. Torger grunted and stabbed it in the neck. The cat turned and fled. Torger collapsed to the ground. He used the last of his mana to cast Cure 2 on himself, which only slowed the bleeding.

Susan was in pain with deep bite marks on her arm. Rome and Brun got bandages and first bandaged Torger to staunch the bleeding, then wrapped her arm.

Suan was furious. “Why did you help him first? Couldn’t you see I’m in pain?”

“We always help those with the severest injury first. Had you been more injured, we would have treated you first.”

“I think you’re all a bunch of misogynists.” She huffed and turned away.

“Listen, your highness. You act like you want to be treated like we’re all equals. We treated you as an equal. The severest injuries get treated first. Always. If you’re looking for chivalry, you’re talking to the wrong dudes. Now, as an equal, go gather us some firewood. We’ve got to see what Nikko can do.”

Susan glared at Rome, but Joe and Brun walked with her to gather firewood.

Nikko used two cold pieces of metal to pull out the one that was in the fire. He placed it on a flat rock, and pounded it with another rock. It had started as stripped copper wire, melted and fused together. He then started the process again with more copper wire. Once he had two large pieces, he put both back into the fire. When he pulled them out, he pounded the ends together. Everyone saw he had made crude tongs.

Next he tried to heat titanium, but the fire wasn’t hot enough. It wasn’t hot enough to partially melt aluminum either. They found no iron on the ship. “Sorry guys, looks like copper knives for everyone.”

That was disappointing. But better than nothing. Hours later they each had a crude copper knife without a hilt, and a piece of titanium shrapnel pounded into a somewhat sword shape, badly sharpened by being rubbed on stones. Torger and Rome gathered branches and vines and lashed the shrapnel to make spears.

They continued walking and saw a huge ant. It was a foot long. It scurried away from them and they kept walking, but twenty minutes later over a hundred ants came running at them. Joe and Gary started stabbing them with their spears, and the ants died easily, then Tyler joined in on the “fun” and started stabbing them, but there were too many. Torger, Rome and Brun each cast a Fire 2 spell, badly wounding fifteen ants, who ran away. They hacked and slashed for several minutes, killing most while some wounded ones ran off. When they were done they looked around and saw Joe and Gary breathing hard but ready to take on more. Tyler and Nikko were clutching their sides and completely exhausted, and Susan stood perfectly still, in shock at the carnage. Torger and Rome still had nearly half their stamina.

Tyler wheezed “What, no loot? We should get rewards and experience.”

Rome shook his head and said to Susan “It would be nice of you to join in next time.”

Torger, Brun and Rome had taken many bites, easily cured with spells. The few bites the others took used up the last of their disinfectants and bandages. They had no more first aid supplies. After a few hours rest they moved on.

Along the way they killed a giant snake. Rome said “I don’t understand. We didn’t encounter a single animal on the entire trip down. Why are they all out now?”

Tyler replied “In some games, dangerous beasts only come out when it’s cloudy or raining.”

Rome was going to respond but stopped himself. Instead he said “That may be the first useful thing you’ve said Tyler. If you’re right, we should have safe travels when it’s sunny.”

After another day of walking, they stopped again. Even Susan was getting frustrated with Tyler’s low stamina. While they rested Torger asked “Do we go all the way back, or check out that cave we had passed?”

Brun asked “What level was it? The first one was level six, and we handled that just fine without our spears.”

“It was level three.”

“There’s our answer. Easy points, and we can buy some gear.”

The clouds dispersed and they saw no animals. When they entered the cave, the same hologram of a young female tyter dressed in white appeared. “Welcome to cave two. What is your question?”

Without thinking Rome blurted out “What is this timer in my vision? It’s annoying.”

Elora the hologram answered “That is how long you’ve been in the training zone. The faster you finish the training, the more points you get at the end. If you get to ten days you get no reward, and all monsters respawn after ten days. Have a good fight.”

The hologram disappeared and the back wall slid open. Inside were the same jumping spiders and small venomous snakes with paralysis venom they had encountered early on Nuva. Rome told the others to stay back, and told them he had bought a respawn from the first cave. They should only attack if he got paralyzed.

Rome rushed in with a copper knife in each hand and slashed and stabbed at all the large spiders and small yellow snakes. After killing about ten each, a snake bit him on the calf.

Rome froze up, unable to move. Brun cast Heal 2, dispelling the venom and Torger cast Fire 1, igniting all the spider webs and damaging all the small weak monsters. Rome continued on and killed most of them before a spider dropped from the ceiling and bit him, paralyzing him. Another Heal 2, and then he finished the cave.

When the last snake died, all the corpses disappeared and they walked back to the mouth. They looked at the display of the touch screen monitor.

Well done hunters. Your score is 49. Total points available to spend: 52

Training cave 2 difficulty: 3.9

Squad strength: 36.8

Time: 9 minutes

Would you like to make a purchase?

After talking it over, they decided Torger should get a steel long sword. His skill level in two handed swords didn’t drop when coming to 1PX, and was still level 64, far better than his knife skill at level 17. They had four points remaining, but an investment well spent. After Rome touched the long sword on the display, he then selected steel, and confirmed his choice. A steel double edged straight long sword materialized on a table from the machine above it, which was next to the display, just like in cave 4. The grip was huge, made for a tyter’s hand. Torger could just barely close his hand around the pommel, but the blade was sharp and well balanced. Torger checked his skill level with two handed swords, and was dismayed at the display.

Level 64 (21) This sword is not suited to you. Use an enchantment gem to customize it.

Rome then did something he thought he would never do. He asked Tyler’s opinion. “Tyler, we have no idea what cave difficulty and squad difficulty are. Do you have any ideas?”

“I would guess the cave difficulty takes into account the level and toughness of the mobs, and squad strength is how tough we are. The first cave we were rated at thirty-one point three, now we’re thirty-six point eight. It’s probably because of our knives and spears, and maybe we gained more vigor or stamina or health while we were walking and fighting.”

That made sense, and Brun cast Analze 2 on Tyler. His stamina was now 39, and when they started it was 32.

Torger pulled up his Maps. “Rome and Brun, look at your map. We’re at cave two, and the first cave we fought was cave four, and four was tougher than two. There should be a cave three between those points.”

Rome agreed. “And if we keep going towards the portal, cave one should be close to there.”