Zedna turned away from her teammates and back towards the battle, unable to afford the luxury of seeing them off. It was a strange feeling for her, having teammates again. She had come to the Shard alone, and it had been a pleasant surprise when she found people she wanted to form a party with. She had actually felt sad when they died, and had vowed to carry on the gang they created in their absence. But it was time she moved on; she couldn’t dwell on the past forever, and so it was with a trace of doubt in her heart that she left the gang for a new party.

It was certainly a new experience, and before setting out she would never have guessed what her new teammates would be like. She had spent a lot of time pondering on Ravvik’s description of the two, but a strangely competent newbie and a socially inept rock person weren’t quite who she had in mind when considering who she wanted to cross the mountains with. But most times when forming a party you were lucky enough to find people you could trust, and while both Tormacc and Athra had their quirks, they both seemed like good-natured, trustworthy people.

Zedna had met many non-Humens, but generally even those that were farthest away from the average Humen still had an understanding of what was considered normal. There was a reason the term Humen was created after all. It wouldn’t have come about if most of the races entering the tower didn’t share many common characteristics, like opposable thumbs, an internal skeleton, and a weak, fleshy body.

But Athra didn’t seem aware of how the average Humen operated, even going so far as to be confused about the specifics of things like sleeping and eating. Then there was her strange penchant to almost proselytize her Great Rock, which, when pressed for an explanation as to what it was, she refused to explain. But other than her social quicks she was a good teammate, and invaluable for crossing the mountains.

Zedna considered Tormacc a packaged deal, as it would be rude to split up a party, and it didn’t make much difference if he came along. Learning Athra actually had the Party skill made the choice even easier, as asking someone to leave a Party was considered quite rude indeed. She had been a bit worried after learning how new Tormacc was to The Tower, but seeing him in action he was more competent than she first gave him credit for. His biggest struggle was knowledge, but that would come in time. Everyone had to go through a learning period, and as long as you survived in The Tower for long enough you would eventually pick up on common sense.

What was strange about Tormacc was that he didn’t fit into her definition of a newcomer. He was lacking in knowledge, sure, but even despite that he seemed able to make good choices. Although if he hadn’t been able to figure out good next steps he would be dead by now.

She hadn’t pried too much, but she was able to get the basic story from him regarding his interactions with the stone rats. Other than designated danger zones, the stone rats were generally seen as the number one threat in the Shard at large. Hearing Tormacc talk about it, Zedna suspected he had gotten incredibly lucky, stumbling on a horde of rats that had just split off from another group and was without a boss rat.

That alone could qualify as good luck though. Making the choice to fight the rats could be attributed to his lack of knowledge and running into a horde that was temporarily without a leader was down to luck, but it was his choice to run away that puzzled her. Most people would have gotten used to earning hundreds, if not thousands, of Essence a day from fighting the rats, but Tormacc had left them and gone to fight the Stone Giants. That would have been a huge amount of Essence to someone so new to The Tower, even if it was piddling change to her. It was a hard choice to make, leaving that much Essence gain, and on the surface, you would be an idiot for leaving that much Essence.

That was why Zedna was puzzled by his behavior. All those who would have made the choice to stay and fight the stone rats would have died. Even she would be hard pressed to fight them, although if there was only one boss rat it was doable, especially if she was able to fire abilities at them from long range. But Tormacc didn’t know how dangerous the stone rats were. He had hints, but without anything to compare them to he decided to instead go off to kill Stone Giants, who for him would be almost equally intimidating to fight.

His choice was that of a veteran of The Tower. Everyone learned quickly that there were times you had to run away and leave a veritable treasure trove of Essence behind. Those that didn’t learn that lesson died. There were times you got lucky and were able to farm incredible amounts of Essence, but that never lasted, as areas with large Essence gains often correlated with an increase in danger. But for someone so new to The Tower it was amazing he was able to intuit the life-threatening peril he was in and leave the inflated Essence gains behind.

It was hard for people of different power levels to party together normally, so Zedna suspected she wouldn’t see either of her companions for a long time, if she ever saw them again at all. But as long as Tormacc survived she had a feeling she would hear his name in the future. He had the drive needed to advance, and as long as he didn’t die, he would go far; she could feel it.

Turning her attention back to the problem in front of her Zedna got to work dealing with the monsters in the valley. She needed to cause enough of a commotion to dissuade them from leaving the valley and pursuing her party. That shouldn’t be too hard, as they were in the valley to mine Sparkle Stone anyway. As a general rule monsters in The Tower didn’t chase people outside their territory. The only variable here was the boss in charge of the valley.

