In Loki's Honor Life 10 - Chapter 10 - Home's not Home

Nenandil woke up at the first ray of sunlight. I prepared my house by hardening the basent and foundation walls and replacing the packed earth floor of the basent with more stone. Then I had to use three entire logs worth of wood to brace the two houses to either side and the one at the back because all of them used each other for support. The houses were built sharing a wall.

Doing that took from sunup to sunrise. Once it was all a single piece, I put the whole house in my dinsional storage. A basent-shaped hole was left on the ground. Last, I used more wood to make a fake front. To any onlookers coming from the street, the house looked like it was still there.

With my stuff secure, I activated {Surreptitiousness} and went to the Dungeon gate under the cover of the night.

A wall inside the city closed off the Dungeon. The gatehouse had two portcullises with a murder chamber in the middle. Dozens of soldiers were watching the hole in the ground from which terrible sounds echoed. As I snuck past the sentries, I felt the ground next to the entrance squishy. Monster blood. I ignored it and entered the underground.

My detection range showed there were no people inside the underground tunnels. Only monsters. A lot of them.

She mock-saluted.

Two hundred ters past the entrance, another monster joined the party. I stored my clothes and shifted. The were-jaguar matriarch prowled. Elder Water Fairy on my shoulder, we ran down the tunnels.

I dove into the first group of monsters in flas. Literally. I cast an immolation aura around with extra MP thanks to {Overcharge Magic}. I didn't add an IFF so Nenandil was a bit behind and I was taking damage from the fire. Or should I say, being healed by it? A flaming tornado of cat claws descended on them, and I found the first flaw in this strategy. My prized bleeding debuffs were being cauterized by my flas. But they were dying faster to the flas than claws.

After the group died and the bodies went to storage, I turned off the MP for the spell. The notifications were showing only "monster" followed by the level. Since I had no idea what the monsters were, the System didn't reveal them to either. Anyway, they were all 'small' 'fry'. Not even a size bonus they gave .

You defeated level 31 monster. You gained 893,730 Exp (base 9,610 x 93 multipliers)

You defeated level 29 monster. You gained 782,130 Exp (base 8,410 x 93 multipliers)

You defeated level 31 monster. You gained 893,730 Exp (base 9,610 x 93 multipliers)

You defeated level 29 monster. You gained 782,130 Exp (base 8,410 x 93 multipliers)

You defeated level 33 monster. You gained 1,012,770 Exp (base 10,890 x 93 multipliers)

The next group of three died to a combined ice storm from the fairy and . The Exp gravitated around the sa values as the last one. Pings on my radar were getting nurous as I moved. Since the range was a sphere, I could sense the monsters several layers of caverns underneath .

Next, I found a huge group coming up up a tunnel. I prepared a classic D&D for them. The 3rd level fireball but hotter, and with a larger radius. As they neared the bend, I threw the two hundred thousand MP fireball I'd been overcharging into the far wall. The bright light seared my eyes. I regenerated and saw the notifications. Twenty monsters worth between three and four million each.

"I got enough Exp to rank up my Class," I told Nenandil. "I'm going to ss with the nus, please keep watching for nasties."

"I got your six!" She saluted.

Sotis I think she watches too much of my mories while inside . Anyway, Level up. Having my Exp on manual gives better control. It is a bother because Rosewise is so driven she forgets what's around but I need to save Exp for enchanting.

You reached Mystic Sorceress level 20. Class rank-up available.

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You have 3 perks.

I bought the enchanting Skills I used on the fusion back. I dumped all the points maximizing Ego to gain a bonus to my HP, MP, and SP regeneration. Now the perks. Reaching level twenty unlocked so advanced ones. I saw one that made my eyes water.

Warding Affinity (very rare): Your stationary non-offensive spells strength and duration increase by 50%.

Force Wall Mastery (very rare): You can now shape your force constructs and they are harder to dispel.

Force Phasing (ultra-rare): When incorporeal, you can pass through force constructs at a hundredth of your normal speed.

No more cheap shot cheat force cube kills for the dragons. And I could do the sa trick they did. I had so options for ranking up but I didn't ss with them now. Rosewise was also slow to commit. I needed ti to think before I made a decision.

