Overwhelming Firepower

Before the group headed for the mines, they needed to change some of their equipment. The leather gear was alright, but the arquebuses wouldn’t be of much use inside the mines, which had narrow enclosed areas.

Durik gave the four of them kite shields made from wood and the bones of monsters. Sir Thalos did not accept the offer since his weapon was his fists, and he didn’t really use a shield anymore, seeing as his body was sturdier than any shield.

Bram’s spear and sword were also not something they could use in the mines. So was Lucen’s Crimson Lord Mk IV.

They also couldn’t use the iron spheres since in such an enclosed space, they might get hit or worse, cause a cave-in.

So Durik gave them staves with rune engravings on them. ”I made these things to be able to withstand great pressure. It is also resistant to fire, and it won’t snap against steel even if you strike it without using your aura mantles.”

Durik finished, rapping one of the staves against the forge floor. The impact produced a dull, solid thud instead of a sharp crack.

The staff was made from a dark, dense wood that Lucen didn’t recognize, its surface wrapped in thin bands of bone and resin. Faint runes were engraved along its length, each line shallow but precise, carved to guide force.

Bram took one and gave it an experimental swing. The motion felt oddly natural, the weight balanced closer to the hands.

Robert, as a mage and alchemist, didn’t really need to carry a weapon, but he gladly took the kite shield and the staff since he was interested in the rune engravings on it.

”Hoh, this is truly interesting. The runes are set in a way that seems to make the mana of the world itself flow through the rune engravings... Hm, I see... So it’s like that.” Robert started talking to himself again.

Once he had given the equipment they would need, Durik turned and reached for a heavy rack set against the wall of the forge.

Several tools hung there, but none of them looked like ordinary mining equipment.

Durik took something out from the rack; it was a pickaxe, but only in the broadest sense. The head was short and thick, forged from a dull, dark metal that drank in the forge light instead of reflecting it.

Veins of faint blue ran through the metal, pulsing softly in the same slow rhythm as the orichalcum chunk from earlier. He took out several other items and placed them on a cart.

Also, seeing as the Veinleeches suck on mana, bringing mana lamps was not ideal, and instead, they were going to use normal oil-based lamps and torches.

After they were done with their preparations, the group headed to the mines, but the area they went to was different from the place the people in town used.

It would seem that Durik had created a different path, which was hidden behind his home/forge.

The hidden entrance was little more than a narrow gap in the stone wall behind the forge. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a collapsed section reinforced with old support beams and scrap rock.

Only when Durik pressed his palm against a specific stone did the illusion break.

With a low grinding sound, the wall shifted inward, revealing a sloping tunnel just wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

”This way,” Durik said, taking the lead. He hoisted the cart with practiced ease, as if its weight was nothing more than a sack of coal.

The air changed the moment they stepped inside. It grew cooler, heavier, carrying the faint scent of damp earth mixed with something metallic.

The glow of the oil lamps painted long, wavering shadows along the tunnel walls, the light duller than mana lamps but steadier, unaffected by the unseen pull that lurked deeper within.

Chisel marks lined the stone in deliberate, efficient patterns, each strike placed to minimize stress on the surrounding rock. Lucen noticed thin lines carved into the walls at regular intervals.

”What are these?” Lucen couldn’t help but ask.

”Oh, those are something like an alarm. When I started getting attacked by monsters, I started placing them the deeper I went, so that I wouldn’t suddenly get ambushed. They work by sensing the peculiar mana signatures most monsters emit, like wild mana.”

”That’s very interesting.” Robert listened to Durik’s words as he memorized the runes on the stone.

The group continued walking forward. The path descended gradually, the stone beneath their boots growing darker and denser. Here and there, fragments of ore jutted from the walls.

As they went deeper into the mine, Bram was a little surprised that there was not a single fork.

Normally, every now and then, there should be a fork in the road as miners usually branch out to follow different veins or to create airflow, but here, the tunnel stretched on in a single, unwavering line.

Bram voiced his thoughts aloud. ”Normally, there’d be at least a few forks by now. Even a straight vein would split eventually.”

Durik snorted. ”That’s how humans dig. They chase ore like rats chasing crumbs.”

He tapped the tunnel wall with the blunt end of his pickaxe as they walked. ”This path was made to reach something, not to strip everything along the way. That’s how we dwarves mine.”

’Yep, as expected of a fantasy dwarf. It really is something else to see an actual fantasy race in action.’

Lucen was actually happily observing the dwarf, since this was the first time he met someone from a different race. Well, not counting the goblins and monsters he fought before.

