We hunt monsters 14, p.12
We Hunt Monsters 14, page 12
“It’ll be at least a day before we regroup,” Keith said. “If the storm dies down, let me know. Maybe a team can head out and do a little exploring. We’re going to recoup on our end and then start heading back by carriage. If we’re lucky, we might run into you, though judging by our estimated location, that’s going to be unlikely.”
“Just stay safe,” Selena said. “I don’t like how close that fight was.”
Neither did he, but he refrained from mentioning that aloud. He disconnected from Selena, turning to see Melkin lounging on the ground, dressed in her comfortable clothes, as she put them, having dragged several pillows from the room to sit on while she worked.
Naia was patrolling outside the tent, while Merry was posted just inside the doorway, keeping an eye on both him and the goings on outside. Bonker was currently inside Keith’s room, sleeping off the effects of the healing potion, which were apparently quite intense, while Ripper was in his own adjacent tent – the half-giant was so massive it was simply more economical that way.
Bob sat on the table in front of him, chewing on a piece of fruit and looking around nervously as though expecting an attack at any moment. To distract the monkey – and himself – Keith began pulling the reward items from his inventory. As expected, Bob’s head snapped back as soon as he laid the pommel on the table, a glittering jewel containing a speck of flickering black within.
The sheath came next. It was an ornate thing made of wood and leather, wrapped in bands of metal Keith had never seen before. Finally, came the crown, though it wasn’t the same as the crown he’d seen on the Nightmare King’s head. It was a simple band of metal with a small jewel set at the front that matched the pommel jewel.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Keith said as he pulled up the descriptions.
Name: Sword King’s Pommel
Crafting material for a sword
Quality: *M* Epic
Value: No less than 2 large gold bricks
Name: Sword King’s Sheath
Crafting material for a sword
Quality: *M* Epic
Value: No less than 2 large gold bricks
Name: Sword King’s Crown
Crafting material for a sword
Quality: *M* Epic
Value: No less than 2 large gold bricks
“It really is interesting,” Bob said, examining the three items.
All were counted as crafting material, rather than items. The quest reward had claimed they would be monster parts, but these were unlike any monster parts Keith had ever seen. They were basically identical in every way except their appearance and name. They had the same description, quality, and value given by the System. It couldn’t all be a coincidence.
“I want to see that final item,” Bob said, coming to the same conclusion almost at the same time.
Keith obliged, removing the Sword King’s Masterblade from his inventory.
It appeared like an ordinary sword. A bastard sword, made to be wielded in either one or two hands. It didn’t look like the one used by Korkerus, but one of ordinary steel. Honestly, it was one of the least impressive-looking items Keith had seen in a while, and when he examined it, it proved to be true. Well, mostly true anyway.
Sword King’s Masterblade
Quality: *M* Legendary
Damage: 20,000
Requirements: Grandmaster Sword Skill
Restrictions: Sword-based Class, Monstros Locked
Effects: 50% chance for damage to double on any strike
Additional Effects: All attacks inflict Bleed
Legendary: Can be modified using correct materials
Value: 75 large gold bricks
“Wow, that’s probably the shabbiest looking sword I’ve ever seen,” Tac said. “Good thing it’s got all those add-ons available.”
Keith had spotted it almost immediately. The blade itself was unremarkable, and while the effects weren’t bad, what he had right now was significantly better.
“I don’t think you need a smith for this,” Bob said, rubbing his chin as he examined the blade and then the separate items. “Just proximity should be enough.”
Keith lifted the pommel gem and placed it near the bottom of the sword’s handle. As it grew close, he felt the jewel try to pull itself from his grip, as though there was a strong magnet on the other end. Releasing the jewel, it snapped forward, slapping itself to the area where a pommel should have been.
A pulse ran through the blade, and the metal began to change color, lines of text appearing along one side of the double-edged blade, runes shining with black light.
“I get that the blade can slide into the sheath,” Keith said, holding the crown. “But where in the world would this go?”
“Try the handle, bro,” Tac said.
Keith shrugged and held the crown to the handle as Tac suggested. The crown unraveled, twisting itself around the wooden, leather-wrapped handle, shining bright as the gem settled into the cross guard. Runes spread up the opposite side of the blade as it broadened a bit and the guard widened.
Gripping the sword now, Keith could sense the change. It was palpable, and he hadn’t even looked at the sword.
“Are you going to slide it into the sheath or what?”
