Chereads / Lord of the Crypt [paused] / Chapter 9 - Ch.9 Gray Gem

Chapter 9 - Ch.9 Gray Gem

Standing in front of the golem was an astonished Frank, with fear apparent in his eyes.

'WHAT THE FUCK?'

A giant wave made of pebbles was moving in his direction, closing any ways of retreat and trapping Frank in a ‹stone tornado cage›. A giant boulder was floating above his head, it was one of the boulders that was making a boulder formation before.

With no way to escape Frank began sweating, all of his life's and afterlife's memories flashing before his eyes. A scary aura of Fear and Insanity was blasting out of him. Frank, not being able to control it, felt his heart stopping. He have turned into stone statue.

The golem, not feeling any life nearby, cancelled his attack and went back to sitting in the stone formation. (Frank's aura isn't working on the golem because it have no emotions or a living body that can stop working if enough stress is applied to it. The golem is almost a perfect weapon)

***************

Waking up sometime later, Frank began running, trying not to be caught in a cage again and he have succeded. He saw a cage forming quickly at a place where he was standing before.

'Maybe it's like a robot, with some actions programmed into it, not knowing how to improvise?' thought Frank on the run.

Running around the golem, Frank threw The Seeker at the gem that was the golem's core, hitting the place right beside it, but The Seeker got stuck there. He was thinking of any ways to defeat the golem with his current power. He came to the conclusion that the only ability that could do some damage to the golem is his petrification, because The Seeker was too short and inflexible, he can't control it to cut the gem out from the distance, so he will still need to come close to the gem and his petrified nails were sharper than The Seeker anyways.

But the golem wasn't doing nothing, seeing that his cage attack failed, he began his second attack sequence, manipulating all of the rocks in the room he started hurling them at Frank at large speeds, creating loud tremors when any stone misses him. Some small pebbles still hitted him, drilling into his flesh, and it was very painful, not as painful as the Scorat's venom but still.

Gritting his teeth in pain, Frank began running in unpredictable ways: zigzaging, making loops, suddenly jumping to the side and more. He was slowly moving towards the golem this way, being vigilant against any changes in the golem's attacking pattern.

When Frank was one meter before the golem, the golem began moving his clumsy body, changing his attack sequence once more. He started attracting all of the rocks lying on the floor in the room's center, creating an attack from all directions, making it very hard to dodge.

Frank, not being able to dodge every rock, petrified his whole back, bracing for the impact of the smaller stones and trying to dodge the bigger ones. He was still moving closer to the golem.

When he was half a meter before the golem, it started repeating its first attack sequence, trying to create a small ‹stone tornado cage› around Frank. But Frank was anticipating this, so then he noticed the strange movement, he quickly dashed in the golem's direction, arriving before the golem less than two seconds later.

Frank jumped to arrive at the gem's level and quickly ripped it off the golem with his petrified hand. The golem has crumled the moment the gray gem was removed. Frank took The Seeker out of the large stone while panting heavily.

He overexterted himself quite a bit, he was constantly vigilant for the whole duration of battle, doing almost impossible body movements to dodge the stones.

'Fuck, that was scary. I hope I will not meet any golems anymore. Oh, I've just jinxed myself, didn't I?' thought Frank while lying on the ground and staring at the ceiling.

Frank held the gray gem before his eyes, inspecting it carefully. He had tried sending his runes in it and it have sucked them in easily, beginning to shine slightly with gray light.

'Oh, I can manipulate rocks through it very easily' thought Frank while levitating some rocks beside himself with almost no effort.

'This will surely come in handy, I should probably take all of these rocks with me now.'

*rumble*

Frank's belly was asking for food again.

'I should clear several rooms now, I need a lot of energy to fix all of the cracks around my body.'

This room had no doors asides from the one he came from and the one leading to the spider room, so he had decided to return to the starting room, to explore the only direction he hadn't explored already.

Going through the door (the starting room is behind), Frank saw a room with no boulders or campfires in it, there were five spiders standing in the middle: two big ones and three smaller ones. They were just like ordinary black tarantula, just bigger.

Frank was happy to see such weak monsters in such big numbers, it meant to use less effort to get more food for him.

Hurling The Seeker at one of the big spiders and killing it instantly, Frank dashed in the direction of the other one, killing it with a piercing blow to its head. The small spider standing near, he just killed by kicking it in its head. Rushing to the left, Frank took The Seeker out from the big spider's head and threw it to his right, pinning the spider rushing at him to the ground. The last spider was killed by Frank throwing a rock at it and crushing its head.

Piling the spiders up on each other, Frank took them to the barbecue room while humming some happy tune.

After eating all of the spiders, Frank had returned to the 5piders room and went in the right door, finding another Scorat there.

The room had no doors aside from one he came from. The were five campfires under the wall opposite the door he came from, they were standing in a straight line. The Scorat was standing in the middle, as always.

Quickly killing it, Frank cooked it right in this room. After eating the whole Scorat and feeling full, Frank had decided to train in this room, he created a stone bed at the corner of the room with the help of the gray gem and the stones he was carrying with himself.

Sitting on a stone bed cross legged, Frank began his petrification training routine. He was still trying to get the runes to every part of his body. After half a month of this training, he became hungry once again.

He went to the 5pider room, and then to the front door (the starting room is to the left). The room was small, with a boulder wall almost taking the half of the room, the open space was only 3x5 meters big. At the center of the room, near the stone wall, stood a shrew, that he have seen already, so Frank had easily made it his meal. There were three doors in this room the one that he came from, the one leading to the first Scorat room (its to the left) and the unexplore one (to the right).

Climbing the wall, Frank saw that there was nothing there. But when he had wanted to climb down, he saw a strange blue boulder among the other gray ones. Crawling to the strange boulder, Frank saw a socket in it, seemingly for a tennis ball, or a bomb. Putting the bomb in the socket, Frank climbed down from the wall and used the stone to carefully press the button on the bomb. After five seconds of waiting it blew up, making a hole in the wall. In the hole was a locked copper chest, now Frank knew for what the copper key was used.

Openning the chest, he saw it disintegrating into nothingness together with the key he had inserted into it, leaving three silver coins and another bomb on the floor. There was a number 10 scribbled on coins.

'Hmm, if there's money, there should be some kind of shop in this place' thought Frank, while throwing the coins and a bomb into his cocoon bag, which was still holding on somehow.

Going back to his ‹bedroom›, Frank cooked the shrew and began his training again after eating it.

After training for another ten days, Frank could finally petrify himself fully, or almost fully. While training, Frank encountered an unexpected problem - the runes didn't want to go into his organs. He could move them there by force, but the petrification was cancelled right after he lost his concentration, which is bad if he's in dangerous situation.

Him trying to petrify his organs drained a lot of his energy, so he was hungry again one day later. Going into the 5pider room, he went into the right door (‹bedroom› is behind).

This room was halved by a boulder wall, like a second shrew room, but the wall was halving this room diagonaly. There were only two doors in this room, the one he came from and the one to its left. In the center of the open space was lying a giant grub (3 meters long, 1 meter wide) with a big toothy mouth.

'I'm going to have a good meal today. What a nice day.'

Holding a gray gem in his left hand, Frank manipulated the rocks to trap the grub, while he was climbing the wall to see if there's something in there. Sadly, there was nothing behind the wall, no blue stones as well.

Going back into his ‹bedroom›, Frank begun coking the grub. After eating the yummy fried grub, he went to sleep.