After a while, the group finally encountered the monsters called Veinleeches. At first glance, it was hard to tell where the stone ended and the creature began.

The thing clung flat against the rock, its body long and narrow, no thicker than an arm, its surface broken into uneven segments that looked more like jagged layers of slate than flesh.

Faint cracks ran along its body, and within those cracks, a dull bluish light pulsed slowly, like a weak heartbeat trapped beneath stone.

There were no eyes. Its head tapered slightly, ending in a blunt, wedge-shaped maw pressed directly against the wall.

Around it were ringed folds of hardened flesh, each lined with tiny, thorn-like protrusions. As it shifted, those folds flexed and tightened, anchoring it more firmly into the rock.

The creature moved in short, jerky motions, pulling itself forward by clinging to the stone, then dragging the rest of its body after it.

Wherever it passed, the rock looked different, duller somehow, as if the life had been leeched from it.

When the light from the oil lamp brushed over it, the glow within its veins flickered, growing brighter for a brief moment before dimming again.

The creature reacted instantly, flattening itself against the wall until it was nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding stone.

It then, without any warning, dropped. It latched onto the rock below with a wet, grinding sound, the faint blue glow along its body surging brighter as if something unseen was being drawn into it.

Sir Thalos was quick to move as he punched the veinleech, killing it immediately, but that was just the start, since if there was one veinleech, that meant many were near.

The corpse of the veinleech slid down the wall and hit the stone floor with a dull, heavy thud. The faint blue glow within its body flickered once, then went dark.

For a brief moment, silence returned to the tunnel. Then the runes carved into the wall let out a low, trembling hum.

”Get ready for battle, lads!” Durik spoke as he took out a heavy-looking hammer made of wood.

From further down the tunnel, something answered. A faint scraping echoed through the stone, like countless small claws dragging against rock.

The sound came not from one direction, but many, above, ahead, and somewhere deeper within the walls themselves.

Robert was already starting to chant a spell as he gathered mana. Noticing what Robert was doing, Durik spoke.

”Careful, mage,” the dwarf warned without turning around. ”Those things eat condensed mana. Don’t give ’em a feast.”

”I know that, but they can still be harmed by constructs created by mana. A fireball would still harm them, but of course, using a spell like that would not be good in an enclosed space.”

After he was done talking to Durik, Robert continued his spell chant.

The scraping grew louder. Small pebbles began to fall from the ceiling, bouncing softly against the stone floor.

Then another veinleech peeled itself off the wall ahead, followed by another, and another.

They dropped at uneven intervals, some landing on the ground, others clinging halfway down the tunnel walls.

Their bodies pulsed faintly as they moved, the blue light within them flickering in response to the mana in the air.

When more showed up, Robert was finally done with his chanting. ”Everyone move aside!”

The second Robert shouted his warning, everyone reacted quickly and moved aside.

Robert took a slow breath and forcibly pulled his mana inward, compressing it tight against his core instead of letting it bleed into the air.

The veinleeches reacted immediately. Several of them twitched, their bodies pressing flatter against the walls as the faint blue glow within their veins pulsed erratically, drawn to the sudden density of mana.

Robert ignored them. He raised his staff and planted it firmly against the stone floor.

[Fourth Circle spell: Glacial Bind.]

Frost crept outward from the point of contact. It spread like a living thing, thin veins of white racing across the ground, climbing the walls in branching patterns.

The temperature in the tunnel dropped sharply, breath turning visible in the lamplight.

Ice formed instantly around the veinleeches, not encasing them in thick blocks, but creeping into the cracks along their segmented bodies, seeping into the gaps between stone and flesh.

The creatures shrieked. It wasn’t a sound so much as a vibration, a grinding resonance that rattled through the rock.

Their bodies convulsed as the frost disrupted whatever unnatural circulation allowed them to draw in mana.

The dull blue glow inside them flared violently, then shattered. Several veinleeches froze mid-motion, their bodies locked half-attached to the walls.

Others lost their grip entirely, dropping to the floor with brittle cracks as ice-bound segments snapped apart.

Of course, this spell did not deal with all of the veinleeches. Once Robert’s spell was done, the others charged forward and started smashing the remaining veinleeches.

Despite their numbers and their ability to eat mana, Lucen’s group was able to deal with them quickly since they knew what was coming and came prepared.

”Hoh, that was better than I expected!” Durik, who smashed the last veinleech with his hammer, started laughing heartily. ”With you lot, we might get to the orichalium vein much easier than I anticipated.”

The laughter echoed briefly through the tunnel before fading into the stone. ”Alright then, let us continue forward.” After a good laugh, Durik once again guided the group forward deeper into the mine.