THE MULTIPLYING MALEVOLENT SLAVES
"What's the use for the Orbs of Alteration?" I asked Ratatouille.
"It's the artifact that could allow shape changing", he explained to me.
"You already turn into anything that you want, why do you need all three of them?" I asked him.
"Because I want them", he told me greedily.
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"The graduation test is coming up in a week", the class teacher told us.
Although I just joined school for a short time, it was actually the end of the school year.
"Oriese, you should sit out the test, you missed almost the entire year's study", Agrilla said to me.
After I turned over a new leaf, Agrilla also changed a little to the better. Goodness was contagious it seemed.
"Don't worry the test is nothing to me", I told Oriese's former best friend.
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The end of year test was a practical excursion to an abandoned mine.
The object of the test was to pick up tokens that were hidden in the mine and passing the test required the obtaining of the tokens.
There were some traps placed in the mine by the teachers and some wild creatures too. Although it wasn't fatally dangerous, this test was rather taxing to the average High Schooler.
"You are to set teams to explore the abandoned mine and should depend on each other for your safety", the teacher instructed us.
I was put into a team together with Agrilla and a few other students whom I wasn't really familiar with. We went into the mine that was dotted with a myriad of tunnels and corridors like a maze.
But the mine wasn't really dangerous because it was carefully swept by the school's guards and templars beforehand to ensure nothing undesirable or unexpected would happen.
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"Oriese, do you know what happened to that Yasidee and Panshee? They didn't come to the school test", Agrilla told me.
"Better still. There will be fewer people competing for the tokens", I replied to him.
The real Yasidee together with his mother were taken by the Temple of Solomon people. After I visited the Ermane's underground temple and vault, I snuck Yasidee's mother out of the house for her own safety and I took Yasidee away with her. Panshee was hung on a tree for a day before the Temple took him.
They were all inside a prison, in the slums of Staari city. I plan to release them after we finished what we started out to do in this city.
"These tunnels are creepy", Agrilla said to us.
There wasn't much danger as we explored the abandoned mine with the exception of some booby traps here and there that were mainly to hinder than harm us. This was after all a school test, not a dangerous mission. Everything is controlled by the school's teachers.
"Watch out", I told Agrilla as several wooden pikes were shot out from the walls of the corridor that injured him.
"Argghhhhh"
Agrilla cried in pain as we took the wooden pike out of him and dressed up his wounds.
"Don't worry, this is nothing that a potion of healing won't fix in a few days", I told Agrilla.
"We are not going any further", one of our teammates said to us.
"Yes, yes, yes", the other teammates including Agrilla decided not to continue with the test.
The test was designed to train the students to adapt to different environments and to prepare them to face dangerous situations like these in the future.
It wasn't dangerous because it was all set up by the teachers. But for the inexperienced, the dangerous situation posed by the mine could be unbearable for the meek.
The team that I was with was the worst team in my class. Although continuing the test wouldn't be fatal to them if I was around, they would actually hinder my progress.
"Alright, you guys make your way back to the outside, I'll explore this mine for a little bit", I told them and dismissed the team.
"Are you sure you are going alone, it's scary in there?" Agrilla asked me worrying about my safety.
Although Agrilla was a bully like Oriese, they were actually best of friends who cared for each other. And he was becoming nicer after Oriese stopped bullying people.
"Don't worry I'll be fine", I told Agrilla.
"I promise I won't bully the other kids if you come out safe", Agrilla said to me.
After sending Agrilla and the team back it was time to explore the abandoned mine for real.
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"What the hell are we doing here? I am a gold hunter not useless token finder", Ratatouille complained to me as he came out as a flying book.
"Nobody finds things better than you", I said to him.
"You better pay me a wage for this hard work", he replied to me.
Ratatouille scouted ahead of me, going into the myriad of tunnels, many of which were impassable for most students and activating the booby traps. He managed to find many tokens put in the mine for the students to find.
"Haven't you got enough of those tokens? You almost took half of them, leave some for the others. There's no reward for getting too many of them", Ratatouille said to me about the tokens that I collected.
"Call it a gut feeling, I feel like something is different in this mine", I told Ratatouille.
"Actually, I smell it too. This mine doesn't smell right but why do we care?" he asked me.
"There might be danger here and we must warn the students if there is", I told him.
"I'm not doing anymore hunting. Why don't you send your Malevolent Slave instead", he suggested to me.
"Summon Alpha Malevolent"
I summoned Alpha, my malevolent Slave. However, this time, two slaves appeared before me.
"Who is this, Alpha?" I asked Alpha about the companion that he brought with him.
"She is lost soul in Crypt College. She escape Darkness. Join me", Alpha told me.
Alpha was beginning to learn language. Although he couldn't speak properly yet, his words were intelligible.
"Do you mean, this is another Malevolent?" I asked Alpha and he nodded.
"Can I have more Malevolent slaves?" I asked Ratatouille.
"You can have as many of them as your magic can support just like your harem of wives", he told me.
"Damnit, I'm serious. Why did another Malevolent Slave appear?" I asked him.
"Alpha already told you. This Malevolent must be a powerful ancient soul that resided in the Crypt College in Kalydon. When you sent out the Dark Vortex of the Dark Angel, it scoured the island for souls. To escape from the Dark Vortex, this clever soul escaped with Alpha. After a period of incubation, she became another Malevolent Slave of yours", Ratatouille told me.
"Damn, my Malevolent Slaves can multiply?" I said to him.
"The former Dark Angel has hundreds even thousands of Malevolent Slaves and incarnates, this is only the beginning", he told me.
"What you call her?" Alpha asked me about the new slave soul.
I have an unimaginative idea.
"I'll call her, Beta", I replied to them.
So, Alpha and Beta scoured the mine to look for hidden dangers that could harm the school's students.
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"Some..thinng.. behind wall", Alpha told me with a message in my mind.
We quickly went to the wall that Alpha discovered.
"Is there something here?" I asked Ratatouille.
Ratatouille turned into a gecko and climbed all over the wall, looking for crevices and holes. After disappearing inside the wall for some time, he returned to us.
"There is another set of unexplored tunnels of an ancient mine behind this wall", Ratatouille told me to my surprise.
"Didn't the teachers say this mine is abandoned?" I asked them.
"Maybe this mine joined into another mine on the other side of the mountain", Ratatouille told me.
"I don't understand", I asked him.
"We are deep inside the tunnels of this abandoned mine, and we have reached much further than the teachers or even the original miners have ever been to. We could have well reached the tunnel system of another mine", he told me his opinion.
I quickly projected out the map of the mountains from my wristband and studied it.
"Where can this abandoned mine connect to?" I asked my AI wristband.
Suddenly, a blinking red beep appeared on the map of the mountains for me to see.
"What is those red blinking?" Ratatouile asked me.
"That is the Mithrium mine that the Solomon prisoners were sent to work in", I replied to him.
"Does this abandoned mine connect to that mine?" he asked me.
"Maybe we should find out about it", I told him.
"But how do we get through this thick stone?" Ratatouille asked me.
"I think Sara installed a drilling drone inside our shuttle", I replied to him.
I brought out a mechanical drone from our shuttle and commanded it to drill into the rock wall before us.
Although the rock was thick and dense, our drill was made from the technology of the 23rd century Earth, it easily bore a hole into the rock. Before long, a tunnel was made into the other side.
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