The 'nest' of the salamanders was somewhere in a cave. Alan hadn't entered it the first time he came around since there had been some of the creatures sitting outside the entrance. It was located inside the same forest he was currently living in, and was on the side of a hill. The last time he had been here, there were only two salamanders by the front, but this time there were half a dozen.

Beast: Fire Infused Salamander (uncommon) level 6, threat: low. A semi-aquatic creature that thrives in moist environments. This particular species is both resistant to fire and capable of using it to bolster its own attacks.

That was the largest of the beasts currently outside the cave. At just over a hundred and fifty centimeters in length, it was half again as long as the smallest. The others ranged from level three to five. These were not really a threat, but he would have to watch out for whatever special attacks they had.

Alan was still not really sure how hitpoints worked, getting stabbed through the heart had proven lethal to others and he assumed the same was true for himself. The same blow, slightly in one direction or another would simply cause a depletion of some health. While these creatures probably didn't have strong attacks, if they hit in the right place it could be an issue. Also, he had seen enough people go up in flames to know it wasn't pleasant. This is where a mage shield would have come in handy.

Alan hadn't gotten around to figuring out a spell for that, so he would just have to do his best. His hide pants at least should be flame resistant, but his padded armor had caught on fire before. Oh, and his hair. It was finally looking normal again after the drow, Griff, had burned the longer parts of it during their fight. He didn't really want to have the rest burned off. In addition to no doubt being painful, it would bring up a lot of questions with the Corellians.

Deciding that stealth archer was the way to approach this, at least until he had a better idea of what their fire attacks looked like, he took out his crossbow. He only had about fifteen bolts left. He tried to recover them after fights, but sometimes they were lost or too damaged to use again. Leaning against a tree, both for cover and to brace himself, Alan sighted in on the head of the largest one.

With a twang the shaft was away. He was only about thirty meters from his target so it hit almost instantly. His aim was true and the bolt was buried in its head. The attack was probably instantly lethal, but some kind of message was being sent through its nervous system because the long slender body and tail were still thrashing around.

The other salamanders knew something was wrong, but they didn't know where the danger was coming from. Alan slotted another bolt and took aim at a level five near the opening to the cave. Another thwap as the shaft was buried in its head and a second one was dead. This time the others seemed to get a vector for the threat at least.

They released a keening cry as they scampered in his direction. He had time to shoot another beast before storing his crossbow. The highest level left was only a four, so he decided to face the last three up close. He took out his holy infused pugio and his spewn. The unknown fire attack was worrisome, but he felt confident that anything a level four, even an uncommon one, could throw at him shouldn't be an issue.

When he stepped out from behind his cover, the three salamanders suddenly stopped, and almost as one they opened their mouths and a small bolt of fire shot out. From the description his identify skill gave him, Alan had thought the fire enhancement would add to its claw or bite attacks. A ranged breath weapon caught him by surprise.

However, a true combat specialist is rarely completely surprised and he was able to duck to avoid the volley. They had fired from perhaps ten meters away so he had almost a full second to react. While that much time didn't seem like much, with his heightened stats it was plenty. It helped that they were weak attacks and he was a relatively small target.

Rather than rushing in, he chose to hold his position and see how long it took them to fire again. If they could blast those off like a machine gun he might be in trouble. Instead, it seemed like they could fire one every four or five seconds. Three of them firing them off that quickly might have been an issue before joining the Network, but now he simply waited for one of the pauses and then dashed forward. The ten meters took about a second and he sliced with the sharp edge of his spewn, all down the length of one of the smaller beasts.

Its moist flesh offered little resistance and even its ribs were cut as he had put a decent amount of force behind the attack. Some of its internal organs came spilling out and he knew it was dead, or soon would be. One of the remaining salamanders took the opportunity to bite on his leg. His hide pants had been treated to increase their resistance to cutting attacks, but they were also able to deal with a level three's teeth trying to puncture them. The force of the bite was transferred through the material, but it just felt like pressure, without any penetration.

