ShanDeRad
patreon
Chapter 23
🕑 Added 2024-04-20 17:53:33 +0000 UTCJust as Shaun closed his eyes, ready to give in to the inevitable, he decided to let go of the daggers he still had hold of and try and get to the pouch at his waist, with a monster on top of him this wasn’t going to be an no easy feat, but he figured he may as well try, he had nothing to lose. When he had been thinking about the two potion’s he had used in the fight he had remembered that he never used the second health potion he had on him.
It wasn’t easy, and every movement that he made sent pain coursing through his body, the claws of the alpha still buried inside of him. After what felt like an eternity he was able to get his hand in the pouch and through some miracle found the potion still in there, unbroken.
Slowly moving the potion out from between him and the Alpha’s body, when he finally had his hand free he worked the cork out of the vial with one hand and then moving it to his lips drank it down. He waited a few seconds as he watched his health climb back up until it got to a point where it started to drop back down, one health potion wasn’t going to be enough, not with the claws inside of him.
He moved both hand under the monster, one on each side of where its massive paw was and lifted as much as he could, he wasn’t trying to lift the entire body off of him, that would be impossible, but he hoped to be able to lift it just enough to be able to get the claws out of his stomach so he could push himself out from under the body.
It took longer than Shaun would have liked and by the time he had successfully removed the claws and gotten out from under the body his health was back to being precariously low. He decided not to stand straight away, and instead laid next to the Alpha’s body, taking a few breaths he willed the last of his potions out of his inventory and into his hand, when the glow became clear throughout the cavern he moved quickly to drink it and come to a stand.
Around him the Mole Rats hadn’t moved closer, the death of their Alpha clearly having some impact on them that he couldn’t understand, but he didn’t know how long that would last. He quickly retrieved all of his daggers out of the Alpha as well as his sword. He was now armed again, and although his stamina was low and his health not that much better, he was alive.
For a moment he just stood there waiting, not knowing what he was supposed to do next, he had never considered that he would make it this far so he didn’t really have a plan.
*Would you like to loot Alpha Mole Rat – Level 15*
Now that was unexpected, wasn’t he technically still in the middle of a fight? Not going to turn up this opportunity, just in case I do still make it out alive. Just as he accepted the prompt to loot the Alpha he heard a shout echo through the Cavern “I am going to kill you!” Turning he saw Sophie rushing out of the tunnel that he had entered from, with wand pointed directly his way, followed by the rest of the team that had been lying in wait to see what would become of him. It was time to run.
As soon as Sophie had yelled and made her presence known in the cavern, the 50 or so Mole Rats were broken out of their calm state and started running around, some went straight for Shaun, others for the group that was running for him and some of the Mole Rats started fighting each other. It was complete pandemonium and it was fantastic for Shaun who only needed to focus on killing the Mole Rats in his way while he tried to make it to the exit of the cavern that led away from the others.
If Shaun had been at peak performance he probably could have made his way through the Mole Rats easily, but instead he was still hurt and barely able to stand. He fought though, he killed any Mole Rat that came at him, thankful that the others were also stuck fighting their way through the swarm of monsters.
Over the next few minutes Shaun dedicated himself to surviving, if a monster came in to attack he would evade or if he couldn’t get away he would attack, swiftly and always aiming for the killing blow. He didn’t keep track of the Mole Rats he killed, just focusing on making it to safety. If he had to guess he would say that it was close to a dozen monsters that he ended up having to kill, he had earnt a few more scratches from not being able to move out of the way of incoming attacks quick enough, but none of them were enough to bring him down, just slow him slightly.
Just as he had gotten to the edge of the cavern with the tunnel right in front of him he was thrown from his feet from behind by a Mana Bolt, pushing him straight into the small opening. The pain was almost more than he could handle at that moment in time, he hadn’t been fully healed from his injuries, even after two health potions, and adding a Mana Bolt to the back almost broke what was left of the fight in him.
But he didn’t stop, he got to his feet and continued into the tunnel, dropping into stealth as soon as he was far enough in which would at least make it harder for the others to attack him. He couldn’t move fast and he hoped that no Mole Rats would be coming down the tunnel from the other direction. He knew time was running out and fast, his stamina was so close to being depleted again and one more shot from the others would be all that was needed to finish him off.
