World Sphere - 191 - Just What I Needed

Chapter 191: Just What I Needed

For the next seven days, I spent most of each day finishing one of the towers and four hours on the first-floor dungeon with my sister and companions. Talking to Selin in Skyholme over the week, I learned the Maven Seekers Guild had arrived but were frustrated in finding the Shifter. The team consisted of four gold and one platinum adventurer. Loriel was going to pay their fee only if they found and eliminated the Shifter. So far, they had managed to identify six missing people in the capital, and informed everyone the Shifters had a voracious appetite to manage their high metabolism.

I assured King Nirhaan I was working as fast as I could, and was limited by my aether reserves. This was confirmed to the King, as in the dungeon, Captain Delilah kept a close eye on me, and I only used tier one spells and occasionally my tier two arcane web spell. Of course they didn’t know just how massive my aether pool was.

At my current pace of artificing the shield array, I was going to finish two days after the contract bonus stipulated.  But King Nirhaan was not complaining and keeping the city’s council in check from complaining too loudly. I could hear whispers that keeping the Master Artificer happy was the number one priority. Aelyn even told me what they were paying me was much less than if they had had to hire a dozen master artificers to get the project done in the same time frame. How much less she was determined to find out. Not that I would use it as leverage to get more compensation.

There were ways to increase my aether recovery. Using aether restoratives would be a short-term solution to work faster. But if I started using them in bulk, it could affect my aether core development. Since my aether core was still maturing, there were plenty of warnings in textbooks of adverse effects on core development. It was just like using healing potions on young people stunting their growth.

King Nirhaan offered to pair me with an Aether Well, a mage who specialized in transferring aether to another person, but I was already experiencing a fair amount of fatigue using my aether shaping for over twelve hours a day. I declined the offer, not that getting five hundred extra aether a day from the Aether Well would have helped much. They were just not aware of how much aether I was using every day to shape the adamantine.

The artificing would get done when it got done, but every other day when another World Walker was reported, King Nirhaan got more anxious. To make matters worse, the team the Adventurer’s Guild sent to the Magna Moon had not reported in and was considered killed on assignment. There were no plans to send a second team, but a reward was posted for half a million gold for viable information to the perpetrator teleporting the World Walkers.

The Sphere was a massive place, but the World Walkers were appearing in an area of a few hundred million square miles. Unfortunately, Myththorne was within this region and I had to concur with King Nirhaan after looking at the maps that Myththorne would eventually be one of the targets if the World Walkers continued to arrive.

By the seventh day, my sister was starting to get bored with grinding spiders and giant elk. Aelyn tried to explain to Freya that this was what delving was. You did the same predictable thing every delve into the dungeon. You killed the same creature, harvested the same creature, and then repeated it all day, then repeated it again in the next delve. Freya wasn’t having it, though, and she pleaded with me when we entered the dungeon.

“Storme,” Freya put on her best puppy dog eyes. “I am ready for the second level. I want to attack the forts. There are many Guild quests and amazing loot on the second level.”

I looked at her and said, “no,” and turned to walk off with Adrial and Captain Delilah.

“Storme! Can I at least try a cyclops?” She yelled at my back. I paused and turned.

Arching my eyebrow, “By yourself?” She didn’t even sense the trap.

“Yes, I can handle it.” Aelyn and Bleiz were standing behind her, and both were shaking their heads no.

“Fine, show me,” I said. “Kiara, find a cyclops for Freya.” The white cat dashed off into the trees, her black sister not far behind. Bleiz was looking at me questionably. I shrugged as I thought this might be a way to get Freya to quit the idea of becoming a delver.

Kiara sent me images of a dark cave under two of the largest trees I had seen in this dungeon. “Kiara found one. Let’s go.” I led the procession in that direction, feeling the mental pull from Kiara. The cave was two miles away and was the largest cave I had seen in this dungeon. Keeping my aether expenditure low, I hadn’t challenged any of the cyclops in the last week. Even I would need to use a few aces like lightning reflexes or lightning elemental to handle one.

When we got into the clearing with the cave, Bleiz warned me, “Wait! It is a glass-eyed Cyclops. The guides indicated that the liars were identified by the twin trees and larger cave.”

Captain Delilah confirmed Bleiz’s assertion, “I believe he is right. The common variety would have a green glass eye, and the rarer species a black eye.” Kiara sent me image flashes of a dark-eyed goliath, with her enhanced sight able to penetrate the darkness of the cave.

“It is the black-eyed variant,” I announced. “Kiara sent me a picture.”

“We should leave it alone and find another cyclops for your sister. The black opal eye is valuable, but the cyclops is as dangerous as four of its species combined.” Captain Delilah said. Thankfully, Freya took the words seriously and backed away from the cave.

