“Want to try and take it down with your training sword?” Samson asks.
I gasp.
No way.
Personal combat lessons from the retired, broody love of my life?
Maybe I am actually blessed. Just…probably not in acan fix the elevator with a shiny rocksort of way.
Too eager, I barely keep my balance as I pull my sword out of my backpack.
Samson’s concern could not be more violent—except perhaps when I barge forward, sword brandished above my head.
“You’re wide open!” he yells, but it’s too late because I have already bopped the slime thrice.
It gives up the will to live and plops into an inanimate pile at my feet.
I look back at Samson, sheepish. “Slimes on the first ten mine layers have ten HP. Pyro’s training sword deals three base, and I critted with my first blow, dealing five.”
Tense, Samson utters, “I…have no idea what you just—”
“Bug.” I pick up on the fluttering sound of dry wings and charge past Samson to knock a nayfly to the ground. Where I stab it dead.
Samson stares at me.
I nudge the large lifeless body with my boot toe and hum. It does not appear to have dropped anything lootable, unless I scoop the guts into my bag, and I will not be doing that.
Another flutter alerts me, building just like a sound effect in the game. I have trained for this, so I twist, knock another nayfly to the ground, and smile. “This is fun.”
“F-fun?” Samson stammers.
“Ooh, shiny!” I plow toward a stone mimic, pulling my pick out of my bag with my free hand as I go.
Samson jolts, swiping air when he tries to catch me. “Citrus! That’s not—”
I dodge the mimic’s initial attack—spitting a spike in the direction of the player once the player is close enough to trigger its defense—catch its mouth with my pick, and plunge my sword in. The thing collapses into lifeless stones around my blade, freeing its gem lure in a hunk atop the pile.
Swiping the quartz, I whip toward Samson. “Monster loot! My first monster loot!”
He blinks at me.
I gasp, pointing behind him. “Bug—”
He thrusts his sword back, piercing the bug through without even looking at it.
Wow.
Okay.
Hot.
I shiver, consumed by the feminine urge to jump him. It is a remarkably difficult urge to subdue.
Through sheer force of will, I refrain long enough to find a vein of raw iron ore, which is wild because these mine levels are supposed to be exclusively copper layers.
If reality doesn’t perfectly abide by level loot tier rules, I am not complaining. I am especially not complaining when—after eviscerating a dozen coal sprites on the third level down—I locate a massive seam of coal. A couple pick taps break off manageable chunks that I can load into my bag no problem.
Samson is quiet the entire time I’m working away on getting a good supply, since it’s here. Game coal is a drop from stones that obviously bear the loot, but real coal occurs in layers called seams that can be up to fifteen feet thick. I’m not exactly aprofessional at excavation, but I’d say I’m working on liberating a resource that’s at least ten feet dense.
