“Hmm, two more soul stones huh. I wonder if these will be useful.” Jay pocketed the items.
“I wonder how much they would sell for at the market… actually, I should price check everything I loot because my class might cause different loot to drop from the monsters...”
“...Come to think of it, I have probably been pretty careless so far… I’m betting my coat is a special item drop as I haven’t seen anyone else wearing one, and it probably explains why I couldn’t find any teeth or bones on the market.”
Jay scratched his chin as he thought,
“...Though I guess no one but me would want teeth and bones so maybe no one else has bothered to collect them - so at least these soulstones will help to prove my theory.”
Jay began walking towards the black pyramid again, wondering how the empty pendant related to the rest of this dungeon.
Two more stone statues were on the next street - yet this time they wielded long stone spears with thick arrow-head shaped tips.
“Deadly” Jay squinted as he slowly approached them.
After analysing them, the statues were still level three, so none of their stats had changed, only their weapons.
Before beginning the fight, Jay used restoration on his shield. It had taken a lot of damage in the last fight and still needed to be mended. This caused Jay to start to feel light-headed as his mana was close to bottoming out.
Being low mana made him feel this way, even though his energy levels were high he felt a sort of tiredness in his head, and wasn’t as sharp.
“Hmm, 10/67. Getting a little low. There’s no time to rest, so I’ll fight these two and head back.” He decided after checking his mana. After all, he did just craft four hammers, raise two skeletons, and restore his shield.
Jay approached with his skeletons as the spear-wielding stone statues woke up and readied themselves, shields forward. Even though their stats were the same as the swordsmen, they acted very differently.
Their battle stance was low to the ground with their shield raised, their long huge spears held back alongside their shield, poised to strike with a thrust at any moment.
Slowly they marched forward while Jay did too, similarly having his shield up and hammer ready to strike.
The skeletons were sent to each side as they intended to pick at the ankles of the stone warriors.
Jay took the initiative, walking to the side of the first statue so that the second one was now behind his comrade - unable to attack Jay.
“Another easy win.” he smiled, side-stepping to avoid a spear before smashing back with his hammer, nailing the soldier right on it’s elbow; small bits of stone chipping away.
Jumping back he planned for his next strike, but Jay was distracted by something for a moment.
The second statue was now attacking his skeletons - clearly it was not going to bother running around it’s companion and instead just went for the nearest target.
“Dammit. Fall back a little” Jay thought as the skeletons responded to his mental command, they both scrambled backwards and jumped onto some of the destroyed ruins.
One of the skeletons had taken a direct hit already, though there was no significant damage.
Seeing that his enemy was being distracted from the fight gave the stone soldier precious time to strike.
*Shru*
The spear pierced Jay’s shoulder while he was distracted by the other fight.
“AHH FRRRK!” he grinded his teeth from the pain as the spear was pulled out, doing more damage as it left the hole which caused his health to drop again.
[-7]
[Mana burn - 0.5mana/second for 5 seconds]
The hole disappeared as his HP drained instead.
“You’ll pay for that!” Jay said angrily as he swung fiercely and stepped forward, his hammer smashing against the statue’s helmet.
No stun happened, but Jay wasn’t relying on it anyway.
The stone soldier stepped back as it prepared another thrust - but Jay had planted his foot on its shield and pushed it back, causing it to back up a few steps so it wouldn’t fall over.
“Damn, mana burn again. It must be caused by the soldiers' skills since these ones have different weapons.”
As his mana was getting lower, Jay was finding it harder to think. He wasn’t in any danger right now but he wondered if he should retreat or not.
Not thinking too clearly, he decided to have his skeletons pounce and hammer at the statue he was fighting. If they both died he would just collect the bones and run, resummoning them later after he had meditated and was in better condition. Jay’s health was fine and it was only his mana getting low that he was worrying about.
The statue only had 20 health left, and after Jay’s skeletons pounced it was dropped to 10, then 5 after another smack from Jay.
