DMS Chapter 31
DMS Chapter 31
When he cast his Teleport spell, he was happy to note that Flinx arrived at the place where he had fought with the cockatrice monsters. Thankfully, there were no other monsters in the vicinity that jumped scared him, probably because the aura of the cockatrice was still there.
Flinx summoned his owl familiar he named Pip, in honor of Alan Dean Foster’s books, where his name came from. He then commanded his owl to fly ahead to scout. He then cast the Mage Armor spell, the Fly spell, and the Crown of Stars and started flying after the owl.
The first monsters that the owl had seen were forest trolls again, but this time, there were four of them, and they were larger and looked more ferocious than the previous three trolls that he had killed. Flinx didn’t waste any time. He summoned another Crown of stars, so 14 motes of light started swirling on top of his head. When he got near enough to the forest trolls that the forest monsters noticed him, he cast three Web spells, one after the other, to immobilize the monsters. The sticky webs were successful in preventing the trolls from moving around.
Flinx then cast the 14 motes of light from two castings of the level seven spells, followed by several Magic Missile spells towards the four trolls. Since his spells had little homing capabilities, he made sure to target the heads and the other vital parts of the trolls. The trolls died soon after, without the monster even knowing who truly attacked them. After the demise of the forest trolls, Flinx flew down. He felt powerful and was truly proud of that.
The swirling motes of light that flew from his head towards the monster and the powerful glowing bolts that came from his hand to rain down on the trolls made Flinx’s blood boil. He felt the exhilaration of knowing that he now had power. Actual power that he could use to fight his enemies. He made a vow that he would do everything he could to not be enslaved again.
He made sure that the trolls were dead, and after that, drained their blood again to sell to the guild. Then he searched for the mana stones in the monster’s corpses using the telekinesis spell. He found a couple of medium mana stones. He then stored everything in his inventory and briefly wondered if he should store the corpses of the trolls. Maybe he could sell them to the guild, but the guild book indicated that the only valuable thing from trolls’ corpses was their blood.
Flinx decided to leave the corpses be and allow the forest scavengers to feast on the remains. He cast Fly again and started flying after his owl. He felt a little pity that the distance between the monsters was great. He had to travel for at least an hour before he could meet a new set of monsters. When he thought about it, it was logical that there would be distance between monsters since if the monsters met, they would probably fight each other.
One advantage of dungeons over field monsters was the monster concentration. There were a lot more monsters in the dungeon compared to the above ground. The field monsters behave logically, with each race of monster carving a territory and not allowing other monsters near them. Even the solitary monsters expect that they wouldn’t be bothered by neighbors and would also attack creatures near them.
Flinx knew that he would have to enter dungeons to increase the rate of experience that he could earn, but at that moment, he was still extremely averse to diving deep into the dungeon. He had spent more than two years below the ground, and that broke his mind. The dungeon miner slave identity was still firmly lodged in his ego, and it would probably take a very long time before he would be free of that identity, if he even could free himself from that.
He knew that the other Earthling slaves were the same as him, and he truly wanted to save them, but if he totally broke down before he could achieve that goal, then it would be all for nothing. So they would all just have to wait until he was powerful enough to save them. Unfortunately for them, it would take time.
After about an hour of moving deep into the forest, Flinx’s familiar encountered an Orc Village. Flinx stopped in a fairly large tree branch and observed the Orc Village through his familiar eyes, which had perched itself in a nearby tree, looking at the orcs. Based on his observation, the Orcs were probably not monsters but some sort of local citizens. The village was surrounded by sturdy walls, and there were orc guards in every corner, especially the one opening, which was probably the main entrance. There were orc women and children inside the village, and their behavior was just like humans in a village. They talk to each other and were doing some mundane tasks like laundry, cooking, preparing the skins of the animals that the orcs hunted, and a lot more jobs, just like what humans would do in a typical village.
A few more minutes of observation, and Flinx came to a definite conclusion that the orcs were not monsters, so he decided to bypass the village so as not to alarm them. The fact that the Orcs were able to survive deep inside this forest meant that they were powerful. This forest was teeming with powerful monsters, and only the powerful could make their living there.
Flinx would have liked to go to their village and communicate with the Orcs, and maybe he could learn something that could help him in his quests to kill a lot of powerful monsters to boost his experience, but he didn’t want to cause any issues, so he commanded his owl to bypass the village, and Anton followed his familiar silently. He even dispelled the Crown of Stars so as not to attract the attention of the Orcs.
Once he felt that he was far enough away, he cast his Crown of Star again and continued following his familiar, who had already scouted the way before him.
After about an hour, his owl informed him of sweet-smelling berries just ahead, and when he used his familiar’s eyes, he saw that the berry plant only had three huge berries in them. Flinx knew then that the berries were treasures, and plant treasures were usually guarded by powerful monsters.
Flinx commanded his owl to go near the bush to lure out any guardians guarding it, and soon, a huge python came out of nowhere and hissed at his owl. The python was huge, and through the eyes of his familiar, he saw that the venom was dripping from the python’s fangs.
Normally, pythons were not venomous, but since this was a world of magic that he didn’t even know the name of, he shouldn’t form any conclusion about the monsters that he had seen based on what he knew from Earth, since that might lead him to form theories that might endanger his life.
Flinx wanted to harvest the berries since he was curious enough to check if the plant would provide benefits to him.