Warbreaker's Rage: A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure (The Connected System Book 3), page 21
DANK WOODS OGRE
Drew’s Evaluate gave him the name, not much else. He wondered if it would give more information at higher Ranks. It was still at Rank One, as were all his Abilities and Skills. The thing, ogre, had to be strong. With the last of the people away, Graham and Steve spread out, making the ogre have to deal with them both. They stabbed and slashed at it, driving the monster crazy.
They looked to have it under control for the moment.
Drew jumped off the raised asphalt, landing on the pitted ground, and started to run. His Class gave him increased speed. In a burst, he could probably outrace Usain Bolt. He used that burst now, crossing the last distance between him and the second ogre.
The monster saw him coming. It growled a low and deep sound, raising the club. The club came down, slamming into the road, Drew dodging to the side. He felt energy swirling through his body, the kinetic force of the missed blow being absorbed by his body. He didn’t know if that was what really happened, but it felt that way.
The ogre was slow. The blows were strong, and Drew knew he couldn’t let one connect, but the monster wasn’t attacking fast enough to really charge up his Abilities. It seemed pretty stupid, making the same attacks over and over as Drew ran around it, causing the ogre to turn to follow him. It kept spinning in the same circle, not thinking to switch it up and attack Drew as he ran at it. The stupid thing just followed him, getting dizzy.
Drew stopped, the ogre also coming to a stop. The club wavered in the air, the beady yellow eyes looking unfocused. Drool dripped from the corner of its wide mouth, small tusks poking up.
Drawing his baton, having learned that bashing weapons worked better than slashing, he charged the weapon. Solid, it packed a punch when charged.
Channeling the kinetic energy through his body and into the weapon, the wood started to glow, a white shine to it.
Drew swung the weapon, striking the ogre’s knee. The knee shattered, the crack loud. Not as loud as the ogre’s cry of pain.
The club fell to the ground, the monster reaching down and grabbing its broken knee. It hopped back on its good leg, clutching the wounded knee as it yelled in pain.
If the monster wasn’t so deadly, Drew would have found it funny.
He slammed his baton into the side of the ogre’s head, now that it was low enough to hit. He could jump higher than before, but only if it was to avoid an attack, another part of how his Class worked. The baton slammed into the small head with a solid thunk. The ogre’s head rolled to the side, the body following. It slammed to the ground, and Drew almost lost his balance with the ground shaking.
The ogre placed a long hand on the ground, trying to push itself up. Drew’s baton struck the elbow, bone-shattering, the arm now hanging uselessly. The stupid ogre looked at the arm, wondering why it wasn’t working.
Drew stepped back, feeling that the kinetic energy had been used up.
The major drawback of his Class, he couldn’t charge up his Abilities himself. He had to be under near-constant attack to absorb the kinetic energy. It was a great Class for soloing, as he would be under attack a lot, but it lost some of the luster in these situations when the monster was on the ground, wounded but not getting up and not attacking.
That was why he’d grabbed a long-bladed machete the first time he’d found one in a house. Drew undid the snaps, holding it in place, replacing his baton in its sheath. He’d found the baton in a different house. It was not a police issue; someone had picked it up for personal self-defense. It had a sheath that attached to the upper leg with Velcro. Probably something the person had taken running with them. There were a lot of trails in the woods and lots of coyotes, bobcats, and other animals. And humans. The house had belonged to a woman. The machete had been used for camping.
But it worked just fine for what Drew needed it for.
The ogre still struggled to rise, not even bothering to watch Drew. Carefully, not fully trusting the ogre to ignore him, Drew walked around behind it. The head was so small, the back was hunched, making him lean forward. Holding the machete blade down, Drew fell across the side of the ogre, letting the blade slide down its neck. He pulled back, digging the sharp edge in deeper and yanked up.
