New Mines of Pruzonia 5: Grinding Progress

Beth grit her teeth as she raced up the cave’s wall to get out of the way of a wide sweeping attack from the rock monster. The golem’s fist, which looked more like a drill of twisted iron and gems, dug into the rock below her, carving out a furrow as wide as her head.

“Yeah, not going to like getting hit by that,” she muttered under her breath as she kept running up the wall. She looked to the tunnel on the far side of the small cave she found herself in. “I can just run on the ceiling, but this guy’s just going to follow me, isn’t he? Fuck, I knew I should have had John bring Thornbite.”

Before she could look around the cave for anything she could use to stop or slow the golem down, Beth’s eyes widened as it lifted its arm up towards her, its drill hand spinning rapidly before launching off like a missile.

And missed her by a large margin, slamming into the ceiling several meters to her left. A second later, Beth felt a light brush of familiar mana float across her skin, and in the tunnel she had been trying to reach she saw Vivian, Estelle and Anita standing in the archway. The redhead stood slightly in front of the witch and dryad, holding something that Beth thought looked like a small hula hoop with antennae sticking out of it at random intervals.

Vivian moved her head back, silently telling Beth to move towards them. Beth did not need any further prodding and scurried up the last few feet of the wall to run across the ceiling, weaving between the stalagmites. She glanced back up at the golem as its hand flew back to its wrist then turned away and went back to the digging it had been doing when she’d stumbled upon it.

With the threat of getting drilled in the not fun way greatly diminished, Beth let herself relax a bit as she ran for the tunnel. By the time she reached it, Vivian, Estelle and Anita had backed up, giving her ample room to land back on the ground. Once she had, Beth felt Vivian’s magic fade and the redhead let her arms drop.

“Glad we caught you before it really started attacking you,” Vivian said in a somewhat tired voice. “That would have been a lot harder if you were closer.”

“Glad I went with the ‘run’ option,” Beth chuckled. “Not that I had anything that could do anything to that guy.”

“Getting thrown down here at some goddess’ whim wasn’t exactly in the plan,” Estelle chimed in, taking off her hat and reaching her hand into it. “Good thing I grabbed a lot of stuff I thought would synergise with everyone’s talents. Figured they’d come in handy if we stumbled across some wild animals. Here, you can try this!”

Estelle pulled her arm out of her hat, a silvery cylinder held in her hand. She tossed it to Beth, who easily caught it. The instant she wrapped her fingers around it, it expanded into a staff about a meter and a half long.

“Cool,” Beth said, giving it an experimental swing. “This do anything special or is it just a good bonking stick?”

“Well, it’s made of conductive metal, so you should be able to use your innate ability easily through it,” Estelle answered. “Plus it’s got a slight boosting effect so you should get more bang for your buck.”

Beth sent a small amount of mana into the staff and stuck it to her palm and opened her hand. The staff remained firmly attached to her skin.

“Yeah, that’ll do,” Beth said. “I really need to settle on a weapon.

“We can focus on that later,” Vivian cut in before she looked over to Anita. Beth realized that the gnoshroom girl had been oddly quiet and had her eyes closed and a look of concentration on her face. “Anita, pick up anything?”

After a moment of silence, she shook her head and opened her eyes. “I couldn’t feel anyone but it looks like that other path was free of anything close.”

“Right, mushroom network,” Beth muttered. “Handy. That how you guys linked up?”

“More or less,” Vivian answered. “Anita and I weren’t too far apart and we ran into Estelle not long after. But it was some time before we found you. You alright?”

“You think any of these things could catch me?” Beth cockily shot back but her bravado faded into seriousness. “I did what I do best and ran. That guy came the closest to tagging me. Thanks for throwing off its aim, by the way.”

Vivian shook her head, a fond smile on her face. “Wasn’t going to leave things to chance. And it was Estelle's gadget that let me pull all that off.”

“All the Focus Ring does is amp your focus,” the witch chimed in. “Still all your magic with just a little support. I’m sure all it’s really doing for you is taking some of the strain off.”

Vivian flushed and lightly coughed. “Regardless, we’ve got a few paths we skipped over because Anita picked you up, so we’re going to backtrack to them and see if there’s anything to pick up there.”

“Sounds good to me. Not like I’ve got any ideas,” Beth said. “My plan was to keep running and hope I ran into someone.”

“That’s probably what everyone else is doing,” Anita cheerfully interjected. “I think I’m so good at finding people because we’re still in Pruzonia and my magic’s all, um, linked up with it.”

“Synced up would be a better description,” Estelle said as she waved around something Beth thought looked like a tuning fork. “There’s a lot of mana running through this area. I’d need a lot longer to sort it all out. But you’ve got the advantage of being a native and seeped in the Kingdom’s mana. For you, picking things up is as easy as breathing.”

