Chapter 221: Cracking Rocks
The cavern wasrge but far longer than it was wide, stretching in both directions. Everywhere was evidence of mining. He skirted aroundrge, open pits a hundred feet wide and hundreds of feet deep, stonedders descending to tunnels that ran horizontally into the rock. He saw a dozen more spiraling stone stairways ascending to crevices in the ceiling and continuing into them. Along the walls were endless tunnels at all levels. Some went only a dozen paces, and others went deep, branching into an endless maze.
Five times he was attacked by Stone Lurkers. They wererge ones, ranging from Level 8 to Level 11, but not bosses. The slower-moving creatures were easy for him to spot. He was forced to fight two of them in the tunnels, dodging and hitting them repeatedly with ws, tail, and spikey stick until they crumbled to rubble. The three that attacked him in the open were more fun, allowing him to experiment with spells. He was trying to findbinations of his runes that were effective inbat and didn''t send him to the infirmary.
His first spell was a <em>Rune of Force</em>, modified by the dwarven engineering runes that strengthened and defined the flow of fluids. He added the <em>Void Rune</em>,st hearing Kepler''s voice in his head describing equal and opposite forces. As the Stone Lurker lumbered towards him, he held the runic formation in his mind and watched as it took form in the air before him, glowing runes connected by circles and spheres. The mana drained from him, and he triggered the formation. The runes were converted to pure force, shooting straight at his foe. The Void Rune drained the equal and opposite force that shot toward Milo. The monster was struck a hard blow as the spell elerated the air and anything else in front of it into the Stone Lurker''s chest, knocking it backward twenty feet and chipping away its armor in a six-inch-wide circle. It was only lightly injured.
Milo scampered backward 40 feet and began building a modified formation, narrowing the radius to three inches. He double-checked it, then triggered the second formation. This time the spell punched into the monster''s chest, creating an explosion of stone chips and dust. It regained its feet and charged at him. Milo repeated, getting the same result, and on the fourth spell, he shattered the creature to rubble.
Working with the formations to cast spells excited him. He had control of the variables and could experiment endlessly. But they came at a cost. He was sweating and felt mentally exhausted. Kepler had warned him several times about the repercussions of a poorly built formation. Milo didn''t want to blow one of his arms off. The Star-God had six; he only had two and a tail. And he was so thankful for his tail! He doubted he could have managed these formations with just two hands. (If he sat, could he use his feet? He filed that thought away forter.)
Before moving on, he practiced with a different set of <em>Engineering Runes</em>, narrowing the area of effect to just one inch in diameter. Theoretically, this should focus all of the force of the six-inch version into an area only 1/36th as big, greatly increasing the pration of the spell. He tried using the formation against arge rock. The first thing he noticed was that it was more difficult to cast the formation, as if narrowing the focus added some pressure on his mind. But the results spoke for themselves. There was a deafening sound, and the rock exploded, falling into two halves. He destroyed two more stones before continuing, confident he could cast this new version of his force spell.
It might have been the sound of rocks being destroyed or simply chance, but soon after, he saw two Stone Lurkers lumbering toward him. At 100 feet away, he hit the first with his new formation, destroying much of its chest and arm. The second one continued its charge, gaining speed. Milo reformed the runes and cast again but only managed to clip this creature on the shoulder. Fatigue was interfering with his aim. He concentrated hard, his tail whirling in front of him as it drew the runes, and his hands controlled the two <em>Ancient Runes</em>. The st hit the Lurker when it was only ten feet before him, blowing its head apart. Milo would take the win, but he''d been aiming for the center of mass and shot high. Thest Lurker was stilling. He finished it off with <em>Shadowblight</em>, giving himself a rest.
His head was pounding, and he was down half of his mana. He needed a break, but this wasn''t the ce for it. He moved away from the area of his battles and skulked through the darkness, passing by another dozen Stone Lurkers. The monsters were oblivious to him as long as he moved slowly and kept his footsteps light. Looking for a ce to make a camp and not deal with lurkers was harder the further he went in this direction. He was considering moving into one of the mazes of tunnels to find a ce when the next open pit he came to showed something surprising; a vige.
From the look of it, he assumed that the ore ran out in this area at some point, the miners moved on, and the pit was chosen as a ce to build. Small houses lined the edges of the walls, each ring moving down and forward. Thousands of people could have lived here, assuming they were the size of the ancient miners. Stairs led down in some ces, while in others weredders of stone or hand-holds cut into the rocks. He observed the area for some time but saw nothing moving. There were no awnings or gs, just quiet stone buildings with small doors and sometimes a window. In the center of the pit was a wide t area. And in the center of that was a tower. The tower''s height was equal to the pit''s edge, going no taller than the ground Milo was standing on. He wondered about the significance of that. He carefully began to work his way down.
