A new passage

Where Jay and the miner were looking at was the other end of the passage that was no longer hidden in darkness.

The rails on the ground led right into a greenish glowing portal about forty or fifty yards down the tunnel.

Looking at Matt next to him and noticing him staring in disbelief, even dropping the just received bread, Jay checked his log once again. There was this one line stating local Illusion dispelled due to missing catalyst and Jay guessed it was due to the Mesmer loosing his orb.

Concentrating on the Portal like section, Jay got no reaction from his System so he decided to try and enter through it.

Telling that to the miner next to him, latter wished him luck and promised to look after the other men, then Jay marched down the tunnel.

As he stood before the watery surface with the greenish glow, he slowly stretched out his hand to touch it, just to have it pass through without feeling anything. Looking back once again to see Matt kneeling next to the confused miner, Jay took in one last deep breath and jumped forward.

Contrary to his expectation, it had been no portal that he had passed through but some kind of barrier. Without any feeling he had slipped through and found himself in a small cave room on its other side.

From there he saw a bit of the tunnel he had come from through the semi transparent surface.

Jay wondered how that barrier was functioning and then noticed the dripping noise from the tunnel he went through was missing and instead he could hear the loud clanking of mine-works coming from the next passage. It seemed to have been some kind of sound barrier.

Unsure if he got noticed entering, Jay carefully walked over to the relatively wide tunnel on his left. It went a slope down and he could barely see the floor of the next cave. The rails for the lores were leading down there as well and he expected the first opponents to lay in wait down there.

As Jay had walked down the slope far enough, he crouched down and took a peek at what was coming next.

It was a big cave, at least as big as the pit in the cave up above, and again miners were hacking at the walls in search for gold and gems. They got watched from a bandit-like looking man who was standing in the middle of the cave. He wore a shabby leather armor and a red bandana like Jay had seen multiple times previously.

Taking some more steps forward, Jay looked at multiple miners and the bandit in the middle while using [Analyze] on them. The bandit was yet another overseer like Jay had guessed, but to his surprise all of the miners had been slaves.

That explained to him why the bandits went through such lengths to set up a barrier and even an illusion to hide the lower part of the mines.

It seemed like he had found their real base.

Pulling the string after fetching the bow from his inventory, Jay aimed at the overseer and let go. While the first arrow still shot though the air with a whistling sound, Jay readied another one and fired it off.

The tall overseer got struck by two consecutive critical arrows and was dead before he hit the ground.

The slaves didn't notice it at first, but after the first of them spotted the bandit lying dead on the ground, he notified his neighbor and looked out for the reason of that.

Jay didn't hide himself and slowly walked over to the man who noticed him first.

He was a relatively tall and middle aged man, still an inch or two smaller than Jay, and carefully stepped forward.

"No need to be careful. My name's Jay, care to tell me yours?" J.

"Gus… It's Gus. How did you come here?" G.

"Went down the mine. Simple, right?" J.

"Simple my ass! What about the bandits? And those mine workers working with them?" G.

"Dead. Your fellows got send up and are waiting for me to free the rest of you captives. Do you have any idea how many there are left?" J.

"Do you mean bandits or fellow enslaved?" G.

"Both…" J.

"There should be at least fifteen slaves as well in the next cave, may be even more. What comes thereafter I have no idea. As for bandits, they are a lot. At least too much for a single Adventurer to handle." G.

"Thanks. Here, let me open your lock so you can leave as well…" J.

"No, thank you, but that won't be possible." G.

"Why is that?" J.

"The barrier! There's a barrier up there that we slaves can't pass through…" G.

With this Jay learned the real purpose of the set up barrier. Still explaining the slaves what to do and where to go while he released them from their rusty shackles, he promised them to take care of the barrier.

The men all thanked him and agreed to wait at the barrier until it got released, for what Jay needed to take care of a certain portal master.

As that man would be found in the next cave, Jay left the one he was in and walked into the next passage. The slaves had told him the direction as two more passages led from the cave but were all dead ends.

Jay still had checked them before going the slight slope up to the next cave.

Even from the long and slightly winding passage he was on, Jay noticed the next cave was a lot bigger than the last. On the last twenty yards up the slope he ducked down not to show himself directly and again took a peek first.

It really was bigger.

Not taking possible portions out of view into account, the cave was still nearly double the size of the previous. The number of workers in there was higher than the fifteen from the last as well. Jay counted nineteen that he could see.

Just as he was counting, two people came around a corner to a side section on the other side of the cave.

It was again one of the Defiers overseers who was accompanied by a dark robed man.

Taking a step to the side, Jay hid behind a rock and watched the two men as they halted behind one of the slaves. The overseer looked like he was deploying orders, to what the slave went back to work even more eager.

When the two men stopped in the middle of the cave and began talking to each other, Jay stepped forward.

The burly overseer had his back turned to Jay so he could sneak up on them pretty well, even more so with his hiding skill.

The moment Jay got close enough he stabbed at the overseer with his trusted dagger, but the caster seemed to have noticed him. A thin layered barrier blocked some of the damage and the overseer survived his sneak attack.

But something like a magic barrier was not something Jay couldn't handle.

Dropping the dagger he punched out with full power as the overseer was still stumbling forward. Thanks to his special skill Jay completely ignored the barrier as it got reflected upon touch, and three of the poor man's ribs broke audibly, puncturing his heart and taking the last of his remaining health.

Due to the inertia a fell onto the helpless looking caster and the both of them went down. While the robed man rolled his dead companion to the side, Jay used that moment to analyze the man.

