A grave candle

Before Jay could reach the next tunnel, his latest weapon of choice had to be set in action, as the group of Kobolds he had passed on the way down finally arrived.

The moment they got into reach, Jay charged at them and made the first two of them fly with one swing of the gigantic hammer.

With the first shooting diagonally though the cave from the sheer force, the second one got hurled into another Kobold from that group.

Literally into!

The force he got hurled forward with ended both Kobolds as something mashed and red.

Though the rest of the group ended similar, not one got destroyed like the first ones, showing Jay the true potential of his charge skill.

The only thing he feared was the strain his weapons and his body had to endure, as well as the stamina it consumed.

Walking down the long and winding passage, it didn't take long until Jay encountered the next Kobold.

What was different was the size and the level of that one, as the Kobold was over four feet tall and of level 16.

That didn't mean it wouldn't learn flying after Jay's charge and contact with his Yetimus Maximus. Though that flight was a short one as it ended at the ceiling to the left after his swing from the right upwards launched the Kobold that way. The resulting splashing sound came at the same time as the notification of a defeated enemy and the end of the battle.

Similar attacks happened a few more times until Jay reached quite deep into the mine. Standing atop a cliff after the last Kobold lay next to him with its head smashed in, Jay looked into a vast cave.

And in the middle of that cave he saw what was the reason for the abnormal behavior of the normally peaceful creatures.

On top of some Rock formation stood another totem, glimmering in a greenish yellow light.

The sparse light just barely showed what lay beneath the stone, and that was were the problem lay.

Over thirty Kobolds of higher level than he encountered on his way down, and that had been at least Level 15, were guarding the totem. All of them held crude weapons or Pickaxes they previously looted.

While Jay was still looking down and analyzing some of his opponent, one of the Kobolds noticed him and alarmed the others. What followed was a wild rush of them all, up the slope to his right.

This time, Jay even infused his weapon with lightning magic as he welcomed the horde of incoming punching-bags.

The first two died from Jay's charge when he held the hammer like a lance and shot it forward on the first Kobold. As the lightning discharged on the poor creature it turned to a lightning ball before it got hurled onto the next one.

There the charge jumped on and both Kobolds flew until they struck a third one. Though that one got shot back as well, it survived the attack with heavy damage.

And then came Jay's second attack.

While jumping up, watching for the ceiling not to hit his head, he used a wide overhead swing as he fell back down. Though the leap was big, even more as he jumped down the slope, one of the dumb Kobolds didn't react at all and got mashed so hard, its debris even wounded some others.

But the real attack followed just then. As Jay had charged up the Hammer with lighning and even supported it further with mana, the lightning-charge spread upon contact with the then minced Kobold. All of the flying debris held portions of lightning, giving off quite the show as the parts still connected to each other with lightning.

What resulted looked like a spiderweb made of lightning, spreading to each direction and wounding, electrocuting or even killing most of the creatures.

A few minutes later, the show was over.

Not one of the Kobolds looked intact as they died and Jay was once again completely blood soaked. It seemed to him he was bound to only wear black for the rest of his life if this continued.

During the fight he had reached the end of the slope and even went a good distance into the cave. The distance to the odd rock formation was only about twenty yards.

What he saw there standing at the foot of it looked even more odd though.

A Kobold even bigger than the tallest he had fought until now was wearing a torn and dirty green robe and holding a wooden staff.

The intelligent glint in his eyes was not the most peculiar thing about it, but the three stones circling around it. As the creature didn't attack instantly, Jay used the moment to analyze it.

__________

Flintdagger [lvl. 20 (Named)]

(Kobold Geomancer)

HP 420/420 Mana 364/385

[Earth Magic LVL3]

__________

It had the same Level as Jay in earth magic, so he at least knew how it would attack.

The problem with that kind of magic was, stones that got hurled up from the ones used by the magic were like shrapnels that didn't get blocked by his magic reflection.

