Crawling over the top of the hill, I found Rick standing next to Beth and glowing with light. When she'd slammed her hammer down into Drake's wing the reverberation had apparently broken her hand. After hitting it a few more times, her hand was basically mush.
I watched in fascination as her bones popped back into place and the flesh mended around it. "Man, I've gotta learn how to do that!"
Beth was like a pit-bull who'd been kicked a few times too many, she snarled at me, 'I'm more then willing to crush your hand over and over again until you get it down!"
I backed up, holding my hands up in surrender, "Hey, I'll just leave you guys too it." I said and kept walking backwards until I nearly tripped over a rock and fell on my ass.
That got Beth laughing, which was enough for me to stop acting scared and walk over to Connor who was examining the Drake's body and trying to figure out what to do with it.
"What do you think this is worth?" I asked him as we examined the body parts.
"I think we could make some decent armor out of the scales if we got an enchanter to help us out, but the rest is just worthless." He cut open one of it's legs and grabbed a bone that looked like it'd turned to stone. Smashing it against the ground, it shattered into thousands of pieces. "Low-level beast and cultivator bones are worthless without constant circulation of Elemental Energy, which sucks, because I would totally use a carved Drake bone sword."
I nodded and walked over to the Drakes suburban sized skull, pointing at a spot in the middle of it's eyes and a foot higher. "Can you pierce the skull here, if you run into something really hard you've found the core."
Connor's eyes went wide when he heard that, "You think this Drake has a monster core?"
"Yeah, almost all Drake's do. It's why they are so hard to find, they got hunted to near extinction a long time ago. If the Dragon's didn't step in they probably wouldn't exist any longer." I was observing as Connor used his enchanted blade to carefully peel off the scales around it's forehead and began to split the head open.
"What can you do with monster core's anyway, all I know is that they're worth a ton of Energy Stones." Connor asked as he stuck his hand into the brain cavity of the Drake, looking naseous as was pulling disgusting gunk and brain matter out of it's skull willy nilliy.
"They're used in enchanting. Most Drake's are Earth Attribute monsters so they are great at reinforcing and increasing durability. However, this one is probably a Fire Attribute, there's no way such a low-level Earth Drake would've been able to cover us in fire like that. Fire cores are usually used to enchant weapons for fire damage or fire resistance in armor."
While Connor was busy with the disgusting stuff, I had grabbed the scales that he'd discarded and started bending them and testing the material. "Damn, these things are tough." I said, dodging to the side just in time to avoid some brain guts.
I ran back to the top of the hill in order to avoid any more debris and found myself gazing out over the forest. Wolves, Rabid Horned-Rabbits, Goblins, Bears, Snakes, Giant Spiders... A massive wave of monsters was rushing towards us in the dying light of the day.
'Must've been attracted by the fight.' I thought to myself as I turned and yelled. "We might want to hurry up a bit!"
Rick had just gotten done healing Beth and he ambled his way up to me as Beth went to help Connor extract the monster core.
"Well, shit." Rick said as he pulled out his can of chew. Looking up, he sighed "We've only got an hour of daylight left at most."
Connor finally appeared with Beth holding a glowing red rock the size of his fist. Grabbing it, I examined it, "Lowest level fire attribute monster core, worth at least 10 Energy Stones." I said, putting it away in bag of holding.
"It's too late to make it to the village, and there's too many monsters for me to want to fight at night. We need a confined space where Rick can hold them off and Sam can create a massive storm that kills all the mobs off. After that, Beth and I should be able to mop up any bosses left behind with your support." Connor began to strategize for what was surely going to be a long, long night.
Rick shook his head and said, "There's no where like that nearby, the best bet we have is the lake."
Examining the surroundings, I had to admit that Rick was right. We were standing on the only high ground within sight, the rest of the area covered in massive trees reaching 50 to 100 feet into the air. Turning back to the lake, I shuddered remembering the Drake emerging from it and nearly killing me. I wanted to complain, but Rick had already started jogging back down the hill towards the lake and Connor was following him.
Beth just shrugged to me and said, "At least we can all hold our breath for an hour now, you even longer." As she turned and slowly sauntered down the hill behind them.
"That's because I'm not holding my breath, I'm using Air Elemental Energy to convert Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen in my lungs. As long as I have enough Elemental Energy I'll never drown."
"Guess that means that your our explorer!" Connor called from the front.
'Shit, me and my mouth.' I thought to myself as I decided there was nothing else to do but approach the lake of doom...
At the lake, Connor looked around and said, "They'll be here within an hour, look for an underwater cave or something. As long as it hold's air we should be able to survive this with no problems. If not, we'll just have to fight our way out."
I actually paused at that before saying, "I think I'd rather fight my way out."
"Pussy!" Beth pushed me into the lake while yelling, "If your not back within an hour I'll make sure to give you plenty of opportunities to learn how to heal yourself!"
Spluttering, I was about to yell at her when something bit me on my leg and pulled me under. Patrice reacted before I could, and a lightning shield covered me sending Lightning Elemental Energy shooting through the water and into whatever had grabbed me.
Thankfully, while I hadn't yet used Lightning Elemental Energy to refine my body I did have a maximum affinity to Lightning Energy so it didn't really hurt me. Whatever had grabbed me wasn't quite so lucky, and it quickly let me go.
Swimming as fast as I could, I resurfaced and headed back to my friends. "Yeah, I'm not going down there ever again!" I said, electricity still arcing off me to make sure something else didn't try to grab me.
"We're gonna die if you don't get down there and find someplace safe!" Connor yelled. As I watched, a pack of at least a hundred wolves crested the hill and rushed down at them.
Sighing, I turned back around and dove into the murky depths. Thankfully, nothing else dared to approach me and I could actually see thanks to the Lightning Energy crackling around me. Finally reaching the bottom, I began to look for a cave or something where we could hide. Walking on the bottom of the lake was actually kind of interesting, and I was amazed at the sheer number of carnivorous fish. They followed me everywhere I went, just waiting for my lightning shield to fall so they could take a bite out of me.
After I walked around the entire lake, I didn't find a single cave or even many large boulders. What I did find was an incredible life-like sculpture of two men fighting. The closer I looked, the more it drew me in. It was as if the sculpture came alive and I could see all the millions of times the two had crossed sword. I was so absorbed by it that I forgot to replenish my oxygen in my lungs and my lightning shield shut off. I think I might've died down there if a giant shark didn't swim directly past me, blocking my view. To my shock, I found that several fish had started to swarm towards me the moment my lightning shield went off. Turning it back on, I was shocked to when the shark completely ignored the Lightning Elemental Energy and ate all the fish before swimming away lazily.
Shaking the image out of my head, I swam back to the surface in a rush to find my friends with their backs to the lake fighting a wave of all types of monsters. Watching for a moment, I knew they couldn't possibly survive for a long time.
"Guys, you'll just have to hold your breath for as long as you can. There's no way you can fight that off!" I yelled as loud as I could in order to be heard over the clashing of beasts on Rick's armor.
Connor was the first to respond, "SCREW IT!" He put his sword away and dove into the lake. Beth followed him quickly as she was already surrounded by giant spiders, she may seem fearless but spiders really get to her. I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did.
"This is going to be a long night." Rick sighed before he spit out his chew and jumped into the lake with a massive splash.