With its jaws locked onto his leg it was trivial to swipe down with his spewn and completely sever its neck. The soft slimy skin separated easily and the spine offered barely a tug as his blade cut through it. That left one more enemy and he prepared to bring his mace side down on its head when he was struck by several small fire bolts and a couple more barely missed him. Alan had been so focused on the salamanders in front of him that he missed the swarm exiting the tunnel. That keening wail must have alerted others to trouble.

Alan pointed his spewn at the entrance and created a stone wall to block off any more surprises. The spell wasn't fire based so he only got a small boost from channeling it through his weapon. With his other hand he speared down and pinned the last of the original salamanders' head to the ground using his pugio. It thrashed weakly for a moment before remaining still. That left the eight newly arrived salamanders to deal with.

The small fire bolts that had hit him caused little damage. The most worrisome part of the attack was the two that had set his padded shirt on fire. Luckily they were small flames that he easily patted out. The second round of blasts came and he managed to dodge all but one. When it hit, on the left side of his chest, he felt a strange pulse of energy before his shirt caught fire. Smothering the small burning patch, he tried to play the moment over again in his mind.

The mass of attacks had come at him, balls filled with fire mana. Diving down and to the side, he had avoided most, but one had struck him. He felt the pain as the mana invaded his body, but then there was a tiny burst of something familiar and his shirt had started to burn. He hadn't been paying close enough attention to further identify what it was he felt.

He didn't have time to mess around, while each shot that hit was doing minimal damage, there were enough of the beasts that they would be able to wear him down over time. Activating mana lode, he used his stone spear spell to take out two of his enemies. Fire bolt was his usual go to offensive spell, but he didn't think that would work well against fire-infused creatures. He could experiment with that when there were fewer opponents.

A second stone spear spell took out two more, just as they released their third round of fire blasts. With only four incoming it was much easier to avoid them all. Rolling forward he then sprinted towards them, ready to take them out the old fashioned way. With a couple of swipes from his spewn and another stab with his pugio, there was one level four salamander left. Now that he was right next to his wall blocking off the cave entrance he could hear thumping coming from the other side.

With one opponent left, Alan chose to test out some things. First, he backed up to give himself some space. Then he let the beast's next blast hit him in the abdomen. He was focused on the entire process this time. It wasn't a spell that it was casting, there was no form to the fire mana. Instead, it erupted as a writhing ball of it, physically appearing as flames.

When it hit his body, he could feel the energy enter his aura, causing some damage that way. However, he also felt a sensation of heat mana frying his skin and the same burst from before. It took him a moment to realize it was a form of combustion and ignition mana. This was what had been causing his clothing to catch fire.

Since energy was entering his aura, he thought maybe he could use his own energy to block it. Two more blasts later let him know that whatever he was doing, wasn't working. His poor shirt now had a collection of scorch marks and burn holes, hopefully the self-repairing feature would be able to handle it. His next experiment was to see if he could do something about the secondary effect of the attack, the combustion and ignition mana.

From previous incidents, Alan knew that allowing different types of mana to touch could have explosive consequences. Trying to destroy the mana in that fashion would probably do him more harm than the attack itself. He had seen Griff create a shield that blocked Alan's magical attacks, so there must be a way to use mana to block mana without causing an explosion.

He was almost positive that a direct confrontation of mana would lead to problems. Somehow he needed to guide the foreign mana away from himself, or do the opposite and possibly he could absorb it. A crazy idea started to form, and when he took the next blast, instead of trying to fight off the combustion he tried to suck it into his aura. The damage he had been taking from the fire bolts was only around ten hit points, and he could deal with a lot of hits before that was a problem, especially with his healing spells. It was the fires it was setting that were the real issue.

