Chapter 41: 041 The Mountains Part One

I had been right and the cat women and I could have run faster than the horses pulling carts. It was unfortunate, or fortunate depending on how you looked at it, that we had the Freemartin and the twelve badgers along. It was one of the reasons why I asked about miners and things, since I had no clue how to mine. I did have my Detect ring, though. I knew I could probably find something if I went. I just didn't know how to extract it safely.

It took us about six hours to reach the bottom of the closest mountain and the caravan pulled off the road and stopped. I didn't ask why they were waiting here, since that was a stupid question.

“Ladies, please wait here with the caravan. I have some exploring to do.”

“We can help.” My favorite cat woman said.

“I'm sure you could.” I said and touched the side of her covered face and rubbed it. “I won't risk you being hurt in an ambush or an errant fire breathing attack.”

She purred and nodded.

I looked at the Freemartin. “Protect them as if they were your family.”

“You know I hate my brother, right?”

I chuckled. “You'd still kill for him if he ask you to.”

She didn't respond and I walked to the back of the cart and hopped off. The ram guards were there waiting for me.

“I'm not sure how long I'll be gone.” I said and cast Search. It updated the Map and it gave me a few red dots scattered several hundred feet away. “There's something in that direction about seventy paces away, a hundred and twenty paces that way, and a hundred and eighty paces that way.” I said and pointed. “They could be little creatures or tall ones. I can't tell.”

“What do you want us to do about it?” One of the guards asked.

“Be watchful. If they approach, be careful and protect the caravan. If you're feeling lucky, you could even send one of you out to investigate.”

“We only protect our own.” The guard said.

“Then keep an eye out in case something comes near.” I said and walked around the cart.

“We don't take orders from you.” One of the others said.

I stopped walking and went back. “Are you challenging me?”

“You are not a ram.” The guard said.

“The Tup agreed I can fight as long as it's without weapons.” I said.

The guard handed his sword and other small blades to one of the others and made fists. “Then yes, I challenge you to a fight of dominance.”

“Accepted.” I jumped at him and head butted him right in the face. There was a clang of metal as my helm connected with his forehead and the ram dropped to the ground, unconscious. There was complete silence from everyone. The other guards, the six miners, the three ore loaders, the twelve badgers, the four cat women, and the Freemartin all stood there in shock and looked down at the ram on the ground.

“When he wakes up, send him on a thirty foot wide patrol around the caravan.” I said and bent down to touch his head. “Assuming he can walk.” I used the Minor Healing ring and his forehead glowed, which meant I had broken something. “If not, load him into a cart and I'll see what else I can do to heal him when I get back.”

“Yes, metal man.” The other guards said and bowed slightly.

I waved it away in the same manner as the Tup and the Freemartin's mother had. I stood up and continued on up the road. I started to jog, then run. When I was out of sight of the caravan, I cast Search again and used the Detect ring looking for the dragon. Only a few little red dots appeared, nothing that could be the size of a dragon, and I ran at full speed. I continuously cast both Search and Detect until I was over most of the mountain and near the far side.

A huge red dot appeared in almost my position, so the first thing I did was look up. I didn't see anything, so that meant it was below me. I changed my Detect spell to look for cave entrances or large empty spaces, and to my surprise, it updated my Map with a cave. I followed it along until I was nearly a quarter mile away from the large red dot and found a giant round boulder that was about twenty feet across and it was half embedded into the ground.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked and looked at it. The damn thing was smooth as a ball, which was a dead giveaway that it wasn't natural. It was also wedged into the cave opening that I needed to get into. I sighed and looked at the slope below me. If I dislodged the thing, it would travel for miles down the side of the mountain. There was only one solution.

I stored it.

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I quickly stumbled into the entrance and then put it back. I had never stored a single object that huge or that heavy before and I actually felt the mental strain it had caused. I sat down and leaned against the wall to let myself recover. The thing hadn't been heavy, since my inventory negated the weight. What caused me distress was my mind trying to wrap itself around having something so massive inside my storage space.

It had surprised me, because I didn't think I could damage myself like that. I mean, it was unlimited extra-planar storage and I had a lot of heavy and large things in it. I had pallets of food, steel beams, boxes of rivets, bags of cement, and even some of the large pieces of rubble I was clearing away from the job site in storage. This was the first time I felt the strain and it had to be because of the mass of the thing.

It took me nearly twenty minutes for my mind to clear. I tried using Minor Healing and it hadn't done a thing for it. That was understandable, since it only healed physical injuries. I stood up and used my Light ring, powered by my armor of course, and chose area. A 30 foot area lit up and another 60 feet was filled with diffused light. I was going to use beam and decided that being my own light was good enough and it lit up everything around me and not just in front.

I followed my Map and easily dispatched the small cave creatures that had shown up on the Search spell. Focused Lightning was awesome in enclosed spaces as all the damage went right into the creature. I didn't gain much experience from them, though. I had been tempted to gather them all together to take them all out at once, then decided against it. I wanted to see what kind of massive bonuses a dragon would get me.