He hadn’t noticed when Melkin had moved, and he almost jumped when she spoke from right over his shoulder. He could sense Tac trying to hold back laughter. The Artificial Mind had known she was there and decided to keep it from him, likely because he’d thought it would be funny.
Keith grabbed the sheath and slid the blade in without so much as another word, feeling a ripple of force slide through the handle and up his arm. The sheath itself didn’t change, but when he removed the blade, it once again looked different.
The spine and edge of the blade had become almost clear, and when he tightened his grip, the black from the pommel and jewel in the cross guard seemed to bleed upward into the blade’s edge and spine. A dark aura rippled from the sword, and this time, when Keith examined it, he got something else entirely.
Sword King’s Masterblade
Quality: *M* Legendary+
Damage: 200,000 - 250,000
Requirements: Grandmaster Sword Skill
Restrictions: Sword-based Class, Monstros Locked
Effects: Wielding this sword gives you access to the Masterblade & Legendary Swordsage skills at Sage level. Masterblade: If your opponent wields a sword, you will always be better by at least 1%. Strikes with this blade ignore armor.
Legendary Swordsage: Strength & Agility are tripled
Ten times per day, use Sage’s Slash to cut an enemy, inflicting 10x this weapon’s maximum damage. This strike will land on any enemy so long as they are within your line of sight.
Additional Effects: All attacks inflict Bleed, 50% chance for damage to double on any strike, escalating up to 200% per strike, which will equal out to triple damage so long as the combination remains unbroken, 50% chance to amputate, 25% chance to destroy armor on impact
Legendary+: Wielding this weapon with both hands gives access to the following skills: Dimension Cut, Raze, & Total Silence.
Note: Total Silence may only be used up to 3 times per day.
Value: 475 large gold bricks
“Holy poop on a stick!” Bob exclaimed, his jaw dropping open and a small piece of mango falling from his fuzzy mouth.
Keith felt about the same, though he didn’t express his shock in quite the same way. An M-tagged Legendary+ weapon with the ability to use monster skills, inflict massive damage, and ignore all armor was impressive as all heck and then some. And then some on top of that!
“What is this stick and poop reference?” Melkin asked, looking confused. “I do not understand it.”
“It’s nothing,” Keith said, waving her off. “You wanted to know about the sword, correct?”
Melkin’s head cocked to the side, her overly large eyes scanning him for something, though what, he wasn’t sure of. She was strange, even by that definition of the word, but she was intelligent and pragmatic, far more so than any woman Keith had met so far.
“If you say so,” she finally said, though she didn’t move from her spot, hovering just a few inches over his shoulder. “And to answer your previous question, yes, I would like to hear more about this sword. I see some obvious differences, though its appearance doesn’t quite match up to that of the monster’s during the battle.”
Keith told her about how the blade had changed, the quality upgrade, added effects and so on, and, just as he’d expected, Melkin was fascinated, spending the next fifteen minutes grilling him for every single detail.
16
It was nearing midafternoon when Bonker finally rose from her slumber, stomping out into the main area of the tent and stretching mightily.
“That potion really worked, but wow, did it knock me on my behind,” she said, covering a yawn.
Keith and Melkin were both seated by the table, eating lunch, which was likely what had drawn her from bed in the first place, and looked up at her entrance.
“So, did I miss anything?”
“Naia spotted a pack of monsters about a mile off,” Keith said, swallowing a bite of his sandwich. “And by pack, I mean forty or more of them, nasty-looking things. Never seen anything like it. They didn’t come any closer, which worries me.”
Bonker sat cross-legged on the floor, removing a sandwich from her inventory and taking a large bite, chewing thoughtfully.
“Any ideas why?” she asked once she swallowed.
“The current theory is a storm,” Melkin replied. “I believe we are currently on the far side of the continent, which is why we did not emerge into the storm that was right on top of us when we entered the dungeon, nor can we see one from our current vantage. According to our group, the storm is still ongoing, marking it as one of the worst I’ve ever encountered. If it keeps up for just an hour longer, it will be the worst, which is troubling, considering the shift I’ve been observing since our arrival.”
Melkin had been talking about shifting weather patterns for the last few days, and while it was making him a bit nervous, the weather wasn’t exactly his top concern. As always, his biggest concern was getting to the center of the continent and destroying the monster waiting there for them. If the battles he’d had since coming to Monstros had shown him one thing, it was that he wasn’t nearly strong enough yet.
