The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Still Day 8 (In-game)

Still somewhere in the draculkar highlands.

Still somewhere in the southern end of the Urla Mountains.

Status: underground and still looking for civilization.

*

There were many places of worship in Zushkenar. A consequence of having eighteen major deities in the pantheon. Various races had their own interpretations and minor spirits, but as far as Krow knew, the Eighteen were universally recognized.

This altar though...it didn't have the symbols of any of the Eighteen.

A minor spirit?

In these draculkar highlands, there should've been a dragon in the motif somewhere. There wasn't. Just strange markings.

Even then, an altar made wholly of ethermica was a bit excessive for an unknown minor spirit, wasn't it?

Krow circled the altar, getting a good look at the symbols and the design hewn out of a whole slab of raw ethermica. Even the supports that held up the slab were ethermica. 

There must be several thousand cubes in the whole altar – a fortune by any standard.

He stopped at the back of the altar, having circled twice. He'd have to check the video later to see if the symbols appeared in the forums.

A gleam at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He blinked at the wall behind the altar. Soot darkened it, but there was something…

A spike bayonet, scratched against the wall, revealed something that had him step back, stunned.

The color showing against the soot was the same as the altar. He took out a shovel and scraped it against the wall, further and further until he hit rock rather than crystal.

He wasn't mistaken.

An entire vein of ethermica.

Ethermica wasn't like other mined materials – it wasn't formed by geologic pressure and heat, wasn't an accumulation of material. As far as anyone knew, it just appeared then started to grow, like a fungus, in powerful places.

Krow glanced at the altar.

Whether it was created because of the ethermica or the ethermica appeared because of the worship or rituals conducted in this cavern was not the question in Krow's mind.

He wondered, if he left the altar untouched, would the ethermica grow back?

The vein wasn't completely covered by soot, the bulk of it under the dust of ages.

The stone under his feet, washed smooth by the periodical overflowing of the stream, held only the marks of his boots.

No one had come here in a very long time.

Krow tapped the ethermica wall with his bayonet. He'd never mined ethermica before. Some materials needed specific techniques to mine. For example, the surfaces of raw Stormfell marble had to be oiled or the stacked blocks started melding into each other.

How he learned that was…he grimaced, still embarrassed after all these years.

He hadn't been in the mining business long. But if there was anything miners knew, it was that ethermica miners were close-lipped about their practices.

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Understandable. Ethermica was sought after, useful in so many things, and rare.

Krow stuck the point of the bayonet into a chink between stone and crystal, levered a bit off.

A chunk the size of a shoe fell, shattered to pieces on the ground with the sound of breaking glass.

Whoops. 

Was raw ethermica so brittle?

Then unexpectedly, the shards started folding into each other. Two cubes formed, of very familiar appearance, a size that fit snugly in the palm of a hand.

Krow picked one up, dumbfounded.

The surfaces were smooth, as if carefully polished, a perfect cube. He raised it to the lamplight, examining the facets within the ice-blue and lavender crystal.

It was undeniably an ethermica cube.

He dropped it. 

It didn't bounce or do anything extraordinary, but it didn't break into a thousand pieces either. Still a cube, and unmarred.

Huh.

No wonder ethermica miners didn't talk about it.

They were cheating.

People would be outraged.

If it was ever known that they had zero material processing needs, the price of ethermica in the market would halve.

Krow chuckled.

Impressive.

The sheer usefulness of the crystals, their rarity, their mystery, hid the fact that they were mined for very little overhead. And he, with his own ears, had heard miners moan about difficulties in bringing the ethermica to market.

He started breaking off larger pieces. The same thing happened.

What the hell, Norge.

Just how many weird things did you put in this world?

Assured that it wasn't a fluke, Krow brought out the shovel and began prying the rest of the vein out the cavern wall.

He was halfway through, many hours later, when a loud crack sounded. His eyes widened.

The ethermica vein crumbled, and so did the wall, ethermica cubes and dust mixing with plain rock, soil, dust and pebbles.

Krow, with his weight braced on the shovel against the wall, slid down with the cave-in. His mind, relaxed to near meditation by the long hours of repetitive action, rendered him slow to react.

-6% HP.

Shkav!

He brought up his arms to protect his head, rolled free as soon as he hit solid ground. -8% HP.

He spat debris out of his mouth. Ugh.

Stumbling upright only to dive to avoid a large rock, he scrambled behind a stalagmite. It was a long few minutes before the pour of rock and soil slowed to a trickle.

No wonder the rabbits chose this cliff for their warren. The stone was soft.

Krow got slowly to his feet, peering from behind the rock pillar. After a moment, he cautiously took out a lamp and lit it with a brush of the Firecoil Spell. 

The wall he'd been mining, about ten meters above, had been blocked completely by debris and boulders.

He exhaled forcefully, resigned and vexed. 

His mining venture was over.

Reaching into his Inventory, he guzzled four Low Heals one after the other, followed by a Low Revitalit.

He slapped debris off his coat, coughed at the dust clouds that rose from that action.

"And I thought ethermica mining was easy," he muttered, direly, waving away the clouds.

It was still easier than most though. He snorted. What difficulties? The cubes just formed themselves!