Anita smiled at Estelle, unable to hide how happy she felt over being deemed useful. Then the gnoshroom turned on her heel and began marching down the tunnel.

“Come on! Let’s go find everyone else!” she loudly declared, not bothering to look back to see if they were following her.

“And I thought I had a bad habit of getting ahead of everyone.” Beth chuckled.

Vivian lightly nudged Beth in the side. “You’ve gotten better about that. And I doubt Anita will end up surrounded by a pack of hunting rodents.”

“Down here? Probably not. Bunch of rock monsters? More likely,” Beth joked as they began to catch up to Anita.

The walk back down to some of the branching paths took a few minutes, which were thankfully peaceful. Peaceful enough that Estelle found the opportunity to tinker as they moved, tuning up her resonance fork.

“What is that thing anyway?” Beth asked her suddenly. “Looks like a tuning fork.”

Estelle looked down at the shorter girl and smiled brightly. “Well, it started as one. Or the idea was based on it. I made the resonance fork to pick up on complex strings of mana. I came up with the idea when Nephele and I were starting to work on the ley line. We needed a way to isolate the corrupted mana streams from the innate ones. So I figured a tuning fork like device could pick up on the slight variances and from there, we could trace the bad ones back to whatever was causing them.”

“And how is that helping us here?” Beth inquired.

“Oh, it’s been rubbish so far,” Estelle responded, still chipper. “I figured it might be too overtuned to the ley line but brought it along anyway just in case. Good thing Anita’s here or we’d been running around blind.”

“Which is, in all likelihood, what everyone else is doing,” Vivian cut in, her tone serious. “John and Senka might be together if Fortuna didn’t mess with their bond, but we should treat everyone as being separated.”

The slightly jovial mood was soured as the reality of the situation settled back down on them and Estelle frowned. She didn’t like the somber silence. She knew they were in a serious situation, but that didn’t mean they had to adopt a grim countenance to deal with it.

Before she could find a way to lift everyone’s mood, they reached the first path off the one they were on. Anita clapped her hands together and nodded her head.

“Okay! Let’s find someone!” she declared and closed her eyes, a cute look of determination on her face. Estelle had to keep from letting out a coo at that, not wanting to ruin Anita’s concentration. A minute later, Anita’s eyes shot open.

“I found Senka!” she excitedly reported. “She’s fighting some rock thing alone.”

“Guess Fortuna didn’t want a team up right from the start,” Vivian grumbled before pointing down the other tunnel. “Anita, down that way?”

Anita nodded and Vivian said, “Alright, we’re going in with me veiling us. We’ll see what Senka’s up against and figure out how to get her out of there.”

“Can’t we just gang up on whatever she’s fighting and take it out?” Beth asked as they began to hurry down the tunnel. “The four of us should be able to win. Especially if Senka’s already chipped away at it.”

“I’m not sure we should be jumping into fights we don’t need to take,” Vivian protested. “We weren’t expecting any major fights so we aren’t exactly equipped for any. Taking on unneeded risks while we’re all separated is just setting us up for disaster.”

Estelle couldn’t help but nod along with Vivian’s assessment. “If we have to fight, we will. I made sure to bring along some stuff for that, but we should focus on finding everyone. And I think your ability will be super useful in getting people out of harm’s way. Actually…”

Estelle trailed off and whipped her hat off her head. She reached into it, immediately finding the item she had on her mind, and pulled out a spool of wire.

“Here,” she said, tossing the wire to Beth. “That’s made of the same stuff as the staff. Should let you apply your ability at range. We can toss some of that out and lure something into a glue trap.”

Beth looked down at the ball of wire, her expression initially one of frustration that transitioned into a pensive one.

“Not exactly a grenade I can just toss in,” she said before shooting Estelle a smirk. “Guessing you don’t have anything like that in your magic hat, huh?”

Estelle shook her head as she put her hat back on. “Sadly, no. Something that stores up an effect and applies it later would need a bit more tinkering, and likely personalization, to be a reliable gadget.”

Beth’s smirk grew into a full blown smile. “Well, consider me interested in something like that.”

Estelle beamed at Beth, ideas already racing through her mind about how to make said bomb.

‘The material’s easy enough to choose, but how to store the magic for more than a few minutes?’ she pondered as they marched towards Senka’s position. ‘Gems? Would up the cost alot. Beth’s magic doesn’t explode, but in combat something could land on it or kick it away and have it get lost in all the confusion. Basic arrays would work, and I can work with Vivian on those! That could be a fun project! No, wait, Nephele might stop that since it’ll be ‘work’ and Vivi’s not in the coven.’

Estelle glanced over to Vivian.

‘Unless I can convince Nel that Vivi could be a good fit as a sister,’ Estelle thought excitedly. ‘She was kind of eyeing her when we met and did the pathway ritual. She’s exactly the sort of person Nephele said would be a good fit! How should we approach this?’