Blood gushed out, and the huge ogre thrashed. Drew fell back, scrambling to stand up and get out of the way as the heavy body rolled over. The ogre reached up with its one good hand, the other flopping as it tried to move, trying to cover the jagged wound. The hand was bigger than its neck, but it couldn’t stop the blood from flooding out.
It finally died, notifications filling Drew’s vision.
He dismissed them, turning to look at the other fight.
Graham and Steve were standing over the dead ogre, looking exhausted.
Drew looked up the road, seeing some of the refugees standing outside the house looking down at them. Gary and Sharon were there, weapons out, ready to rush if needed. Drew waved them off. They turned, directing the spectators into the house.
“Let’s see if these have anything useful,” he muttered.
“Are we going to leave the bodies?” Steve asked. “Pretty close to where we’re staying. Scavengers will be out tonight.”
Drew looked at the huge ogre, shaking his head. Not happy about it.
“Look at the size of this fucker. I’m not moving it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Seriously,” Loch grumbled, looking at the dungeon entrance.
It couldn’t have been any more obvious.
He’d expected a cave in the side of a hill, something they’d have to enter and turn into a working mine. But what he saw was an opening, maybe six feet wide and eight high, almost perfectly rectangular, with worked stone blocks around the perimeter and a large granite block header. It pretty much screamed, ‘This is a mine.’
The hill was high, about thirty or forty feet. Two sides were steep, bald rock faces. The back side was sloping grass up to the crown. Where the mine entrance was, the ground sloped up but fairly steeply, covered in moss and grass. It was in a clearing, a small stream flowing along the side, coming from behind the hill and disappearing into the woods off to the side. There was enough space in the clearing between the hill and the tree line to construct some buildings—an outpost with guard barracks, a storage building, and maybe even a forge and smelting area.
Loch wondered when he’d learned so much about how to control and utilize a mine.
The clearing wasn’t that far from the trails. They’d be able to bring small wagons up Bow Lake Road, onto the powerlines, and then through the trails. They had been made for snowmobilers, so it would be tight but very doable.
Wagons would be in the future. For now, it would be carts pulled by people.
They needed more horses. Cows would work too. Donkeys even. Anything that could pull a wagon.
Ore was heavy and they’d need some way to get it back to the school.
He walked up to the arch, examining the stones. Cerie hovered nearby, flying up along the arch. He couldn’t see any runes.
“Did you enter?” he asked Kyle.
“Yeah, only enough to realize what it was.”
Brian and Harper were walking around the clearing, checking it all out. Piper, Julia, and Joe were staying near Loch but giving him some space.
“What happened?” Cerie asked.
“It goes down about twenty feet before there was a shimmering barrier. I’d seen the entrance back at the school, so I knew it was a dungeon.”
“But how did you know it was a mine?”
“There’s ore in the walls before the barrier,” Kyle said. “I just assumed there would be more in the dungeon itself.”
Before Loch could say or do anything, Cerie flew into the mine. He sighed, following her, motioning the others to stay back.
Cerie turned up her glow as bright as she could, green light shone across the walls, tinting the dark stone with green. She wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the whole space, just the five or so feet around her. But it was enough.
The tunnel ran for the twenty feet Kyle had mentioned before stopping at the barrier. With his Perception Stat, Loch could see the shimmering barrier. It was more a waving than a shimmering, a ripple moving across the near-reflective surface. The walls were rough stone, looking like they’d been worked with a chisel. Jagged, uneven, carved to be as wide as the opening.
Loch couldn’t see the ore veins that Kyle had mentioned, but Cerie appeared satisfied, hovering in the middle and turning in a circle.
“This is a mine,” she said.
She flew over to the right hand wall, small finger pointing at a darker spot. Loch couldn’t see anything different about it.
“That’s iron,” she said.
“If we mine that, will it respawn?” Loch asked.
“No. This is not a dungeon. It would be like digging into the ground. The hole would not be refilled. Or cutting down a tree. A new seedling might grow faster, but the one cut down would never regrow.”