Bleiz had his dungeon reference book for the Cavern of the Thunder Witch out and was paging through it for the entry. “Found it. The black opal is extremely valuable, worth about five thousand gold, and functions like a tier-five aether stone in terms of aether capacity. Useful in enchanting artifacts with spacial magic.”

I paused and took the book from him, and talked about what I knew. “I know dimensional space artifacts require special dark aether stones, called void stones, to create their dimensional space.” I looked up at the cave. “Can we mark the cave and come back later?” Bleiz turned the page back to where it described the glass-eyed cyclops.

I scanned the entry and frowned.

The glass-eyed cyclopi of the Cavern of the Thunder Witch is exceedingly rare. Their eyes are actually special affinity aether stones. The green variant enhances artificed devices with nature effects while the very rare black variety enhances the artificed devices dealing with spacial magic.

These cyclops do use magic to see and usually have access to innate magic. The green variant has been known to utilize spells, such as razor leaf storm, poisoned vine, and pollen haze. The black variant has used the spells quick step, vanish, and can see through any invisibility spells.

These rare cyclops liars only last a day before the dungeon cycles them away.

Freya was getting excited. “Storme, you can artifice me a dimensional storage artifact!” Aelyn slapped her lightly on the head and wiggled her eyes at me. She wasn’t scolding Freya, just trying to move to the front of the line.

“Captain, how rare is it to find the black cyclops?” I asked.

Captain Delilah turned to one of her companions, who answered. The guard had been with us on every delve but never needed to lift a finger. The auburn-haired elf introduced himself, “I am Orion. I have been studying dungeons for almost two centuries and this dungeon for the last three decades.” He bowed slightly after his introduction before continuing. “Usually, one or two stones will appear in the auction every month. Depending on the size and quality, they sell for between one and ten thousand gold. The only other place to find these stones is on the ninth floor as a reward from the void spiders there.” He stepped back, having informed us of the relevant information.

So I could just purchase one of these stones—or a few. There was no need to risk trying to claim this one, but my adventurous side was calling. Once the array was finished, I wouldn’t mind experimenting with artificing the spatial aether stones. It also felt like something was pulling me to fight this cyclops.

I reviewed the black Cyclops’ abilities in the book and then chose my team. “Bleiz, you are going to be support. Adrial will distract it, and Kiara will be stunning it. The Cyclops is upper tier 2, according to the guide. This should be over quickly after she stuns it. The cyclops’ quick step ability is a very short-range teleport the cyclops uses to close with opponents. The vanish ability is a problem as it makes your weapon disappear forever.”

The elf dungeon loremaster stepped forward. “That is only partially true. It can make one weapon vanish at a time and then summon it to its hand. But if a weapon has vanished and it has not summoned it back to its hand before it is slain, then yes, that weapon is lost forever. It cannot make people vanish, so don’t worry about that.”

I nodded in thanks, and he stepped back once again. “Everyone else, move back to a safe distance.” Captain Delilah, Tibault, and Neoma ignored my orders as they were here to guard my person and stayed close enough to help me if I got into trouble but also placed themselves in front of Freya.

I used the same tactic I did before to lure the cyclops out, firing my ice ball spell into the cave. This time, I had Kiara help guide me in my aim in the dark. It wasn’t long before the enraged cyclops charged out.

The single black eye made it look like there was a hole in his head. His giant muscled frame flexed, veins bulging in rage. I told Kiara through our link to stun him when he got in range. The cyclops charged straight at me, the ground shaking from its mass as I continued to pelt it with icy spheres. Then the giant skip stepped, closing ten feet in a blink, and an angry Kiara voiced in my head. “Missed.”

The phantom cat tried again, and the Cyclops skip-stepped again. A furious Kiara said, “Missed. Again.” I guessed the Cyclops was sensing her mental attack, since it couldn’t resist it, and was jumping through space to avoid being targeted.

I announced to everyone, “Kiara can’t hit it with her confusion attack! We are going to have to do this the hard way!”

I rushed forward under the influence of the lightning reflexives spell, my falchion in my hand. As I swung my blade at its Achilles on the way by, my falchion vanished from my hand. Okay, this was not going well as I skidded past the twenty-foot giant. “It has my falchion!” I yelled a warning, summoning another less potent blade to my hand. That was my favorite blade and heavily artificed.

Adrial leaped onto its back, biting into the cyclops’ neck and raking its back with its claws. Adrial’s powerful attacks did not shred the back of the cyclops as expected, but left long bloody claw marks. The cyclops vanished again, and Kiara got angrier at another failure as Adrial landed on the ground. Then my falchion appeared in its massive hand as it lorded over Adrial. It looked more like a dagger in relation to the creature. Adrial accelerated toward the creature again. He swung my falchion at my phantom cat, and I went to intercede but was not going to make it. He connected, and Adrial flashed a brilliant blue as her collar protected her from the attack, but the giant's strength still flung her back twenty feet away into the rocks.