Anywhere else on the planet, and he was one of the strongest fighters around. On Monstros, he felt like he was barely managing to keep up.
“So, if there’s a potential storm brewing, why are we still hanging around here?” Bonker asked.
“We were waiting for you,” Keith said.
The orc grunted, then took another bite of her sandwich.
“I just spotted another pack of monsters, Keith,” Merry said, all but skipping into the tent, pigtails bouncing behind her. “About half a mile off. They’re moving fast, which makes me think that you’re right about the storm. The air is changing out there, but not hotter or colder.”
Keith frowned as he pushed back from the table, exiting the tent to investigate, with Melkin right on his heels. He saw what she meant almost immediately. The air was feeling heavier to breathe, as though there was more in it. Additionally, his body felt a bit more sluggish than normal.
“I feel heavier,” Melkin said, writing again, the circles on her hips lighting up as she strode outside. “Interesting how I didn’t feel these effects inside the tent.”
She tapped the pen against her lip a few times, gazing out over the landscape and looking thoughtful.
“Could it be that the increased gravity we’re feeling is somehow attached to the weather, rather than the natural magnetic fields generated by the continent itself?” she asked, looking both excited and intrigued at the same time.
“If it is weather-related, it would make sense, as the tents keep things regulated,” Keith said, looking up at the sky.
The clouds had grown lower, and his view had been halved when he looked down the mountain, a thick bank of fog covering the area. Once again, he had to wonder where the moisture was coming from, as he had yet to see any standing water nearby. He supposed it might have been coming from the ocean, though he wasn’t sure how, seeing as all the storms were directional. They either moved laterally, from the deepest part of the continent out, or circularly, around a specific part of the continent itself. No storm ever came from the ocean though, which was the only reason why he didn’t think the moisture was coming from out to sea.
Melkin was writing again, so Keith took a few more steps away from the tent, feeling the crunch of loose stone and gravel underfoot. He could feel that charged sensation running across his skin as lightning flashed in the distance, huge red forks raking across the sky, illuminating the fissures in the endless cloud cover. For a moment, Keith thought he saw something looming inside the clouds themselves – a titanic shape with a wingspan that would have made most cities envious, but when the next flash came, it was gone.
“No, bro, you are not seeing things,” Tac said. “There was definitely something in there. I have no clue what, but I wouldn’t want to meet it in a dark alley. Mainly because it wouldn’t fit, and we’d have to leave. You know, this reminds me of this one time Uncle Franky got his hand stuck in a sausage machine…”
Keith tuned out the artificial mind as he continued turning a slow circle, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Granted, this entire continent was anything but ordinary, so anything even more out of the ordinary might have been a more apt description.
He spotted a herd of some kind on a distant ridge further up the hillside on which they were camped. It was far, so he only got the barest hints of movement, small specks on the horizon that quickly vanished behind a ridge. He inhaled deeply, smelling something aside from the heavy ozone as the smallest tremor ran through the ground. It was wet, almost rotting, and sickly sweet.
Another tremor ran through the ground, and far below, through the thickening fog bank, Keith saw one of the volcanoes erupt, spewing a geyser of molten stone over a thousand feet into the air, the plume rising and rising to ludicrous heights before fountaining out in all directions. He could see the ash clouds rising even higher, thick and heavy as they floated up to join the constant cover of noxious poisons covering the surface of the continent.
The wave of heat hit him a moment later, searing and brutal to most, but barely even hot to him thanks to his resistance. The freezing air reestablished itself almost instantly, sending his breath steaming, but Keith’s frown deepened as he felt another tremor in the ground. Finally deciding that it was worth the risk, he took to the air, blasting into the sky and rocketing to over a thousand feet in mere seconds. As the ground fell away, the world began to open up.
The waves of the landscape took on a more uniform appearance, looking almost like the ripples on a sand dune, only made of solid rock. He could see thousands of floating chunks of stone, all hovering in a ring around them, almost like an asteroid field, separating different sections of the continent.
He stopped once he hit a thousand feet, the air heavy and oddly still way up there. He also discovered that the cloud cover was higher than he’d originally thought, though given the flat lightning seeping in through the clouds, that much was hardly a surprise.
Frowning, he tried to peer into the distance, further up the slope, but a wall of fog blanketed the entirety of the landscape further up, just as it was creeping in below. He turned to his left and right, surprised at how thick the field of floating stone was. It had to be miles across, running all the way up to the wall of fog in the distance and perhaps even beyond. From his altitude, he could see far more behind than ahead, thanks to the slope of the hill they were on. He could also see the curvature of the planet itself, though just barely.
