Ellie stood at the ravine's edge with her back turned to Garren's lab. her system menu floated in front of her, and she frowned. ever since she had reached level 15 a day ago, her progress had stopped dead in its tracks. the level-up bar was gray, and she had no notification that could enlighten her as to why. it was like the system had died once she reached level 15. she had spent her 10 skill points from the level-ups on strength, causing her to become strong enough to hopefully defend herself if she ever encountered a hostile creature in the caves.
A set of heavy footsteps came from behind her and stopped a few feet away.
"Are you feeling disappointed that your strength isn't growing anymore?" Garren said as he looked out over the cliff with her.
"I guess, it's just that I have the feeling that I'm missing something simple. it's like I'm stuck right before my goal, ya know?"
Garren chuckled and looked over at Ellie "I've been feeling like I've been stuck for over 20 years now, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get there." He pulled out a rolled-up cloth map from his cloak, and handed it to Ellie "Why don't you go out and explore the cave for a bit, sometimes the only thing stopping us from progressing is that we haven't found the right way forward."
Ellie picked up her bag and grabbed a sturdy broom handle from beside the temporary cot Garren had set up for her, then walked to the bat's resting area.
"I need you to take me to the other side now please," she said, poking one of the adult bats that she had been carried by before.
Garren watched as Ellie was gently carried over the ravine by his bats "I hope you find what you are looking for, goddess knows I never did..." he said quietly.
Ellie's footsteps echoed through the caves as she followed the map. the map was labeled with the locations of the different colored crystals, as well as the habitats of different monsters and beasts.
she thought back to the lesson on monsters that Garren had given her. the only real distinction between any lifeform and a monster is the mind. when a creature absorbs too much incompatible magic, it loses all intelligence and becomes a mindless killing machine whose only sole purpose is to kill anything that doesn't look like itself. a monster could come from any creature, even a human infant could become a monster if it was corrupted. the worst part of a monster is that its offspring will also be monsters.
Ellie walked straight towards the weakest monster on the map, some sort of earth element rat creature called a Gnawling, called so because its two front teeth were razor sharp, and could gnaw through anything, given enough time. standing at the edge of the Gnawling's territory, she sat and waited for one to wander over towards her alone so that she could test and see how strong they were. after the third patrol walked around the border in front of her, eventually a singular Gnawling with a piece of metal in its mouth came walking towards her.
she waited for it to get right next to the rock she was hiding behind, and quickly jumped up above it. the Gnawling sensed something was wrong and looked around to try and find the source of the danger, but wasn't able to avoid being smacked on top of the head by Ellie's broomstick handle. the creature's head was instantly slammed into the dirt, killing it as quickly as she could manage.
"that was really easy, now how am I supposed to get its loot?" Ellie struggled for a bit to try and pull its valuable front teeth out, and eventually, they wiggled loose.
Ellie reached down and picked up the dirty piece of metal the rat had been gnawing on, and rubbed it clean with her tunic.
{Trinket Discovered}