It turned out that trying to absorb the foreign mana was a terrible idea. His health plummeted and he was forced to immediately heal himself. It seemed like when the mana had to invade his aura, some of the damage was mitigated, but if he invited it in, he got a full blast. Willingly absorbing it was out. At least with his aura.

While he had taken a ton of damage, he had noticed that there were no new flames from this attack. Perhaps absorbing it was an option, but just not with his aura. Thinking back, the shield Griff had created was only able to handle so much damage before it was destroyed. Perhaps it was somehow drawing the mana into itself. Frankly, if that was the case, it was beyond Alan's knowledge level at the moment. He would have to spend some time with his primer before he tried messing around with anything like that.

The last experiment he wanted to try was using a fire bolt on the salamander. He used a medium sized bolt, the ball only as big as his head. It struck the beast, and flames briefly enveloped it, but afterwards it showed only minimal damage. It wasn't immune to the attack, but it didn't seem to be fully effective. If he had to guess, just like his aura was blocking some of the damage from the salamanders magical attack, so too was the creature's own aura blocking Alan's. And since the beast was fire-infused, it was probably doing a better job blocking a fire attack. The stone spears from earlier had had little problem killing them.

A small lean to the side allowed the salamander's latest attack to whizz by and then he rushed forward and stabbed its brain. The time he had spent experimenting lasted less than two minutes, so his mana was still working its way up. Mana lode was doing its job however, and it would be full soon. Walking over to his wall, he could still hear thumps hitting it. Now that he was closer he could also feel heat coming off of it.

If Alan had to guess, there was a horde of the creatures on the other side of the wall blasting away, trying to melt their way through. Judging by the almost constant stream of pounding on the wall, there must be a very large group trying to bust out. This might even be the entire nest. It was too good a chance to pass up.

Walking about thirty meters away from the entrance, Alan created another smaller wall in front of himself. It only came up to his chest and was barely two meters wide. The smaller size meant it took less of his mana to summon and as upkeep. Next he started preparing another spell as he unsummoned his first wall, the one blocking the cave.

When he cast his wall spell, he had to spend mana to create it, but it also took mana every second to maintain it. He could shut off that flow of mana, or it could be severed if he got too far away, and the wall would remain. It would quickly turn brittle and would fall apart from minor attacks, but it would still be there. The other option was to pull the mana back from the wall. This would restore a small portion of his expenditure and eliminate the stone completely. This is what he did now.

A mass of salamanders boiled out of the suddenly unblocked cave, at least twenty of them, possibly more than thirty. Alan finished casting his prepared spell and ducked down behind his barrier. A barrage of fire blasts hit the other side or flew over the top of the low wall. The heat from the near misses was enough to make him sweat. Then it was his attack's turn to hit.

With the creatures being fire based, a flaming rock might not seem like a great idea. However, his meteor spell used infernal and holy mana, not fire. There were probably some other types of mana wrapped up in those two that he hadn't been able to tease out yet, and there was likely some overlap with fire, but it was different enough that the salamanders did not have any increased resistance. That didn't even factor in the sheer mass of the stone.

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When it hit, the pile of beasts was devastated. At least half were killed in the initial explosion and the rest were blasted by the aftereffects. A few managed to survive his attack, but they were in rough shape and would be easy to finish off. Even at a bit of a distance and behind a wall, Alan still felt rattled by the impact.

Coming out from behind his cover, Alan took in the scene. Two cutup and bleeding salamanders were trying to limp back into the cave and a third was making that keening noise while attempting to crawl with only one leg. He quickly put that one out of its misery and then finished off the other two. None of them put up a fight.

He was a little surprised by how effective his spell was, but then again, these beasts were only uncommon and a very low level. Even the kobolds he had fought were tougher targets. On reflection, if the salamanders were too much stronger than they were already, they could have easily overrun the forest and possibly the village. The Network had to balance the danger level to the villagers with making it a challenge for the recruits.

