Once again, he got a mixed bag and ended up with one regular hit and one crit. The elemental was down to twenty percent health, but it started doing something new. Its eyes flared brighter, and the oversized mouth on its front began to look more like the inside of a furnace than a cavernous hole.

  Tim didn’t know if it was about to breathe fire on him or spit lava, but he didn’t want to find out. He scrambled backward as quickly as he could and fired off another Life Tap. It wasn’t a crit and thus not enough to kill the monster. That gave it enough time to cough, tremble, and then hack a giant loogie at him.

  As disgusting as that might sound, the reality was those ten pounds of molten rock flying through the air was far more terrifying than a snot rocket. The increased Flexibility that came with Tim’s path of the eagle saved him as he bent backward, twisting out of the way of the projected magma.

  He wasn’t entirely graceful as he stumbled over a sharp rock protruding out of the ground. He had been scanning the area around him and hadn’t noticed that before when backing up, but that didn’t keep him from falling on his backside. He realized he might survive molten rock to his face, but he sure didn’t want to try it. That gave him enough motivation to fire off another Life Tap.

  He didn’t even pay attention to whether or not it critted because it was enough to finish off the beast either way. The creature became porous and then crumbled to pieces. The glowing eyes faded away even as a molten core was revealed.

  Tim realized he had won this time because of good fortune. Had he picked different skills, he wouldn’t be here. He couldn’t even really claim good planning. Oh, sure, he had decided on a ranged attack, but it had been more about wanting to experiment with a cool magical skill. He had been too sure of himself, and he almost got his tail handed to him by a creature that was five levels lower than him.

  He lay there pondering how he could or should have handled the fight differently. But that line of thought was broken up by two simultaneous observations. First, there was a group of a dozen humanoids looking at him. He thought of them as humanoid, in that they followed the general shape of a human, but they clearly weren’t people.

  Their bodies were bent at all kinds of awkward angles, and he wasn’t even really sure how well they could move if they tried to stand upright, but they didn’t. Instead, they moved along the ground on two feet and one hand, rolling from knuckle to heel. The other hand held a club with a spike run through the top of it.

  The nails on the fingers were long and deeply yellowed, and the creatures’ tongues hung out of their mouths, which were full of jagged yellow teeth. Upon closer observation, the tongues were barbed on the end. Most disconcerting was the way they mumbled like patients from some old-time sanatorium.

  “Grind, chew, kill. Meat. Eat. Quint.”

  Then he heard another say with a bit more lucidity, “Quint gives meat.”

  Moaning and clear groans of desire erupted from the others.

  All of this would have been terrifying enough if it weren’t for the second observation that Tim made. That rock that had tripped him began to pulse. Seconds later, the ground around him began to shake. All he could think was, Curse me for a fool.

  CHAPTER 26

  ENEMIES OF HUMANITY

  In an instant, Tim recognized what that trembling meant. He jumped to his feet and used Master Assess on the ghoulish creatures who were headed his way.

  Myemar Scavenger Level: 5

  Social Creatures

  HP: 60

  Tim snorted when he saw those stats. He pondered spending a second more using Assess to find out if the creatures had any special abilities that he needed to know about, but as it was, they didn’t look like they would present any challenge. A part of him said it was arrogant to ignore the potential risk, especially after he saw what the igneous elemental could do.

  The rumbling in the ground worried him far more, though. He looked around, and his fears were realized. This wasn’t just one elemental rising up. No, there were at least a dozen of them clawing their way up out of the ground. It burnt him he was going to have to run so soon after arriving in the Untamed Lands, but without a new tactic, his odds of survival would be pretty slim.

  Fortunately, the rock creatures were slow-moving and still clawing their way out of the ground. That gave Tim a chance to test out these other creatures. And he almost forgot. He needed to loot the igneous elemental. Looking at its remains, he mostly saw a pile of crumbled rock. The magma core had spread out, but there was still that glowing orb that had been at its core.

  He ran at the myemar who all rose up onto their back feet, ready to attack with their spiked clubs. He was getting used to combining his legs and his feet to move faster. It didn’t hurt that the new anklets he had picked up enhanced his speed by twenty percent. He had forgotten to check the difference when he was flying, but he had been running his entire life and felt the difference immediately.

  The gap closed in three steps, propelled by his wings. Right before he struck, he extended his wings and pulled up short. The twisted creatures looked even more gruesome up front with their gray skin and bent bodies. The front three all swung at him, and not one of them managed to get close. The sudden change in his momentum caused him to be outside of their range.

  They weren’t as lucky, though. The longer reach of his sword allowed him to slash through the enemies, one after another. Given the level difference, each strike was an auto-crit, and he left three headless enemies behind him. He closed the distance then with the last three. They swung, but he either danced around them, or their blows were too weak to piece his defense. His high Hardiness combined with the defense of his harness to keep him from taking a point of damage.

  Again, not so for the myemar as, within another heartbeat, the last three lay on the ground. Sword or claw, it made no difference. Each left a fallen foe in its wake. Tim looked over and saw that there was a cluster of the creatures, perhaps thirty strong, that was gathered a few hundred feet away. They clearly didn’t want to enter the area where the elementals were.