He was debating flying higher to see if he could get a better vantage, when his senses flared a warning and Tac yelled in his mind. From above, a creature appeared, looking like a mix between a pterodactyl and a tiger. It was large, but not massive, its main body perhaps twenty feet across, but with a beak over fifteen feet long and a wingspan over forty feet across.
It flashed down with a screech, beak turning into a spear as it closed its mouth, beady eyes fixed on him. It fell like a missile, and Keith performed a barrel roll in the air, avoiding the monster’s dive as he ripped the hammer from his belt and tossed it. It flashed away in a blue crackle, but the monster snapped one wing open, throwing itself to the side and rolling away, regaining altitude in a blink as it flashed back up.
Keith extended his hand, the hammer flashing back to him as he climbed as well, following the monster, not wanting to give it the upper hand. He must have climbed another thousand or so feet before the monster spun in the air, its mouth cracking wide.
“Duck!” Tac yelled as a wave of visible sound blasted from its open beak, crackling yellow around the edges.
Keith released his hold on Flight and plummeted twenty feet as the spell blasted over a wide area. He rolled as the monster spun in the air, diving once more, a red light encircling the tip of its beak. As he turned in the air, cocking his arm back to throw his weapon, his eyes saw the sky suddenly yawn, and a pillar of screaming air began to descend. In the same instance, he caught something else from the corner of his eye. From the bank of fog further up the hillside, he saw a flicker of movement, though it was far, and he was much higher up than he’d been seconds earlier.
He used Magician, flashing through the monster’s dive and reorienting as he blasted away from the forming tornado using a combination of his own flight and Combustive Body. It howled as it began to spread quickly, the funnel widening at a rate of a dozen feet per second.
“Looks like the clouds here are sitting at a bit over two thousand feet,” Tac said. “That’s really low, but considering how much of it there is, it might be normal for Monstros.”
The screaming monster didn’t bother coming after him, spinning in the air and taking off, flapping for all it was worth – likely thinking the same as him about the tornado. Keith was about to turn away after confirming the monster was indeed leaving, when a looming presence appeared over him, the sky darkening even further. His eyes widened as a pair of jaws exploded from the cloud cover, mossy green scales larger than houses covering a snout so titanic he couldn’t comprehend its size.
“Just stay safe,” Selena said. “I don’t like how close that fight was.”
Neither did he, but he refrained from mentioning that aloud. He disconnected from Selena, turning to see Melkin lounging on the ground, dressed in her comfortable clothes, as she put them, having dragged several pillows from the room to sit on while she worked.
Naia was patrolling outside the tent, while Merry was posted just inside the doorway, keeping an eye on both him and the goings on outside. Bonker was currently inside Keith’s room, sleeping off the effects of the healing potion, which were apparently quite intense, while Ripper was in his own adjacent tent – the half-giant was so massive it was simply more economical that way.
Bob sat on the table in front of him, chewing on a piece of fruit and looking around nervously as though expecting an attack at any moment. To distract the monkey – and himself – Keith began pulling the reward items from his inventory. As expected, Bob’s head snapped back as soon as he laid the pommel on the table, a glittering jewel containing a speck of flickering black within.
The sheath came next. It was an ornate thing made of wood and leather, wrapped in bands of metal Keith had never seen before. Finally, came the crown, though it wasn’t the same as the crown he’d seen on the Nightmare King’s head. It was a simple band of metal with a small jewel set at the front that matched the pommel jewel.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Keith said as he pulled up the descriptions.
Name: Sword King’s Pommel
Crafting material for a sword
Quality: *M* Epic
Value: No less than 2 large gold bricks
Name: Sword King’s Sheath
Crafting material for a sword
Quality: *M* Epic
Value: No less than 2 large gold bricks
Name: Sword King’s Crown
Crafting material for a sword
Quality: *M* Epic
Value: No less than 2 large gold bricks
“It really is interesting,” Bob said, examining the three items.
All were counted as crafting material, rather than items. The quest reward had claimed they would be monster parts, but these were unlike any monster parts Keith had ever seen. They were basically identical in every way except their appearance and name. They had the same description, quality, and value given by the System. It couldn’t all be a coincidence.
“I want to see that final item,” Bob said, coming to the same conclusion almost at the same time.