So many of the beasts had been killed that there was probably little resistance left inside. It was described as a nest, though, so there was probably a queen or something in there. Alan made his way into the tunnel without taking any of the corpses. The creatures didn't look to have too much meat on them, and their skin was very slimy. Not only that, but he seemed to recall hearing that salamanders, or was it newts, were very toxic. Maybe he would throw a couple into his storage after he finished, just in case they were useful for an alchemist or something.

The cave they had emerged from was a good size. He was able to walk down it with only minor ducking necesary. As soon as he entered he felt the moisture level increase. It made sense, these things were supposed to be semi-aquatic. There was probably water or something down here somewhere. The cave turned into a tunnel that stretched mostly horizontally, with only a little vertical descent, that ran for about a hundred meters. Along the way he only ran into two more of the beasts and they were both easy kills.

At the end of the tunnel it opened up to what he could only describe as a grotto. It was at least forty meters across and half of that was taken up by a deep pool. There was also a trickle of water coming in from the far wall, creating ripples as it dropped into the pond. Looking closer into the water he could see leafy fronds of some kind that were fully submerged. There were large clusters of eggs clinging to the vegetation.

As he watched, an egg hatched and a small tadpole looking thing emerged and joined the host of others that were swimming around. Looking closer he could see that they were all at different stages of maturity. Some were almost indistinguishable from the classic tadpole while others had longer bodies or even legs. The smallest were the size of his pinky while the larger ones were as big as his forearm.

Sitting on a shelf that kept it partially submerged was the largest salamander he had seen yet. It was over three meters long and its body was much thicker than the others he had seen. If this was a videogame, that would definitely be the boss.

Beast: Fire Infused Salamander (rare) level 11, threat: medium. A semi-aquatic creature that thrives in moist environments. This particular species is both resistant to fire and capable of using it to bolster its own attacks.

The description was the same as the others, but both its level and and its rarity were higher. After level ten creatures were about the same level as a person with an opal class. This meant that while the others had been mere fodder, the creature before him could put up a fight. There weren't any other mature salamanders in the area, so Alan liked his chances.

He had a long window in which the Corellians would be gone, but he had already used almost an hour. The faster he got this over with, the sooner he could make it back to camp and begin working on some new spells. He had so many ideas already.

So far the creature hadn't reacted to his presence, it was just lying in the pool, its larvae swimming around bumping into it. Alan tried to cast a stone spear, but he had trouble forming the spell. Finally he managed to complete it, but instead of coming up from the ground, the spears came down from the ceiling. It seemed like they couldn't form through the water it was sitting in. Fortunately the grotto was only about three meters high so the tips of his spell were just able to reach the beast.

The damage wasn't impressive, only a few inches of the tips were able to penetrate the creature's body. It was enough to get its attention, however. A sheen formed over its body and it scampered off of its perch and into the water. It was moving well, this would be a fast, agile enemy, not a lumbering hulk. Now that it was swimming, the stone spear spell was most likely worthless. His fire bolt would also probably do little, especially since it could just duck under the water.

That left Alan with few options, other than trying to fight it out with his daggers or spewn. He wasn't a Seal, so the thought of diving in and battling it out was not super appealing, but the beast didn't seem to have any plans of climbing out of the water to fight either. A stalemate could only help the salamander as Alan had places to be and even as he watched, more eggs were hatching and some of the larvae were crawling out of the water, already almost a meter long.

These he quickly dispatched, much to the annoyance of the boss in the water, but it still wouldn't come out to fight him. After a few minutes of waiting, Alan put his spewn away and took out his pugio and seax. The spewn was a more powerful weapon, but its length would make it unwieldy in the water, and it would make swimming even harder than it was going to be.

Trying to end the fight quickly, Alan had tried to dive knives first into the large salamander. It was ready for him however, and with a few swishes of its tail it was clear across the pool as he plunged in. The cloudy water was several meters deep here, and he found himself struggling to determine which way was up. He had taken a deep breath before jumping in, but without a bottom to push off of, he was left flailing, trying to research the surface.

