Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Smiling as he juggled the blue, multi-faceted, crystalline orb the size of a baseball between his hands, Thaden strolled down the large tunnel that led to the different dungeons available in the mountain where Forgestone sat, noticing that even if it was getting late in the day, the crowds of Contenders hadn’t dispersed.  If anything, it was even more crowded as he navigated his way through all the people, taking care not to run into anyone or cause to much undue attention upon his presence.  Thankfully, he seemed to blend in with his new robe, boots, and accessories that he didn’t seem too out of place in a basic shirt and pants anymore; even so, he casually looked behind him every once in a while to see if anyone was following his progress down the large tunnel.

He’d already been tracked down the tunnel once that day and wanted to avoid anyone else snooping on his travels. 

Once he passed the last groups of Contenders heading into a turnoff that led to the last dungeon available in the tunnel that wasn’t the Magma Dungeon, he slipped his Shadow Necklace of the Grave over his head and felt the slight bump in his stats as it took effect.  What its real purpose was to take advantage of its ability to make him 66% harder to detect in low-light conditions as he blended into the shadows.  It wasn’t exactly stealth by any means, but it would hopefully make it harder for anyone tracking him to follow as the lights became more and more spaced out the further he went down the tunnel.

Camille said she wasn’t going to follow him anymore, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else watching him.  Thankfully, he didn’t see or sense anyone behind him as he made his way down to the bottom of the tunnel, and he stopped and hid as well as he could near the wall of the entrance, looking back up the way he came to see if anyone was sneaking around just as he had, but after 10 minutes of waiting he saw absolutely nothing.  That didn’t mean that there wasn’t anyone there, because he couldn’t detect some Scouts that had really good stealth capabilities, but he was still fairly certain no one had followed him.

He knew that once he was done with the Minimal difficulty of the Magma Dungeon, he would have to venture outside of the city to lessen the possibility of someone watching him enter one of the stronger dungeons.  But he really wanted to finish this one first. 

Once he was fairly sure no one was nearby, he quickly swapped his Bloodletter’s Robe with his Dark Abyss Robe of the Dead and slipped on the Casket Ring of the Undead, giving him a couple of points in Physicality and Celerity but 65 additional points in Mentality, expanding his Mana pool greatly.  He then removed his Shadow Necklace of the Grave and replaced it with his newest acquisition from Outstanding Accessories, the Failed Chilling Aura Necklace of Extreme Cold.  He hadn’t used it yet, mainly because he wasn’t sure how powerful it was and didn’t want to experiment where people could get hurt, but now that he was all alone there was no holding back.

Casting Major Death Ward and Major Regeneration on himself, as well as both protective Fields in case they actually did anything, he gripped the melted snowflake medallion from his necklace in his right hand while his left held his other new acquisition. 

Lesser Defensive Focus Stone

Rarity: Uncommon

Class Restrictions: Support

Level Restriction: 30

Physical Damage Modifier: +0

+5 Mentality

+9% decrease in casting time for all Defensive spells

It turned out that the General Enchanter he visited after he left Camille was basically the catch-all for items that weren’t exactly classified as weapons, armor, accessories, or potions.  Inside, he found things like wands, hats, robes, shoes, and – like the crystalline stone in his hand – focus stones.  Unfortunately, none of the robes, shoes, or hats available to purchase were for his Class – mainly because they had all been bought long before he entered the shop.  It seemed as though the Contenders of Forgestone were well aware that if they weren’t able to find a loot drop for themselves, then a General Enchanter was the only place to find something like that – and the prices were fairly inexpensive, ranging from a single gold all the way up to 15 gold.  It wasn’t cheap by any means, but saving up enough to buy something from there was more than possible through dungeon delving and completing Quests, which resulted in stock being rather low as it was sold out. 

He got lucky that no one had hit Level 30 yet, or else the Focus Stone he’d purchased would’ve likely been gone.  That, and at 50 gold it was outside the price range of many of the other Contenders, so it had still been available.  Unfortunately, the Stone was a one-off in terms of higher-Level items, as either there weren’t any other clothing items that were at that Level or they had been pre-emptively purchased, so there wasn’t as much to choose from as he’d have liked.  The few wands he saw for sale were slightly higher Level, but they were only for Mages and Control Classes, so even if they were available he couldn’t use them.

