Mined Games chapter 31

So, aside from finding myself some knife classes to attend, one of the biggest things to pop up on my to do list was doing a job. Job points could get me more spells, and I found out I could also use them to buy resources or even private lessons with professors. I was NOT going to spend them on resources, obviously, when I could just use coins, but the points were still hugely useful.


Which was why Cece and I found ourselves searching the job board for anything we could take that would get us some decent points. Sadly, most of the jobs were either too dangerous or not worth the time spent. Cecily searched through the postings for about five minutes (there were a LOT of them) until she finally settled on one.


“This looks promising.” She said, ripping a small piece of paper off and handing it to me. “The research department is looking for tier two spell crystals.”


I read over it, and sure enough, ten job points were on offer for each new crystal. “Why would they need tier two crystals? Wouldn’t all the local animals have already been picked clean? I doubt we’ll find anything useful.”


She shook her head. “Crystal beasts aren’t exactly unique, but there are variations. Plus crystals are sometimes destroyed during the research process. You can’t just copy the spells over directly. You have to study the lattices, but you know as well as I do that formation isn’t all there is to that. Density, mana type, things need to be measured and tested.”


I knew about all those factors, but that seemed weird to me. “You can’t just…transfer the spell?” My magic forge could do that, or at least teach me to do it. I could insert a crystal and have the forge give me a tutorial on the structure. I’d been doing exactly that with the battery crystals I’d been trying to copy.


“Not at all.” She said firmly. “Think of it like…” She paused. “Ok, so mana has a type, and that doesn’t change, but the form it takes can vary. When you withdraw the mana from a crystal, the type stays, and it just becomes mana. It’s like… if you pour water from a glass into a bowl. It’s the same water, but because the bowl is shaped differently the water takes on a different shape.” 


That made sense. “Alright, so tier two crystals for research. If we find ones they already have I take it we don’t get ten points?”


She grabbed the page and read over it. “Nope. Looks like two for already known crystals. Still not bad. They must have some other use for them. Anyway, this would give us some good combat practice before the expedition, and we can retreat if we run into more than we can handle. What do you say?”


“Sure.” I said with a shrug. “Might as well put some of this new skillset to work. But we’re going to be careful. We hunt one beast, and we’re going to take it slow. If it’s easy we might do another, but we don’t attack unless we confirm it’s alone.”


I was jittery, I’d admit it. Terry had been missing for a few days now, and people were beginning to become curious. Nothing aimed at me, or even suspicions that he was in trouble, most people just assumed he’d snuck away to get drunk or torment some Acolyte who made him angry.


Still, the less I was here the less likely someone would think to connect our little spat to him vanishing. Plus I really wanted another spell. Push would be useful. Aside from that, I’d been to see Riley again, and bought up as many neutral crystals I could get, even overpaying. With several days worth of mining I’d been able to afford enough to hit my second circle.


Second circle meant all my muscles had reached the primed state for conversion to tier three crystal, the sort of inbetween stage they say in once they’d been fully stuffed with energy but before I hit the final circle and condensed the crystals in my brain, triggering the full body upgrade that would bring me up to caster.


Even the halfway mark was an important thing though, because it meant that the crystals could hold more mana, which would allow me to cast more spells. With all my muscles condensed I would be able to cast four Blink spells, and maybe an arrow or two after, which would be at least some bump to my survivability.


The mana condenser was extremely useful, and I’d actually worried about jumping to the next rank, but I’d reasoned a single rank up wouldn’t be too suspicious after this long, and I really needed the boost anyway.


With our mission picked, Cecily and I went to turn in the job so they could mark us down as being the ones who would complete it. The bored, dark haired woman at the desk barely looked up as we approached. “What do you need?”


The name plate at her desk said Beatrice McCullough: chief of guild affairs. I pushed the paper across the desk, and her darkly painted lips twisted in a frown as ice blue eyes flicked up to me, squinting. “Newbies.” She said flatly. “Isn’t it a bit soon to take forest missions?”


I shrugged. “We’re in combat class. I hear it’ll happen soon anyway. Might as well dip a toe in on our own terms.”


She raised an eyebrow in interest. “I’ve heard stupider reasons.” Reaching under the desk, she drew out a huge book and thumped it down on the counter, flipping it open. “Let’s see. Stay out of the northern portion of the forest, there’s been an Ogre infestation. Fire wolves in the grottos. A basilisk in Dreamer’s Cave, steer clear. Hah. Tier two crystal beasts, Moon Vipers. That should be survivable.”

