Return to Jorgaldur Volume I: the battle mage

Tears of sapphire

Desperately and gritting his teeth, he attacked the spider's body with his axe, trying to free his damaged leg. He struck with Double Edge again and again, until he managed to open a cut large enough.

Far from giving up, the huge body turned round as Eldi was healing his leg as fast as he could. Without having managed to join the bones yet, he had to use Feline Response once again to get out of its way for just a few centimeters, and with a lot of pain.

When the huge ball was coming back towards him, he managed to walk again, reaching a hole with just a few seconds of margin, and coming out of it just when a leg was trying to pierce him while he was there. He had been slow to leave, since his leg wasn't still fully recovered, and it had accumulated fatigue.

The leg of the spider was stuck into the ground, which made it difficult to take it out, so the man took advantage to cut a third limb, two on one side and one on the other.

The monster had lost three legs and almost two-thirds of his health, but neither had Eldi left unscathed. He had been forced to use an extra amount of mana to heal and energy to dodge. His strength was at the limit, so, taking advantage of the fact that he wasn't very far from the tunnel, he jumped there, using the last Feline Response to dodge the spider and take refuge inside.

It tried to follow him, to reach him with its poison, with its cobwebs, with its legs, but it didn't fit in the tunnel, so Eldi managed to rest there while the boss tried frantically to reach him. And that was the spider's greatest mistake. While trying the impossible to get to its prey, he was regaining his strength.

Ten minutes later, Eldi had started shooting arrows again, one of which pierced one of the eight arachnid eyes that were peeking out of the tunnel exit. Also, using Boomerang, he began to damage the leg that was trying to reach him, a somewhat expensive in energy but safe tactic.

When finally the final boss gave up and retired, the man left the tunnel and attacked it, not giving it a truce. It turned back and used Rolling to reach him, finding several Burning Walls along its path, and crashing into the entrance to the tunnel in which its prey had taken refuge again, and from where its body was attacked with an axe.

The monster regained its original shape and, when Eldi left, plugged the entrance to the tunnel with a cobweb. The man again used a Burning Wall to burn the cobweb, while placing under the gaps left by the legs that had been cut.

Once again it used Smash, but the man was expecting it, so he dodged it easily, and also took a fourth leg as a trophy. Again Rolling, again a hole in which to take refuge, again arrows, again Smash and again one leg less. The same plot was repeated until, with only three legs, the monster couldn't get up again.

It could still spit poison or throw cobwebs, but it had lost the advantage of tallness, and also couldn't move to face the man, so they had become practically useless skills. The spider could still use Rolling, but then it was easy prey for the walls, and he didn't need to move far from the hole, so he could easily avoid it.

Maybe it could have run away, into the cavern where there were still cobwebs, and probably other spiders that could help it to face him. But that went against its nature, and its level wasn't high enough to develop the will to oppose it.

So, rolling between Burning Walls, the final boss succumbed, giving him more experience than the other bosses, the equivalent of a hundred spiders. But, unlike the others, it was not over yet. He had been fighting in one part of the cavern, the one he had cleaned, but there were still many cobwebs to be incinerated.

He set off at once, for he didn't know when the giant spider would reappear, and he didn't want to take any chances. Although, in reality, it would be several days before enough mana would be accumulated again to recreate it.

Eldi moved slowly, getting rid of spiders and cobwebs, occasionally extracting veins of ore and mushrooms, until he found a small hole in the wall. He kept cleaning the rest, to make sure there was no other path, and finally he went back to the open hole. He had leveled up by almost 75%, and Boomerang's compatibility to 7, as he had been using the skill to, along with Burning Wall, break the cobwebs and attack their owners.

And when he finished, he took off his clothes and left them in the inventory, eliminating the dirt. Then he cleaned himself as best he could with the novice tunic, though he was still uncomfortable with the dirt and the smell he couldn't get rid of. And finally he got dressed again with the same clothes, now totally clean, although broken by more than one point.

It was a narrow, endless and claustrophobic tunnel through which he had to crawl. He had Regenerate to heal the scratches, although that didn't save him from the pain and discomfort. However, it was nothing compared to a leg crushed under a giant spider.

Finally, the tunnel opened into a small room, at one end of which ran a thin thread of blue water. There, in three small cavities that had been sculpted for that purpose, three small blue gems had crystallized.

Eldi carefully saved them, while remembering the Oracle's words: "In the depths of the dungeon, sapphire tears can be collected once a year, the only place where they can be found. They won't be useful now, but in the future the opportunity may arise where they would be needed."

Once again, he wondered what that opportunity could be, but the Oracle's prophecies tended to be difficult to interpret and a recklessness to ignore. In the center of the room was also a complicated circular inscription that he recognized: it was the exit. Applying mana in it, you should be sent out of the dungeon, to a nearby place.

So, once he had rested, and verified that he couldn't create his own Exit Gate mark there, he poured mana into the inscription that, for the first time in many years, shone again. The light enveloped the man for a few moments, before disappearing with him.