“But inside there?” Loch asked, pointing at the shimmering barrier. “It’ll respawn?”
“Yes, but only after the dungeon has been cleared. Just like any dungeon, it will not regenerate until the whole thing is complete.”
“So it’ll only be minable every few days?”
“Yes.”
“How dangerous will the dungeon be?”
“A Resource Dungeon will never shift. And its Rank is based on the Resources found within. The rarer and better the Resource, the higher Rank the Dungeon and the tougher it will be. This,”—she flew over to one of the iron veins—“is how the Resource Dungeon indicates its Rank. Iron is the lowest for a mine.”
That all seemed simple enough, but Loch knew the Connected System had a wrinkle somewhere. It never made things that easy. Cerie hadn’t mentioned how the Resource Ranks corresponded to Levels. Iron might be the lowest, but what was the Level range? It could be Level Five or it could be Level Ten.
“Gather everyone up,” he told the fairy, walking down the tunnel.
He stopped in front of the barrier. It was odd. He could see it, but barely. Just a ripple in the air. There was nothing else to indicate the Dungeon’s presence. No feeling of Spirit in the air. The barrier didn’t give off any warmth or energy. If his Perception had been lower, he would have just kept walking and found himself in the Dungeon.
“Explain everything about the Resource Dungeon,” Loch told Cerie, turning around to face the gathering group. “And I mean everything.”
Cerie started to talk, directing it at Loch but stopped under his glare. She sighed, turning to face the others.
“A Resource Dungeon behaves like any dungeon. A team enters, fights the monsters, and completes any objectives. Once they have claimed the Dungeoncore, the dungeon is considered clear, and its respawn timer starts. The Resource Dungeon follows the same rules but with key differences. There won’t be many monsters and they are typically related to the Resource. In this case, since it is an iron mine, the monsters will most likely be some form of earth elemental. There are slim chances of getting other Resources beyond what is standard for the dungeon, but that comes with an increased chance of a stronger elemental spawning.”
“So we have to mine the whole thing in a couple of hours?” Joe asked. “Aren’t most mines things that keep expanding as new veins are discovered? It takes years, decades, to completely tap out a mine.”
“Maybe in your old world,” Cerie replied. “But not in a Connected World. If it was something like that quarry you have nearby, then yes. That would follow the same rules as one of your old mines. But you have to remember that the dungeon is created by a Dungeoncore from the Spirit of the world. A Resource Dungeon does not need to be a mine. It can be a grove of trees filled with rare herbs. Or it can be a vast forest with special trees. Maybe even a great plain of grass filled with hide-bearing herd animals. In the dungeon, the Core spawns monsters and nodes. It is those nodes that you have to gather. And there are only a select amount for each spawn.”
“So we don’t actually mine? We just go and get these nodes?”
“No. A node is just a location within the dungeon. Gatherers must still go and physically get the Resource from the node.”
“While avoiding monsters?” Joe asked, rotating the hammer he was holding.
The man looked nervous. This wasn’t what he had expected. It wasn’t what Loch had expected either.
“Yes,” Cerie replied, her expression showing that she thought it was a stupid question.
This was the Connected System. It didn’t do anything easy. The whole goal of the Connection was to challenge its Connected. That was how it survived, by pushing its Connection to Advance. That applied to Crafting and Gatherer Professions as well.
“Another major difference is that, unlike a Combat Dungeon, which only allows a group of five unless it is a Raid, a Resource Dungeon expands the party to seven to include a couple of gatherers.”
She had said it so quickly, but Loch caught the reference to a Raid. That was something new. Something she hadn’t mentioned before. Cerie was withholding information again. They really needed to work on her understanding of Loch’s need to know.
“But we’re still probably fighting,” Joe said, a statement more than a question.
“Yes. That is why Gatherer Classes also have offensive and defensive Abilities,” Cerie replied.
“Does the layout change each time?” Loch asked.
Cerie’s eyes glowed green as she accessed her database.
