Evren and the other were pinned down behind some rubble. The ones attacking them were the fifteen medusas and the boss. Arrows and 'fire arrows' landed all around them. Evren had his back to the wall and was looking at everyone around him. He shrugged and said, "Harley!"
"Yes Mr. Evren?"
"Send in the big windy one!"
With a big smile Harley said, "Yes Mr. Evren! 'Djinn!'"
A large wind elemental formed near Harley. Its lower body was like a tornado, and its upper body was like a translucent man. Harley pointed at the medusas shooting at them and said, "Go get them!"
Evren peaked his head around the corner and watched the elemental charge into the medusa. As Evren watched, he suddenly had an idea and chanted 'elemental' the weaker version of 'efreet.' It was an elemental that needed to be directly controlled and was primarily a ball of fire with arms. He had it follow the air elemental into the medusa, and walked it into the tornado, which turned the fire and air elementals into a big flaming tornado with four arms.
Evren was pleased about this, but he had to control the fire elemental with minute details to stay within the range of the air elemental's tornado.
"Fletcher!" Evren shouted, "Take out the big one."
"I'm on it." Fletcher replied. The big one in this case was the massive medusa that had four arms and was both firing arrows and casting 'fire arrows' at the group from the back.
Evren pulled his head back and looked at Isobel and Walter. With his chin he pointed off to the side and turned around to the front again to keep the fire elemental in line with the air elemental. Walter and Isobel began working their way through the rubble found in the boss's chamber to the side where they could take advantage of the confusion and flank the medusas. The elementals had taken out a few of the medusas and destroyed most of the bows with it's heat and wild flames.
Fletcher had taken a position where he could fire from behind cover and was firing as fast as the magic arrows would allow. The queen had taken notice of him and was focusing on trying to hit Fletcher, but the combination of the wind from the elementals and his cover, he was well protected. Fortunately, the magic arrows weren't affected by the wind.
"How's your magic Harley?" Evren asked.
"No problems Mr. Evren!" she replied.
The line of medusa archers had fallen, and they were now 'running' chaotically around the room. Walter and Isobel had engaged the queen, and Fletcher had shifted his fire from the queen to the remaining medusa. The queen was lashing out at Walter with two swords while he blocked each and held his position. Isobel would strike at the back if capable, but mostly dodging and slashing at the tail.
There were three medusa remaining fighting against the elementals, so Evren dismissed his elemental and stood up with bow in hand. Harley also dismissed hers and began firing off 'fire arrows.' As soon as the three were down, Evren closed his eyes and focused his sensory field on the queen as he took aim with the bow. The medusa queen sensed him and turned to look with its eyes glowing only to see an arrow pierce it's head. It fell to the ground, and like the others, began to dissolve. Evren and the others went to pick up the mana gems, with Walter picking up the mithril mace and swinging it a few times.
Evren was collecting the mana gems from the others and asked Walter, "Want it?"
Walter shook his head, "No thanks. I like my sword."
Evren smiled and said, "Ok, check your equipment, we're going to take a look at the next level really quick and head back. This level should be… Uhhh… dragons? No, the weak ones, drakes? No! Wyverns! They're flyers like the harpy but they've got a stinger on their tail that's venomous.
"In addition to that, there will be ten fun filled levels with them. It seems from here on the bosses are every ten now instead of every five." Evren looked around at the others and got a mixed reaction of faces.
"It took us twenty days to make it through the medusas, if it's twice as fast, it'll take forty for the wyverns. So, let's just get a look and head up."
The group had finished checking their gear and exited the boss chamber. They were heading out of the ruins and back into the mountains. The passageway they exited through looked similar to the one they took when they entered. Instead of walking out into a valley, they walked out of the mountain onto a cliff with a narrow passage that led downward along the cliff face.
Evren followed the path with his eyes and noticed it was narrow the entire way until it switched back on itself where there was a reasonable sized platform to stand on. He looked down over the cliff following the winding trail until it reached the bottom. Along the way, he saw some ledges where some large lizards, Evren assumed to be wyverns, were sunning themselves. He wanted to take a shot at one, but he didn't like the angle he would have to stand at to reach it.
Instead, he launched a rock with telekinesis at it and struck it in the head. It didn't do any damage to the wyvern, but it did make I irate. Evren leaned back from the cliff and looked to the others. "I don't plan to go much farther than this. It seems to be a bit dangerous going down to fight a wyvern and then come back up.
"There is one down there, you can take a look if you want, just be careful, and remember that if you fall, cast 'levitate' on yourself as quickly as possible. You may be able to grab onto the cliff face and climb back up or go all the way to the path below and walk that back up." Evren said as he stepped away from the cliff.
The others stepped forward and glanced over the edge. They could see the wyvern down there looking around and hissing at nothing. The wyvern's skin was a brown color, similar to the rocks it was sunbathing on. It's forearms were long and extended outward with flesh between the front and back legs like a bat. A wicked looking tail whipped back and forth behind the wyvern. On the end was a hooked barb, similar to a scorpion's and positioned in a way that it could be swung down towards its prey beneath it.
