CHAPTER 330: YE THINK I HAVE BONES?

We walked several miles through tight corridors crowded with roots, keeping our pace measured to ensure we didn’t wind up isolated. Eventually, we began to hear a soft ringing noise, and a few hundred feet later, came across a slightly wider section where the tunnel bulged outward to form a small chamber. Roots lined its curving walls, growing in a vertical pattern that was less organic and more intelligent than the mess we’d been passing so far. On a close inspection, the roots had little crystals buried in their tough outer skin that were vibrating to create the chiming sounds.

“Those are Sonorite crystals,” said Tomomaru. The chamber rang slightly when he spoke, the odd material mimicking certain overtones in the man’s voice. “They can be refined into Sonoris, which is a metal that resonates and enhances nearby sounds. The material has shown promising uses for augmenting Sonic attacks, although weapons forged from it are always chiming, and it makes the noisiest armor you’ll ever encounter.”

“Xim has mentioned this material to me,” said Varrin. “It is one of the things that Her Golden Majesty hoards.”

“Armor that can make my explosions better?” I asked. “Call me intrigued. How much crystal do you need to get a standard ingot?”

“The purity is good,” said Tomomaru. “It’s about 3 pounds of crystal to 2 pounds of metal.”

I studied the tiny crystals poking out of the root. All of the roots in the chamber were covered in them, but the total volume of material wasn’t very high. It would maybe be a few pounds altogether. “Where’s this stuff coming from? Is the tree mountain growing it?”

“Negative,” said Tomomaru. “From what we can tell, these roots slowly descend deep into the ground and bring deposits of the material back up. If you watch for a few minutes, you’ll notice the root move an inch or so.”

“Are the roots gathering the material somewhere, or do you farm rooms like this directly?”

“There are occasional treasure rooms. Good luck finding them. Sections like this one are all over, so the most reliable method is to harvest from the roots, but you must treat the roots with respect and take care not to damage them.” He paused to make eye contact with each of us in turn. “Always keep in mind that this Dungeon is easily angered. Gathering from the roots is time-intensive, but has proven an excellent source of exotic materials.”

“Are there other metals?” asked Varrin.

Tomomaru nodded. “There is also Photite. It emits light and can store Blessings. Terrible for stealth.”

“Sounds good to me!” said Guar. I glanced up at him, having forgotten that his face was burning with a hundred watts of pure holy power. Fortunately, Arlo’s Ass-Dope Shades rendered the light non-blinding.

I blinked and said my silent thanks to Nuralie and Etja as I considered the two Dungeon materials. My current armor was Prismatite, which I liked for its Mystical defense. The full set was worth nearly half of my defense against that damage type, with the other half coming from Auradilato and a Shields evolution.

Trading out for damage wouldn’t fit my style, but on the other hand, maybe I could use Sonorite to craft a staff. I could keep it stowed until I wanted to go as big as possible on Explosion!+ Or I could hand it to Grotto. Or I could just wield it with my tentacles while using Therianthropy.

The options weren’t limitless, but there were at least three of them.

Wandmaking covered staves in addition to wands. While the intrinsic primarily worked with wood, there was nothing saying I had to use wood. I could probably combine Smithing to work the metal and Wandmaking to help shape and craft the actual item. Plus, a staff wouldn’t need too much material.

“Could we access the deposits these roots are tapping directly?” I asked.

“We explored that option,” said Tomomaru. “We had a man with a burrowing skill try to follow the roots. Our diviners lost contact with him after half a mile, and he hasn’t been found since.” He gestured to the slowly moving roots. “I think the Caving Tree blocked the way, and his skill tried to burrow through anyway. He did not treat the roots with respect.” The specialist then pointed at Varrin.

“And so the Dungeon was angered,” the big guy said in response. Tomomaru gave him a thumbs up.

