The Earth Online

9 First Raid

They took one of the black jeeps and drove straight to Mount Nergal—bringing with them a box full of lightweight, heavy-damage weapons. Kedrick drove the vehicle with expertise and decided to hum to the song being played on the radio.

“It’s fascinating how media companies can still broadcast music while this apocalypse is happening,” Haya commented while fixing his disheveled hair. Thaleos agreed and knew that this was one way for people to cope with these apocalyptic events.

After half an hour, they finally arrived at the foot of Mount Nergal. Thaleos took out his map and looked for the exact coordinates of Cave Gibil.

Thaleos calculated that they still had about 10 hours before the official competition started, they wanted to get a head start and level up as much as possible.

Spotting that it was located in the southeastern part of Mount Nergal, their crew decided to set off after strapping in all their needed weapons.

Haya decked himself with a sword and a couple of Scottish Dirk daggers. Kedrick brought a sword and a battle axe. Thaleos decided to bring a crossbow, steel arrows, a black katana, and multiple Jambiyas daggers. All of them sheathed in their weapons and proceeded to hike up the terrain.

"I'm starting to think that there's a theme going on here, and it involves a lot of hiking." Kedrick huffed out as he wiped the sweat on his forehead using the back of his hand.

"I think that as long as we level up and build up our stamina, hiking would be a breeze. But right now, damn, what I would give just to sleep and forget about the Godly Gambles." Haya responded as he hiked up the rocky trail using a branch as a substitute for a cane.

"Damn, I'm just ready to sink my teeth in some good old medium-rare steak." Thaleos salivated at the mere thought of his favorite restaurant's lamb steak.

The group of men continued the rest of their journey while dreaming about a feast filled with meat and alcohol.

It took them another hour before they finally reached their destination.

Checking out the cave, they saw the steady trickling of river water straight into the cave. Since everything was drenched in darkness, they took out their night-vision glasses. Kedrick made sure to get top tier night-vision goggles that had advanced features like thermal scanning.

Thaleos observed the entrance of the large cave and it looked like the outside was safe. There weren't any signs of the fire sprite ashes or remnants that James described in his journal.

"Isn't it ironic how there are fire sprites inside a river cave?" Haya asked the rhetorical question just as they were about to step on the water.

"I know, what if they're water benders or some s**t?" Kedrick asked as he felt his feet submerging on the shallow part of the river.

"That doesn't make sense, that's basically against the rules of nature." The islander jutted his chin out and squinted his eyes as a response to Kedrick's absurd claim.

"Rules of nature, my ass. Then tell me why did the electricity suddenly stop? Didn't they say that electricity is neither created nor destroyed, now where did it go? See! This whole game is against the rules of nature." Kedrick retorted.

"Alright, time to get serious, guys. We need to make sure that stealth is always on our side." The three of them started crouching once they went inside the cave.

Thaleos felt the cool breeze fanning his face. He heard the river's rushing waters and whispers of the wind.

Once they got inside, there was a pathway just ahead at the end of the river mouth. Thaleos immediately felt his gut feeling telling him that the fire sprites were at the end of that pathway.

He steadily strode towards its direction, and Haya and Kedrick just followed him quietly.

Just as they were about to reach the entrance of the pathway, all of a sudden, two white rats — almost the same size as a raccoon — emerged from the shadows.

The giant critters hissed at them and quickly attacked them. While the other two men got out their swords to s***h the two rats, the two agile rats managed to dodge most of the sword fighters’ attacks.

Thaleos moved backward a couple of meters away. He took out his bow and proceeded to consecutively draw arrows—all of their tips were drenched in death bell extracts— and hit his targets’ right legs. Each beast had a mana gem center in their body, this is where most of the blue mist is stored, and if you hit it, you can easily kill the living creature.

Before the raccoon-sized white rats could even alert the fire sprites with their squeaking, they were silenced with some slashes and arrows.

“Close call.” Haya whispered under his breath, they made sure to attack as quickly and quietly as possible.

Thaleos approached the two white critters and further slashed their mana centers. They looted other things they could find on the rat as well, like their eyes for alchemy, and gems that they hid.

After getting everything, they continued to quietly march through the windy and narrow passageway.

Once they spotted an orange light casting a warm glow at the end of the passageway, they started hearing crackling and sputtering noises.

Their hearts started beating quickly as the nervousness was getting to them. Since Thaleos temporarily took up the long-range role in the group, he instructed the other two to slowly move forward.

After spotting the three sprites inside the deeper part of the cave, they seemed to just be floating around a large treasure box.

They weren’t talking or interacting, they were just blindly moving according to a certain pattern. The fire sprites took the three men’s breaths away because of their otherworldly look. Their androgynous bodies looked like compressed lava and ashes into a physical form. They only had dark hollow eyes and horn-like ears.

Thaleos slowly crouched and quietly drew up his arrow. Before one of the fire sprites even paused its patterned movement, a poison-drenched arrow was already heading its way. As soon as the arrow hit its abdomen, it started shrieking around which alerted the other two sprites.

Haya and Kedrick immediately charged as the fire sprites were blasting fireballs toward their direction. Thaleos just kept hitting them with arrows until he finished up all of his steel arrows.

He took out one of his Jambiyas daggers and lithely ran towards one of the sprite’s back. As Thaleos slashed its neck, Kedrick stabbed it with his jagged sword. The fire sprite eventually stopped moving around, and the two young men immediately ran to Haya’s aid.

They finished off the last sprite by decapitating it and throwing its head in the water. As soon as one of its horns touched the surface of the water, it immediately turned into ashes.

They weren’t as lucky like the time they killed the wolf-eagle since they had multiple first-degree burns here and there. Their black stealth suits were made to be fire-proof, but not fire sprite-proof. 

After catching their breaths for the next minute or two, they looted the mana gems and fire ashes that the fire sprite had.

They opened up the treasure box and were glad to find more mana gems and some newly discovered items like potions of health and stamina. The last item in the treasure box was a golden compass.

Upon touching its ridges, a small blue pop out appeared, and it showed the name of the compass and its description.

The Compass of Lugal-Irra

This compass shows you the direction of where nearby quests lie. To find nearby treasure dens, you must get the chain of the compass named Meslamta-ea’s Aurum Moor.

They kept the compass for now, and they consumed all of the potions and some of the mana gems.

“Wow, that was easier than I thought.” Kedrick said as he was testing out his carrying capacity. Because of the added stamina from the potion, he felt like the battle axe and sword were a couple of pounds lighter.

Haya nodded his head as he noted every single detail about their first-ever cave crawl.

“Not really, the only reason why they didn’t attack us, the moment we reached the passageway, is because they weren’t programmed to initiate attacks before the official start of the game.” Thaleos revealed as they started walking out of the cave.

“Wait, does this mean once the competition officially starts, our stealth skills would be rendered useless?” Haya probed.

“Not really render useless, but it’d be easier for them to spot us now because our stealth skills aren’t at their level yet. We also need to develop all those skills including alchemy, smiting, and enchanting.” Thaleos gruffly explained. Both Haya and Kedrick just mentally shrugged at Thaleos’ answer, since they were skeptical at how easy killing the fire sprites was to begin with.

The bewhiskered man took out their fire burn ointments and bandages. The potion of health helped heal their burns a little bit, but they still had a couple of them on their skin. After taking a bit of ointment and his own roll of bandages, he passed the remaining supplies to the other two.

“I think it’s safer to just hunt the rats instead of the fire sprites. I think that—”

Once they got out of the cave, Haya was cut off from finishing his suggestion, as they heard squeaking and crackling noises.

“Oh shit.” Kedrick groaned.