His name was Johnson and he was a level 25 sorcerer with a surprising 1240 health points what surprised Jay quite a bit.

After Johnson threw a weak arcane missile at Jay and even got it returned doubled as latter had cast a quick on himself afterwards, he was completely befuddled.

Setting up a barrier around himself the moment he got back on his feet didn't help as well. Jay simply walked through it and gifted the Sorcerer a lightning fist.

However much HP Johnson had, the counter still hit zero after Jay's punch and the man rolled limply over the hard ground.

By then the slaves had all stopped their work and was watching the young Adventurer as he took care of their keepers.

Jay himself was a bit disappointed in the performance of his opponent. He knew the match-up was horrible, for a caster to be his opponent, but he still had higher hopes after he had seen the high health count. The overseer had been no hindrance at all, so he didn't even count on that one.

Searching the two corpses for anything of worth, other than their clothes and weapons, Jay soon got interrupted.

It had been two of the slaves that had walked over and first of all thanked him for getting rid of the two men. As he hadn't found much on the men, Jay turned to the slaves and analyzed them again. He got a surprise the next moment as one of them turned out to be the target of one of Jay's current quests.

Darren Molgen had been the first one to walk over and thank Jay, the son he had gotten tasked to find a while ago.

Stepping over the dead Johnson, Jay grabbed the mans wrists and opened the lock on his cuffs. He did the same for the next six slaves that had slowly walked over and thanked him. While rubbing his now free wrists, Darren asked Jay to come with him and look for the other slaves.

A few of them seemingly had gotten chained to their designated mining spots.

They first walked to the part next to where Jay had entered the cave. On the left side there, five more men has been chained like Molgen had told. Together they released them and guided them to the rest.

Three more slaves had been in a tunnel to the right side and hadn't noticed the fight or the ceased sounds of mining. Without thinking about it they followed Darren and Jay to the ten other slaves.

The last section the two of them checked was the one the bandits had come from.

Walking a steep slope down, they found a mining site nearly half as big as the upper cave. Six more slaves were swinging their pick-axes like crazy there, while two more didn't move at all.

Jay instantly analyzed them all and learned the two unmoving were dead like he had suspected. Molgen had by then run down the slope and rushed over to two of the slaves. Jay then learned they had been field workers on his parents farm and got abducted together with him.

The moment Jay had freed them from their shackles, he got the corresponding notification.

***

Quest:

'Save all Molgens' cleared!

4600XP

***

Welcoming the additional Experience Points, Jay led the men up the slope and towards the rest of the slaves. He then explained what he had done up to then and told them they should travel through the mines together.

After he had finished, some of the men asked if their children had been with the ones already freed, but Jay had no answers. They still promised to look after them and wait in the warehouse.

Only Darren declined to follow Jay's orders.

He stated he would stay there and guide more people up, as he was sure Jay would free more.

To Jay's question if he knew how many more slaves there were, Molgen only knew that there were some but not how many or where. He had learned that the stronger or more capable the captured seemed to the bandits, the deeper they would be brought into the mine.

He had played a bit dumb back then to not end down there, as his guess had been it got worse the deeper they got.

When he finished his explanation, two more of the men decided to follow his example and wanted to stay. To that, Jay fetched tree shabby swords he had found back in the days from his inventory and gifted them to the men.

While he walked towards the next passage that was again leading downwards, fourteen of the seventeen slaves he had just freed went up the other passage.

Molgen and the other two had already started hoarding the few ores and gems the men had found and stored them in a lore like Jay had hinted them to do.

The wide tunnel he was walking down took a long turn to the left and though there were mining tools and buckets lying at the sides, there was not a single person there.

On his way, Jay took out some dried meat and took a bite. Though he would have liked to take a little rest, the life of probably multiple slaves depended on him, so he chewed on the nutritious snack while traveling on.

A bit further around the turn, Jay saw warm light shining in.

He understood why the light at the end of the passage looked so different when he came to the next cave.

The wall on the other side was made of iron and had rusted due to the high humidity. A thick tube passed through it on the right side and led into the ceiling, so it looked a bit like a chimney.

On the other side he spotted something like a big fan and in the middle was a humongous door made of steel. The light that got reflected from there tinged the cave in an orange-red light, while the slightly glowing chimney seemed to help.

But as impressive and astonishing all that was, the figure standing in front of the door overshadowed it all.

It simply was humongous.

Over ten feet tall and shaped like a barrel, an ugly humanoid male stood bare-chested in front of the door. The only thing bigger than the giant belly was the massive hammer he held in his right hand, though it was more of a giant boulder bound to a tree trunk than an actual hammer.

Jay instantly knew what that figure was without analyzing, but did so anyways.

__________

Rhash'Korr (Warrior LVL19 [Elite])

Base LVL23

*Ogre*

HP 4490/4490 * Mana 0/0

[Two-Handed Mace LVL 3]

[Enhanced Endurance]

[Enrage]

__________

Though the skill list wasn't that impressive, the absurd amount of Health told Jay this opponent was in a different league to his previous encounters.

It didn't help that the Ogre was flanked by two bandits in stealth. The bandits were not that special but that only applied to Jay as he could see them thanks to having a higher skill in hiding then them.

Most other opponent would have died to a sneak attack from them, should the giant monstrosity in the middle not have taken care of that already.

Still using [Hide], Jay carefully closed in on his opponents after he took out his bow. Looking once again around in the cave to make sure he hadn't missed anything or anyone, Jay pulled the bowstring and took aim.

This fight was the first in a long while that he had to make a plan for.

Done preparing, Jay let the arrow fly.