Chapter 3 – How to Live

Continuing to walk through the narrow passageways of the deep mine Landurs begins to wonder how he’ll deal with the wyrm if he were to encounter the monster as on his own and with only a trio of Frigate Swords there is no way he’d be able to kill the monster. Without magic it’ll be a tough task to kill the wyrm and throwing any rocks he finds at it might just power the wyrm up even more than it already is, while lost in thought Landurs accidentally wanders right into a crystal nest housing hundreds of minor minerals and a few mineral golems. Only taken from his thoughts when the largest of the mineral golems’ roars at him, suddenly he realises what he has wandered into and is now faced with. Landurs slowly backs away keeping his eyes on as many of the small monsters as he can hoping that they won’t all try and attack him at once, but with each backwards step taken the hoard move forwards towards him again. Knowing that if he turns his back the hoard will charge him and begin attacking before he can get up to a sprint Landurs slowly draws the most damaged of his three swords and holds it out in front of him, this seems to temporarily halt the hoard but being mineral monsters they quickly realise that the sword is Frigate and begin advancing again. Landurs thinks to himself “even the monsters down here know that my equipment is trash, and it only holds them up for a mere couple of seconds before they realise I’m as good as defenceless.” The golems begin to make their way to the front of the hoard of crystalline monsters picking up some of the minor minerals as they make their way to the front, once there launch those that they picked up straight for Landurs. Now seeing these minerals flying towards him he attempts to cut them out of the air and misses all of them, each mineral landing on his body and beginning to attack even if the attacks are weak, they still hurt like hell and cause Landurs to lose any remaining coordination making him an easy target for the golems. Those golems have continued their advance towards Landurs who is too busy struggling with the minerals on his body to notice that a new wave of attacks are about to begin. As the golems reached Landurs they wind up their initial attacks Landurs in the middle of his struggle attempts to block, but is unsuccessful. The golems strike at his legs the combined attacks shatter his left shin, the attack that he attempted to block causes the sword to fly from his hand and break his wrist in the process. His broken shin causes him to drop down to his left knee and the wrist that’s broken provides no support to his fall leaving him face down on the stone floor the golems still hovering above him, the minor minerals have now removed themselves from his body but their job have been completed, that was getting Landurs into this position where the golems are able to take full advantage of his bruised and now broken body. The golems take up positions around the stricken Landurs and begin to wind up for another set of attacks. Time slows as the hammer blows approach Landurs’ body and the voice from before calls out,

“Landurs the perennial, the light does not allow for your darkness to take hold yet. RISE!”

Even with the encouragement of the voice Landurs is unable to move as more bones are broken inside his body. The golems now satisfied that Landurs can’t fight back take the discarded sword as well as his other two and carry them back to the nest to break up and share as a food source.

“Do not fear, the titan will arrive soon. And the truth will be shown to you, Landurs the perennial. The one with lights blessing.”

Hearing the voice speak of the titan and its immanent arrival sent shiver down the spine of Landurs knowing that in this state no matter what truth this titan apparently was going to show him, his death by that titan was assured. Unable to move or defend himself Landurs finally accepted the coldness of the dark that enveloped his vision, knowing that if that hoard came back or if any other monster came about then his life would be over and the village would be gone forever this time. Vision was the first, feelings were next, taste was gone at some point along with smell and finally after a time unknown hearing began to fade away, this finally sending the darkness in front of his unseeing eyes even darker. Just as he could hear no more a faint set of footsteps could be heard, but they weren’t unnatural like a monster’s gate, they were sprinting almost, hearing this strange sound Landurs focused all his remaining energy into maintaining his hearing. Unable to feel Landurs could only judge how close this thing was by how close the sounds it made were, and eventually it stopped but it stopped close to Landurs stricken body.

“Hero of Fissureton, I see you are in a sorry way. Our village shall not survive with you like this, now come… oh wait I guess you probably can’t. Good thing these old bones aren’t weak lad.”

The sound of being picked up and tossed somewhere filled Landurs ears.

“Off we go then boy. Time to make you a real titan.”

Landurs was too surprised by the sounds of being picked up, but now able to replay the words of the man in his head, how did he know that Landurs was a native of Fissureton. And what did he mean by ‘our village’ Landurs had never heard this voice before, and he knew every voice in that village. And finally, what does he mean by making Landurs a ‘real titan’ and was this the titan the previous voice had spoken about, if it were why did it seem so human…