Tapping the page, she withdrew another piece of paper and laid it atop the book, pressing fingers to the paper as she pushed mana into it. Her mana was heavy and dark, like her makeup, and as I watched, black ink spilled up from seemingly nowhere and coated the page before retreating like a shadowy tide, revealing a neatly traced map.


She marked a spot on it, circling it with a pen she had on hand, and tapped it meaningfully. “This is your destination. Do not deviate from the path, do not stop in another area. Do not break for a picnic lunch. There are terrible creatures in these woods. If you stick to the path and continue to your destination you should be alright.”


“Of course.” I said respectfully. “We’ll do everything we can to stay safe. We aren’t exactly ready for this. But we have to start somewhere.”


An approving nod followed the statement. “Exactly. To be clear, this is not a guarantee of safety. Even if you follow the instructions and the mao, you could easily die. You may be attacked on the road by some unknown creature, or even other mages. Following instructions will give you the best possible chance to live, but there’s still risk here.”


After we confirmed we knew what we were getting into, she handed us the map and sent us on our way. She told us we had a week to complete the job or we would be removed from the task. If we hadn’t come back they would presume us dead, and if we had we’d be judged incapable and banned from accepting another for a month.


That seemed a bit harsh to me, but Cecily informed me we could come back and cancel if we didn’t think we could do it, and the penalty would be a week. The only way you got a month long ban was if you refused to concede the job OR finish it, and kept the task for a week out of stubbornness. It wasn’t a common occurrence.


So with that handled, we made our way out of the guild, heading down the road out of the city toward the forest.


'The Forest' as everyone called it, was the dividing line between our kingdom and our nearest neighbor, the kingdom Annika hailed from. It's existence was a large part of the reason we'd been at…well not peace exactly, in recent memory. Any invading force would need to go through part of the forest. There was actually only a thin strip of it directly between us, opening up into a bulb shape as you moved away from the kingdoms, but even that small (relative to the total size) area was a formidable obstacle.


We moved through the city quickly and easily enough, not getting any real attention since my hood was up, and once we arrived at the edge of the woods we stopped to scope out the situation.


"Alright." I said calmly. "We're going to do this slow. Scan the treeline to confirm there aren't any creatures then move in. Do you have any sensing spells?"


She nodded. "I have a short range thermal vision spell, if that helps." I didn't remember if that had been among her books honestly, that had been a while ago but it sounded pretty damned useful.


"Give it a try?" I suggested. "That would really help us avoid anything that might stray into the path. That whole 'if you die it isn't our fault' disclaimer really eroded my faith in our institution."


She gave a smug smile. "Don't worry, Caleb. I'll protect you from the scary forest creatures. You'll be safe from any squirrels or woodchucks we might meet."


"You joke." I said grimly. "But from some of the stories about this place we might meet squirrels that spit acid or spontaneously catch fire. So as our main combatant thank you, I would like your protection."


Her eyes, normally that shocking Ardane green, blazed orange as she stared at the treeline. After a minute she shook her head. I gestured toward a rock a little ways off marked on the map. "That's our entrance." I said firmly. "Anything over there?"


"No. Nothing with body heat." That thought was less than cheerful, but I ignored it as we headed toward the entrance to our path.


"So she mentioned Ogres." I said conversationally as I walked. "Are Ogres self aware? I thought there were only three major species of sentient humanoid."


She grimaced. "There are. But Ogres and things like them aren't considered people. Unlike Humans, Elves, and even Demons, there are some species that naturally condense crystals in their brains like monsters."


The conversation became somewhat creepier as we stepped onto the path under the shade of the trees. Cecily seemed not to notice as she continued. "Ogres, Trolls, Goblins, Harpies, Minotaur, all of them have culture and even speech, but because of their monstrous condensation method, we consider them what is known as Darkspawn."


"Cheery name." I said with a grimace, and she shrugged.


"They mostly eat humans." She said in explanation. "Our flesh is dense with mana after crystallization and we can improve their ranks. Not as much as eating monster crystals, granted but still."


I supposed that was fair. Eat a bunch of humans, get a scary name. I made a mental note to avoid most Darkspawn for the immediate future. While not all of them were probably evil people eaters, I'd prefer to just avoid the chance all together.


That said, the subject made me think of something else. Barew. My kobold buddy was nice as could be, and she hadn't listed kobolds as part of the Darkspawn. Was his species really unknown? Or was I just that poorly educated. I hoped it was the former, but it didn't matter. Barew was a sweet guy, and I of all people wasn't going to judge a friend because of something their species had done. As long as he didn't try to eat me we'd be all good.