Once we got out on the open road outside the city, I let loose and sped down it as fast as I could.
Mathew worriedly called out to me when I sped up, “You can control this thing right?”
“You’ll be fine, worst comes to worst, you’ll fall out and get left behind to walk all the way back to Keero!” I told him with an evil smile.
We continued towards the Deep, and quickly had to veer off the main road, causing it to become significantly scarier for Mathew. I had practiced some after I ran from Uncle Chris, and got pretty comfortable with driving 6 speed in the forest.
We arrived at our dive spot, and a pale-faced Mathew got out of the cart.
“What the hell was that?!”
“My magic buggy, it uses my magic to move.” I smirk at him.
“You’re the devil, Ray.”
I let him rest for a few minutes and un-sincerely apologize to him, before we head into the deep.
We both carry big bags on our backs to carry back our loot from the dive, since I don’t have a noncombatant to drive the cart along behind me as I fight anymore. This is a stronger corruption, I’ll likely need Mathew’s help pretty often.
This corruption isn’t a forest like it was last time, but a mountain, with most of the monsters inside a cave on the mountain’s side according to what our tip told us.
“I can’t do many swings quickly, but my swings will always guarantee a kill if it hits, so cover me in between my swings, since you’re faster, we can whittle down the enemies that way.”
“Right, make sure to be vocal about your intentions so I know where to be.”
Mathew has been a totally different person since we entered the deep, it’s like he flipped a switch in his head, he’s less emotive, very straight to the point, doesn’t talk unless prompted. Likely a good thing to be this serious when our lives are on the line, I’ll follow his example, for he’s a much more experienced Diver than I.
Our first garg approaches us, a wolf, when we’re about halfway to the cave on the mountain, so the corruption is growing. This wolf is alone, so I can take it by myself. I take my greatsword off my back and prepare to skewer the wolf, but when I lower myself, Mathew is already at the wolf and lopped off its head.
I stared in awe, he didn’t seem like he’d be capable of some impressive feat like that, he was able to cleanly cut off the wolf’s head with such a dull sword, and he moved so quickly to it too.
“Woah.” I let my shock leak out.
“Oh sorry, did you want to take that one?”
“No no, it’s just, I’m surprised, you don’t look like you’d be that strong.”
“Night said the same thing too, I think I have trouble finding a party because of that.”
I understand how he feels. I look like an experienced Diver with all my scars, muscles, and expensive looking sword, but my display of ignorance at the Diver Agency in Keero had left me with no one wanting to party up.
Of course I only looked like an experienced Diver because Uncle Chris took such thorough pleasure in beating me up when he trained me. Crazy Old Man.
We continued in silence up to the cave, but were once again interrupted. A large black lizard jumped out from behind some rocks as we climbed and knocked me over on my back. The lizard wasn’t likely black before it’s corruption, and was probably some species of weak dragon, luckily not anything close to a Fire Dragon.
As I was fighting to keep it off me, it dug its claws into my shoulder before Mathew tackled the oversized lizard off me and rolled away.
“Get up, strike at it, I’ll catch it where it dodges, when it focuses on me, strike to kill it.”
Mathew shouted to me his plan, and I quickly caught on. Mathew likely couldn’t kill the dragon garg with his smaller sword, but my big heavy blade could definitely do reasonable damage.
I stepped forward and jabbed my sword at the dragon garg, who managed to dodge left and avoid a fatal wound, but still received a long cut along its side. Mathew came out from behind me and sprinted to where the garg had dodged. As he got closer, he jumped over the garg and landed on its back, stabbing into it with his sword and using it to hold on.
“NOW RAY!” He shouted at me
I ran at the garg and started to bring my sword down on it, but it rolled over and threw Mathew off its back. It tried to mount Mathew like it did me, but I brought my sword down on it and cut into its back.
The garg let out a terrible roar, and turned back to me, it's 1 on 1 now, since Mathew is without a weapon now with his sword still stuck in its back. I wasted no time and slashed diagonally at the dragon, trying not to give it anywhere to dodge, but as I swung it sprinted straight at me, surprising me and causing me to fall over as I moved to dodge.