“Okay,” I said. “If our goal is to get through here as quickly as possible, we shouldn’t get bogged down with looting or crafting or provoking the mountain-sized tree that we’ve climbed inside of. What’s the plan?” ṘÀNОʙÊs̩

“We will visit a few of these mining rooms and harvest enough materials to make a small piece. I recommend smithing something that suits your Level 20 Specialist evolution.” He gave Varrin and me a speculative look. “I hope that neither of you took Junkyard Specialist at Level 20.”

“Nope,” I said, while Varrin shook his head.

“Good. I will teach you the mana weave required by the machine, which can also be found in the machine room. You’ll make a small item according to your specialty and sacrifice it to clear out your Caving Curse. Once we’re all done, we leave.”

“Is there a smithy?” asked Varrin.

“Oh yes,” said Tomomaru. “It’s a little odd but has everything we’ll require.” He knelt by the roots. “Here, let me show you the quickest way to harvest these.”

Once the demo was finished, we spent the next twelve hours painstakingly gathering what we needed. We might have spent only one hour actually harvesting, while most of the time was taken up by searching for more mining chambers. We could have gotten it done much faster if we’d been willing to split up, but Tomomaru insisted on caution and safety for this first run.

He let us know we were welcome to come back and get lost on our own time.

The smithy was near what I estimated to be the center of the mountain-sized plant. The room was dominated by a large, bulging mass of blackened roots hugging an orb of scorching elemental fire the size of an Olympic swimming pool. It pulsed in a slow rhythm, making me wonder if this was the Caving Tree’s burning heart.

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The roots had been pried away in places, held open by heavy dark iron clamps and wedges, giving access to the core for use in smelting and forging. There were troughs around the room, laid beneath large taps that drained a thin oil from the tree. Tomomaru told us these were used for quenching. Roots wrapped around dark iron blocks and supported rectangular sheets to serve as anvils and work benches. There weren’t any tools or spare metals, no half-finished projects or filings scattered across the floor, and no sign at all that anyone had been in here recently. If I hadn’t been told this was a smithy, I might never have realized that was the chamber’s purpose.

“We bring our own tools and clean up after ourselves,” said Tomomaru. “Leave nothing behind, or else…” he held out a hand towards Varrin.

“The Dungeon will be angered,” the big guy finished.

“Excellent.”

“Why isn’t the ‘Dungeon angered’ by the fact somebody shoved a bunch of dark iron into its heart and turned it into a smithy?”

“I don’t know,” said Tomomaru.

“If we learned to speak to trees,” said Guar, “maybe it would tell us.”

“You could use your True Sense,” I suggested.

Guar shook his head, looking forlorn. “I cannot. The captain has me on a Truth detox.”

Tomomaru took us down an adjacent tunnel and showed us the ‘ancient machine.’ It was the size of a small office building and covered in gears, pipes, and what looked like clock faces with too many hands, inscribed with glyphs instead of numbers. I looked up and found a number of gears in the ceiling, each one featuring a prominent rune.

“It’s a clockwork elemental,” I said.

Varrin grunted his agreement, then asked, “Has this device ever tried to kill anyone?”

“Not to my knowledge, no,” said Tomomaru. “You’ve encountered something like this before?”

“On the way into Deijin’s Descent,” I answered. “We had to fight a few bosses. One of them was very similar to this thing.”

“Is that so? How does one fight this kind of machine?”

“The same as most other things,” said Varrin. “Stab it enough, and it will die.”

A gear shuddered when Varrin said that, but it could have been a coincidence.

The process of smithing our items was quick and without trouble. Varrin made a knife, Guar made a small buckler, Tomomaru made a three-foot chain, and I made a helm. Diagrams were engraved onto the clockwork elemental’s surface, outlining how to create the specific mana weave that each item needed to cleanse us of the Caving Curse. The weave was complex and delicate, requiring fine manipulation of the materials during the smithing process to properly incorporate it into the final product.

The helm I made was two parts that sat perfectly flush atop one another, with a spiderweb-thin pattern in between, spun from molten Sonorite mixed with crushed ruby chips. The spiraling runes shone through, and while the final product wasn’t anything I’d wear to battle, it sure was pretty.