Her thoughts on inducting Vivian into the coven were cut short as the sound of fighting reached their ears. They hastened their steps and the winding tunnel opened into a wide cave filled with stalagmites. Stalagmites that Senka was using as cover to hide from another rocky golem. This one’s hands were fully fused to its arms and shaped like spades, and it was swinging one at the spirit.

Senka easily dove out of the way of the attack, giving them a good look at the change of clothing she had underdone. Her hiking clothes were gone, replaced with a skin tight purple bodysuit with black highlights. They didn’t get a long look at Senka as she slipped behind another stalagmite, wisps of her dark magic growing larger, blocking some of the crystal light that filled the chamber. Then she stepped out of cover and fired off a spike of darkness at the golem.

Her aim was true and struck her enemy square in the chest, burying deep into the stone before fading away. The blow, however, seemed to do nothing to deter its pursuit of her.

Vivian threw her hands up, the air in front of her distorting as she zoomed in on the battle.

“Her attack didn’t seem to do much,” the redhead reported.

“Then we should probably get Senka out of there,” Estelle said, pulling her hat off once more and sticking her hand back in. “And I think I have an idea as to how we can lock it down to give Senka the opening she needs to escape.”

She pulled out a crystal ball.

“I don’t think fortune telling’s going to help,” Beth dryly remarked, though the curious look in her eyes told Estelle that she was mostly joking and was waiting to see what she had in mind.

“How about this then?” Estelle asked with a smile, the orb coming to life with a swirling green light as it lifted out of her palm. “I fly this in with that wire attached to it, we place the wire on the ground and fly trap the golem.”

Beth returned Estelle's smile with a grin of her own. “I think I can work with that.”

The pair quickly got to work, with Beth affixing one end of the wire to the orb. Once that was done, Estelle focused her mana on the orb, sending it up in the air and out into the cave. In the short time she and Beth had taken to set the trap up, Senka had moved further away, luring the golem after her. It didn’t affect their plan beyond taking more time to maneuver, but Estelle found herself growing more tense as she snaked the orb through the stalagmite-filled chamber.

“We’ll need to make the area a big one just in case,” Estelle remarked, talking just to take some of the edge off.

“Got it,” Beth shot back, sounding just as tense as she was.

Estelle flew the orb into the path of the golem, and before its steps could pass it, she slammed it into the ground. At the sound of the impact, Estelle could feel Beth’s mana race down the wire and spread across the cave’s floor. A second later, the golem stepped onto the trap, its leading foot adhering to the ground, quickly followed by the other.

The golem lurched forward as it tried to move, but all its strength couldn’t overcome Beth’s magic and it swung its arms in vain.

“Got’cha!” Beth cheered, a wide grin on her face.

“Senka!” Vivian called out. “This way!”

Senka stepped out from behind her most recent cover, but she didn’t immediately make her way towards them. Instead, she began to calmly walk towards the trapped golem.

“I’m glad you’re all alright,” the spirit said in a measured tone. “But, if I’m guessing correctly, you want to run from this engagement. Right, Vivian?”

“Yes, we need to regroup,” the redhead answered.

“While I get that’s a sound strategy, I have one issue with it,” Senka said as she kept moving towards the golem. “I do not want to leave an enemy behind us.”

“We don’t need to defeat them,” Vivian protested. “When we leave the chamber, they don’t follow.”

“For how long?” Senka posed. “Do we know if they’ll remain in their own little arenas when we start to form larger groups or face whatever final challenge awaits us? Retreat is a viable move, but so is dealing with an enemy that can’t fight back.”

Vivian sputtered and Estelle remarked, “She has a point. We don’t know if leaving them alive will come back to bite us in the end. Now that we’re in a better position, we can deal with things in front of us without too much risk or taking too much time.”

Vivian looked like she wanted to protest, but she sighed after a moment.

“I don’t like getting into combat when we’re all separated and unprepared, but I see the logic in dealing with an enemy we have dead to rights. Let’s get this over with and get back to looking for everyone.”

“Thank you, Vivi.” Senka nodded, then lifted her hand up. “Let’s see how much this guy likes getting chipped away.”

“At least one of them is ready to get down to business,” Fortuna complained as Senka brought down her attack on the golem, steadily dismantling the rocky enemy.

Verida stared at her **** host. “Did you expect everyone to go gung ho and start fighting everything they could?”

“I didn’t expect a whole bunch of them to run away from every fight.” The goddess of luck pouted. “I miss the old days.”

“Not every game can be in the Colosseum,” Gaia idly remarked. “And I think you’ll still get your big finale. The paths are linking up and they’re all heading for the exit.”

Fortuna perked up, a knowing smile replacing her pout. “That’s right. The last obstacle before they find the doors out.”

“I’m not sure I like that look,” Verida said, a knot forming in her stomach.

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough.” Fortuna giggled. “Should be a good challenge.”