I fought up to the third level. The groups of monsters were like little stars now in my {Detect Monster}. Worse, there were more than three pathways to the upper levels. I couldn't contain the whole stampede not even if there was a single path. There were just too many monsters. And they were growing stronger. Maybe even killing the small fry was a disservice to the defenders up there, I was stealing their easy levels.

I decided to hit one strong group, farm the Exp I needed to reach the balance level between profession, class, and species then get out. I can't stay for too long or soone is bound to go fetch at ho. I recalled Nenandil. What I was about to do was downright stupid.

With that, I prepare a fireball with a tis-twenty overcharge damage multiplier that will eat a hundred ters on each side. That should get enough Exp. I stealth on the tunnel roof and wait. The monsters are shuffling, hissing, and clicking underneath as they pass underneath. Strangely enough, they aren't fighting each other. It's like they're under control. Is this stampede prediated? I couldn't tell but it wasn't impossible.

When the first monsters in the column were seventy ters away, I lobbed my fireball and watched the damage notification I received.

Explosive Fireball damaged you for 2,986 HP. Mana Shield burned 996 MP (Base 1000 (-150) x 4 Magic x3 Skill x20 overcharge x1.5 Affinity x 0.75 magic resistance x 0.03 fire resistance x 0.6 magic eater x0.75 affinity).

You are afflicted with a {Burning} debuff for 500 points of fire damage (after modifiers) per second for 7 seconds.

Unbelievable! I took damage from my own fire spell. Before any mitigation, my fireball caused three hundred and sixty thousand damage for the modest cost of a million and a half MP and a few minutes of concentration. The tunnel was lting. The floor was literally lava. So were the walls and ceiling, I fell down on so monsters that were still screaming as they burned to a crisp. I had the windows open all the ti since they didn't bother my vision - I was blind, doh - and the Exp notifications were rising one after the other like Beyoncé's Coachella live stream chat. The lava fell and I got another damage notification as I jumped back to cling on the new roof of the tunnel.

I checked my resources. I had less than a million MP but my SP would kick in like a secondary fuel tank. I dumped a million Exp into a frost spell. I created a wall of ice hovering horizontally beneath . It dropped as soon as it was ford and crashed into the burning river of magma underneath. It hissed and a ridiculous plu of vapor rose to join the smoke from the burning monsters.

I rank up the tunnel still on the roof. My job was finished. I checked the total Exp, I had five hundred million in the bank. Enough to level up and do another weekend of heavy enchanting. Ti to go back ho.

The smoke and steam slowed down the main column and caused the other groups to split up as so monsters might've slipped out of the controller's grasp. I should've stored the bodies of the one I burned, but fishing them from the pool of molten rock would be close to impossible. My regeneration fixed the damage I took from my spell and I used the mana I had to take shortcuts through the rock by becoming incorporeal. I wish I had leveled more as an [Undead Bard].

I need a clock. I would even sacrifice four gold ingots for one.

It was late afternoon when I got out. Stealthily, of course. The ramparts were full of people. I sensed that from the second layer. I probably would need to wait for the cover of the night to sneak out. Or...

People wouldn't notice a shrew smaller than their index finger, would they?

I shifted and ran to the edge of the tunnel. Several torches were illuminating the walls now. I slowed down to let chaleon do its job. I used {Faerie Invisibility} and {Erase Presence}. If that coupled with my grandmaster {Surreptitiousness} and size doesn't do the job I deserve to die.

And an arrow hits a hand away from where I passed. I heard the following exchange over the din of hushed conversation

"What the fuck!" Soone cursed. I heard the sound of sothing smacking soone.

"Ouch! I saw movent, must've been a bug. Sorry," probably the archer answered.

"False Alarm!" The first one shouted.

I scuttled up the wall and over it. On the other side, I picked up speed and dashed through the streets, my mory of the city's map driving back ho. I arrive and my heart sinks. There's soone inside my house. Or the empty space where my house was supposed to be.

Besides "it's a human" I have no idea whom. I need to get within one ter to check. Depending on who it is I might... no. I'm not murdering soone just because they were in the wrong place. at the wrong ti.

"Damn. How does a house vanish?" The guild master's voice cos from that person.

Shit.

I moved back to the neighbor's roof, shifted, and summoned my clothes on my body. The fact I had to dump them from storage and dress up was still awkward. The guildmaster then jumped in front of .

"Hey. I ca to pick you up, but you weren't ho. Funny enough, your house wasn't ho either. Care to explain what is going on?"