“In rare occasions, it has happened, but that seems to be only after the Resource Dungeon has been cleared many times.”
“How often is many?”
“A couple hundred at least and it is still rare. What is not rare is the node spawn points changing. That occurs fairly frequently.”
Most likely after the dungeon has become too easy for the delvers, Loch thought. More of the Connected System’s desired quality over quantity.
“Spawn nodes make it sound like a video game,” Joe muttered.
“Who do you think created video games?” Cerie replied.
Joe grumbled something that Loch couldn’t hear. He knew that the word about why the Connection was similar to a game was filtering through the Clan and the other survivors at the school. Loch just wasn’t sure how many were believing it. He barely did and he’d seen more evidence than most.
Loch looked the group over. They would probably be good, but the biggest issue he saw was the lack of bashing weapons. Those would be what worked best against elementals and there were only three in the group. Onyx’s hammerhead, Brian’s club, and Joe’s hammer. And Joe wasn’t a melee fighter but a crafter, not even a gatherer.
“Okay, we have an idea of what we’ll be looking at, and the goal isn’t to clear the Dungeon,” Loch said but paused, looking at Cerie. “You said that normal dungeons have to be cleared by a group or that group won’t be able to reenter for a year. Does that still apply?”
“Yes and no,” Cerie answered. “A group is able to leave the dungeon whenever they want, but they will lose any Resources gathered. That is the only negative to leaving before it is cleared.”
Loch nodded, satisfied. That would change how they had been planning on sending gatherers into a mine. Now they’d have to send gatherers and fighters.
“So it’s safe to exit since we’re not planning on gathering any of the resources,” Loch said, turning to face the shimmering dungeon entrance. “Let’s check this place out.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was a mine.
Exactly how Loch had pictured it. He’d envisioned a mine from the starter zone in an old MMORPG that he’d played and the reality looked just like it.
The tunnel was wider on this side of the dungeon barrier, extending a short distance before opening to a larger room. The uneven stone walls, a light brown color, curved up with wooden support beams spaced evenly. Torches were set into sconces in the beams, providing enough light with barely any shadows. The floor was smooth stone, gently sloping down to the larger room. Loch could see a tunnel at the far end.
They slowly walked down the entrance tunnel, weapons ready. Loch couldn’t hear anything; the whole place was eerily silent.
“Can we mine this stone?” Joe Foster asked, running his hand along the surface. “Just feels like rock.”
“You could, but as you say, it is rock,” Cerie said. “You could use it to make stone blocks for building, but it would take a long time, just like in one of your old Earth mines.”
Joe nodded, lost in thought.
They walked into the larger cavern, seeing tunnels off the sides and rear. A large pit was open in the middle, a ramp spiraling down along the perimeter. Another ramp led over the pit. Walking over, Loch looked down into the pit, seeing the ramp end in a tunnel entrance. It was dark, the angle wrong, and he couldn’t see in. He thought the light was flickering, casting an odd shadow. Something moving?
“How big is this place?” Harper asked, drawing Loch away from the pit.
“It should not be that large,” Cerie replied. “At Rank One, there should be twenty to thirty nodes.”
“How much ore from each node?” Joe asked.
“It will depend on the material,” Cerie answered, eyes glowing green. “The Silver Bark gave me the knowledge of your world’s measurements and I already had the data on the different materials. As this mine is iron, each node could give from two to four cubic feet of ore.”
Loch looked to Joe, watching the man do the mental calculations. He finished the math, letting out an amazed whistle.
“A cubic foot of iron is something like 500 pounds. That’s a lot of ore.”
“How much would a full set of armor require?” Loch asked.
Jeff shrugged.
“I wouldn’t know until I got a chunk of the stuff and worked on it. I’d have to smelt out the impurities and probably fifty percent, maybe more, of the ore would be gone by the time I was done. Maybe we’d get lucky and get enough material out of here to do a suit of armor?” He shrugged, really not sure of the answer. “Maybe less.”
