Origin ARS (Origin A.R.S. Book 2) (10 page)

Scott considered how broken that seemed. Magic-users who could use high-tier spells with much greater spell force would be army killers. Unless your opponent could completely resist magical effects, a mage would be an incredible damage dealer compared to a warrior or fighter.

He checked his other spells and decided to train his burn spell with the last of his current mana. He spent the last of his remaining mana to cast the spell twice then sighed. The draining effect of being critically low on mana made him feel exhausted. Still, it was not a big deal. He had intended to get some sleep anyway. When he woke up, he planned to go in for one last hunt before the bonus period ended. He had not quite reached his next level, but he was one or two battles away.

Scott looked at his status then frowned. Hunting solo was a lot slower than it had been when Rhea was with him. It made no sense. What was he doing wrong? Sure, the spawn rate was lower now due to their constant hunting over the last few days, but he should be able to do better than this.

A thought occurred to him, and he decided to try it out on his next hunt. The exhausted man stretched out on his cot.

Sleep did not immediately claim him. After a short time he began to think over the events of the last few days. Things had been going quite well between him and Rhea. They worked well together. However, there were things that still nagged at him. Not all of those things had to do with her directly, but they led to him thinking a few strange thoughts.

She had to leave for long periods of time, occasionally changed her speech patterns, and seemed to have personality issues. At one moment she would be the sweetest girl he had ever met, and at other times she had an icy demeanor. Did that matter? No, elves might be naturally bi-polar in this world, for all he knew. However, when he combined her actions with a few other things... His suspicions increased.

The most definitive thing was something that had nothing to do with her. It was the mine bonus. Why was it ninety-six hours? Wasn’t that extremely arbitrary and random? He had been in this world long enough to notice that most things regarding time and usage were similar to Earth.

Scott could have easily seen a twenty-four hour bonus, or even one for up to seventy-two hours. A week, or even a month might have made sense. Why four days? Why was the bonus for exactly four days when he knew of nothing else that synchronized with that? The world operated on a seven day week with twenty-four hours available in each day.

The sorcerer gazed up at the roof of the tent. Rhea sometimes had a strange sense of time as well. She’d had to go do her so-called elf stuff once on the trip to Meaden. She had said that she would be back in ten or fifteen minutes. However, she had been gone for almost an hour. He overlooked it then, but the arbitrary four day bonus had tickled his brain a bit.

Scott called up his status screen then scrolled to the very bottom. He looked at the option to return home, and noted its locked status. The sorcerer stared at it for a moment then closed his eyes. In truth, he had started to suspect that she was like him. She was someone from another world who came here, but could leave and return to her world of origin. Yet, even if that were the case he was still missing something.

Why did the girl suffer from surprise narcolepsy? His suspicions pointed toward her being something like him, but that bit of her personal trivia kept him from honing in on that possibility. It was possible that she was similar to him, but she definitely had some other deal going on.

He began to drift off to sleep after a few more minutes. He was very tired. His last thought before slumber overtook him was that he wished that she would confide in him. As long as she kept her secret, it would be hard for him to completely trust her. Worse, if his suspicions were close to the mark, her supposed feelings for him might be nothing more than an act, a bit of role playing. How could he trust her feelings, when they arose out of nowhere and seemed to be so complete?

“Rhea, what am I to you?” He sighed softly.

Scott had been in several relationships in his life. None of them had turned out well. Even when he thought that everything was perfect, he had been wrong. The recent break-up with Sarah was a definitive reminder of that fact.

He thought about his past relationships. Most of them had been short, shallow, things that ended after a few days. He was happy to commit to someone if they seemed worthy. Yet, his relationships had always fallen apart. In all honesty, he had begun to wonder if he was the issue.

Sarah getting drunk and cheating with her old boyfriend did not really feel like an issue he had caused, but there were other relationships. When he was in the army, he had been forced to move around and that explained a few more of his failures. Still, there were several more failed attempts at finding that happily ever after that men were not supposed to want, but he did.

His old buddies in the army used to joke that he was the toughest chick that they knew. He spent a lot of time brooding and thinking about things, and had feelings. Manly men were not supposed to have feelings unless those feelings were based around anger, food, or sex. Of course, a lot of his so-called buddies were no older than what he looked like now. A few of them began to reflect more as they grew older, but by then they had all moved on and lived in different places.

Scott thought about his past, and the potential paths that his future might take. He could not know what Rhea truly thought of him. Worse, he could not truly trust her outside of fighting by her side. She would not tell him what her elf-stuff entailed.

Secrets were the last thing that he would be able to tolerate in a potential romantic relationship. That sort of thing had ended his last long-term union and he refused to enter into a romantic liaison with someone if they could not be straight with him. At least, he earnestly hoped that he would not be so foolish in the future.

Chapter 6: Sweet Deal!

It was time; Scott had readied himself as best he could. Though, he was uncertain of how ready he could really be in this situation. He was about to do something extremely stupid. The former soldier took a deep breath then took out several of his remaining torch stones. He would only hunt here one more time before going to town to sell off his loot and resupply. It was time to see what his stupidity could provide.

He activated the stones and the area brightened considerably.  After the torches were lit, he ran forward and released his pent up breath in a loud battle cry. His shout echoed through the mine. Nothing happened at first, so he shouted once more.

Scott frowned. It seemed that his tactic did not work. Still, he chose not to give up on it so quickly. The sorcerer continued to run. Every so often, he shouted. After he had entered a deeper portion of the mine, the deepest area that he and Rhea had entered before, something changed. When he shouted the music changed!