He might have really had to use a barrier on himself for the first time as dodging wouldnt enable him to counter and probably integrate some new spells.

The proof didn't wait long for it to show.

After screeching "Candle-Rock miiineee!", Flintdagger hurled the first round of stone shards towards Jay who barely managed to set up a barrier while rushing within reach for his charge.

The barrier blocked the small stones flying with it without problem while his magic reflection hurled the rest back to the big Kobold.

It looked surprised on how the spell got reflected, but not as surprised as Jay to the next thing that happened. One of the stones circling around the creature blocked the attack completely.

Just in time, Jay dropped the Yetimus Maximus before his charge hurled him forward. With a straight punch he went for the Kobold's ugly head.

And just like he had anticipated, one of the two remaining orbs blocked his fist at least partially.

The result was a screaming Kobold rolling over the hard stony ground while his HP dropped to 293. That showed Jay that, though his strength really was no joke anymore, the spell was a top notch defensive one.

Waiting for the Kobold to stand up again while still running after it, Jay threw another punch, a really light one this time. It got blocked off completely, but that hadn't been his goal anyways. A certain notification appeared in his log that he kept watching in between since he analyzed the Kobold.

After that he gave Flintdagger some time to repeat the spell but it didn't.

Instead it came running towards Jay after it muttered some chant. It's speed was nothing to Jay but as it reached him, Jay suddenly saw a dagger in its hand.

It was the same crude design like the weapons the other Kobolds had and was made of stone.

Surprised by the funny attempt to wound him in close combat, Jay made ready to intercept the creature and take it's weapon. Even more surprising was what happened as he did just that.

The Dagger dissipated upon contact with Jay.

What more was, the weak kick Jay used to get the Kobold some distance did no damage at all to it.

A bit irritated he waited for Flintdagger to repeat it's attack. This time it didn't come running but touched the ground with one hand, mumbling another spell. Waiting for a while as nothing happened but his opponents mana dropped continuously, Jay decided to walk forward.

His foot felt like it had been sticking to the ground a bit after he tried and so he looked down and finally understood what Flintdagger was trying.

It was a spell to form the earth and bind him.

Pulling his other foot free as well, Jay got the theory confirmed as the ongoing reflection finally led to him integrating the skill.

It sounded different to what he had thought, but that was something to check on later.

Only as Jay kept walking forward did the Kobold straighten up in slight shock. That changed to full fledged panic as it tried to flee but couldn't move it's feet.

Beneath it's robe, the rat like feet were caught in hard stone.

Noticing it's condition, Jay walked over without haste and as he stood before Flintdagger, he simply smacked it with the flat hand. The Kobold tilted to its right but didn't fall down as its feet had been planted to the ground neatly.

Though it's Health diminished a bit, it was again way less than Jay had anticipated. He noticed cracks running over its skin as he looked closer and came to the conclusion that another skill had to be still active.

The moment when the creature stood back up, it got smacked to the other side. Again, the result was similar. But as it didn't want to stand up anymore, Jay had to pull it up himself.

Grabbing it by the robe with his left, Jay smacked it again with the right.

This time the damage it took was a lot higher.

A loud cracking noise had signaled it and the still standing shin showed that Flintdaggers right leg had broken from the sheer force. It still had a bit of it's health left and Jay had not integrated that last skill it had shown, so the procedure was to be kept on.

Trying to grab it's robe again, the Kobold tried to push Jay's hand aside when suddenly a new notification blinked up in his log. At the same time the cracks on Flintdaggers skin disappeared.

Still lifting it up to go on, Jay held the creature up with one hand, swung his right hand back and smacked it once again.

At least he wanted to do just that.

But upon contact with the Kobolds skull it felt like he was grabbing into a rotten tomato. To Jay's misfortune it looked exactly that way as well.

His strength had heen too much for the fragile skull after the last HP had diminished and crumbled, turning everything it once protected to meat paste and following the direction of the force that was pushing it.

As they had been standing next to the candle-rock, it looked like a red candle just then.