Every ethermica miner ever was a trollish ass.

The cave he'd fallen into had a floor area just about the size of his apartment. The ceilings were high enough that his lamplight could not find them.

A chill of apprehension shivered through him. Was he trapped here?

He raised the lamp, walked the perimeter of the cave.

The flame flickered, blown to a side.

His tense shoulders loosened. There was airflow. 

He followed it to a fissure in the cave wall. Too small for him to wiggle through.

He backed away, put the lamp down. The cylinder of his revolver was swapped for shieldbursts in a trice, and the first shot fired immediately.

The wall depressed a little, but nothing more happened. He sent another bullet. Then another.

The third crushed enough of the wall for some of it to crumble, widening the opening.

He squinted. A tunnel lay beyond.

Escape wasn't assured and Krow wasn't trusting weak stone. But the feeling of being entombed eased a bit.

Only then did Krow start gathering ethermica cubes from the debris. He illuminated the space by lighting multiple lamps now that he was sure he wouldn't be suffocated by lack of air and started digging.

He posted the cubes in his Inventory three times to auction in order to clear space, before the uncertain nature of the cave-in had him stop in wariness of pulling out a rock and having the whole thing drop on him.

The half of the vein he dug out before the wall betrayed him came up to 4937 cubes.

Gathered from the debris, another 2140 cubes.

He sat down on a rock at the edge of the tunnel to cancel the buy-order he'd posted days ago.

His lips twitched when he checked the market on the Tradebook. Ethermica prices had risen to 12 drax a cube.

His buy-order had just been waiting for the cost to fall under 10 drax again. There were already 1800 cubes in his trade vault. Krow funneled the unused 3200 drax into buying more Starfall weapons.

A grin split his face, unrestrained, as he returned the Tradebook to Inventory.

8877 cubes of ethermica should be enough for a strong start to his Enchanting career. An Enchanter's Forge and workshop wouldn't be too hard to rent when the time came.

He gathered his things to leave.

Navigating the tunnel sent Krow deeper into the mountain than he was comfortable with. Only the constant airflow gave him confidence that he'd be out soon. That and the thought that he could technically shoot the walls until the stone gave way.

The tunnel ran long, waterlogged in places, needing him to climb in places, wide in places, a tight squeeze in others. Then he came to a fork in the tunnel.

He checked both openings with the lamp. Both had a breeze coming through.

He frowned, looking up at the darkness in thought.

Wait, were the shadows lighter that way?

He doublejumped upward.

It was light.

Coming through a cleft hidden in the upper walls, actual light.

Krow forced his way through the gap between stalactites, pushed past a screen of vines, and burst out into sunlight.

Instantly, as if sunshine was a charm, his apprehension vanished like inchoate dreams at dawn.

He walked out into warmth.

The glare blinded him.

But Krow had never felt so happy to squint at the blue sky in his life.

He still took a few steps back into shadow, so he could look around. He stowed the lamp, thankful to be able to do so.

It was still a cavern, but the ceiling in the…south? He checked his Map. Yes, the south, looked to have been sheared off by something, and the morning sun shone cheery warmth into the cave.

He'd spent an entire night underground.

He shuddered.

At least there had been work to keep his mind off things.

The greenery growing in the sun-touched areas was a welcome sight after so long staring at bare stone.

There was even a tunnel on the side, with openings like clerestory windows to let in light from the mountainside. He jumped down,  then climbed to one of the 'windows'  - outside, he saw tree-covered mountains.

His spirits rose at the view. The mountain peaks weren't mostly rocky anymore.

Did that mean he was out of the draculkar highlands?

He was on the other side of the mountain from where he entered, and lower on the mountain range besides. That definitely shaved some time off his travel schedule.

Hah, so much luck today!

Krow sauntered down the tunnel, cheerful. Coming to a fork in the path, he hummed a choosing song and in cavalier manner took the left-hand tunnel it indicated.

Rounding a corner haphazardly, he didn't see the crate, tripping magnificently over it.

"Ow." He pushed himself up off the ground, glared blearily at the crate until its implications came to him.

He tensed, ears stiffening, eyes sharpening. The crate wasn't one of the fancy hundred-item ones, but it looked unaged, the wood free of mold and rot. The marks on the tunnel floor indicated it had been recently moved.

Krow jumped to his feet.

[You have been detected by a member of the Bandit Camp you are attacking!]

He boggled.

Who's attacking?! It took nearly all his self-control not to howl that question out loud.

[You have been detected by a member of the Bandit Camp you are attacking!]

Don't interpret the situation to your satisfaction, minion of the forsaken Norge!!

Krow traced his steps. 

Detected didn't mean seen. It meant someone heard him trip like an idiot. 

If he could get back to the cavern, he could just rappel down the mountain from the outside, right?

Too late.

"Well now. Look what we have here."

Krow whirled. The speaker was obviously a large man, dressed in the garb of a Bloodcrow. 

The woman behind the speaker drew back her fancy bow. Krow winced as he recognized it. Pestilential Dragoneye Bow. D- Rare. 

It was popular with low-level players. And bandits.

How well he knew that unblockable paralyzing effect. He wasn't even sure his armor would take it.

"Looks like a trespasser, brother."