  That reminded him. While the other igneous elementals were still not fully out of the ground, they would be shortly. His short slaughter of the six myemar had given them another couple of seconds to get free. Tim waved his hand over each of the myemar and commanded, “Loot.”

  He held little expectation for what he might get from them, but he didn’t want to waste the potential. Much to his surprise, he was notified that he now had a stack of six gold nuggets. Tim had no idea what the ratio between a coin and a nugget was, but gold had to be worth something. Maybe these creatures weren’t worthless after all. He was just glad that the auto-loot function hadn’t given him the creatures’ spiked clubs or their loincloths.

  There were only a couple of seconds now before the first of the elementals were free of the ground, so he rushed over to the remains of their fallen comrade. He waved his hand and again looted it. The glowing orb disappeared into his soul pouch. He had been a bit worried it would be too hot to loot.

  The notification told him he got an Igneous Elemental Core Grade B and a stack of red phosphate ore x 12. Tim was not a chemist, but he had heard of white phosphorus weapons in some of the more modern video games. He had a stray passing thought to wonder if this were connected to that, but he figured he would have to wait for a later day.

  Tim took to the air. He figured this would give him more time to collect his thoughts. He still didn’t want to leave the Untamed Lands, but he recognized that there were some creatures here he wasn’t prepared for. As he double-checked the loot he had obtained, he found something gruesome.

  It was odd that he hadn’t received a notification for it, but there it was in his inventory all the same.

  Human infant femur: this bone is covered in bite marks. It has likely been used as a toothpick by the myemar who was carrying it.

  Tim wished he hadn’t seen that. It was grossly morbid, and he felt compelled to pull the bone out of his soul pouch and look at it with his own eyes. Holding it now, he could imagine that this had to have belonged to a small child. The bite marks were obvious, and perhaps half the bone had been gnawed away.

  A shiver ran down Tim’s spine. He was almost numb and knew there were two ways that he could respond to this now. Apparently, Cal-Dakota realized that too because he suddenly got a flashing quest notification. It popped up forcibly in his head as though it had been slammed through a wall just to get to him. So much so that he missed a flap of his wings and had to catch himself.

  Enemies of Humanity- Investigate the Myemar. Learn if there are other victims. Free them if possible. Avenge them, if not.

  Rewards:

  1) XP +350

  2) Depending upon the results: one item of rare or higher quality.

  3) Depending upon the results: 1 minor favor token

  Now, he was truly baffled. The notification felt off for some reason. When it popped into his head, he had a stabbing headache for an instant. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared, but he would have called it a migraine if it had lasted more than a second.

  Then there was just something off about the wording of it. He couldn’t put his finger on it. There was something missing—a certain snarkiness that he had come to expect in many of the notifications he obtained. At least, the ones that weren’t simple assessments or loot drops.

  Tim didn’t know exactly what it was, just that it was off. He just wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, only that it interested him. The more he thought about it, the more he was interested in it. The myemar were flinging rocks at the igneous elementals with predictable results.

  The elementals were completely impervious to the projectiles, whereas the myemar didn’t enjoy any such resistance to the globs of magma that were spat at them. More than one of the twisted creatures went down screeching as they were burnt to death. Even as gruesome a death as that was, Tim couldn’t feel any sympathy for them. Not only because of their monstrous appearance but from the presence of a human bone and that of an infant to boot.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized that if he could wipe out a camp of these myemar creatures, he would be doing all of humanity a favor. They might not earn him much XP, but the gold nuggets for loot certainly provided an incentive.

  With that in mind, Tim watched their battle with the elementals. Most of them fled after the first exchange, but a couple called down some of the leatherwings, who seemed to be domesticated animals to the myemar. Only a few of the pterosaurians obeyed, and those that died were soon burnt to a crisp, but it bought time for the rest of the ghoulish creatures to escape.

  Tim watched as they were followed by the elementals. Once again, the hulking creatures were powerhouses, but they were not able to keep up with even the shambling motions of the myemar. The number of myemar was greater than he had originally estimated with at least a couple hundred scurrying into an eight-foot-high hole they had dug into the ground.

  He guessed it was some type of burrow and that they were likely hiding until the elementals went away. A grin crossed Tim’s face. The spirit of the predator animals was strong in him, and he dove for the entrance to their warren. In his mind, tightly packed together prey only made it easier for him to kill them in great numbers.

  The enemy screeched at him as he entered their tunnel. It didn’t make him comfortable walking into a tight space that was barely taller than he was, but the predator mind was on him. Besides, he had a quest to investigate these things, and they literally crapped out gold when he killed them. What could go wrong?

  The first couple that tried to attack him met swift ends. Each fell to a single sword slice. Tim reminded himself that they might not always fall that easily, but he wanted to make the most of it. Once free of the tunnel, the space expanded rapidly. He was quickly within a fifty-foot-wide room that had six tunnels leading off it.