Swiping his hand clean on the dead creatures robe, Jay checked the skills he just got from the last upwards.

The first one was (Stone Skin LVL1) that he got last, a skill granting blunt and cutting resistance depending on the casters level and skill level.

The next skill he checked was the most intriguing on the one hand, but on the other it was the one Jay had the least idea what to do with it.

It was called (Stone-forming LVL2) and enabled him to mold and reshape basic stone with the use of mana. Size, distance, speed and duration determined the mana expenditure.

With this skill, the Kobold had apparently shaped the ground beneath Jay to grab his feet, what explained it's rapid diminishing magic energy at that time.

The last skill was the only one that had been visible. (Earth Shield LVL1) summoned three orbs of earth or stone, depending on the environment, that guarded and defended the caster automatically. It seemed to not be able to get cast on someone else and had a pretty long cast, what explained why Flintdagger hadn't used it again.

Though the fight in this cave was more of a one sided massacre, it held quite the profit for Jay.

Playing around with the (Stone Forming) for a bit, Jay learned that the structures he could make were all pretty crude. Even if he concentrated on it, the surface wouldn't get smoother, like it was with the Kobolds weapons.

But one thing was immensely different. Jay's forming speed was much higher, while the mana expenditure seemed even less than for Flintdagger.

His guess was [Mana Control] and his way higher INT playing a big role in this, as well as his creativity.

Playing around with it for a while he noticed his shaping speed getting even faster. The spikes he formed weren't fast enough to skewer someone from below, but they rose faster and faster.

Jay was so immersed in testing the skill, he really got startled as he heard foot taps behind the rock formation.

A single, really small Kobold was standing between the slope down where Jay had come from and the candle-rock he was peeking around. As he had been out of sight and didn't make much noise thanks to the spell requiring no real chant after activation, the tiny creature seemed to have come out of hiding.

But the moment he walked around the rock, the small Kobold shot towards the wall under the slope.

Only after activating his night vision did Jay see there was a cave. And within that cave he could see lots of small and more fragile looking Kobolds. Some of them looked even smaller, but the biggest difference had been their visible teats.

Deactivating his night vision as he didn't want to see the ugly females anymore, Jay walked over to the cave.

With a sudden idea he touched the wall and had the wall above the cave loosen up its structure.

Though it required about a fourth of his mana until it was finished, the cave-in buried all the small Kobolds under it, resulting in masses of new lines on Jay's log.

Back to the candle-rock, Jay swiftly climbed it with the help of his new skill and fetched the totem.

Glancing around one last time, again with night vision active, Jay made sure there was no survivor and made his way out. That had taken a bit longer as the slope he descended on had crumbled with the cave-in.

But the climb didn't take too long and Jay was back up under the open sky only a short while later.

But there was no way he could go back to the farm the way he was looking just then.

He wasn't even going to ride his horse as he would only have ruined the saddle. The blood and guts from hundreds of Kobolds was sticking to him and he needed to clean himself first.

Walking away from the mine and up to the road he came on, he turned left and down towards the wide beach.

The wind was pretty strong that day, but the still high sun made the fresh breeze more than welcome. Without waiting, Jay walked into the sea and cleaned himself as good as possible.

Afterwards he waited a bit on the beach until he put on some other clothes and then he summoned his horse.

The trip back took about an hour and as he arrived at the farm, the encampment looked like it had grown a bit again.

Though the sun was still burning, Jay saw some of the Soldiers already preparing dinner. Of course it was ox-meat again, so he walked over to them and offered his help.

This time none of them looked skeptically and they all asked what they had to do. What none of them knew, Jay had taken some of the rabbits and other animals the Kobolds had hunted and brought it with him.

Funny enough one of the least bloody places in the mine had been the cave where prey got dismantled.

Taking some of the animals out, Jay ordered two of the soldiers to skin them and some others to set up fire, cut vegetables, fetch water and so on...

Their chef was back from the bloody grave.