We approached the tunnel, which was occupied by 3 massive serpentine gargs that dashed in front of us at its entrance, each likely around 5 feet long.
“When they strike, I’ll block with my sword and you cut their heads off, Mathew!”
“I can try…” He said nervously, these snakes had already shown themselves to be extraordinarily fast when they came out of hiding to face us, so it may be hard for him to land a clean slash.
I expect one snake to try and get me at a time, but all three shoot off at the same time like cannons. I hold my sword sideways to receive their blow, and they prove to be exceptionally strong, causing me to stagger back at the impact.
Mathew came in to try and retaliate as well, but failed to even hit the nimble serpents. It seemed their recoiling off my sword didn’t give him enough time to slash them before they recovered.
I blocked several more blows from the snakes, each strike heavier than the last. Mathew is simply standing behind me, watching. Did he expect me to do this myself? He better not say something like “I trusted you to defeat the snakes, trust is important on a team.” I wouldn’t be so flattered this time.
“Enjoying the show, Mathew?” I shouted frustratedly at him.
“Shut up.” His tone wasn’t that of annoyance, or of embarrassment, but total focus, it was a serious and commanding tone, forcing me to do exactly as he said.
Well, I’d take Mathew’s advice, and trust that he has something in mind for now.
It’s getting harder and harder to receive the 3 snake’s attacks. I find myself barely reacting to where they intend to strike, even almost dropping my sword after some attacks.
I was getting frustrated at Mathew’s lack of help, but his face was still that of total determination. A face so sure of himself, that it alone gave me power to continue holding out.
Whatever plan this guy was making, it better be a great one.
The sound of the serpent's teeth on my Slissite blade rang out over and over in the cave when finally, a blow got through to me, I blocked two of the snakes, but one snake managed to quickly launch under my blade and latch onto my leg, and as soon as it did so, Mathew’s blade sent the snake to its final resting place.
“Finally you join in!” I shouted.
He said nothing, all his focus on the battle.
The snakes took a moment to regroup after their comrade fell. One of the serpents hastily jumped in without the other, but before it even reached my sword, Mathew intercepted its path, taking off the snake's head. The continued momentum caused the lone head of the snake to lamely flop into my sword.
“Finally figure it out, didn’t you Mathew!” I excitedly shouted at him.
He gave me a proud smile, still not exactly a response, but all I could likely get from Mathew.
The last snake realized it had no chance 2 on 1, and began to flee deeper into the tunnel. I chase after it, and stomp on its tail to stop its retreat. In a panic, the snake flails about, and turns itself around to come strike at me, but I swung my sword overhead as it thrashed, cleanly slicing off the snake’s head.
“Safe to say we can claim this tunnel as our territory now huh?” I said with a satisfied expression.
“Indeed, good work enduring all those attacks.”
“Yeah what was with that? You almost let those snakes get to me.” I gave Mathew a grumpy expression. Sure, we won, but at my expense.
“I was studying them, their habits they had before attacking, how they attacked, where they attacked, when they attacked, so I could intercept them where they would be, not where they were.”
“You were able to pick up on all that?” I couldn’t even tell when the snakes were going to attack until they were jumping at me, I couldn’t believe Mathew could tell all that from just some observation.
“You don’t always win a fight, even if you’re stronger, and you don’t always lose a fight, even if you’re weaker, that’s something Night made sure I never forgot.”
“If you win doesn’t that mean you’re stronger though?” That line of thinking made no sense at all to me, if you lose, you’re weaker, if you win, you’re stronger, that’s just how it is.
“What I’m saying, o’ great lord of ignorance, is that strength alone doesn’t determine a battle, tactics, strategy, luck, planning, and quick thinking all play a role in victory, I simply created a plan to counter that of the snakes, which let us win, despite being weaker in a straight out brawl.”
Maybe that’s what happened with the wolves out on my first dive, sure I was stronger than them, so much so that a single absent minded strike from me would spell the end for them, but without a plan, or thinking through what I did much, I basically lost the fight.
I’d say that level of understanding is enough to consider myself no longer ignorant, I smile to myself.
Still, this whole tactics thing didn’t click too well with me. I slice the enemy till they die, that’s my job, and that’s all I’ll do for now. Maybe one day, if I need to, I’ll figure something else out.
We went a little further down in the tunnel and discovered it quickly branched off into smaller versions of the first room we found.
We cleared out any immediate threats and decided to set up a small base here in this passage. We'd bring back any remains to this spot once we had too much to carry, deposit it here, and go back into the cave to farm more. This was turning out to be a long trip, but we had prepared plenty of food, and it's not like we couldn’t go back outside and hunt if we had to since we know the layout better now.
“If we can find some traces of Slissite around here, we could sell that information for a lot of money to some mining company…” Mathew thinks out loud.
“Really? I never even thought of selling anything other than the garg remains.”
“There’s much more to be earned on a dive than just simple garg materials my ignorant friend.”
He’s really driving that ignorant thing home isn’t he. He’d be dead without me, he should be a little more grateful, but then again, I’d probably be dead without him down here too, so I’ll let him get away with it.
“Information sells just as well as garg parts, finding rare stones in caves like these isn’t terribly uncommon either, sometimes you can even find half corrupted monsters to sell.”
Wait a minute, half corrupted?
“It’s possible for something to be half corrupted?” This was totally new to me, as I always had the line of thought that it was all one way or another.
“Sure it is, corruption is just a parasite that influences the animals brain, the amount of influence it has can vary from none at all, like on us right now, to some control, like on a half corrupted animal, or total control, like everything down here.”
“So why do people want a half corrupted beast?”
“They’re just more docile versions of the gargs, of course, they’re more aggressive than their totally pure counterparts, but not kill on sight aggressive. They’re popular in the military and home defense for the rich.”
Seeing as I hadn’t even heard of something like that before, it’d have to be pretty rare for the corruption level and magic level of a beast to balance perfectly enough to create a half and half garg, which would also explain why he specified that only the rich bought them.
“Then can humans get corrupted too?” If monsters could, even Fire Dragons, then I saw no reason why we wouldn’t succumb to a strong enough corruption either.
“Maybe, but I don’t think corruption has ever been concentrated or strong enough to do that, no being’s magic can come close to rivaling that of a humans.”
It’d only make sense, in the end, we humans are nothing more than really smart animals, and corruption affected any living thing, the moss, the trees, the grass, anything, so why would it stop at humans? I decided it was likely a matter of no corruption being strong enough to accomplish such a feat.
Thinking about what may happen if a human was corrupted was scary. Would it maintain enough sentience to blend into society and take us down from the inside? Would it become an absurdly strong warlord and topple nations that would otherwise be peaceful? Of course, the possibility stood that it’d just be a slightly stronger than before crazy person. That was what I hoped would happen at least.
We rested in our little safe haven a little longer, while I thought about how recently I’ve been bombarded with new information that is scary to think I didn’t know before and still intended to be a Diver, like the rankings of corruption, and how profitable simple information could be.
I had much to learn still, but Mathew seemed very knowledgeable, and sociable to an extent. I was really grateful for his help, which is part of why I wanted to help contribute to new gear once we got out of here.
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