We stayed in one of the bunkhouses, splitting up among a couple of rooms loaded up with bunkbeds. I was sharing a room with Elayne and Paige, though Paige never showed after we had a brief dinner at the tavern. Elayne mostly just ignored me, which I was fine with. I had some thinking to do before getting to sleep anyway.

  I still had a lot of free points to use, and my highest stats were Insight and Intelligence, neither of which would help much in a direct fight. The first thing I did was raise all of my magic stats to 10, which only cost me 6 of the 68 free points. Hesitantly, I bumped up Perception from 15 to 20 in one point intervals, waiting for any discomfort to stop before continuing. At 20 I felt like I could hear everything in the building, even if that was an exaggeration. The squeaking coming from another room was hard to ignore, though.

  My mental finger hovered over the Constitution stats and I distinctly remembered the smell from my previous go at it. I did not think I could cover that up, though I wasn’t entirely sure why I was trying to keep it secret. Instead, I put points into Endurance, Dexterity, and Strength. I had to stop at just two points in Strength and Endurance, because the side effects from a point in Dexterity wouldn’t stop. My body just wouldn’t stop trembling.

  I didn’t think it was safe to do anything else, so I took one final look at my sheet before trying to drift off to sleep.

  Name: Danielle Rosecrest

  Age: 17

  Race: Human

  Class: Royal Outdoorsman 1

  Total Level: 32

  Class EXP: 66/100

  Experience Bank: 53,231/128,000

  Unspent Attribute Points: 50

  Statistics

  Physical

  Strength: 22

  Dexterity: 25

  Agility: 26

  Endurance: 22

  Constitution: 21

  Mental

  Intelligence: 46

  Insight: 41

  Charisma: 39

  Perception: 20

  Magic

  Mana: 10

  Mana Control: 10

  Mana Power: 10

  Skills

  Assessment: Tier 1, Rank 9

  Unarmed Combat Tier 2, Rank 3

  Cheap Shot Tier 1, Rank 2

  Mana Sense: Tier 3, Rank 14

  Speed Reading: Tier 1, Rank 0

  Deception: Tier 0, Rank 3

  Staff Combat: Tier 1, Rank 2

  Mathematics: Tier 2, Rank 13

  Throwing: Tier 1, Rank 6

  Tonfas: Tier 2, Rank 4

  Two-Weapon Fighting: Tier 1, Rank 8

  Swords: Tier 1, Rank 2

  Dancing: Tier 1, Rank 8

  Sprinting: Tier 0, Rank 3

  Small Blades: Tier 0, Rank 2

  Freerunning: Tier 0, Rank 3

  Fire Manipulation: Tier 0, Rank 1

  Wind Manipulation: Tier 0, Rank 1

  Traction: Tier 0, Rank 1

  Light Armor: Tier 0, Rank 2

  Riding: Tier 0, Rank 2

  Traits

  Noble Birth

  Experience Conversion

  Experience Absorption

  Moderator’s Veil

  Second Chance

  Spatial Closet (Tier 1)

  Intrinsic Mana Manipulation

  Extrinsic Mana Manipulation

  Noble Pursuits

  Honor thy House

  Treasury (32 EXP/Day)

  Aura of Authority (Disabled)

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  Second Wind

  Backpacking

  Personal Library

  Attentive Student

  Mana Conduit

  Spells

  Healing: Tier 0 Rank 4

  Scan: Tier 0 Rank 2

  Functions

  Quests

  Notes

  Encyclopedia

  Map

  Inventory

  I winced, looking over the slowly growing sheet. It was starting to become awkward to read. It wasn’t an immediate concern, though, and I closed it before the temptation to try and organize it grew too great.

  We all met out by one of slopes cut into the side of the cliffs. Paige had joined us after breakfast in messy clothes and wearing a content look. Jason kept giving her sour looks but after a brief exchange of looks between him and Elyane, he kept his mouth shut. Everyone else was focusing on getting their gear together.