He kept his detection skill running, he had to know when anything was coming up on him either from the front or behind to give him time to prepare. He pushed the skill to its absolute limit, his only hope of surviving now was to find some way to block off the tunnel with both Phil, his team and the monsters on the other side. So he tried to spread his detection skill through the walls and into the ceiling, but the skill was never meant to be used to feel through solid stone, it didn’t stop him from trying though.
Long minutes later something started to change, he started to feel his detection skill move into the walls around him, slowly at first but then something snapped inside of him and it was like a whole new world was available to him now. The walls around him weren’t solid, they were made up of densely packed rocks and a clay-like substance that had hardened together to make it seem like it was all just one giant stone surrounding him. He could feel veins of mana rocks running through the surrounding walls, it felt as if he put enough will behind it that he would be able to connect to the earth, not just feel it.
Shaun didn’t know what was happening to him, if this was some sort of mental break or if by taking too many potions in a short time, it had led to some kind of hallucinogenic trip. Before he could investigate what was happening further, he heard the others behind him having caught up, they were still a bit further back but he knew that they had now joined him in the tunnel.
“You wont get away from us, you are dead! You hear me? I am going to make you suffer!” Shaun could hear Sophie yelling from behind him.
He couldn’t keep going, they would be on him in a minute tops. He was just moving underneath a vein of the glowing rocks, when he just stopped. He was pretty confident he was tripping out from the potion’s but he decided to just embrace the feeling of being able to connect to the rocks and stones around him, it's not like he had any other choices that weren’t equally insane. Closing his eyes he placed his hand on the wall, following the feeling of connection until he felt like, with a thought he could control the world around him.
He tried to will the rocks to drop out of the vein and for all of the surrounding rock to come down with them, but nothing happened. Not giving up he tried again, this time focusing on nothing but the entire vein and everything supporting it to come crashing down. Still nothing happened. In a final bout of desperation he yelled, forcing everything that he had and could give at the wall. It was stupid, he knew that, but in that moment it just felt right.
Shaun fell to the ground then, having nothing left and feeling utterly defeated, he just closed his eyes and waited for the others to catch up and find him. He started to feel vibrations around him, so they are finally here, he thought. He waited but no one arrived, the vibrations turned into rumbles as he heard something drop from the roof behind him, turning around he saw a singular glowing rock on the ground. What the hell?
Shortly after, a second stone dropped down from the vein above, followed by another and then they just kept falling. It didn’t stop and soon it wasn’t just the glowing rocks that were falling, it was parts of the ceiling itself. He scurried further away from the growing pile of rock and stone then came to a stand and just watched. Before he could process what was actually occurring right before his eyes, he saw Sophie coming up in the tunnel followed shortly by the others.
“Nowhere to go now you…..” She was cut off by a loud cracking noise that filled the tunnel. “What was that?”
Before anyone had a chance to answer, cracks started forming along the tunnel, not just at where the rocks were but up and down the entire tunnel, the entire thing was going to cave in. What have I done?
He turned and ran as fast as he could, getting buried alive was not part of his plan, living was currently number one on his to do list, it was even an objective in this stage of the tutorial and he was going to do what he could to make sure he hit every single one of those objectives as soon as he could.
He didn’t know if the others were following him, they would be pretty stupid to, but from the way that Sophie had been acting he really wasn’t sure what they would do. Seconds after he had turned to run, the tunnel started collapsing, there was no turning back to see how close it was, but he could hear the tunnel falling in on itself, following him as he ran. He didn’t stop though.
Just as he had only 2 stamina left he could hear only silence. There were no monsters, no people and the collapsing tunnel had stopped, he had made it. He couldn’t believe that he had done it, he had killed the Alpha, battled through a swarm of monsters afterwards, survived a Mana Bolt to the back and collapsed a tunnel to get away. He still didn’t understand how he had done it, he assumed that there would be something in what had to be a very long list of notifications about it, but before he could even start to go through them he saw his stamina hit 0 and then only darkness.
