Chapter 29

'Booooooom!'

The heated [Mana Point] exploded. In reaction to that, the crystals released more and more powerful waves of mana mixed with fiery tongues and electric arcs.

Tafur and his two guards were thrown deeper into the shaft and pushed to the ground by the violent waves, alongside their rune shields. Fortunately, the watery and earthen shield still held, successfully blocking the powerful radiation. Tafur's two guards picked themselves up with some difficulties and slowly retreated with Tafur between their arms as far as they could.

On the other side, Dafur's shield slowly cracked. His face contorted in pain and concentration as he was violently pushed to his knees.

'CRACK!'

The ground and wall ruptured and a few crystals fell from the wall. The powerful waves broke the ground apart, revealing another deep rift filled with attuned crystals.

Needless to say, they began another descent into the illuminated unknown.

"Again! Fuuuuuuuuuuuu…" Lucifer screamed in horror, this time able to see way more clearly as the Stone's perception sphere enlarged to 15 meters.

"There is no grooouuuu...!"

"Loud!" Stone stated with his classical stony face. He inwardly sighed. Not because of danger, or fear… But because he truly disliked flying. It felt so… unnatural.

Meanwhile, Dafur lost his consciousness from overdraining his mana and his shield completely collapsed, but something strange happened. Right before he fell, surrounded by the pulsing crystals, golden mana strings emerged from his chest and connected to them.

Stone could see as the mana was flowing inside the former dwarf. They even attempted to connect to Stone, but he instinctively raised protection around himself, completely blocking them.

[You have learned a spell Mana Shield]

After minutes of falling and Lucifer's screaming and wailing, an embarrassing atmosphere fell between them. Stone was pouting as the Lucifer was way too loud and Lucifer was embarrassed so much, he could barely look at Stone, which was frankly quite hard as he was living inside of

"Are you done?" Stone patiently asked, ignoring the whistling air around.

"Ehm… Yes. Certainly… For now," Lucifer answered, ashamed.

"Luci, I really don't like falling," Stone stated, noting Lucifer's discomfort. He attempted to steer the conversation somewhere else. What a nice pebble...

"Nobody does," Lucifer sighed while trying to make himself calm. "We did not hit the ground. Still. That's a good sign," he paused for a moment while mulling over something, "or a very bad one…"

"I learned a new spell, Mana Shield," Stone boasted while disregarding Lucifer's muttering.

"Uhuh. Good, and you did it by yourself? Or you somehow knew how to do it?"

"Hmm… The second one."

"Haaah, you little stony Monster… I knew it. Now please excuse me, I will panic into that corner again," he said with a strangely calm voice, took an imaginary deep breath and screamed in horror and exasperation, "AAAAAAaaaaaa!"

"Loud!"

"AAAAAaaaaa!"

"Loud! Too loud!"

"AAAAAaaaaa!"

"Looooud!"

"AAAAAaaaaa!"

"Laut!" {A/N: German}

"AAAAAaaaaa!"

"Jor!" {A/N: Hindi}

"AAaa?"

"Gromko!" {A/N: Russian}

"What now?"

"It worked! He is not loud! Thanks Universum!"

[Yup! No problem! Anything for my strange pebble! Don't forget! No more strange thingies!]

Stone observed the unconscious Dafur who was still absorbing mana from the flickering crystals. It felt strange when he was near the golden strings. Like he should fear them.

He vibrated himself, an equivalent of shaking head.

The ground was rapidly approaching. Beautiful ground! He liked ground. Still, this one was... odd. It was moving. Not like when it collapsed or stupid dwarves broke stound. No, it was… watery.

"Oh, it's a big pool of water, like Luci described, what was that name…" Stone mumbled as it was the first time he saw so much water at once, "Lake!" he exclaimed, remembering the word.

'Splash! Splash! Splash!'

They broke the tranquil surface in the middle of the lake and slowly dived deep under the surface.

Lucifer continued to yell for a few moments but then registered he was not dead.

"I hope you are done shouting. I have quite enough of your loudness," Stone grumpily stated, sulking.

"Oh, good, we did not die," Luci said with a tired, flat tone, "and now we are diving who knows where."

"There is something below us," Stone highlighted an area under them.

"Where are the times when I was bored while you were killing ants… I miss that," Lucifer sighed and examined the hinted area.

A big eye slowly opened the moment Lucifer turned his attention to it and several tentacles shot towards flickering mana crystals that were around. Including Stone, who was still covered with Mana Shield.

"Well, this is it. Goodbye Stone, it was a terrible experience with you," Lucifer said with the surrendered tone, but an inward large smile, "now if you excuse me, I am going to scream again," he takes an imaginary deep breath, but Stone sharply gave an order, "do not even dare to be loud!"

"Help meeee! I am going to be eateeen!" Was what Lucifer wanted to scream. However, something stopped him. Something in the Stone's voice.

Stone created a shield around himself with 10 RM points.

[Your spell Mana Shield gained a level]

As he heard it, he pumped another 2 points into it.

The tentacles surrounded them and pushed them towards the beak filled with small, sharp teeth.

'Gulp!'

The Monster gulped with great gusto.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Half-Insane, Half-Even-More-Insane Dafur's eyes shot open. His heart hammered in his heart, adrenaline raced through him as he was woken up by the freezing water. Dwarfs and water were not good friends and when they are supposed to go bathing… It was a national Day of Sorrow. Yup, they had even a holiday for it. Runes did not count.

His instincts saved his life and he swam to the surface. He looked around, seeing a rocky shore a few strokes afar and rapidly kicked to get out of this cursed, cold water.

As Dafur calmed a little bit on the shore, he noticed something, well, someone was missing.

"Stone!"

He stared at the water, weighing if it was worth it. In the end, he took a very deep breath, a few steps back and stopped as he heard footsteps echoing from the shaft nearby.

"Heya! What're ya doin' her'?" A druegar, wearing some kind of dark leather armour and holding a simple lantern made from metal with a glowing mana crystal inside, emerged from around the corner and spotted the preparing-to-jump-into-water Dafur.

"Heya! Mae Stone fell into the water…" Dafur answered automatically, still kind of dazed from the overdrain, fall and water.

"Ah, ya're one of those crazy ones, huh… Poor guy. That's the home of Shul-Gahat," druegar said, stopping next to Dafur. Together they watched the rippling surface. It was all nice and calm.

"Shul-Gahat?" Dafur asked, a horror creeping into his head. It did not sound like a nice, welcoming host. It sounded more like the name of someone who would happily take you as a sacrifice.

The druegar turned to Dafur with a question in their eyes. He examined Dafur more closely, noticing he has no hair, no clothes and visible strange golden runes engraved on his chest.

"Wher're ya from?" The druegar asks with wariness and a bit of interest.

"Better not to tell I'm from surface…" Dafur thought and while he was trying to figure out how to answer, the druegar sharply turned to the lake as bubbles arose on the surface.

"Shul-Gahat has awoken. Let's go back to the shaman," he grabbed Dafur's arm, dragging him away. Dafur peeked over his shoulder at the surface for the last time, sighing.