  “Alright, everyone. These are on loan, so do not lose them and try not to break them.” Deacon said as he had Zaion hand out the commandeered night vision goggles. I put them on without waiting, the only one who didn’t was Jason who was looking at them like they were covered in filth. He did not argue against them, though.

  Deacon continued, “We’re also going to collect some glowstones from one of the supply closets inside the mine itself. We shouldn’t need them, but I’d rather be overprepared and alive than underprepared and dead.”

  We all made sure our gear was managed properly, and I had a choice to make. While I made sure my sword was belted to my hip, I didn’t know how well it would fair against a bug. The chiton wasn’t supposed to be tough, but…

  I left it belted on, but pulled out my tonfas and belted them on as well. I wasn’t the only one with a secondary weapon, since Elyane’s massive sword was no where to be seen. Instead, she had a thin blade about the length of her arm at her side and a hammer about the same length was in her hand. Even Paige had a club.

  When we were all ready, Deacon led us down the slope.

  At the entrance to the mine, two guards were leaning against a makeshift wall of wooden crates that were spread in a semi-circle facing towards the mouth of the tunnel. Deacon stopped to have a word with them before leading us in.

  “There have only been the occasional straggler since the swarm the other day. That’s, hopefully, a good sign.” Deacon said as we started to move into what would be our walking order. Elayne and Jason up front, Me and Paige in the back with Deacon and Zaion in the middle. We stopped at the first intersection and he went into a little room that was carved into the rock.

  I brought up my map interface and looked around. There were faint outlines on the map, and as I looked around I managed to line up the tunnel to the model my map system had copied from the table in the foreman’s office. I looked back and forth for a while until I saw a blip in the distance that appeared after I thought about the quest.

  “Alright, here’s our plan. We’re going to try to be methodical about this, but in tunnels like these it’ll be difficult.” Deacon held out a cloth sack to Jason, who took it and started to hand out glowstones to each of us. “I’ve got some chalk, and Dani will be responsible for marking the way out.”

  He held out a stick of chalk to me. I took it and he pointed at the wall, “Draw an arrow going towards the exit, somewhere at eye level.”

  I did as he said, though I reached and put it a little above my eye level, since everyone else was taller than me. “That work?”

  Deacon nodded and turned to look at Elayne, “Alright, unless you have anything to add I think we’re good to go.”

  Elyane hefted her hammer over her shoulder. She was silent for a moment as she thought about what to say. “...if we encounter them, we’ll need a spot to fall back to so we don’t get surrounded. Keep an eye out, and if we need to run, make sure you know where you’re running to.”

  She then started off down a tunnel, with Jason jogging to catch up, his spear in one hand and a shield large enough to cover half his body in the other. I didn’t remember seeing the shield before now, but didn’t think it was worth mentioning. If I had a spatial closet, why couldn’t he?

  I tried to stay alert, but the lack of anything going on was slowly putting me on edge. Just the occasional loose rock and sometimes a burnt out glowstone. Even the job of marking the intersections wasn't enough to alleviate the boredom, though.

  I was examining rock with a weird crystal sticking out of it when I heard a dull thud, followed by a squish. Spinning to look, and pointing my sword in the direction fo the disturbance, I saw Elayne at the front of the party, lifting the head of her hammer out of a thoroughly destroyed small boulder.

  Except the boulder was leaking some kind of yellow goop onto the ground from the damage it had taken. On a closer look, it did resemble the bugs we’d been told about, but…

  There was a high pitched whine that started to echo through the tunnels.

  Deacon swore, “Get back to the last intersection.”

  We ran, but as we did, I noticed a few of the rocks we’d passed by start to stir. On instinct, I thrust my blade at one of them. While it did tear a chunk out of the shell, exposing the insect underneath, it didn’t kill the thing. Before it could counterattack, a small projectile shot past me and into the hole I’d torn into the thing’s carapace. It stopped moving almost immediately.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Zaion with one of his jugs in hand, looking around for another target. I’ll thank him later. I thought as I took off down the tunnel.

  When we got to the last intersection, I swapped the sword for the tonfas. Rather than hold them the proper way, though, I grabbed each by the long end and intended to swing them more like an axe than how they were meant to be used. I got to test how well that would work sooner than I liked.

