Clearing Out

"We found it!" Ignatius laughed, holding up the [✯Trailblazer] Skill Gem high in the air.

Siegmund gave a rattling clap with his gauntleted hands. "Well done, my friend! I only wish we'd started on that side to begin with. We could have saved ourselves a lot of unnecessary pain."

"We'd still have searched them to make sure there weren't any other items," said Ignatius, but he was hardly listening. Instead, he was inspecting his newest treasure.

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┑

┠──[✯Trailblazer]

┃　╰╼[Skill Gem]

┃　╰╼[Level 0]

┃　╰╼ Value ❖3000

┠─[↷10 EP/sec|⇝1+ sec|↻10 sec]

┠─Motion Value ⇘0.25

┃"Make your mark on the world,

┃ a legacy of conquering flame."

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┙

GAME: "Trailblazer" leaves a trail of low-damage fire behind you while you channel the skill. Each section of fire fades after ten seconds. Leveling increases duration and damage of the fire trail.

As with many skills, it was considerably less effective as a player ability than it had been when an enemy used it. But once he leveled the Skill Gem up to maximum, it would be much more powerful. Even now, it was an excellent skill to use in dungeons with lots of enemies!

Not that it would be much use in the Hell-Iron Jungle. Not only were almost all the enemies there resistant or immune to fire, but if there were any more Scab Fiends, it would be very difficult for Ignatius to tell the difference between their fire trails and his own.

So he equipped [✯Trailblazer] into his belt slot, but only so that it would gain skill experience while he killed more monsters. He wouldn't have a chance to use it soon.

At this point, Ignatius ate more food to boost his Hunger Clock. He and Siegmund were fully regenerated by this point, so they set off again to move deeper into the Hell-Iron Jungle. It was considerably easier from this point on, thankfully.

They used a strategy which was standard for them by then: Siegmund walked ahead to attract the attention of any monsters, and Ignatius destroyed them while they were distracted. The pair fought and successfully killed a giant serpent made of skulls held together with molten copper, then destroyed a trio of zombie miners who guarded the entrance to the mines, which were the heart of the whole level.

The giant serpent dropped a pair of weak gloves and one of the miners dropped his heavy pickax. This made Ignatius feel a bit more confident about their rewards from the floor—in terms of Essence, at least, since the weapon was a very good item for Barbarians and would likely sell for a lot in the auction house.

Ignatius took a deep breath as they stepped over the spots where the miners had died and moved into the ore mines themselves. The air suddenly became cool, and the nasty stenches of sulfur and hot metal gave way to a lighter, coppery taste in the air. Though the air was stale, deep under the ground, it was a massive relief compared to the refinery area.

Bright blue lamps were attached to the cavern walls of the mine with sprawling metal spikes, as though mechanical spiders with glowing bodies were sitting on the walls.

They illuminated a peculiar scene: a portion of the ceiling seemed to have caved in, allowing a shaft of moonlight to shine down on a pile of rubble and boulders. Numerous skeletal arms reached up from under the rubble, as though the victims of the collapse had been reaching for the sky when they died.

"Be careful," Ignatius whispered. As they approached, the expected event triggered. The skeletal arms began twitching, then disconnected from the bodies still trapped under the rubble! They flopped to the ground and started writhing across the stony ground toward Ignatius and Siegmund. The bone-on-stone scraping of their movements echoed throughout the empty mine.

"I guess this is a better opportunity than I'd expected!" said Ignatius. The other major encounter in the mine was a molten pool of living metal. That encounter gave much better rewards than this one, but it would have been a more difficult encounter.

Thankfully, these undead enemies weren't immune to fire, as the living metal would have been. Ignatius tried out [✯Trailblazer] for the first time, sprinting in a circle around the skeletal arms. He left a pool of fire wherever one of his feet touched the ground, and this pool spread in a moment to create an unbroken trail of flickering flames very similar to the ones which the Scab Fiends had left.

Neither Ignatius nor Siegmund could be hurt by this fire trail. They stood just outside the ring of fire, brutally striking inward at the bone arms which were writhing around, unsure where to move.

In a few moments, the bone arms were destroyed by either the fire trail or direct attacks.

Then, the second part of the encounter showed itself!

The pile of moonlit rubble shook, then exploded upward into a single colossal undead made of the skeletons of many miners held together by stones and melted ore! Its hands were claw-like, with each finger taking the form of a miner's pickax.

Siegmund took a single step back and raised his claymore in a defensive stance. "What a terrifying foe!" he said in a tone of awe. "What is our plan, my friend?"

But Ignatius remained calm. He pointed a gauntleted fist at the monstrosity's chest. "It looks intimidating, but it's not a real boss. Hit the legs, and it'll lose mass. The smaller it gets, the less damage it deals, and the lower its defenses will be. Just… try to avoid getting directly hit!"

The two of them leaped forward, fists and sword raised, to meet the bellowing creature head-on.

Giant claws scraped against flesh and bone and metal armor, but Ignatius and Siegmund did not relent. In about two minutes, their constant hammering against the enemy's legs and body paid off, and the creature fell into a pile of lifeless debris.

The enemy dropped a pair of unidentified Magic Rarity pants, as well as 550 Essence.

"Alright!" Ignatius said, his confident voice ringing through the mine. He stood directly underneath the shaft of moonlight, looking around until he saw the faint shape of the stairs to the next floor. They were at the far end of the mine, and there was no other threat between him and the stairs.

Siegmund made one more trip back to town. He sold the pants—their magic bonus was useless to Ignatius compared to their extra Essence value—and bought some more supplies. When he returned, they had a total of three healing potions, as well as enough food for ten minutes of time in the Eternal Tower.

"Let's go," said Ignatius, and then they moved to Floor 5, where the first true boss was waiting.

…But before they arrived, something very strange happened.