Kiara growled at the Cyclops in anger and challenge, clearly worried about her sister. Bleiz was behind the creature as it tested its new toy and sized us up. I gave him a hand signal not to attack; the giant was too big, and the hide too tough. With my artificed falchion, the cyclops could do a lot of damage if he caught Bleiz as well.

We were in a standoff. Its glossy black eye traveled over everyone and settled on Freya and the others a good fifty yards away. As it considered them, I was prepared to block its path. Thankfully, it didn’t charge them and returned its focus to us.

Neoma was checking on Adrial and nodded to me, indicating Adrial was okay. “No. More. Magic,” Kiara informed me through our link that she couldn’t try to stun the creature again. For the first floor of a dungeon, this monster was extremely powerful—and smart. Everyone was looking at me. I summoned a second blade to my hand. That way, if the Cyclops stole one, I would have a second to attack with.

I dashed forward, much too fast for it to land a blow, and it stole my large weapon this time. With the shorter blade, I stabbed into its calf, which matched me in size. I yanked on the blade, freeing it and doing as much damage as possible as I passed. It immediately stumbled to one knee and swung my falchion through empty air. I think it might be getting low on aether as it had not blinked again.

I had already burned a lot more aether than I wanted in this fight, and the Cyclops was drawing out this fight just not wanting to give up the ghost. Gritting my teeth a little, I summoned my lightning elemental, using a tenth of my aether to end this. I cast multiple arcane webs to slow it down as the lightning elemental dragon flew in the sky above and cooked the cyclops with its ranged lightning attack. The Cyclops never quick-stepped away, so I assumed it had finally used all its aether.

The tough cyclops remained standing for minutes, and I dashed in when an opening presented itself, making cuts in its leg tendons. Clearly, this creature had a lot more magic than a normal one. Not just its ability but also powering resistances and its tough hide. It fell to all fours under the onslaught, and I finished it by running up its back and stabbing my short sword in the base of the neck. It took a lot of force to drive the artificed blade in. I dashed away, leaving the blade embedded. It slowly toppled over, sealing our victory.

I checked on Adrial first, healing some cracked bones and internal contusions. I could tell she was angry at being knocked out of the fight as she growled at the downed Cyclops. I had used almost twenty percent of my aether on this first-floor fight. Aelyn, Freya, and the others approached, and by the look on Freya’s face, this endeavor was not a total loss. She now had some respect for dungeon creatures and was maybe swayed from wanting to be a delver.

The knowledgeable elf approached, “That was not a normal black-eyed cyclops. Normally, they can only blink out of harm’s way twice. I counted seven times during your fight that it used that specific ability. Its hide was also much tougher than anything I have seen before.”

“What does all that mean?” I asked impatiently.

He seemed to consider. “A better reward chest.” He bit his lip in deeper thought. “It could also open access to a secret dungeon room.” I looked into the cave. The cyclops guarded the descent to the second level, but there were dozens of similiar caves.

“Can you explain further?” I asked, retrieving my falchion. I had lost a good blade in this fight as it never materialized.

“On other floors of The Cavern of the Thunder Witch, there are secret rooms. Usually, a monster resides inside, hiding some special prize. I never heard of one of the rooms being on the first floor. The seventh and eleventh floors are the floors I am aware of that had special rooms within the last year. But then again, if the floor boss got this tough, maybe the delve teams were wiped who challenged them.”

I looked at the cave, and Bleiz was carrying the reward chest out of it. He handed it to me, and I checked the reward with Freya on her tip-toes, trying to see.

Inside, a thick, wide, coiled belt with many runes engraved in it—mithril runes for a first floor reward? I sent my metal senses into it to figure out what the runes did. “It looks too gaudy to wear,” Freya said uninterested. She fished through the silver coins in the chest, disappointed that there was nothing else.

As I started to puzzle things out, I was amazed. “It's an aether recovery belt.”

“What?” Aelyn, Freya, Bleiz, and others echoed.

Bleiz was the first to point out, “That is exactly what you need to speed up the process of artificing the towers. It’s like the dungeon knew you needed it.”

The dungeon expert elf didn’t look as shocked. “It makes sense. This creature was as powerful as something on the seventh or eighth level. It needed to place a challenge sufficient for you to earn that.”

“How did it know I needed it?” I asked as I turned the belt in my hands. A lot of the runes were unfamiliar but I guessed it maybe could increase my recovery by fifty percent.

“The dungeon was probably listening to the other delvers harvesting aether stone on the deeper levels. It probably got impatient that you were not traveling deeper, so put this cyclops here. If I had to guess, it is aware the World Walkers are assaulting other dungeons and is offering aid to help defend it.” The elf finished. He turned to the cave, “If that is the case. And it is all supposition on my part; maybe you should descend to the second layer.”

I looked at the large stone cave flanked by two massive trees.  Making my decision, I handed Aelyn the belt, not to keep, just to hold onto it for the moment, and started walking toward the entrance.

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