But now he had something he could carry with him in his hands, boosting his Mentality even further.  The 9% decrease in casting time for all Defensive spells was also beneficial because his Defensive spells weren’t instant-cast like his Support spells – even though he rarely used any Defensive spells with casting times when he was solo.  That could definitely change if he went ahead with Camille’s plan to infiltrate the Harvest Guild, which he was still on the fence about.  Thankfully, he had until the next day to decide if he would do it, which was when he was supposed to meet up with the desperate, blackmailing woman to go over more details. 

He really didn’t want to do it, but he also didn’t want to have to flee and try to hide elsewhere in the world when his abilities and description were spread throughout every Contender.  Thankfully, it sounded like his part in everything wouldn’t take very long, so if he was lucky it would only be a day or two of work and then he’d be free of her blackmail.  At least, he hoped so; if she attempted to renege on their deal and forced him to do something else after this first thing, stringing him along with the threat of releasing his information, he would simply bail and take his chances out in the world rather than stay near Forgestone. 

Putting thoughts of that out of his mind, he focused on the snowflake in his hand as he tried to figure out how to feed Mana into it.  As he’d never used something like this before and there wasn’t a manual on how to use it, he was curious as to how it worked.

It turned out to be much easier than he thought it would be, as all it required was focusing on the necklace and imagining pumping Mana into it.  There was a brief second where he felt a connection form between himself and the snowflake in his hand, before his Mana practically blasted out of him; the pull was so strong that it made him weak in the knees during the first couple of seconds, but eventually he accustomed himself to the Mana flowing out of him – only to find that he was starting to shiver uncontrollably.

Thaden’s teeth were chattering so hard it was difficult to think, and as he watched his Health slowly decline, he realized he was freezing to death.  As for the area around him, it suffered an even worse fate as a thick layer of frost – essentially all the moisture in the area – covered everything within 75 feet of himself, and the very air had tiny floating ice particles that made it seem foggy.  After a few more seconds, even that fog disappeared as the temperature plummeted further, creating a section of the tunnel and just inside the entrance to the large magma cavern that was devoid of any heat whatsoever. 

Thankfully, it seemed as if the cold didn’t originate near his body, leaving a small bubble around him that was extremely cold but not as cold as the void of space, otherwise he didn’t think he would’ve survived more than a few seconds.  He could tell that his protective Fields were doing absolutely nothing to insulate him against the cold, and he had a physical affliction called Frozen that he tried to remove with his Major Cure Physical Affliction spell – but he didn’t have enough Mana to cast it. 

All told, with his equipment bonuses, he had 231 Mentality which equaled 2,310 Mana; with 2,000 of it being used by the Necklace as well as 180 and 120 being channeled into Major Repulsion Field and Major Absorption Field, respectively, he only had 10 spare Mana to play with.  Dropping both Fields freed up his Mana again, and he quickly cast his Cure spell, getting rid of the Frozen affliction – only for it to reappear a split-second later.  With Major Regeneration still active, as well as the Afterglow Advancement effect working, his Health was yoyoing back and forth, but it was essentially stable.

That changed as soon as he took a cautious step forward and felt the complete absence of any heat like a physical blow, and his extremities immediately suffered frostbite.  His Health dropped to just under 50 before his healing kicked in, but the dangerousness of walking through the cold made him stop moving.  Within seconds, the heat void equalized with the bubble around him, warming up slightly – though it was a slow process.  He thought that he might be able to slowly shuffle ahead with the Chilling Necklace active; any faster than that could hurt him enough that he might end up dying. 

At least, that’s how it would be outside of the dungeon.  When he was inside a dungeon solo, that was a different story altogether; his additional bonus stats would give him more Mana to work with, which meant that he might be able to cast enough healing spells to keep himself alive.  But if he played his cards right, there would be no need to walk while he had it active – which he aimed to test on the Magma Salamanders outside the dungeon.

