Chương 83: Bonus 3 — Too Soon

Timeline Occurs after Chapter 67 (Cave Expansion) Corwin, Jorren, Malric, Tavin, and Edrik lined up in front of the cave. It was finally their turn to run it. This was their first real cave run as a group. They were all level three and relatively new to the world. They were directed here from someone in another zone, saying that if you wanted to prove yourself, this was the place. The group stood there looking at the prompt. They could choose 2/4/6… and the levels went up.

Six and above was out; of course, it would just plain kill them. The problem was that they agreed to run the level two instance, but Corwin, the de facto leader, was pushing them all to choose level four. Corwin said, "Come on, guys. Don't be a wuss and go for the safe thing. This is a dungeon, or as close as exists in this world. We came here looking for adventure. We killed that level five boar a week ago; this won't be any harder." Tavin said, "Yeah, there were five of us and one of him.

And we had no choice; you went running through the woods making noise. It was either kill it or be killed." Corwin said, "I pulled it on purpose. Were you not paying attention it was no big deal, and we got good loot. I was able to buy this spear with what we got." Jorren said, "That spear is junk; you could have made something better you waisted your credits on it." Corwin said, "Don't be a group of pansies. Let's do level four already." The whole group finally agreed, and they stepped into the instance.

When they finished crossing over, it was dark; they could not see anything, and one of them stepped into another, and they fell down. Tavin said, "Who brought the torches? It's time to light up. Maybe we should have done that before walking in." Jorren said, "I have one; give me a sec." Finally, they had one torch on, and the two that fell over quickly got up and acted like nothing happened. In the end they had 4 torches going. They finally had a good look around the room.

Even with the torches, there were deep shadows across the cave. Nothing moving and only the dripping of water in the distance. Looking around, he could see the cave walls were wet and moss was growing on the wall. Finally, one of them pointed. Malric said, "Hey look at that." Everyone looked around but could not see what Malric was pointing at. Finally, he stepped forward and bent down and touched it. Malric said, "Ouch, that stupid thing bit my finger. Anyone bring bandages?"

He then turned around to look for who might have remembered to bring bandages when he screamed again.

"Crap, they're biting my legs, help." Quickly Malric turned around and with his wooden club smacked the thing with its club, which only made it attack more viciously. Finally, the others came over, and Corwin pulled out his spear and rammed it into its abdomen, pinning it to the ground. Jorren swung his axe, missing it but cutting Tavin's leg, which caused Tavin to smack him in the side with his spear. Finally, Edrick jumped in and, using his hatchet, cut off its head, and they got a system message.

[Moss Centipede Level 4] Corwin turned around to face the group.

"See, guys, this place is easy; nothing to it," just as he was about to turn back around, five more Moss Centipedes attacked. Malric, because he turned his back on them, got it the worst, being bitten on the back of both legs. The battle was furious. Jorren started chopping at them. One axe swing per centipede, then moved to the next. Malric had his club out and started to hit the one closest to him. Edrick pushed Jorren aside and told him to stay on his side and keep out of the way.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. The fight went on way longer than it should have; in the end, though, all five of the new centipedes lay dead in the cave. Malric said, "Stupid move, Jorren, for turning your back on them." Jorren said, "You have no room to talk; you tried to pet one and turned your back on him." Malric said, "Yeah, but you should have learned from my mistake." They finally stopped sniping at each other and looked around.

They had heard that almost anything you could pick up in the cave could be traded for system credits, so they started to explore the cavern. They all collected the cave moss; they were sure some alchemist would use it for something. They found a pile of cave salt. One of them found a piece of iron ore, and hidden behind a large rock, one of the group found a white piece of marble; they all figured that was the best of the loot. Corwin started to head to the tunnel to leave the room when Malric spoke.

"Hey Corwin, do you think you forgot something?" Corwin turned around and looked at him.

"We killed everything and searched the room what's left?" Malric said, "You know the six dead moss centipedes lying in the middle of the room." Corwin said, "What about them?" Malric said, "Well, did you think to loot them? If everyone looted them, they would vanish like everything else." Corwin awkwardly looted every centipede, but nothing happened. Only after the rest of the party looted them as well did the bodies disappear. Corwin said, "You good now?"

Tavin said, "Only if you want to bleed all over the place do we need to bandage you up before we continue." Reluctantly Corwin pulled the bandages out and started cleaning and bandaging all their wounds. When they were finally ready and they all agreed, they left this room down the only hallway open to them. This time they went slowly, checking in every crevice one step at a time.

They finally got to the opening to the next room, standing in the hallway, the light did not quite shine bright enough, so one of them took their torch and tossed it toward the middle of the room, and when it landed, they had a brief glance of something moving, and then the torch was knocked out because of the toss. Laughing, Tavin stepped forward and held his hand to the left just around the corner. Seeing what Tavin was doing, Edrik did the same on the right side.

Slowly Corwin went straight down the middle, moving slowly until he saw something and then stopped. Identifying it, he said.

"Iron Shelled Beetle." Edrik said, "Another one over here." Looking around they could finally see enough to know there were only two things this time around. Corwin spoke.

"Should be easy this time; only two of them, so we can divide them up." Just as he started to speak, both of them charged straight at him, and he stepped back. This battle started out great; they divided up and started to hit, smack, kick, and bang on the iron-shelled beetles. It looked like the fight was going well until everyone finally realized that all their strikes were just bouncing off. They also started to take small wounds at first but took bigger wounds after a while.

Corwin started slamming his spear as hard as he could into the shell, and all he managed to do was break it in half. Malric tried to grab the edge of one and flip it over to see if there were easier spots on the underside but got bitten in the attempt. Then the beetles started to get angry and were increasingly doing damage to the team. This went on for more than ten minutes with them getting injuries and the battles seeming to shrug off everything they did.

Tavin said, "Guys, I think this is pointless; maybe we should leave now." Corwin said, "We would be laughing stocks if we left without finishing it." Malric said, "Better to leave looking like fools than to die a fool." That finally snapped Corwin out of it, and he called a retreat. In the end they finally zoned out, but in the process of their running retreat, Edrik lost his round shield, and Jorren lost his axe as well as the broken weapon Corwin left behind.

When they finally exited, they dropped to the ground panting. One of the fighters outside started to laugh.

"You got chased out of the cave; that's funny." Another more mature fighter pushed the first guy aside and said, "knock it of Saul you were level three once too." Looking towards Corwin's team, he said, "You did level four, I would guess." Malric said, "Yes, and we're all level three." The fighter shook his head and said, "Too Soon," then after looking at some of the others that were like the first wanting to tease the lower-level guys, he finally said.

"My name is Rodger." He pointed toward the cave.

"I am a higher-level fighter the next time you come to the cave, one of you can stay behind and I will go with you, and we can complete the level four instance. Not a carry mind you, but it will help you finish it and teach you how to do it right." The five walked toward the outpost to trade in their loot for credits. The whole way they were arguing about when they would try level four again. Next time, they wouldn't make the same mistakes.