<<< * >>>

Your loud and aggressive presence over the last few minutes has become intolerable to the denizens of the mine. The mine dwellers have become agitated and will mass together to attack you.

<<< * >>>

Scott blinked. He had not expected a message window. He had just wanted to see if making a lot of noise would attract more monsters. He had mostly just walked around quietly before, and the number of monsters available to fight had been limited. That was one of the differences between how he had been hunting, and how he had hunted with Rhea. When they hunted together, they chatted and made a lot of noise.

Scott’s eyes widened when he heard the loud chitter of cave rats, the clatter of goblin boots, and the sounds of cave bats shrieking in the darkness ahead. It would not be long before the first monsters arrived. He immediately realized that his tactic had worked beyond his wildest dreams. However, he had gone beyond stupid and headed full-speed into suicidal territory. The sorcerer briefly observed the area then shook his head. This was no good. He needed a place where he could limit their numbers and effective attack range.

He turned and ran back the way he came. While he ran, he considered his options. One place in particular came to mind. If he took the battle to that place, he might have a chance.

One of the larger open sections of the mine had been used as a sort of office area. His party had discovered it during the final hunt that they had gone on together. When he arrived, he heard the background music change into a song that he liked to call ‘The Pursuit.’ It was similar to the percussion based music that had played during the last spider battle, but it had a hungrier and more aggressive tone. The brass horns mixed with the drums gave it an extra deadly flair.

The sorcerer spied the place that he needed to reach, the office. It was erected on top of a rock ledge that was high off of the ground. Only a narrow series of ramps and platforms connected it to the mine floor below.

The background music rose steadily in volume as he ran, and soon it became an all-consuming assault on the senses. He reached the ramp just in time. Six cave rats entered the large cavern area. They were not the only ones to join the coming event, however. Goblins, spiders, bats, even a few of the rarely seen slimes in this cave began to pour out of the various entrances to the area.

Scott tried not to crap his pants, but he was not completely successful. There had to be dozens, perhaps over a hundred monsters to deal with! He had hoped for a small swarm, but this was well-beyond what he could have dealt with on open ground.

The horde raced toward him, shrieks and shouts were their battle cries.  The ramp was only large enough for a single person to walk up at a time, and it was designed with three connecting platforms. So, really there were three ramps each at a roughly ninety-degree angle. If seen from above the ramp system would look something like a lightning bolt.

Scott moved to stand at the second platform and chose to wait for the army of monsters to come. It did not take long. The cave bats arrived first. The shrieking creatures were black and brown monstrosities about the size of a bowling ball. They were not particularly strong, but they were fast and they could fly.

Two of the creatures swooped in for a quick diving attack but were easily dealt with by swift strikes to their critical areas, their wings. It was a tactic that had served well throughout gaming history. If a fast flying monster attacked you, such as these bats, do not try to land a killing strike. Aim for the wings. If you damage them enough to prevent the monster from being able to fly, they will usually be a lot easier to deal with.

The bats were no different. They were the weakest monster in the mine once you took away their speed. One bat fell to the platform with a shriek, while the other fluttered around erratically. It was not able to fly properly and eventually settled down on the platform rail.

More bats came, but they were only an issue for a brief moment. Of course, the time spent dealing with them had still come at a price. The rats and goblins reached the first platform then began to run up the ramp toward him.

Scott rolled under a diving bat then came to a stop with his right palm pressed forward and down toward the oncoming horde. “Burn!”

A tiny burning dart of mana erupted shot from his palm and impacted on the lead goblin before unleashing a loud and fiery explosion. It was knocked back by the blast and took the monsters behind it down with it due to the steepness of the ramp.

Another bat attempted to take him for its meal, but he leapt into the air and performed a spinning kick that neatly sliced off one of its wings. The creatures were annoying and took up precious time. However, he managed to fire another explosive dart of magic down the ramp after he handed. This time he was able to catch several of the monsters in the blast zone.

He ran half-way down the ramp and fired off two fiery attacks before returning to his position. The last two impacted directly in the central area of the platform and caught many of the massed monsters in the blast radius. Several of them went up in flames then started to scream and run around. The burning effect was contagious in its own way and whenever one of the burning monsters, especially the rats, was near another monster for more than a second it would catch fire as well.

Scott stomped on the weakly crawling bats that he had cut out of the skies before then turned to see that the fire was starting to die down. Several members of the horde were dead, but more had taken their place. It also seemed like more monsters were entering the area. That was not a good sign. He had already expended one-fourth of his mana.

A hissing sound from his left indicated the thing that he had feared most had come to pass. The sticky string of web material shot toward him. He barely had time to react to it and knew that it would hit. However, his foreknowledge was flawed. Just as the spider began to shoot its webbing a bat swooped in to try and make an attack. The spider ended up webbing the bat instead!

The spider made a strange clicking growl sort of noise then looked between Scott and the bat. The sorcerer’s eyes widened when he realized what it was doing. The spider was trying to decide what it wanted to eat! Scott snatched up the bat by one of its feet then tossed it toward the spider. The hellish monstrosity chittered then jumped toward it. Thankfully, it did not catch it until it had moved beyond the rail. The spider had its meal, but it also plummeted toward the ground.

Scott fired off two more burn spells toward the mass of monsters that were trying to climb the ramp. Then he ran over to the downed bats. He snatched them up and threw them off the platform into the closest pocket of spiders. There were only a handful of the annoying eight-legged freaks, but the bats kept them busy.