Taking some more Sun Stone out from her storage Zedna shot out powerful beams of light in front of her, decimating the ranks of four-armed trolls and causing them to falter. Once she had their attention and was sure they would not go after Athra and Tormacc she turned her attention to the tunnels and, slaughtering her way over, she began her work of destroying them.

Recreating the tunnel network should be a simple task, but it would take time, and based on what she could see the tunnels had been dug by hand, meaning a monster with earth powers could just wave its appendage and fix the damage she planned to cause. If the infrastructure of the mining operation was destroyed whoever was in charge would need to dedicate the majority of the four-armed trolls to fixing it. Perhaps they would send a small hunting party after her group, but as long it wasn’t an army she was confident in dealing with them.

The only issue she faced was actually destroying the tunnels, as pure force wasn’t really her strong suit. The only reason she was in the Shard in the first place was to acquire Sun Stone, which was to cover another of her weaknesses: large groups of enemies, as normally her light magic wasn’t particularly powerful. She had unlocked abilities in her Fate Wheel to specialize more as an assassin/rogue type, and causing enough damage to destroy the tunnels would require some specific skills. She did have her ways though. She just had to hope her skills would last long enough.

Making her way over to the first tunnel, Zedna got down to business. Her plan was to use two skills in tandem to accomplish the task. The first was Transcendent Slash. Normally active skills were hard to combine together and it took a lot of effort to use two active skills in tandem to create a synergistic effect. Using one right after the other was most people’s limit. Transcendent Slash was an active skill, but it was more of a buff skill, as it gave a bonus effect to her other attacks and, unlike a lot of buff skills, it could be easily used with other active skills.

Transcendent Slash extended the range of her attacks, creating blades of energy that had increased piercing power and range. Other than her light magic, it was her main source of AOE damage. With Transcendent Slash alone it would take too long to collapse the tunnels though, so her plan was to combine it with another skill: Starnet Cross. Starnet Cross sent out a flurry of strikes, the blows as numerous as the stars in the sky. The skill created a net pattern, trapping the opponent before finishing them off with a powerful cross cut.

It was one of her most powerful skills. By power alone it lost out to some others, but the cooldown was very short, and if she moved quickly she could use both skills together to collapse at least twenty tunnels, which would hopefully put a dent in the mining operation.

She had been paying close attention when observing the monster activity in the valley and it was clear that not all the tunnels were created equal. Some were used more than others, so those were the ones she prioritized, massacring her way through the valley in the most efficient route to hit as many tunnels as she could.

The four-armed trolls were tenacious with their vitality, but their offensive power was lacking, so she was under little real threat from their attacks. Unless she went all out Zedna knew that most of the trolls would recover from her attacks with time, but she wasn’t trying to kill them; there were too many for it to make a difference. She only needed to clear the way, which is what she did as she moved between the tunnels.

Even the overseers who had been inspecting the ore didn’t have the power to threaten her so she was mostly unimpeded as she collapsed tunnel after tunnel with her skill combination. Right as she collapsed the eighteenth tunnel a ferocious roar shook the valley, overpowering the cries of the trolls.

Quickly locating the source of the sound Zedna knew the master of the valley was finally here. Coming out of a tunnel on the far side of the valley was a large humanoid creature. It had to hunch over to get out of the tunnel, and once it finally stood up and she got a good look at it Zedna knew she would be in for a tough fight.

What’s a Greenstone Rager doing in this part of the Shard? She thought to herself, a frown making its way onto her face. They should all be in the Greenstone Canyons. Someone must have brought it out, thinking they could control it. Utter stupidity. And now I’m stuck dealing with their fuck up.

The Greenstone Canyons were one of the two danger zones flanking the ends of the mountains. Zedna had explored it briefly when she was still looking for Sun Stone, and the Greenstone Ragers had made an impression. They looked like a large, stone plated humanoid with two heads and were the main threat in the canyons. They had a powerful defense and decent intelligence, but what made them dangerous what why they were called ragers.

During battle they would slowly get stronger, so the more wounds they took, the stronger they would get. If you could insta-kill them they weren’t dangerous, but in a drawn out battle they were deadly. But killing them instantly was easier said than done, and Zedna knew it would be a tough battle if she had to kill it. Luckily her goal wasn’t to kill, only maim. The Greenstone Rager’s vitals were heavily defended, but cutting off a limb or two should be an easy task. And despite their abilities as a rager, they weren’t able to immediately regrow limbs.

It would be a dangerous fight, but Zedna was confident in her skills. But then she spotted another hulking figure walking out of a tunnel. She felt a wave of tension sweep over her, as soon she wasn’t facing one Greenstone Rager, but four, each one bellowing louder than the last. What had previously been an easy problem to solve evolved into a deadly situation, and suddenly she wasn’t quite so confident in being able to hold off the monsters in the valley from chasing after her party.