Suddenly a double set of teeth appeared in front of his face. Instinctively recoiling, he lashed out with his daggers. The blades managed to deflect the bite, but didn't do any damage. The mouth was soon replaced by the rest of the body as the creature swam around him. As it did, it would occasionally pivot quickly, snapping at Alan with its jaws, trying to catch him unawares.

Each time he was ready with his daggers, blocking its attack. He debated letting it latch on so he would have some leverage to strike back with, but the teeth were narrow and pointed, and at least a few centimeters long. It would easily be able to penetrate the holes in his bone mail and tear into his chest. If it caught a limb it might even be able to rip it off.

Alan's lungs were now complaining that he hadn't taken a breath recently. He had only been underwater for maybe ten seconds, so it was mostly in his head. That didn't mean it was any less uncomfortable, though. He needed to end this quickly. Spells down here were probably not going to be effective, the water preventing several of them from being cast. A prismatic orb might be even more disorienting than normal, but he was worried about it hurting his own eyesight as well.

His next option was to use a class ability. The next time it lunged at him, Alan activated twin slash. Rather than simply pushing the teeth away, both blades cut into the flesh around its mouth. It was now the salamander that was recoiling, this time from pain. Blood started to color the water around them.

With it distracted, Alan took the opportunity to stab it in its exposed side. He lacked the proper leverage to drive his blades deep, but he left behind another pair of bleeding wounds. Before he could follow up with more attacks, it disappeared once again. Frantically moving his arms through the water and kicking his feet, Alan managed to propel himself to the surface, taking in a lungful of air.

Looking round, he couldn't spot the boss, but the pool was starting to bubble and foam. Unsure of what was happening, Alan swam over to the side and pulled himself out. For some reason the water was much easier to see through from the outside and he saw the large salamander being swarmed by all the small larvae. They were rushing in and ripping pieces of its flesh away from the bleeding wounds he had inflicted.

The creature fought back the best it could, its jaws snapping at its antagonists, but there were dozens of the little things in there and for every one it managed to eat, two more replaced it. Alan started to feel bad for the boss. It was slowly being eaten alive by its own progeny. It was as he considered how to put it out of its misery that he realized he'd been an idiot.

His spells were useless through the water, but he had another weapon that wasn't. Pulling his crossbow out his storage, he took aim at the thrashing beast. He wasn't going to try for a headshot, shooting through water and a very active target already made for enough of a challenge. The first bolt hit center mass, but it wasn't enough to immediately kill the thing. The third bolt was the one to end it.

Now he had a dilemma. He needed those bolts back, but he didn't want to get in the water with those crazed tadpoles to retrieve them. Searching through his various rings, necklaces, and his pouch, he was able to find a longer stick and he dragged the corpse near the edge. Pulling the body out, he had to brush several of the larvae back into the water, their teeth had still been dug into the boss' flesh.

After retrieving his shafts, Alan surveyed the area. The pool was full of babies that would one day grow up to be giant fire-breathing salamanders. If they had been human, or at least humanoid, he might have felt some guilt over this, but he had no compunction about killing future monsters. Instead, using the same method he had perfected to warm up a bath, Alan was able to boil the water in the pool. Heat was not quite the same thing as fire it seemed, and even if their resistance was helping, the larvae were still tiny level zero creatures. Soon the water was filled with floating tadpoles.

His next task was checking out an alcove he had noticed near the back. It wasn't obvious on the way in, but there was a small room on the other side of a wide crack. Here he found the mature larvae who hadn't fully grown into being a fire salamander.

There were eight of the creatures here and they were sitting motionless. The floor they were resting on wasn't just stone, it was covered in some type of thick moss. He studied it for a bit before his herbology skill kicked in.

Fire Moss. This moss is able to convert ambient mana into fire mana. Can be used for a variety of crafting purposes.

