LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 34: Delivery Boy
Chapter 34: Delivery Boy
Pondering how to spend a windfall of 10 enhancement points, Milo trudged up toward the surface. His smugglers' stash was full of things to sell, and he and Harry both needed supplies. Harry's recovery and Milo's willingness to grind mycology and foraging had resulted in a large number of finished products and a lack of vials, bottles, salt, spices, flour, and cheese. Harry had given Milo a huge number of items to sell to the Alchemist guild and a shopping list.
"Oh, and if they try to sell you any of my medicine, tell them I don't need it any longer. Not that it really did much."
"Medicine? For your ailment?"
Harry stretched and rolled his shoulders. He was getting back more muscle daily and looking more and more 'trollish,' and he loved it. "Yeah. They tried to help me out. They had an opening for a mycologist, and I had been about to take the job when I got sick. I thought it was a hangover at first since I'd been out drinking with the guild masters. But I was getting sicker every day. There was a total lack of earthen mana in my system, which is terrible for a troll.
They came up with a tonic to restore some of my earth mana, but it wore off pretty quickly. Eventually, I just left the guild and moved downstairs, where I had a better chance at kicking the disease. They still sent down the tonics, and I still took them, but I don't think they helped a whole lot. I was getting more mana from eating a handful of worms than from a bottle of their expensive medicine. Glad to be done with it. Just get the stuff on the list, and sell off the stuff I sent."
"Oh, and if you can, deal with Bernard; he’s ok. Roulf, not so much. Never got along with him, and he likes to underbuy and overcharge, if you know what I mean."
Once again, Milo was thankful for being able to haul so much up in one trip. He was tempted...so very tempted!... to buy the third rank of Smuggler’s Stash to increase how much he could carry. He had room for this trip, but it would help his plans to have more space, but he needed other skills. He was worried about the whole ‘They will hunt you.’ thing, whomever ‘they’ were. The images from the dream were a confusing jumble of a long sinuous body, gold-green scales, wings, and claws.
The first skills he bought were Silent Step 1 and Unnoticed 1. He hoped that more ranks became available. Not being noticed by people hunting him was a good thing. That used up 4 of his 15 points. Breathless 1 and 2 were next. He doubted very much that he was going swimming soon despite suddenly being a fast swimmer. How fast was an eel? But when you had to work around flowers that enslaved with their pollen, holding your breath was good. It also meant less noise when you had to hide. Disease Resistance was five points, and something else he needed. Harry warned him daily about how dangerous the pollen from the blossoms was. He finished off with getting the first levels of Abundance and Skilled Provider to help with his mining and foraging. After that, he had five points saved.
The trip up went well for the first half. He was getting to know the tunnels, and memorizing the path was easy for him. He might be taking traveling up and down through the caves on a regular basis if his plans worked out. He was caught up in his thoughts about mining and hunting copperheads. This cost him as he missed the small sounds that would have told him someone was waiting quietly to attack him.
The pain as something smashed into the back of his head was the first warning he had of the ambush. Annoyingly, the system decided to let him know he was being ambushed. Was it trying to be annoying and snarky? Who the hell had done the programming on this game?
You have been ambushed!
You were attacked by someone using a weapon designed to knock you out. This fails due to your Hard-Runed Skull.
You take 30 points of damage, double for the ambush, and then halved from your mitigation. Health: 405/435
Milo rolled backward and regained his feet while drawing Shadowblight from his belt. Two dwarves were advancing on him. One behind him, one in front. How did he miss the one he had passed? He got a bad feeling about turning his back on either one. They advanced on him, keeping a close eye on him but bickering with each other. "You idiot, you didn't hit him hard enough."
"Shut it. He must have a thick head. I didn't want to break it and have his brains on my shoes."
Not seeing any reason to talk to them, Milo turned, lashing with his tail at the one ahead of him in the tunnel, and swung Shadowblight at the one behind, ready with his left claw to slash if he could.
