Stash 'n Leave

The side of the duelist's chest had collapsed, several broken ribs protruding from his torso. Only one side of his chest expanded as he tried to breathe. The cleric's hands were soaked in blood as they tried to hold everything in place while the gruesome wound slowly healed.

The lizardman's tail was both heavy and sharp. It had caused serious blunt-force and tearing damage. A few organs were visible, but they had already been healed or regenerated and the opening around them was slowly closing. With each word from the cleric's recitations, the broken ribs would move slightly closer to their original position. The bones which had snapped off were slowly regenerating while producing a crackling sound. The duelist was unconscious, but perhaps that was for the best. It looked like a very painful process.

The cleric didn't stop reciting, but looked up with exhausted and disoriented eyes. His mana was already overdrawn, but it was clear the duelist would die if he stopped.

The mage was the first to understand what needed to be done. She quickly ran back to the cart.

"Bring all the holy crystals we have, quick!"

The three carriers were startled again but quickly gathered every bag of crystals they had and ran after the little mage woman. Once they arrived, they saw the condition of the duelist and the color drained from their faces. One of them looked like he might vomit, but he held it in. Soon, they had dumped out all of the crystals into a pile beside the cleric without caring to separate the holy crystals from the rest.

Before all the crystals were even poured out, the little mage started to swing her staff around in a specific pattern, casting another spell of some kind. When the motion was finished, a golden hue dimly surrounded the end of her staff. Finally, she held her staff over the pile of stones and rested her free hand on the cleric's shoulder while he continued to chant healing scriptures. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but soon some of the yellow and white crystals began to dim. One by one, the crystals disintegrated into light particles until the pile was completely devoid of holy crystals.

When the mana siphon was complete, the cleric looked reinvigorated. He continued to recite scripture with an even more determined look on his face, his voice already ragged, but his tone growing more confident. He continued to heal the duelist's broken torso with high-level scriptures for the next ten minutes or so.

By the time the cleric finished, he looked haggard. He fell back and laid out on the ground to catch his breath. His face was pale and covered in cold sweat. He had overdrawn his mana limit for a second time. He was at his absolute limit, continuing any further would undoubtedly kill him. In fact, he had gone so far that he would need a considerable amount of recovery time before being able to heal anyone again.

The rest of the party stared in anxious anticipation, waiting for the cleric to say something.

After heaving for a minute, the fat cleric tried to say something, but his voice failed before he could get it out. Finding his voice gone, he simply raised his hand and made an 'OK' gesture to let the other's know that they had done enough. Everything would be fine.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief. They all just stayed there for a minute to process everything that just happened. The fight only lasted a few short moments, but it was incredibly intense. Their duelist almost died from taking a single attack while the cleric almost died trying to heal him.

The little mage and burly guardsman immediately started discussing plans to find a safe haven. This was the furthest they had ever gone into the ruins. With the injured duelist and incapacitated healer, the company of adventurers was now in a precarious situation.

Soon, the party came to a decision.

The machine watched as the carriers approached. Working together, they pulled him from the cart and worked to drag him to a nearby wall. They also removed a number of other things from the cart, piling them around the demon's corpse.

"Huh?"

One of the carriers furrowed his brows when he saw the hole in the demon's chest.

"Hey, wasn't this thing in much worse shape?"

Another carrier set down a box beside the pile and stretched his back before taking a look.

"Hmm. Not really, they washed the whole thing just the other day, remember? But I'll admit, it looks more impressive without all the ash and soot clinging to it."

The first carrier doubtfully looked over the demon's corpse. The jagged tears in the metal seemed less severe than he remembered.

The two carriers continued discussing the demon corpse's condition for a moment longer, then got back to work. The machine didn't understand everything in the conversation, but he listened diligently and was able to learn a few more words from context clues. He was also able to use his incredible memory to compare this new information to everything he had heard before and discover the meaning behind other words. His vocabulary was slowly growing.

The machine watched as the party lifted the unconscious duelist and then the fat cleric into the cart. It seemed they were going to leave several things behind in order to make room for their two companions.

Soon, everything they planned to bring was loaded up and they were ready to go. But before leaving, the little mage returned to the pile of loot and began swinging her staff around in a complex pattern of movements. A brownish hue emanated from her eyes as stones grew from the floor and walls to encase the stash of loot, hiding it from sight so they could return sometime later to collect it.

The machine watched as his vision was covered by stone, becoming even darker than it already was.

At first, he felt a little claustrophobic, but soon remembered that he was different now. He didn't need to breathe any more and he had yet to experience any form of hunger, so being encased in rock wasn't really all that bad. He quickly calmed himself down and listened closely.

The little mage nodded, pleased with her spell. The loot had been safely stashed away.

"Alright, we're good to go. Let's head out!"

The machine heard Elaine's muffled voice followed by the sounds of the cart's wheels grinding against the stone ground. The people were leaving. The machine listened in silence for a few moments.

After making sure the people were gone the machine tried moving around a bit, but found the rock had encased his body and restricted his movements.

Opening up the interface, he looked over his stats again.

----

[Name: -]

[Race: Haunted Machine]

[Class: -]

[Level: 6]

[XP: 44/80]

[HP: 7/20]

[MP: 10/10]

[STR: 6]

[AGI: 3]

[DEX: 5]

[INT: 9]

[GP: 12]

[SP: 12]

Skills:

[Soul Corruption]

----

His HP was still gradually improving, restoring his other stats little by little. The Gerenium cube seemed to still be doing its work... but it would likely wear off eventually.

He felt slightly annoyed when his eyes fell to the item at the bottom. He gained a skill, but quickly discovered that his interface had no description page for it. He didn't know what it did and he didn't know how to use it.

However, the interface's other new items were a bit more helpful. GP looked like stat allocation points. When he focused on the GP field, a glowing addition symbol would appear beside each of his base stats. He hadn't actually allocated any of them, but it was fairly clear that this was how he would grow stronger.

When he focused on the SP field, a "skill shop" window would open up which listed countless skills and their corresponding price. They lacked descriptions, but most had seemingly straightforward names.

It didn't take long for him to pick out a small list of skills that piqued his interest.

----

{Skill Shop}

[SP: 1] [Movement Boost]

[SP: 2] [Dark Bolt]

[SP: 3] [Shadow Tether]

[SP: 4] [Torment]

[SP: 4] [Intimidate]

[SP: 4] [Thief's Blessing]

[SP: 4] [Strategist's Blessing]

[SP: 5] [Overclock]

[SP: 5] [Swordsman's Blessing]

[SP: 6] [Dream Casting]

[SP: 7] [Trapper's Wisdom]

[SP: 8] [Track]

[SP: 8] [Stealth]

[SP: 9] [Camouflage]

[SP: 10] [Creator's Guide]

[SP: 10] [Active Regeneration]

----

These were the skills he could afford and seemed useful, but not many looked like they could get him out of the rock shell which had encased his body.

'Maybe it would be a better idea to assign some GP first...'

GP -2

[GP: 10] (12 -> 10)

STR +2

[STR: 8] (6 -> 8)

He tried again to break free, pushing against the stone shell holding him down. Finding no success, he added more points into his strength stat.

GP -3

[GP: 7] (10 -> 7)

STR +3

[STR: 11] (8 -> 11)

Once again, he pressed against the stone encasement and felt a significant increase in the strength he could exert.

In the dark cave, a small cluster of stone split apart, a rigid line snapping through the stone formation's weakest point.