Keith obliged, removing the Sword King’s Masterblade from his inventory.
It appeared like an ordinary sword. A bastard sword, made to be wielded in either one or two hands. It didn’t look like the one used by Korkerus, but one of ordinary steel. Honestly, it was one of the least impressive-looking items Keith had seen in a while, and when he examined it, it proved to be true. Well, mostly true anyway.
Sword King’s Masterblade
Quality: *M* Legendary
Damage: 20,000
Requirements: Grandmaster Sword Skill
Restrictions: Sword-based Class, Monstros Locked
Effects: 50% chance for damage to double on any strike
Additional Effects: All attacks inflict Bleed
Legendary: Can be modified using correct materials
Value: 75 large gold bricks
“Wow, that’s probably the shabbiest looking sword I’ve ever seen,” Tac said. “Good thing it’s got all those add-ons available.”
Keith had spotted it almost immediately. The blade itself was unremarkable, and while the effects weren’t bad, what he had right now was significantly better.
“I don’t think you need a smith for this,” Bob said, rubbing his chin as he examined the blade and then the separate items. “Just proximity should be enough.”
Keith lifted the pommel gem and placed it near the bottom of the sword’s handle. As it grew close, he felt the jewel try to pull itself from his grip, as though there was a strong magnet on the other end. Releasing the jewel, it snapped forward, slapping itself to the area where a pommel should have been.
A pulse ran through the blade, and the metal began to change color, lines of text appearing along one side of the double-edged blade, runes shining with black light.
“I get that the blade can slide into the sheath,” Keith said, holding the crown. “But where in the world would this go?”
“Try the handle, bro,” Tac said.
Keith shrugged and held the crown to the handle as Tac suggested. The crown unraveled, twisting itself around the wooden, leather-wrapped handle, shining bright as the gem settled into the cross guard. Runes spread up the opposite side of the blade as it broadened a bit and the guard widened.
Gripping the sword now, Keith could sense the change. It was palpable, and he hadn’t even looked at the sword.
“Are you going to slide it into the sheath or what?”
He hadn’t noticed when Melkin had moved, and he almost jumped when she spoke from right over his shoulder. He could sense Tac trying to hold back laughter. The Artificial Mind had known she was there and decided to keep it from him, likely because he’d thought it would be funny.
Keith grabbed the sheath and slid the blade in without so much as another word, feeling a ripple of force slide through the handle and up his arm. The sheath itself didn’t change, but when he removed the blade, it once again looked different.
The spine and edge of the blade had become almost clear, and when he tightened his grip, the black from the pommel and jewel in the cross guard seemed to bleed upward into the blade’s edge and spine. A dark aura rippled from the sword, and this time, when Keith examined it, he got something else entirely.
Sword King’s Masterblade
Quality: *M* Legendary+
Damage: 200,000 - 250,000
Requirements: Grandmaster Sword Skill
Restrictions: Sword-based Class, Monstros Locked
Effects: Wielding this sword gives you access to the Masterblade & Legendary Swordsage skills at Sage level. Masterblade: If your opponent wields a sword, you will always be better by at least 1%. Strikes with this blade ignore armor.
Legendary Swordsage: Strength & Agility are tripled
Ten times per day, use Sage’s Slash to cut an enemy, inflicting 10x this weapon’s maximum damage. This strike will land on any enemy so long as they are within your line of sight.
Additional Effects: All attacks inflict Bleed, 50% chance for damage to double on any strike, escalating up to 200% per strike, which will equal out to triple damage so long as the combination remains unbroken, 50% chance to amputate, 25% chance to destroy armor on impact
Legendary+: Wielding this weapon with both hands gives access to the following skills: Dimension Cut, Raze, & Total Silence.
Note: Total Silence may only be used up to 3 times per day.
Value: 475 large gold bricks
“Holy poop on a stick!” Bob exclaimed, his jaw dropping open and a small piece of mango falling from his fuzzy mouth.
Keith felt about the same, though he didn’t express his shock in quite the same way. An M-tagged Legendary+ weapon with the ability to use monster skills, inflict massive damage, and ignore all armor was impressive as all heck and then some. And then some on top of that!
“What is this stick and poop reference?” Melkin asked, looking confused. “I do not understand it.”
“It’s nothing,” Keith said, waving her off. “You wanted to know about the sword, correct?”
Melkin’s head cocked to the side, her overly large eyes scanning him for something, though what, he wasn’t sure of. She was strange, even by that definition of the word, but she was intelligent and pragmatic, far more so than any woman Keith had met so far.
