Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

Thomas read over the description of the Claymore Mine and nodded to himself. It was more powerful than he expected it to be. The shrapnel and explosion would deal damage equivalent to a Power of 350 within five meters. That range would basically cover the entire width of most of the cave tunnels that he'd seen. The mines also had a nice maximum range of twelve meters, though he expected that anyone beyond seven or maybe eight meters would barely be harmed by the mine unless they went for something like an Agility build. He estimated, based on nothing, that the pirates would have an Endurance of at least 250. After all, he did.

At the very least he doubted anyone that wasn't dedicated to the role of a tank wouldn't have more than 350 Endurance to take on the explosion. Not counting armor of course. His hope was that even if it didn't kill it could wound his pursuers and slow them down for his escape. He only needed to find Snowlily and a hole to fly out of. With enough distractions and damage, he could cripple the pursuit. It's not like the pirates were elite players from a mega guild that participated in massive raids. They didn't seem all that coordinated to him. It could be a trick to make him lower his guard, but he doubted it and wouldn't lower his guard anyway.

He set the mine down and picked up one of the regular steel ingots. He needed to make some wire to use as the tripwire for the mines he planned to make. He considered using string or thread for a brief moment but they would be too visible. With steel wire, he could make it significantly thinner while still having a high tensile strength. Lucky for him the extruder was a thing of the past. A quarter of the ingot was reshaped and broken off to be used to make the wire. Just that small amount of material should make plenty and he could always make more if necessary.

He curled the index finger of his left hand until it met his thumb and made a circle. Within the circle, mana gathered as he activated his Transmutation. With his right hand, he pushed the lump of steel into the circle of his fingers. On one side of his curled fingers was a lump of metal, on the other a thin steel wire suddenly shot out. He was using his own hand as an extruder. The difference in size between the lump of steel and the wire being produced caused the wire to grow rapidly and fly through the air for a long distance before it fell under its own weight and began to naturally coil on the ground. Thomas just smiled as the steel turned into dozens of meters of thin wire. Within a minute the entire quarter of the ingot became a nice pile of wire. He collected a couple of meters and snipped it off of the rest.

Now, he just needed to test the claymore on some Trolls to see it in action. He refused to use untested weapons, unlike the pirates. Just yanking out the pin wouldn't do though. He looked around the room and didn't see any signs of the Trolls respawning, so he made his way to the hallway that led him into this room and went down it to the previous room. From the entrance, he saw two Trolls standing around looking listless. He'd been hoping for just a single Troll as it would have been easier to deal with. He stayed where he was as he tried to come up with a plan. Setting up the mine would take a moment and the Trolls would charge at him the instant he set foot in the room.

The Trolls were pretty stupid. All brawn and no brains as the saying goes. So, step one was to distract them. He lifted his hand and pointed it like a gun at the wall furthest away from him. His mana gathered and a small stone began to form and hover in front of his fingertip. His go-to was metal usually but, in this case, he wanted to throw a stone so it had the right sound to it. He took careful aim and fired the stone across the room. It didn't have a huge amount of force to it so when it hit the wall it bounced off and clattered along the ground making extra noise. The two Trolls immediately turned and moved toward the sound.

When the Trolls got close to the stone it began to vanish as the mana within it ran out. At the same time, Thomas crouched low to the ground and moved as quietly as he could into the room, just a few meters. As the stone vanished the Trolls began to actually grunt and gargle some strange syllables to each other while gesticulating madly as the disappearing stone.