  Down the tunnel we’d come from, the bugs started to emerged. And from the tunnel we hadn’t gone down. And a concerning number from the way we’d originally come. “Deacon…” I said, concern in my voice.

  “Stay calm. We’ve got this.” He said, projecting confidence. The bard started to whistle some kind of tune, and I felt more than saw a little barrier form around me. I didn’t know how strong it was going to be, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to find out.

  When they started to enter the intersection, I acted. The first one I saw, I took a step forward, twisted my hips to get the momentum going, and then slammed the tonfa into the shell of a creature that came up to my knee. There was a high pitched cry, and I hit it twice more with my other tonfa before yanking the first one out, the handle now covered in bug guts. Then another appeared behind it.

  They didn’t move fast, but they did move steadily. Paige’s blows weren’t as effective as mine, though I couldn’t be sure why. It took her three or four more hits to do the same amount of damage with her club. I didn’t try to help directly, but I did move so I was closer in case she needed it.

  When there were more than either of us could handle, Zaion seemed to know almost instinctively, and was shooting more of those strange water projectiles at the insects to slow them, or shoot through them entirely. The creepy part, though, was he was also starting to use their blood to do the same thing, turning the water into these horrifying looking spikes that he’d impale them with from underneath.

  I couldn’t tell how the fight up front was going, though I’d frequently hear Jason and Elayne shouting or exerting themselves. I looked over once to see that Jason’s spear had gone missing and he’d taken to beating the creatures with the edge of his shield. I had to return my focus to my own problems before I could see much else, though.

  After the initial burst of fear and mild panic, it turned into more of a boring chore than anything else. Even though the creatures were crawling over the desiccated corpses of their brethren, all it really did was buy Paige and I time to line up our blows. Some even flipped as they came over the grim barricade, exposing their underside.

  We didn’t relax until it had been over a minute from the last of them crawling through their comrades. I had started looking nervously towards the other two tunnels, but Jason and Elayne were still steadily hammering away. Deacon was still whistling his tune, though he seemed to be listening more than anything. I tried to figure out what he was looking for, but couldn’t tell over the rest of the noise.

  Elayne finally took down the last one, squishing it with a rather satisfying sound. She looked around, “Everyone still alive?” There was a general ascent and nodded, “Good. We’ll take a break and keep going down this tunnel.” She pointed down the one most of the bugs had come from.

  Paige flopped to the ground, breathing like I used to when I’d run a few laps around the manor. “That sucked. My arms feel like jelly.”

  I had to agree, though I didn’t feel that bad. I did grumble at the increase in my experience bank, though, and quickly leveled my Outdoorsman class twice. I somehow only needed 300 EXP to get to my next level, and that surprised me since Noble had taken more at that level. Different classes, different requirements? At least it’d be quick to max out.

  “Lady Danielle, can I get a hand?” I heard Elayne ask from the front, bringing me out of my focus.

  I walked over to her and grimaced at the sight before me. I couldn’t even tell how many bugs there were, and a couple came up to my chest in height. Paige and I had an easy time by comparison.

  “How big is your storage space?” She asked as I stood next to her, looking at the carnage.

  “Five by five, why?” I asked, looking at her.

  “Think you can fit one of the larger ones in it?” She nudged one that must have been Jason’s kill since it was more intact than the ones her hammer had hit.

  I shrugged and opened the closet next to it. Then I started to shove it inside. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the room. “Why am I doing this?”

  “Proof.” Deacon spoke up. “When they get this large, it’s time to start worrying. We’ll need evidence to show to the authorities and the guild for our payment, too.”

  The creature went into the spatial closest, and I immediately winced as it seemed to first freeze, and then crack as it went all the way inside. I checked my screen and noticed it shrinking in on itself, taking up less and less space. “Uh… it’s not going to be as big when it comes out, is that going to be a problem?”

  “It shouldn’t be.” Deacon said with a sigh, “But we’ll cross that road when we get to it.”

  We then each settled down for a small break in the gore filled intersection.