  Only a dozen myemar were left inside the space. The others must have fled into one of the tunnels. What caught Tim’s eyes more than anything were the three emaciated humans that were clothed in little more than rags and tied to wooden stakes in the center of the room. Tim didn’t know what the reasoning was for keeping them like this, but he intended to free them.

  He got another notification but didn’t pay any attention to it. Instead, he flew across the room on a few rapid strokes of his wings and cleaved the head of the first myemar he encountered. He wanted to get them all before they could flee, and he was able to hit all but one with a claw or blade. The last he had to spend mana to take down with a Life Tap.

  Tim then moved to the humans who cringed back from him. As he got closer, he saw they were two women and a man. Actually, barely more than children. He put their age at between fifteen and seventeen. The dirt and malnutrition that they suffered from made it very difficult to judge for sure.

  All three of them pulled back from him as he got closer, and Tim didn’t know what to do.

  He tried speaking to them in the most comforting tone he could manage. “I’m here to help you.”

  It didn’t seem to help. He saw what might be a flicker of recognition in their eyes, but it was buried under a mountain of fear. It was almost like they wanted to believe what he was saying but had already given up all hope and so couldn’t muster any now.

  Rather than keep trying to soothe them, Tim moved swiftly to cut their bonds. Even then none of them moved far from the stakes they had been tied to, but at least he got a new notification.

  Enemies of Humanity II- upgraded quest

  The problem appeared to be bigger than you originally expected. You may complete level one of the quest and receive appropriate rewards for freeing these three or you can continue to investigate the Myemar. Learn if there are other victims. Free them if possible. Avenge them, if not.

  Upgraded Rewards:

  1) XP +450

  2) Depending upon the results: one item of rare or higher quality.

  3) Depending upon the results: 1 minor favor token

  4) Depending upon the results: Title and Faction Boost.

  For one brief moment, Tim thought about how easy it would be to decline part two of the quest and just gain an easy three hundred and fifty XP. It was tempting, if only because it would be the first XP he had gained since being in this world. What good was a game world if he couldn’t gain XP after all?

  He could have even justified it to save the three wretches he had just freed—there was little chance that the three of them would do well out on their own—but he decided that there must be more to the story. The three seemed content to stay by their stakes, even without being bound. So, for now, he would go in and explore a bit more.

  CHAPTER 27

  INTO THE WARREN

  After taking one more look at teens groveling next to the stakes they had been tied to, Tim went over to explore the six tunnels. Each of them seemed to have an equal traffic pattern. Muddy edges showed where many of the myemar had climbed into each of the tunnels. There were no signs of anything being pulled along the ground, so nothing distinguished one tunnel from the next.

  Tim mumbled to himself, “Great, so I have to count on luck.” Then, after double-checking each of the tunnels, he added, “Any humans left are so screwed.”

  Given how unlucky he felt lately, Tim decided there was no good way to pick which tunnel, so he just started with the one on the far left. A quick jump got him up into the tunnel. He was grateful that he could stand upright without having to bend over, but he had to keep his wings tucked tightly against his back.

  He didn’t have the dark vision skill, but his enhanced vision now was definitely better than it would have been back on Earth. For now, he could see clearly, but he wondered how long that would last if the light got dimmer inside. He also made a point of focusing on his sense of smell.

  No sooner had he done so than he regretted it. The fetid smell made him gag. It was a combination of sweat, offal, and human waste. These creatures had little idea about sanitation. Tim vomited a bit in his mouth from the smell but kept going.

  As he walked, he thought through the situation. He didn’t want to go back. The quest had some suitable rewards, and nothing he had seen from these creatures was any threat to him. A part of him was screaming that it was sheer idiocy to go into a dungeon alone.

  He weighed his options and decided to go forward. It would be stupid of him not to take this opportunity, and there was one other factor. This wasn’t a game. If there were actually people inside being kept prisoners by these monsters, then he wanted to do something about it.

  He hadn’t made it very far before he found his first enemy. Two myemar were crouched in the tunnel eating something. At least it didn’t look like a person, so Tim breathed a sigh of relief. Then he stepped forward quickly, thrusting out his sword. The tunnel provided enough room to walk, but swinging a sword would still be limited. Fortunately, the pointy end worked just as well as the edge for these creatures.

  A couple of thrusts interrupted by some brief screeching marked the end of these two. If the enemy hadn’t known which tunnel he was in, they did now. So, he looted his two gold nuggets and then sped up.

  So far, the tunnel didn’t branch off at all. Tim kept glancing back, but he never saw anything behind him, so it seemed all the enemies were up ahead. After a few more minutes, he reached what looked like the end of the tunnel. It opened into a large, cavernous area. It was maybe a hundred feet across and had a series of honeycombed caves going up four stories.

  All over the place, he saw myemar. Most appeared to be sleeping, but some were eating, some were squabbling in non-lethal fights, a couple were rutting, and a few were on the main floor around three more stakes with humans tied to them. Those myemar were busy tormenting the humans, poking them with sticks, pinching at them, and otherwise being awful.