On the second level, he ventured into one of therger buildings. The rooms were small, but the house dug back into the side of the pit, the way they built in the Hollow. In thest room was a sealed stone door that he suspected would lead to the old mine systems. The house was devoid of anything not made of stone. A small stone stove with a chimney was in a room with t tables and arge basin that might have been for water. Stone jars, tters, andrge spoons were scattered about. The walls were decorated with beautiful geometric designs, unfaded by time. Different minerals had been used to make the colors, mixed in with the moremon rock. Fine dust covered everything. He moved on.
Three levels further down, he explored arger house. This one was decorated on the outside with the intricate patterns he''d seen before, along with bright mosaics showing the moon and sun. Venturing inside, he foundrge areas with tiled floors, cabs, and furniture made from different rock types and a kitchen area that far surpassed the other house. Nothing was out of order here. The shelves held beautiful tes, bowls, and sses made from mchite andpiszuli. The bright blue and greens were inset with silvery lines, again creating the geometric designs popr with these people. Gendifur would love a set of these. He brought out his <em>Smugglers Stash</em> and loaded a dozen of each item into his chest, along with somerger tters, pitchers, and one of therge urns. He was d he didn''t actually pack all of this back. After he dismissed the chest, he moved on. He wanted to take a look at the tower in the center.
He saw no sign of monsters around, but that didn''t mean there weren''t any. Stone Lurkers could blend into the surroundings and stay still for long periods. He avoided skipping across the rooftops and stayed low and in the darkest shadows. Thest row of houses before the center wasrge and impressive, simr to the one he''d just looted for kitchenware. A quick look inside showed a simr opulence. He avoided the urge to explore them and concentrated on the tower. It was made of massive blocks of stone and had been covered with an outeryer of themon rock, but some areas had ked off, showing the joints of therge stones underneath. He estimated it was fifty feet wide and four hundred feet tall. Narrow windows began after the first hundred feet. Milo worked his way around the perimeter for a hundred yards until he saw the lone door in the tower''s base. A wide staircase wrapped around the building, thirty feet wide and leading to a doorway roughly fifty feet above the ground level.
The rock in the center of the pit felt odd to Milo''s stone sense. It was dense and hard, trying to Identify finally gave him the name <em>Durumgneiss,</em> a Tier Four material. That exined why the pit mine had stopped here, and the center area was t. Theyer of incredibly hard rock put an end to further mining. All of the broken picks and tools Milo had seen had been rusted iron or steel. The mining technique revolved around finding hidden nuggets of <em>Silverite Ore</em> and digging around them.
Cautiously, he approached the tower. A glint of silver attracted his attention. Weaving its way through the <em>Durumgneis</em>s was a thin line of shiny white metal. The only information that <em>Identify</em> gave him was a name, <em>Durum Argenti</em>. Hard Silver? Paying attention to the rock around him, he saw other small threads. They became thicker as he approached the tower. The doorway was open. The door was made of wooden beams, each a foot square. The doory t on the ground, its hinged destroyed by blows from tiny picks.
Therge room at the bottom of the tower resembled a dwarven bar after ''free beer night.'' Smashed tables and chairs were everywhere. Broken mugs and staved-in kegs littered the floor. But while the dwarven bar would have had a few dozen miners sleeping off their drink and bruises, this room only held the long dead. There were hundreds of small skeletons, many torn apart or with smashed skulls. They were mixed with a much smaller number ofrge skeletons. Milo recognized humans, orcs, and what he thought was an elf or two. In one corner, surrounded by piles of smaller foes, four dwarven skeletons had been hacked to pieces. Their crude chainmail armor was rusting on their bones.
Nearby was a pile of rusted metal. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of small, broken cors told a story. How many of the miners had it taken to overthrow their masters? And how many had died digging for the mineral wealth in these caverns?
Milo felt tired just thinking about it. The room was open all the way to the top of the tower, with a stone spiral staircase in the center, wrapped around a stone pir only six inches thick. The stonework amazed Milo. By any calctions he did, the stairway shouldn''t support itself, yet it was solid. He started the long walk to the roof; he wanted a safe ce to rest and be alone, away from this monument to an old battle. If he had been tired before, he was exhausted by the time he reached the top. It was just what he wanted, a wide, t expanse of bare stone. A two-foot wall surrounded the edge.
He brought out his tent and bedroll, summoned Georgie to guard, and slept.