Return to Jorgaldur Volume I: the battle mage

Eight heads and a half

He spent the following days going through those tunnels, and receiving the experience from the spiders that were still dying of poison, something that stopped after three days, allowing him to reach level 58.

He now also had the Frozen Spear, at 10, and the Overload skill, which increases the damage from a weapon at the cost of its durability, 10% per level of affinity. It was at 10, since, in the game, he had bought a kind of automaton that was self-repairing. He had used it to train next to an anvil, repairing the weapons that were breaking, and with many other players who were doing the same for hours.

He still retained that automaton, although it was only useful for testing skills without much damage, as its resistance and skill are limited. In fact, when he had been training the skill, he had done it without armor or blessings, and with level 1 weapons, to do the least damage.

The number of spiders had decreased significantly. Some giant insects and even bats could be seen, but none of them seemed to intend to attack him. They were reluctant to walk on the ground, so, or they flew high or were lost inside the ground. He guessed they were probably afraid of spiders and their cobwebs.

When he reached another huge grotto, much larger than the one containing the spider army, he found a huge underground lake. Some insects were about to drink, but they did it fast, as if they were afraid that something might attack them. So, Eldi kept a distance from the water while he could.

However, he had no choice but to approach a few meters when the lake reached its maximum width, as there was hardly any land to walk on. He was attentive to the surface of the water, with Bat's Hearing activated, ready to attack or flee at any time.

Suddenly, not only did Bat's Hearing warn him louder than it had ever done, but his own instinct alerted him to the danger that was arising in front of him. Before he could react, two fireballs crashed a short distance from him, one on each side, as if they were warning him not to try to run away.

He could feel the heat that gave off the impact, he could see the newly pierced cavity in the rock. And, in front of him, there were the two huge heads that had cast those spells. Six others emerged from the water, supported by their long necks and looking at him. Curiously, there was another neck, but it had no head.

Frightened, he discovered that it was a huge nine-headed Hydra, whose huge body poked through the waters. In the game, it was a hard boss to defeat, he had only succeeded once, with Goldmi and Gjaki. It wasn't easy, despite all of them being at level 100.

The monster level was 110, and Eldi knew it was totally impossible to defeat it. His best option was to run away, but he wasn't even sure if it was possible. The strangest thing was that it hadn't attacked him yet, that it kept staring at him.

"Are you a visitor?" Asked one of the heads.

Eldi was dumbfounded at the question. He didn't expect that being to be able to speak, but he hastened to respond. For nothing in the world he wanted to irritate it.

"Yes."

"Name?"

"Eldi... Hnefa."

The next thing that happened was weirder, even funny. One of the heads sighed, resigned, and looked away. Two others looked at each other with a strange expression of dejection. Another rolled its eyes. Others looked everywhere, as if scared. Only the one who had spoken kept looking at him, with a tormented expression. He would have found it funny if it weren't because that being could kill him at any moment.

"You can pass. If not, she..."

It said nothing more and turned around.

"She?" Eldi asked.

But the huge being ignored him. It seemed scared, scared of she, whoever she was. It simply returned to the bottom of the lake, moving away from the visitor, who still took a while to move, to recover from the shocking encounter, when his legs stopped shaking. A confrontation with that being meant his death with total certainty, he had to thank she.

It was probably because of the presence of that Hydra that the passage wasn't used to cross the mountains. He wondered if the Oracle knew it, if he knew that the monster lived there, if he knew it would let him pass. He wanted to believe that yes, that it hadn't only been luck, that he hadn't sent him to such a dangerous place without knowing it.

While looking at the surface of the water, Eldi advanced as fast as he could, almost running. He didn't hesitate to go through the first tunnel he found, both to explore it and to get away from that place, afraid that the monster could change its mind.

It was a wide tunnel, which branched into many others. There were also spiders there, but the density was much lower, so the tunnels weren't completely crammed with them. In fact, there were rather few, which made other beings proliferate. Bats, a kind of giant non-humanoid moles, or many types of invertebrates inhabited that place.

Some tunnels were owned by different species of ants, which Eldi avoided. Their level was relatively low, 53 was the maximum he had seen, but he didn't want to experience the tireless attack of hundreds or thousands of them again. Just thinking about it, he felt exhausted.

He suffered few attacks, only centipedes seemed determined to do so. They were quite annoying, since, unlike those that he had found long ago in the forest, they had reached level 55, possessing several dangerous skills.

For example, Coil allow them to coil in themselves, after which they Roll towards their prey, which could hardly escape when the entire tunnel was filled. The most efficient way Eldi found to counteract it was, after several tests and bruises, to place three consecutive Earthen Walls, and spears behind the third, with Frozen Touch and Stand. The Walls managed to slow it down, so that it didn't destroy the spears, but not enough so that it wasn't pierced by them.

Another dangerous skill was to wait underground to attack, but Bat's Hearing countered it. However, they could also use it to escape, so he had to make sure to kill them completely.

It took some fighting to get used to the skills of those fierce predators, after which he began to accumulate scales, legs and centipede meat.