You dealt 20 damage to Water Elemental with Charge. (Crushing) (Critical)
You dealt 32 damage to Water Elemental with Maul. (Crushing) (Critical)
Water Elemental died.
You gained 80 experience.
Atlas breathed a sigh of relief and shifted back to his Wood Elf form. Crystal flakes covered the area from the battle. An inspection of the corpse allowed him to pick up the loot.
Shards of Elemental Water x 5
Essence of Water x 2
No quest item waited for him, but he couldn’t be lucky enough for the first one to drop what he needed. Feeling better about his chances with his bear form, he observed the inside of the cave.
The inside of the main cavern surprised him. He expected a dark and dreary cave where he would have to suffer with minimal light and possibly keep a torch nearby. Instead, a brightly lit scene greeted him. Sunlight filtered in through small spaces in the ceiling, and an extensive collection of random gemstones reflected the light throughout the room. A veritable kaleidoscope of colors shimmered through the air, and Atlas froze to take in the sight.
“It’s beautiful,” he breathed to himself as he watched the colors dance around the cave.
In the back left corner of the cavern, another tunnel branched off and continued further back. An identical passage marked the same space on the right. In front of the tunnel on the left, stood another of the water elementals he’d just faced off against. A different creature stood in front of the one on the right. This one looked almost identical in every way, but instead of being a blue color stone, it was red with streaks of orange. He was too far away to identify it, but he was confident it was a Fire Elemental.
Atlas contemplated which way to go. He knew how to fight the water version, and if the fire worked the same way, it would be an easy fight. Unsure of where to go, he consulted his quests. Two items he needed in this place were Elemental Flame and Elemental Core. The flame was sure to drop off of the Fire Elementals. The core he couldn’t be sure. It might drop off of any elemental, or may even require a special one he hadn’t seen yet.
Since he knew for a fact he needed to kill the Fire Elementals for his quest, he started with the passage to the right. It relieved him when they fought the same way as the Water Elemental. When he’d done a little over 100 damage to the monster, it cast a fireball spell that splashed into him before he could finish it.
Fire Elemental dealt 40 damage to you with Fireball.
Expecting the ability, he tried to rush and counter it as before but never could manage.
This must be one that can only be stopped with a stun or a true silence type of spell. I can’t physically interrupt it.
This elemental dropped almost identical loot to the first, except they were Shards of Elemental Fire and Essence of Fire. His saving grace was the elementals were clunky and slow because of their high armor and defense. The downside was he took 40 damage during the fight because he couldn’t stop the spell. This added time to his grinding since he had to shift back to elf form and heal before shifting back to bear.
It took him three more fights and another 120 damage from fire spells before he accidentally stumbled upon a solution. On the fourth fight, he anticipated the spell and did something he’d never tried before. He activated Charge and dashed the short distance. These creatures were resilient, and he knew he couldn’t interrupt the spell by just hitting it in the chest or face.
His momentum allowed him to duck down low as he closed the distance and swing a heavy paw out to the side, essentially clothes-lining the legs out from under the elemental. Aside from being pretty humorous, it actually worked, and the spell fizzled as Atlas activated Maul and smashed down on the creature to finish it.
You learned Sweep. (Bear Form)
That’s interesting. I wonder what triggers to allow me to learn abilities without copying them from other animals?
The revelation sent his mind spinning with implications of things he could do. His use of the animal forms so far had been limited because of their lack of combat skills. If he could somehow learn more, the forms would become much more useful. More than anything, he needed better combo attacks.
Satisfied with his new ability, he rampaged through the cavern. It took him twenty-three kills to find one of his items. He also netted a fair amount of other materials.
You gained 1,840 experience.
You found the following items:
Shards of Elemental Fire x 62
Essence of Fire x 28
Elemental Flame
He sighed in relief as the Elemental Flame finally appeared on one of the dead creatures. Grinding monsters was rarely a fun prospect, but sometimes necessary. The passage he’d traveled was a linear pathway. He’d emerged into two different open caverns before ducking back into another tunnel to continue. So far, this direction only revealed the fire elementals.
Banking on the fact that the core was probably on a water elemental, he returned to the original room. With a deep breath, he continued his rampage against the water. Fighting them was another exercise in grinding and thoroughly reminded him of older games as he spent long hours grinding away for experience, reputation, or gold. Even with the realism of this game, the task still sucked. His work finally paid off after he’d taken out eighteen elementals.
You gained 1,440 experience.
You found the following items:
Shards of Elemental Water x 50
Essence of Water x 15
Elemental Core
With those two items found, he rushed to the other side of the city. His time was running short, and he wanted to complete this quest before he had to log off again. Dying on the rescue mission and waiting for