Deactivating the Chilling Necklace was as easy as turning it on, and he watched in fascination as the frost covering everything around him quickly melted from the heat coming from the magma nearby.  Within 10 seconds, it had disappeared, turning to steam that flowed up the tunnel for a hundred feet or so before dissipating in the cooler air above.  Once it was clear, he made his way into the large cavern filled with stone islands and magma, and ensured that he had his Fields ready.

Performing the same actions that he took last time, he allowed all the Salamanders that popped out of the magma nearby to follow him as he swiftly – but safely – crossed all the bridges and islands until he came to the final one, where he stopped as the last bunch came and attacked him simultaneously.  Moving slightly so that all of the monsters following him were within range, he gripped his Necklace once again and activated it, and the sudden coolness was refreshing for all of three seconds before the extreme cold started to affect his Health.  Thankfully, it was counteracted by the Regeneration that he’d cast right before he activated the sudden drop in temperature, so he was in no danger of freezing.

As for the monster attacking him, nothing happened for the first 4 seconds, but after that the sudden chill finally started to affect them by visibly slowing down their movements, so that they appeared lethargic and weak. 

He was wondering what else the cold would do when the first one exploded.

Chunks of the Salamander bounced off his Field, causing him to stagger backwards not from the impact but from surprise, which immediately caused his back to enter the heat void; he winced in pain as portions of his back and shoulder immediately suffered from frostbite, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as it had been before since it wasn’t yet at the same loss of heat as what he’d experimented with before.  Unable to heal himself at the moment other than with his Regeneration and Afterglow, he could only bear the numbness of dead flesh on his back as he watched another Salamander explode.

This time he was prepared and didn’t flinch backwards, but it wasn’t until the third one went kaboom that he saw what was happening.  The Magma Salamander half-created with magma, hence their names, and it glowed within their skin.  Unfortunately for them, when that magma encountered the rapidly freezing environment, the extreme heat and cold interacted with each other, producing a violent reaction within their bodies that caused them to explode.  He was reminded of the time when he dropped a hot glass plate inside of a sink full of cold water, causing the plate to shatter when the expanded hot glass was forced to cool down rapidly enough that couldn’t handle it.

This was just a bit more extreme than he was expecting.

It took all of 10 more seconds for the last of the Salamanders to go boom, and he immediately turned off his Necklace.  Breathing hard as he swapped out some of his spells to heal himself of the damage he’d done, he smiled at the success of his new Necklace.  That smile quickly faded when he looked at the absolute devastation left behind by the explosions; it was worse than the carnage the Colossus caused when it smashed all the monsters attacking him in the Boss cave.

In the end, he was only able to extract loot from a single one of the Salamanders that had attacked him, as there wasn’t enough left of the others to salvage; either they were in small enough pieces that they were indistinguishable from everything else, or they had been flung out into the lake of magma.  Slightly disappointed, he shrugged as he turned toward the entrance to the dungeon; it was a tradeoff for the sheer power of the chilling cold, he supposed.

Once he was inside the dungeon, he repeated his performance in the first cave, killing all the Salamanders inside with his Necklace, and this time he was able to extract loot from three of them instead of just one, which he thought was much better.

Instead of rushing through the dungeon like last time, he took his time and passed through each cave individually, killing all the monsters within before moving on.  It took a lot longer, of course, but he also didn’t want to risk burning alive again. 

Every Salamander exploded when the chilling cold blanketed them with extreme heat loss, and the Magma Elementals solidified into stone before cracking apart – both satisfactory outcomes.  The Magma Wolves, on the other hand, were only slowed considerably while the cold was active, practically freezing in place, and their flaming paws were extinguished – but they didn’t explode or die from the cold.  When he deactivated the Necklace, they warmed up enough to continue attacking, but their stone forms were brittle enough that the reflected damage from their attacks upon his Fields were enough to finish them off in a fraction of the time it normally took.