His tail missed as the rogue jumped back to avoid it. Shadowblight bit deep into the other dwarf, puncturing deep into his thigh. The wounded dwarf fell backward, putting him out of range of a slash by his claws. Since one opponent was knocked down, he turned to the other. He dodged a knife slash and struck back with Shadowblight and his tail while the rogue parried his claws. "Watch out; he’s using one of the fancy claw weapons and some sort of whip. Get your ass up and help me!"
Both dwarves were now wounded and wary. They liked fights where they could take someone from behind. Their orders had been to keep this one alive, but they were having second thoughts. Before they thought too hard, Milo attacked the first one he had wounded, hoping to move around him and flee back down the tunnel.
He swung with his claws first to distract his opponent and then aimed for his head with the Bonecaster weapon. The main spike hit the dwarf in the side of the head, the enchanted bone going all the way through effortlessly. A jolt of energy went through Milo as he spun to face the last opponent.
The other dwarf turned to run. Milo chased him, firing a Bone Spike at him. He missed twice while chasing him and then hit with the spell twice. The dwarf stumbled and fell. Milo advanced, and the wounded dwarf tried to rise but couldn't. Milo was curious, did they just attack him for experience points? Or was he hoping he had money? "Why did you attack me?"
The dwarf was looking over at a patch of shadow through the corner of his eye, and Milo noticed. "Why not? You were coming up with ore. We just wanted to rob you a little, take some drinking money. No call for all this fighting and blood. What sort of maniac are you?"
Again, he looked in the same direction as if expecting help.
Milo quickly decided it didn't matter. If there was help coming, he needed to finish this one off and retreat. If the dwarf was bluffing? Well, he gained nothing by letting him live to ambush him again. Milo would have to find a new route down to Harry, the caves were a maze at this point, and he should vary his route. Still, he hesitated for a moment. This person was on the ground and helpless.
The dwarf took the decision out of his hands by stabbing Milo in the leg and yelling, "Get him." Shadowblight came down on his chest, splitting his breastbone in half and puncturing his heart. No one came to his aid. Limping, Milo dragged the body down to the other dwarf. He bound up his leg with a bandage and had a piece of cheese. He felt a bit woozy and wondered if the dagger was poisoned. If it was, it wasn't affecting him. His weapon was humming, and another of the messages came from the game system.
Shadowblight has fed on the blood of more opponents and reveals more of its secrets. Your ranks in Bonecasting will now aid you in combat when using this weapon. Each level of Bonecasting will add an extra +10 points of damage.
Base chance to hit: 40% +5xDex%
Base damage: 40 + 5xDex+10xBC Rank
Its ability to curse an opponent is unaffected.
Milo looked down at the weapon. It was much more powerful than he had at first thought. Did the crazy ratkin, Malskitter, make it? He somehow doubted that. Malskitter would certainly have bragged about it.
Checking the dwarves for money or clues, he came up with ten silver on each of them. Considering a copper penny bought a tankard or two of beer, they hadn't been looking for drink money. He put the bodies in a side cavern and covered them in loose rock. Neither had guild badges or anything that said who they were. Then he carefully continued his trek up to the mines and then on to the guild hall.
***
Ahead of Milo by several hundred feet, Shifty retreated up the cave, staying ahead of his target. That little ambush had been perfect and yet had failed. The victim should have been knocked out. And even if he stayed up, he should have just given up when it was two-to-one odds. He'd been told that the guy was probably level one, two at the most. But he hadn’t been knocked out and hadn’t surrendered, and now two of his gang were dead. He really didn't care; both were players and would probably be back if they weren't discouraged. He'd thought about going to the rescue of Lefty, but that would have meant a fight with someone who took out two people already and only had slight wounds. Plus, the bastard was a mage! Burnock hadn't said shit about that. There was a lot that was strange about this guy.
Shifty was pretty sure he was using some type of obscuring spell. He could almost see through it, but not quite. The same with his weapon. It was magic and powerful, but he couldn’t identify it. Shifty didn't like things he couldn’t plan for. Burnock was going to have to pay a little bit more for this job.