My injured shoulder wasn’t helping the speed of my swings, and this dragon was dodging most of my attacks pretty easily. This was looking bad, but at the very least Mathew could get away if he had to, without a weapon there wasn’t much point in him fighting anyways.
Just as I thought that, Mathew came running past me while shouting instructions.
“I’m gonna get my sword back! Try to get it to sit still!” He told me while he circled around behind the garg.
“And how the hell am I supposed to do that Captain?” I asked him sarcastically, I didn’t know where he got off calling all the shots.
“No idea, but ‘Captain’... I like the sound of that, call me that from now on.”
“Fat chance.”
The only way I can think of getting the garg to sit still is stabbing it, if I wasn’t going for a fatal hit, I should be able to get a hit in its stomach or something, but still, he was asking something so unreasonable of me.
Seeing as I couldn’t think of a better plan, I went to stop the garg. Since the gargs are just a kind of parasite controlling a host, hurting them didn’t do much to slow them down unless you cut off a limb or something of the sort, but it would still stop for a moment if nothing more when struck, hopefully Mathew could seize that chance.
While Mathew was stalking around the garg looking for a chance to grab his weapon, I charged, my greatsword stabbing all the way through the garg who was expecting me to go for a killshot, ending up stuck on the blade of my sword.
While the garg was trying to scratch me off or move off my blade, Mathew jumped on the garg, pulling out his blade, and stabbing it once again into the now immobile garg’s skull.
When Mathew pulled his sword back out, the garg went limp, and I completely decapitated it to be sure. The wolf that got back up with Uncle Chris was sticking in the back of my mind still.
“Nice work, Ray.”
“Nice work is all you have to say? You would’ve been dead without me.”
“We would’ve been dead without each other.” He corrected, “That’s why we party up isn’t it?”
“Whatever, that plan of yours was way too risky. What if I died trying to get it still?” I scolded Mathew.
“Did you die?”
“No, but it still wasn’t safe.”
“Trust is important in parties, and I trusted you to keep the garg still so I could kill it.”
When he put it that way, I felt a bit flattered, but I was still angry.
Unsure of how to feel, I just grumbled at him.
We skinned the garg and had to go back to drop off its materials in the “Invisible Horse ”, the new name we gave the buggy in jest, because it was all so heavy. The garg was a good bit bigger than a wolf, but its materials would sell well, since it was a pretty strong garg, so it was worth it in the end.
Since Mathew did all the thinking for that kill, I figured we’d use all the earnings of the dragon garg to buy him some new gear, he was in dire need of a better sword and equipment.
Not all dragons are as strong as that one, so it was a lucky find. Most anything reptilian is considered a dragon, so being a dragon doesn’t necessarily mean being strong, but since the strongest creature we know of, the Fire Dragon, is a dragon itself, the name gives off a somewhat intimidating aura.
Mathew and I made a pretty good team, I was able to deal with big scarier gargs, while Mathew took their aggression with his quick feet to let me more easily deal finishing blows, and Mathew’s ability to quickly strike down large groups of smaller enemies and cover me from them in between my heavy blows. With both of us together, we could clear a large group of gargs pretty quickly.
Mathew felt a lot like Uncle Chris in a lot of ways in the way he fought, he even used a similarly shaped sword. His focus on speed and efficient kills is especially reminiscent of the Old Man. Maybe if we get back on good terms, I can have Uncle Chris train Mathew for a while.
That was of course assuming we stayed in contact, the current plan was to split up once either of us decided to leave the city, but I really liked the comfort of having Mathew’s reliable support to keep gargs off me in between swings, and he seemed to be a pretty good tactician as well, something I severely lacked.
We made our way back up with little difficulty, only some smaller gargs stood in our way, and reached the mouth of the cave. The rock was covered in a moss the same jet black shade you would expect in the Deep, and the surface of the rock it covered glistened slightly in the daylight.
The mist seemed to be originating from the cave which is a little odd, corruption isn't really thought to have an origin other than just seeping out of cracks in the ground, but the cave itself is underground so I didn’t give it too much thought.
“Ready, Ray?”
“Let’s do this.”
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