The second statue thrust its spear at a skeleton again, easily hitting it since Jay had them fighting thoughtlessly like berserkers.
The speed and force of the thrust was enough to send the skeleton flying into some nearby ruins.
Jay ended the stone soldier with a final smash to it’s head, causing it to drop its spear which shattered onto the ground; it fell to its knees and stopped moving; still sitting upright with its shield in hand.
[40 Exp]
“Yep, it’s dead.” thought Jay as he glanced at it. He expected it to fall face down, but instead it’s body ended up in this upright kneeling position.
The second statue walked around it’s dead brother, thrusting at Jay and using it’s shield to swat the skeletons. It had 30 health, as one skeleton had managed to land an attack previously.
Jay and his skeletons made short work of the lone stone soldier. At least one of them could make an attack when it was distracted by the other two.
Jay was getting good at dealing with two statues, so killing a single soldier was simple now, a piece of cake.
With some well-placed hammer strikes, he crumbled the last soldier.
[40 Exp]
It died falling onto it’s back after Jay hit it with a final uppercut attack, his hammer successfully connecting with its chin.
“Come here,” Jay said to his skeleton. Red approached Jay, it was just about half health and it’s rib cage was caved in.
“Ouch, you took quite a hit huh? Those spears really hurt - more than the swords did.”
“Ok, that’s it. Home time.” Jay was really low mana, so he decided to finally head back.
“We can find out what the pendant does later.”
Jay unsummoned Red; Instead of healing it now he would just re-summon it later, bringing it back to full health. The spell would either use the cracked right cage bones for other parts of the skeleton’s body or mend them; either way, it didn’t bother Jay.
Pocketing the two soulstones after looting the soldiers, Jay found a ring on one of their bodies. It was gold in colour with a purple triangle gem in the middle.
“Cool.” he thought, looking at the ring. It didn’t have any stats, and the only information he got from analysing it was [Helvetian Ring].
With a shrug, he willed to leave the dungeon.
Nearby, some of the rocks in the ruins began to float and move; before Jay’s eyes a doorway formed in a wall which was constructed before him.
Remembering the adventurers outside the dungeon, he made sure to un-summon Lamp too. The world was not ready for Jay’s skeletons - at least not yet.
Walking out of the dungeon, Jay was approached by the same guy.
“Hey, how’d it go? Get many rings?”
“Rings?” Jay decided to play it dumb.
“Uh, they’re loot that the soldiers drop.” he looked away to his group for a moment before looking back at Jay.
“I’m guessing you didn’t go so well? The offer is still up to join our party if you’d like.” he gestured to his party, which was sitting down in a circle; more members than last time.
“Oh..” Jay noticed one of the adventurers in the circle glance at him for a moment.
“Perhaps my theory is correct…” Jay thought to himself before replying. “...He hasn’t mentioned the soulstones.”
“Thanks, but I have a few other things to do… See ya.” he walked through the ruined stone gate and left. The friendly adventurer simply shrugged as Jay left, and sat back down in the circle.
“Rings huh… and no soulstone?” Jay thought as he made his way back up the hill. He was starting to think that his theory about getting different drops because of his monster class might actually be true.
”I’ll check for them both at the market when I get back. I should be a little early since I had to leave before my mana dropped too much… man, that mana burn thing was annoying.”
Jay pulled out some bondtussle root and ate it as he walked, getting a familiar notification.
[Mana Regen buff 1%] - lasts for 1 hour(s).
There was a main path that went back to Losla that connected to the north side road, but Jay opted to go back using his own path, walking up to the top of the hill, directly to the adventurer guild.
Jay took out the empty locket he found from his inventory “I wonder what I’ll do with you…” he studied it in the light of the sun. It was unblemished, perfect porcelain and the blueish colour was gone in the bright light.
“Must have mana-based properties” thought Jay, since he could no longer see any blue.
“I’ll hold onto you. We’ll see if you’re part of a hidden quest in that dungeon.” having a strange feeling while holding it, Jay pocketed the locket again.
