Mantle of the Gods

Spears were not the weapon we should have used.

After about an hour of outfitting ourselves with sticks and rocks, we began actively looking for monsters. Once we moved away from the dungeon entrance we started seeing some signs of movement.

“What's that?” Aelin asked a little too loud.

It almost looked like a knee-high skeleton but one that was made of wood. I looked at the spear in my hand. A thrown or stabbing weapon wasn't going to do much damage to something that was skeletal in nature. I looked back at our teacher who was hanging uncomfortably far from us. I decided he wasn't going to be any help.

I turned back, “It looks like a little stick skeleton.”

The monster had noticed Aelin's loud question. It made a grating noise and began running at us.

“Okay.” I pointed my spear at the monster. “Ether, try to block it. If you can hold it still that's even better. Edward take your stick and see how much damage you can do by clubbing it once Ether has it. Rix,” I looked at our Shooter, who glared at me, “do what you do.” That seemed like it would be the safest order I could give. I knew Justia wasn't going to leave my side and Aelin didn't have any offensive capabilities even though she was holding a stick. “Aelin and Justia, I want the two of you to be on the lookout for any extras.”

The bony stick thing jumped through the air before I could receive an acknowledgment from them. Ether stepped in front of it using the stick in her hand to help her keep it back. While she tried to push it off the stick, it dropped to the ground and tried to go between her legs. She dropped down to her knees and grabbed the things arms. It began trying to slash at her.

“It's got thorns!” she screamed as she held on to it, “Somebody kill this thing!”

Edward pivoted around her and slammed his club into it, knocking off the piece of wood that should have been the head. But it wasn’t a normal monster and the lack of a head-thing didn’t stop its thrashing.

He backed up as if he had won, but I knew that wasn't the case. I thought back to all of the bovines that I had watched Adventures kill for the last four years. When a monster was defeated it exploded into a small cloud of dust which settled into a small crystal. The tree thing was still trying to get to Aelin and the thorns were still digging into Ether's hands, which meant it wasn't dead.

“We need to find its heart!” I shouted. Usually, the monsters all had some kind of crystal heart that you could break. Though if it was a crystal, I wasn't too sure about our chances of breaking it with the crude weapons that we had. I began looking around for another weapon when Rix stepped forward, stabbing her spear through the stick skeleton's body and lodging the end of the spear firmly into the ground. She grabbed the one out of my hands spun around and stabbed it in a perpendicular angle to the first spear.

“There.” She said, “It's not moving. Ether, let go of the monster.”

Ether cautiously let go and began slowly backing up, ready to grab on again if it wasn’t pinned. The monster struggled but it couldn't free itself from the spears that had pinned it to the ground.

“Somebody find something that we can use to start breaking this thing apart.” I pointed at the monster. “We either need to do enough damage to kill it or we need to break its crystal.”

The others looked at me but Aelin brought back two rocks that were the size of her fists and offered them to me. “Will these work?”

“Yes.” I took the rocks and started to slam them into the monster but stopped, my strength stat was ten which was the same as Edwards. That meant we would do the same amount of damage, but I wasn't supposed to be letting on that I had such monstrous stats so instead of breaking apart the monster by myself I offered the two rocks to our Hitter. “Use these and smash it as much as you can.”

Edward took the rocks with a questioning look on his face but started slamming them into the thorny stick skeleton. It took him a few minutes but he finally revealed the small Crystal within its pelvis.

When he knocked enough bark away to reveal that I yelled, “Stop!” I pointed at the crystal, “That's what you need to break.”

He raised up a rock to hit it again.

“Don't do that.” I said, “Put one rock underneath it and slam the other rock into it. you're not going to break it just hitting it into the ground.”

Edward scowled, but did as he was told. As soon as he slammed the two rocks together the crystal broke and the tree skeleton vanished into a cloud of dust. When the dust settled there was a tiny crystal the size of a bead lying on the ground.

I bent down and picked it up and showed it to the rest of the team, “These are what we're trying to collect.” I turned and looked at our teacher, “Right?”

Trent smiled and nodded.

I put the crystal in my pocket.

“Why are you keeping it?” Ether demanded

“Because.” I had tried to keep my voice calm as I picked up the spear that Rix had taken from me, “We're going to have to do a bunch of these and right now I am the one who can afford to be encumbered the most.” I looked at each of them. Before they had a chance to respond I continued.

“Ether has to hold them, Rix has to pin them, and Edward has to smash them.” I turned to the other two women. “While Aelin and Justia are keeping a lookout.” I thought for a moment. “Actually Aelin should probably go and gather some up for us while the rest are fighting.”

The blonde pretended to look hurt. It was hard to take her seriously when her pout also had a smile at the end of her lips. I nodded at where Justia was already wrapping Ethers wounded hands with long, flat, pliable pieces of grass. “And we need Justia to be able to provide first aid if needed.” I looked at all of them, “For right now, my job is to watch everybody's backs. Which means I need to move the least.” I made sure to make eye contact with each of them. “Trust me, I will make sure that these get split evenly once we leave.”

The party seemed to accept my reasoning. I saw Ether smile as Aelin jumped up, punching the air.

“I'm going to find another one!” She yelled as she ran off.