When everyone had gotten a good enough look at the wyvern, they headed back into the passageway to the previous level. They used the teleport sigil and returned to Anbuton. Evren told everyone to take a couple days off and to maintain their gear and headed back to the home he was using.
There was still some time left in the day, so Evren went over to the forge with an idea. Using an ingot made from scarletite, he fashioned a spearhead. The blade was a bit longer than usual and sharpened on both sides. He took a relatively straight and thick branch of the ent and fashioned it into the shaft of the spear. At the butt end of the spear, he made a spike, also from scarletite that would be solely used for piercing.
As it had gotten late, he headed home and decided to work on the spear more in the morning. He had enchanted the blade and spike while forging them, and he wanted to add more to the weapon, mana core, mana gems, and runes on the staff. A book containing runes had been found among the books of Aernide Fortress. Many of them he hadn't translated yet, but some of the ones he had translated, would work well for this spear.
The next morning, Evren decided to work on preparing the crimson and gold mana core, and the yellow mana gems he would be using for the spear. He headed over to visit Antrias, opting not to awaken him as the reducer was outside his home. He would be working directly on the mana core to engrave, since the surface is round, it would take longer to engrave properly.
At noon, when Antrias had come out to work he screamed a little in surprise that Evren was out there already. As Evren worked, he said, "You're lucky I knew you were coming, if I would have messed this up, I'd have been upset."
"Ah, sorry Evren" he said, "I wasn't expecting anyone out here this early."
Evren finished his current task and looked to the sky and Antrias followed his gaze, "This early?" he asked.
"Ah, well I was up late last night. I was halfway through a brilliant cut and didn't want to finish." He said excitedly, "Here, look at the way it sparkles!" He walked over to a bench where a small cabinet was and pulled out a small bag. He poured out the gems that were inside of it and showed them to Evren.
"Oh, these are very good Antrias. I wonder, could you cut these like this one?" Evren said as he presented the two yellow mana gems.
"Oh! An oval cushion cut." Antrias said as he looked at the two mana gems. They were larger than the ones he had gotten previously, and he looked at them with envious eyes.
Evren noticed this and went back to work on the mana core. I'll give you some of the ones we recently got. If you do good with those, I'll be sure to stop by here first after we get off the next few levels. I think they should be a new color from the ones I had given you before."
Excitement could be seen in Antrias's eyes, and he quickly headed to the gem cutting machine. "Do you want a flat bottom on these?"
Without looking up, Evren replied, "Yes please."
It didn't take long for Antrias to cut the gems, and Evren was almost finished by the time Antrias did. "What color do you think the new gems will be?"
"According to the book from the Adventurer's guild, the mana gems from the dragon class monsters are purple." Evren said as he finished the mana core.
"Dragon class? Well, that seems exciting." Antrias said.
Evren was examining the mana core with a jeweler's loupe to ensure the mana core was properly engraved and said, "You could come along if you want."
"Ah… well… yes, may, maybe next time." Antrias replied with a small stutter handing the mana gems to Evren.
Evren smiled and took the gems from him, "I'll save you a spot." He then began engraving the mana gems, which took less time because Antrias had made a flat spot for Evren to engrave upon.
"Wh, wh, what kind of dragons are you fighting first?" Antrias asked.
"Wyverns are the first ones we'll come across." Evren said as he engraved the first mana gem. "Those are the weakest class of dragons, so you wouldn't want to go to those."
"Ah yes, well maybe next time then." Antrias said as he scrounged around for some gems to cut. "You wouldn't happen to have those gems on you, would you?"
Evren replied without moving his head, "No, sorry. I only brought the bare minimum this morning." Evren finished engraving the first one and set up the second one, then examined the first to ensure there were no defects. Satisfied, he moved on to the engravings on the second mana gem and said, "By the way, would you like to learn how to do these engravings?"
"Oh, could I? I would love to!" Antrias said excitedly.
"How's your reading and writing coming along?" Evren asked.
"Good, there's still some words I have some difficulties with, but Joseph and Isabel are both great teachers." Antrias said with pride.
"Great then. When I leave here, we'll head over to the house I'm staying at, and you can borrow the books and get the mana gems." Evren replied.
A few minutes later, Evren removed the second mana gem and examined it for problems. Satisfied he gathered up both gems and the core and said, "Are you ready?"
Antrias nodded after grabbing a sack and said, "Yes!"
Evren and Antrias went to the house Evren is staying at and Evren grabbed the books, handing them to Antrias. He took the sack from him and went over to his bags of gems and poured a bit over half of the yellow mana gems into the sack for Antrias to use. "I only have a limited number of cores, since they don't drop in the dungeon, but this book describes how to augment them. This book is about mana gems specifically, and this one is making enchanted jewelry."
"Thank you, Evren!" Antrias said wholeheartedly.