This must be what was imbuing them with fire and making them so large. Alan quickly killed the remaining beasts and then set about scraping the moss from the rock. He stored it in his necklace, sure it would come in handy at some point. At the very least, someone might want to buy it. Putting the necklace back in his pouch, he checked his notification.

Quest Completed: Clearing a Nest

[You managed to clear the nest of salamanders. Return to the village of Elstree's Town Hall to retrieve your reward.]

Alan felt rather pleased with himself. Other than the mass baby-murder, he had done a Good Thing and helped secure the safety of the village. He was also going to get rewarded from it and this should help improve his reputation with the mayor. There was also a little bit of loot, but he was sad that the bodies were most likely worthless. He stored the partially eaten boss on his way out, just in case, and checked on his status.

Alan Taylor

Race: Human [W]

Class:

Custodian (22%) Opal

Dimachari (30%) Opal

Inquirer (25%) Opal

Learner (18%) Opal

Medicine Man (19%) Opal

Phantom (37%) Opal

Sorcerer (40%) Opal

Stalker (20%) Opal

Health: 499 (50/hour)

Stamina: 469 (94/minute)

Mana: 470 (47/minute)

Army Rank: Vice-Lieutenant

Stats:

Strength: 28

Dexterity: 28

Perception: 24

Focus: 23

Intelligence: 28

Wisdom: 26

Constitution: 25

Spirit: 21

Skills:

Alchemy: 27, Archery: 18, Aura Reading: 178, Blocking: 28, Blunt Weapons: 66, Cooking: 50, Daggers: 115, Dodging: 63, Farming: 32, First Aid: 29, Harvesting: 28, Herbology: 36, Identify: 63, Mana Drawing: 82, Mana Enhancement: 50, Mana Handling: 137, Mining: 3, Running: 56, Sneak: 62, Spears: 4, Swords: 25, Tracking: 42, Two Weapon Fighting: 87, Unarmed Combat: 45

Titles: [Apprentice], [Gladiator], [Top Recruit]

Class Abilities:

Custodian: Absorb

Dimachari: Twin Slash

Medicine Man: Healer's Mark

Phantom: Fade

Sorcerer: Empower, Mana Lode

Talents:

Custodian: Block, Hammer Blow, Shield, Taunt, Thick Skin

Dimachari: Fury, Parry, Slash

Inquirer: Inspiring Presence, Sensitivity, Soul Mending, Soul Probing, Soul Block

Learner: Critical Hit, Fast Learner, Understanding

Medicine Man: Cure, Mend

Phantom: Backstab, Dodge, Quick Hands, Stealth, Light Steps

Sorcerer: Air Bender, Dark Spreader, Earth Mover, Fire Starter, Light Spinner, Mana Lacing, Water Weaver

Stalker: 6th Sense, Charm Animal, Predator's Focus, Track

Spells: Cone of Steam (Common), Conjure Water (Rare), Fire Bolt (Uncommon), Gust (common), Light Bolt (common), Light (common), Meteor (Rare), Minor Healing (common), Minor Regeneration (Uncommon), Prismatic Orb (Rare), Shadow Bolt (Uncommon), Stone Spear (common), Stone Wall (Uncommon), Healing Waters (Rare)

He had made some solid gains in a variety of skills. His favorite was two points in cooking. It must have counted boiling the tadpoles. Sorcerer was now his highest level class, that marked the first time since he had gotten his first class that it wasn't a dexterity one. All in all this was a successful outing, but it was time to get back. There was smoking meat to check on and spells to imagine.

Alan had never felt more alive than he did right now. Removing the overall context, this seemed like a glorious vacation for him. Camping in the woods and hunting for his food. Meeting new people, plotting the demise of his enemies, what more could you ask for? Adding context back in, he was doing all of this to help save humanity, so even better. When he had first been taken in by the Network he had been something of a mess mentally. By now he had not only embraced the reality of his situation, he was thriving in it.

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