I still hadn't spent any points on skills or stats, so I was very squishy inside my armor. I also couldn't use any of my class skills, not without dying, and I didn't want to take the chance with it that I might not die. I hadn't had a flash of Divine Sight that told me I was wrong to be cautious, so I was going to stay cautious.

I dimmed my Light as I approached the large cavern that had the giant red dot in it. I thought about cutting it off completely and relying solely on the Detect and Search spells, then discarded that idea. It made me an easy target to see and it let me see into the pitch darkness. It was a distinct trade off for my safety, mainly because my Search spell didn't tell me how deep or high anything was.

I eased myself close to the opening of the cave and peeked inside, only to not see anything. I couldn't even see the ground. Dammit. I thought. With my luck, it's a huge goddamn pit and the dragon is on the other side.

I picked up a rock and cancelled the Light spell I was using and cast Light on the rock. It lit up like a thousand watt light bulb and I tossed it out into the darkness. I watched it soar through the air, then it went down... and down... and down some more. It took nearly ten seconds before it hit the bottom and bounced, damaging the rock and sending it careening into the opposite wall. I had seen a glint of gold before that, though.

At least it's not bottomless. I thought and took out my roped crossbow. I cast a very low level Light and took my time with ravelling it all up properly, then I cast Light on the rope. I tied the end off and secured it, then I aimed the crossbow to the side of where the red dot was. I fired and the rope shot across the distance and hit... something. I sighed when the rope went slack and dropped down. It took me several minutes to pull it up and then another ten to wrap it back up.

I was literally shooting in the dark, since I couldn't see across the chasm. I had been tempted to use a bow and cast Light on the arrows, except that I didn't have many of them and I knew that they wouldn't stick into stone or rock. I would just be wasting ammo and time with no guarantee that I would see anything on the other side, even if it did stick.

So, I kept shooting the rope. It took me eight tries before it snagged onto something. When it did, the rope light lit up a good portion of the dark cave. I didn't want to waste this opportunity, so I held my hand out and cast Ice on the rope. It quickly travelled over the small surface and gained purchase on both sides of the chasm.

I poured my armor's mana into the spell and directed it to widen into a nice walkway. It wasn't perfect, since there was no such spell to make an ice walkway, so I had just used Ice Wall on its side and directed extra ice for the ends. It wasn't going to last long after I tried to cross it, unless I kept casting Ice on it. I couldn't do that while on it, though. It was jagged and not smooth at all, which meant that I was going to have a very dangerous time... unless...

I used Fire and touched the wall with it and directed it all along the top of the walkway. Without missing a beat, I sent another quick blast of ice to freeze the now melted surface.

This is going to be both reckless and dangerous. I thought, took several steps back, then ran and dove to put my chest onto the walkway and held my arms out and down to try and keep myself on the thing. The metal of my armor was almost as slick as the ice, so I slid across the thing with almost no friction. I picked up speed and tried to use my feet on the sides of the walkway to slow myself down.

It didn't work.

I ducked my head and crossed my arms in front of my helm just before I slammed into the rock wall with a loud clang of metal. Just like the stone at the bottom, I hit so hard that I bounced, flipped over and careened off of the wall, and landed on the ledge that the rope had snagged onto. I tumbled and started to fall off of it, so I used Featherfall and grabbed onto the ledge. My momentum was cancelled as my armored hands dug into the rock ledge and I softly landed against it and hung there for several moments.

Okay, that was close. I thought and pulled myself up. I turned and looked at the ice walkway that was already starting to crumble. Definitely close.

I turned around and cast a low level Light on my armor, hoping beyond hope that I hadn't made too much noise, despite the echo of the hit still reverberating off of the walls. What greeted me was an enormous dragon as it glared at me.

“SHINY.” The dragon said and the growl reverberated off the walls. “MINE.”

“Oh, shit.” I said and thought about running, then remembered there was literally nowhere to run, except forward. I did that, to its surprise, and I jumped into its nest. I ducked under its belly and ran around it to the back. Okay, what do I do? I asked myself as it started to turn. I had a crazy idea and hopped onto its tail and started to climb. The damn thing was huge and my armored hands had no problems using the scales as handholds and my boots gained purchase.

“WHERE SHINY?” The dragon growled and looked behind itself and I cancelled my Light spell. It turned around again to keep looking for me, not knowing that I was crawling up its back.

From what I can remember about dragons, their scales are magic resistant and extremely tough. I thought. Even their underbellies have limited exposure and weak spots, so what do I do?

The dragon looked over the side of the ledge. “SHINY FALL?” It asked, then it ducked slightly.

“No! I'm on your back!” I said, just a little too late.

The dragon jumped from the ledge and smashed through the ice walkway like it was nothing. It snapped the rope as well and the both of us plummeted down into the dark depths of the chasm.