“If you say so,” she finally said, though she didn’t move from her spot, hovering just a few inches over his shoulder. “And to answer your previous question, yes, I would like to hear more about this sword. I see some obvious differences, though its appearance doesn’t quite match up to that of the monster’s during the battle.”
Keith told her about how the blade had changed, the quality upgrade, added effects and so on, and, just as he’d expected, Melkin was fascinated, spending the next fifteen minutes grilling him for every single detail.
16
It was nearing midafternoon when Bonker finally rose from her slumber, stomping out into the main area of the tent and stretching mightily.
“That potion really worked, but wow, did it knock me on my behind,” she said, covering a yawn.
Keith and Melkin were both seated by the table, eating lunch, which was likely what had drawn her from bed in the first place, and looked up at her entrance.
“So, did I miss anything?”
“Naia spotted a pack of monsters about a mile off,” Keith said, swallowing a bite of his sandwich. “And by pack, I mean forty or more of them, nasty-looking things. Never seen anything like it. They didn’t come any closer, which worries me.”
Bonker sat cross-legged on the floor, removing a sandwich from her inventory and taking a large bite, chewing thoughtfully.
“Any ideas why?” she asked once she swallowed.
“The current theory is a storm,” Melkin replied. “I believe we are currently on the far side of the continent, which is why we did not emerge into the storm that was right on top of us when we entered the dungeon, nor can we see one from our current vantage. According to our group, the storm is still ongoing, marking it as one of the worst I’ve ever encountered. If it keeps up for just an hour longer, it will be the worst, which is troubling, considering the shift I’ve been observing since our arrival.”
Melkin had been talking about shifting weather patterns for the last few days, and while it was making him a bit nervous, the weather wasn’t exactly his top concern. As always, his biggest concern was getting to the center of the continent and destroying the monster waiting there for them. If the battles he’d had since coming to Monstros had shown him one thing, it was that he wasn’t nearly strong enough yet.
Anywhere else on the planet, and he was one of the strongest fighters around. On Monstros, he felt like he was barely managing to keep up.
“So, if there’s a potential storm brewing, why are we still hanging around here?” Bonker asked.
“We were waiting for you,” Keith said.
The orc grunted, then took another bite of her sandwich.
“I just spotted another pack of monsters, Keith,” Merry said, all but skipping into the tent, pigtails bouncing behind her. “About half a mile off. They’re moving fast, which makes me think that you’re right about the storm. The air is changing out there, but not hotter or colder.”
Keith frowned as he pushed back from the table, exiting the tent to investigate, with Melkin right on his heels. He saw what she meant almost immediately. The air was feeling heavier to breathe, as though there was more in it. Additionally, his body felt a bit more sluggish than normal.
“I feel heavier,” Melkin said, writing again, the circles on her hips lighting up as she strode outside. “Interesting how I didn’t feel these effects inside the tent.”
She tapped the pen against her lip a few times, gazing out over the landscape and looking thoughtful.
“Could it be that the increased gravity we’re feeling is somehow attached to the weather, rather than the natural magnetic fields generated by the continent itself?” she asked, looking both excited and intrigued at the same time.
“If it is weather-related, it would make sense, as the tents keep things regulated,” Keith said, looking up at the sky.
The clouds had grown lower, and his view had been halved when he looked down the mountain, a thick bank of fog covering the area. Once again, he had to wonder where the moisture was coming from, as he had yet to see any standing water nearby. He supposed it might have been coming from the ocean, though he wasn’t sure how, seeing as all the storms were directional. They either moved laterally, from the deepest part of the continent out, or circularly, around a specific part of the continent itself. No storm ever came from the ocean though, which was the only reason why he didn’t think the moisture was coming from out to sea.
Melkin was writing again, so Keith took a few more steps away from the tent, feeling the crunch of loose stone and gravel underfoot. He could feel that charged sensation running across his skin as lightning flashed in the distance, huge red forks raking across the sky, illuminating the fissures in the endless cloud cover. For a moment, Keith thought he saw something looming inside the clouds themselves – a titanic shape with a wingspan that would have made most cities envious, but when the next flash came, it was gone.
