Emperor

The amount of time it took for the creature to actually die was surprising. It seemed to hold onto life forever, despite most of its bones being broken. Finally, it lies still in a heap on the ground, not far from Elizabeth and I.

"That was strange," Elizabeth states, blankly.

"Frankly, I think we got lucky. It was just this one, and I think it might have been... broken."

"Broken?"

"It has no head or eyes, so it probably uses mana to see, like the greater monster we fought in Rosewood."

"You mean it had no mana left?"

I nod.

In spite of that, it was still very tough. We decide that it's too risky to continue and turn back. On our way back up through the mine, I decide to try probing Elizabeth a bit. She and Vol still haven't accepted my story. I figure I'd ask her why.

"It's an unbelievable story, Sebastian."

"How come? Am I really so untrustworthy?"

"No. I trust you completely. Vol does, too."

"So you trust me, but you don't think I'm telling the truth?"

"Hm..."

She pauses for a bit, seeming to think over how best to put it, before replying.

"I trust that you think it to be true."

It turns out that accidentally blowing myself up when trying to replicate celestial magic, combined with my rather unique story, has resulted in neither of my best friends believing me. It irritates me.

Still, I guess it doesn't really matter, in the end. They agreed to help me, after all.

Because they're my friends.

Arriving back in Tayde, Vol and I get to work on modifying the manacaster. At first, we discussed making a completely new one. However, we quickly decided that it would be both faster and cheaper to make an attachment to the current one.

After a day of discussion, and a couple of days worth of work, we completed the extension. It then took another two days to modify the manacaster to support the extension. Now, we can add any additional spell to the manacaster.

It has to be done in advance, though, since it takes about 10 minutes to properly attach it.

As Elizabeth and I return to the old mineshaft to hunt more monsters, I make a mental note to discuss a complete redesign for the manacaster. We should have come up with the concept of extension a lot earlier. If we had, we could have designed the manacaster to be fully modifiable.

A mistake on our part, in retrospect. No matter. We'll get to it soon.

At least this new spell should help take care of combat down here.

Passing by the crumpled remains of the oresnatcher, we proceed further down. After a while, the shaft spreads into a wider cave system. I sense mana down one of the branching paths, so we go in that direction.

It's not long before we run into a small group of oresnatchers. As expected, the encounter leaves us with just as little movement as the first. Luckily, it was for this very situation that we engraved a new spell.

"Suleiynert."

Instantaneously, the oresnatchers' limbs are penetrated by long, thin spikes, extruding from every surface around them.

It's a lower-mid-level spell, so it isn't usually that powerful. Luckily, the manacaster helps solve for that. As does the pure concentration of my mana within the AM-store.

After a few seconds, the spikes retract. I get ready to cast the spell again, but there's no need. All of the oresnatchers are dead, their corpses falling limply to the ground.

"Well, that went a lot faster than the first one," I say, as Elizabeth goes to remove the mana stones from their bodies.

She nods, "We should rename the manacaster to 'partykiller.'"

I give an involuntary smile at her terrible humor, mentally chuckling to myself.

We continue on through the cave system, choosing whichever branching path radiates the most mana, and occasionally running into more oresnatchers. Just like our previous encounters, they all appear to be completely blind, and don't even seem to recognize our presence there.

"Suleiynert."

Finishing up another encounter, we count up the total amount of mana stones.

"I think that's enough for now," Elizabeth says.

We've walked several kilometers by now and it will definitely take a while to get back, but something tells me to keep going.

"I sense more mana further in," I tell Elizabeth.

"More oresnatchers?"

"I don't think so. I've been feeling it for a while, but it's been getting stronger. I think we're getting closer to it."

"Something powerful?"

"Something powerful."

We agree to keep going. For another hour and a half, we progress deeper into the caves. The hallways have become much wider, occasionally leading into large caverns. Everything seems rather empty, though. There's not a single stalactite or stalagmite anywhere.

There are no oresnatchers in the large caverns, either. They keep themselves to the hallways, passages, and crevices, as though the large rooms were holy ground.

We reach another branching path. Sensing the powerful mana to the right, we go down that path.

I freeze. I hear Elizabeth's breathing close behind me. Her footsteps have stopped, too. The passage opens up into a ravine, spanning my entire field of vision. A ceiling of unstable rock sits far above us, threatening to collapse in at any moment, and the drop beneath us is far enough to break several limbs. Neither is the reason why we've stopped.

At the bottom of the ravine, lodged between the cliffsides, sits a colossus. A huge beast with long, thin legs, stretching in all directions. Each leg has more knuckles than I can count. Many of the legs dangle strangely in the air above, below, or beside its body - if you can call it that. Unlike the oresnatchers, I don't have to ask if this creature can see. Apart from the legs, it only consists of one other part. The main body; a single large, sticky eye, suspended in mid-air from its many legs.

This is not a creature that I ever want to witness in motion.

What a horrible place to run into a greater monster.