Clockwork Cursewarden’s Superior Sonoris Barbute

Heavy Armor Helm

Requirements: STR 25

+25 Physical DR

+25 bonus to Sonic attacks

-25 penalty to all Stealth attempts

When worn, you can activate the Clockwork Cursewarden to cleanse yourself of one curse of your choosing. Doing so will destroy this item.

It also made a pretty sound when I moved and amplified my voice when I spoke, which was neat-o. Etja could probably use the material for her music and performances. In fact, I was certain that Etja would love this stuff. It’d make a darn fine lute, that was for sure.

Anyway, once we were ready, I plopped the helm onto my head and went to stand inside a roomy alcove built into the Clockwork Cursewarden. The weave acted as a focus for the machine to work through, and the device powered on with a familiar clanking and ticking of countless gears. However, rather than increasing gravity or summoning whirlwinds or inducing hallucinogenic mind terrors, mana poured out from the machine and into the helm I wore.

The energy spread across my skull and down into my chest. I soon felt tingling pain run up and down my entire body as thousands of tiny invasive roots were annihilated. After a few seconds of this, the Caving Curse notification disappeared, and the Helmet cracked and fell from my head. The metal had become so brittle that it shattered on landing, reduced to a thousand tiny, worthless pieces. I stared down at the scattering of shards and particles that represented a full day of sweaty labor.

“Shit,” I said. “I’m gonna have to sweep all that up, aren’t I?”

Varrin stepped forward and looked down at the pile. “I am told that if you do not,” he said, “the Dungeon will be angered.”

Tomomaru stood behind the big guy, nodding like a proud coach.

“Me next!” said Guar, hustling into the alcove with the same energy as a happy–and alarmingly muscular–puppy dog.

We each took our turn being cured of the curse. The process granted immunity to being cursed again, but it only lasted for 12-ish hours. If you wanted to spend time grinding up your Smithing skill inside this Dungeon, you’d need to be on a constant rotation of harvesting crystals, smelting them down, and forging an item to sacrifice to the Clockwork Cursewarden.

Of course, the gains were worth enduring that sort of tedium, since one day’s work in here got me three levels to Smithing.

Your Smithing skill has increased to Level 33!

I was definitely coming back as soon as I could get a break from being a mobile base of operations. I thought I could work fast enough to deal with the curse while also finding time to make the staff I was envisioning. Most people would have to give up some sleep to do so, unless they crafted with the speed of someone like Nuralie.

Still, even if I was a bit too slow, I could probably let the curse activate and eat the Bone Root Weathering affliction for a little while if need be. I had serious doubts over whether that would even do anything to me. I no longer had bones in the traditional sense, more like a hard, fibrous, spongey mess. Having roots growing inside me would no doubt be unpleasant, but I also doubted it would suck nearly as bad as it would for a regular boney boy.

Tomomaru had us make a hasty exit, which is to say we power walked for three hours through wandering root-filled tunnels until we saw actual trees. Although I’d been hoping for daylight, the Forest was about as dark outside as the pitch black tunnels we’d just left. I thought back over the time we’d been in there and realized that it was something like 4 in the morning.

If the lack of tunnels and abundance of trees hadn’t been enough of a hint, the System kindly let me know we were no longer within the Dungeon. At Tomomaru’s request, I popped open the Closet portal to let the Littans out of my lounge. Most of them had been shown to a nearby bed to get some sleep, but Major Kai was already awake, fixing himself a cup of black tea at the bar. Upon seeing us, the man downed his drink and immediately started marching through doors and down hallways shouting for everyone to “get up and get out!”

The Littans followed the Major’s orders with professional haste, and in a couple of minutes the entire crew was pouring out into the dark woods, getting to work setting up a simple encampment. The place went up with supernatural speed, and I set up a tiny cabin for myself somewhere out of the way.

I could have gone back into the Closet to sleep, but I enjoyed camping on occasion. I slept pretty well, and even got a convenient wake up call when something started bombing us.