“No, bro, you are not seeing things,” Tac said. “There was definitely something in there. I have no clue what, but I wouldn’t want to meet it in a dark alley. Mainly because it wouldn’t fit, and we’d have to leave. You know, this reminds me of this one time Uncle Franky got his hand stuck in a sausage machine…”
Keith tuned out the artificial mind as he continued turning a slow circle, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Granted, this entire continent was anything but ordinary, so anything even more out of the ordinary might have been a more apt description.
He spotted a herd of some kind on a distant ridge further up the hillside on which they were camped. It was far, so he only got the barest hints of movement, small specks on the horizon that quickly vanished behind a ridge. He inhaled deeply, smelling something aside from the heavy ozone as the smallest tremor ran through the ground. It was wet, almost rotting, and sickly sweet.
Another tremor ran through the ground, and far below, through the thickening fog bank, Keith saw one of the volcanoes erupt, spewing a geyser of molten stone over a thousand feet into the air, the plume rising and rising to ludicrous heights before fountaining out in all directions. He could see the ash clouds rising even higher, thick and heavy as they floated up to join the constant cover of noxious poisons covering the surface of the continent.
The wave of heat hit him a moment later, searing and brutal to most, but barely even hot to him thanks to his resistance. The freezing air reestablished itself almost instantly, sending his breath steaming, but Keith’s frown deepened as he felt another tremor in the ground. Finally deciding that it was worth the risk, he took to the air, blasting into the sky and rocketing to over a thousand feet in mere seconds. As the ground fell away, the world began to open up.
The waves of the landscape took on a more uniform appearance, looking almost like the ripples on a sand dune, only made of solid rock. He could see thousands of floating chunks of stone, all hovering in a ring around them, almost like an asteroid field, separating different sections of the continent.
He stopped once he hit a thousand feet, the air heavy and oddly still way up there. He also discovered that the cloud cover was higher than he’d originally thought, though given the flat lightning seeping in through the clouds, that much was hardly a surprise.
Frowning, he tried to peer into the distance, further up the slope, but a wall of fog blanketed the entirety of the landscape further up, just as it was creeping in below. He turned to his left and right, surprised at how thick the field of floating stone was. It had to be miles across, running all the way up to the wall of fog in the distance and perhaps even beyond. From his altitude, he could see far more behind than ahead, thanks to the slope of the hill they were on. He could also see the curvature of the planet itself, though just barely.
He was debating flying higher to see if he could get a better vantage, when his senses flared a warning and Tac yelled in his mind. From above, a creature appeared, looking like a mix between a pterodactyl and a tiger. It was large, but not massive, its main body perhaps twenty feet across, but with a beak over fifteen feet long and a wingspan over forty feet across.
It flashed down with a screech, beak turning into a spear as it closed its mouth, beady eyes fixed on him. It fell like a missile, and Keith performed a barrel roll in the air, avoiding the monster’s dive as he ripped the hammer from his belt and tossed it. It flashed away in a blue crackle, but the monster snapped one wing open, throwing itself to the side and rolling away, regaining altitude in a blink as it flashed back up.
Keith extended his hand, the hammer flashing back to him as he climbed as well, following the monster, not wanting to give it the upper hand. He must have climbed another thousand or so feet before the monster spun in the air, its mouth cracking wide.
“Duck!” Tac yelled as a wave of visible sound blasted from its open beak, crackling yellow around the edges.
Keith released his hold on Flight and plummeted twenty feet as the spell blasted over a wide area. He rolled as the monster spun in the air, diving once more, a red light encircling the tip of its beak. As he turned in the air, cocking his arm back to throw his weapon, his eyes saw the sky suddenly yawn, and a pillar of screaming air began to descend. In the same instance, he caught something else from the corner of his eye. From the bank of fog further up the hillside, he saw a flicker of movement, though it was far, and he was much higher up than he’d been seconds earlier.
He used Magician, flashing through the monster’s dive and reorienting as he blasted away from the forming tornado using a combination of his own flight and Combustive Body. It howled as it began to spread quickly, the funnel widening at a rate of a dozen feet per second.
“Looks like the clouds here are sitting at a bit over two thousand feet,” Tac said. “That’s really low, but considering how much of it there is, it might be normal for Monstros.”
The screaming monster didn’t bother coming after him, spinning in the air and taking off, flapping for all it was worth – likely thinking the same as him about the tornado. Keith was about to turn away after confirming the monster was indeed leaving, when a looming presence appeared over him, the sky darkening even further. His eyes widened as a pair of jaws exploded from the cloud cover, mossy green scales larger than houses covering a snout so titanic he couldn’t comprehend its size.