But at least he was able to extract loot from all the Wolves, unlike the Salamanders and more than half of the Elementals for some reason.

Because he wasn’t running through each cave, it took him twice as long to pass through the dungeon, but in the end it was worth it because he was much safer and wasn’t as rushed.  Still, by the time he finished off the last of the monsters in the final cave before the Boss, he was exhausted from the day and the rapid change in temperatures he had experienced took a toll on his mind and body, to the point where he was having trouble determining if it felt hot or cold outside his body without focusing on it.

Finally, he stepped into the Boss cave with the Magma Colossus, and he walked up to the river of magma until he was approximately 30 feet away – just far enough for the Boss to step out of the river to attack him, but also close enough that his Necklace should still work at that distance.

BOOM

The first of the strikes that were deflected off his Fields shook the ground, nearly causing him to fall, but he managed to stay on his feet.  He had forgotten how low and insanely powerful the Colossus’ attacks were when they impacted against the stone below his feet, but now that he was there, it all came flooding back.

A few blows into the incessant attack, he activated his Necklace to see what it would do, and as the frost covered the lower legs of the Boss, he kept expecting the magma-jointed stone to crack, if not explode, but neither of them happened.  Instead, he saw the visible magma along its outer legs dim in response to the cold, but it didn’t fade or solidify entirely; looking up, he realized that a good portion of its upper body wasn’t within range of the freezing effect, which was probably allowing it to keep the rest of it “alive” – if that was the proper word for a monster made up of stone and magma. 

But the good thing was that the Necklace froze the river of magma behind the Boss, which he was fairly certain would prevent the Colossus from healing itself later.

Rather than keep it active the entire time, Thaden let the Necklace deactivate after ensuring that even after 30 seconds the Colossus wasn’t negatively affected by the chilling cold, other than perhaps attacking a little slower – which was actually bad for him, because it then took longer for the reflected damage to stack up. 

Now the only thing he could do was wait, which he did by sitting down and doing his best to ignore the constant attacks followed by annoying booms and the shaking of the ground. 

He wasn’t sure how long it was from that point when he looked up to see the knee on the Colossus buckle from another bit of reflected damage, but he perked up at the cue.  Getting to his feet just in time to watch the Boss turn around and step into the magma, he waited until it had both feet inside before he activated his Necklace, walking behind it to ensure that he was within range of all of the surrounding molten rock.

He wasn’t fast enough to prevent the start of the process, as magma began to flow over the Colossus’ legs, but the freezing effect took hold before it could get past its knees.  The glowing, super-heated substance rapidly cooled and darkened, trapping the Boss inside the Magma as it was essentially frozen in place.  It visibly attempted to move, to rip its legs out of the cooled magma, but it didn’t have the right leverage to extricate itself. 

It was at that point that Thaden realized that he hadn’t planned for what to do after this point.  He stopped the Colossus from healing, but how was he supposed to finish it off?

Thankfully, the Boss had that covered.  The massive stone-and-magma construct twisted at the waist, something he didn’t even know it could do, until it was essentially facing the other direction.  When it realized it couldn’t heal and saw Thaden standing right there, ripe for the killing, it started slamming its fists down once again, hurting itself incrementally in the process.

Because he didn’t dare let the frozen magma return to normal, he had to keep his Necklace active, occasionally dropping his Major Absorption Field periodically to heal himself with his Major Healing channeled spell.  Since all the damage was physical in nature, his Repulsion Field handled it just fine, though it was nerve-wracking to have one of his main defenses down for any period of time inside of a dungeon.

It took another 10 minutes for the Colossus to finally land the blow that ended up cracking its chest, which caused a chain reaction that had it crumbling apart into thousands of smaller pieces of inert stone.  After suffering from the cold for so long, Thaden’s whole body felt numb, but as he released the Necklace and the cooling effect, his whole body tingled as it started to regain feeling from the heat of the room.

Smiling in satisfaction, he looked down at the item hanging around his neck that had proved to be the solution he was searching for, only to gape in horror as the snowflake seemed even more melted and misshapen than it had before.