The Gift of Loot Chapter 43: Chapter 43: The Dungeon Giveth and The Dungeon Taketh Away

Read chapter 43 of The Gift of Loot by Jack_Golightly on NovelPedia.

"I don't know what I did to the fish, exactly," Jo admitted. Though she still held the sword, her cool demeanor cracked enough for her to look disturbed. "When I stabbed, it felt like a part of me that wasn't my sword was stabbing it too. Is that my mana?" "Could be. Or an effect of the sword," Zach said. "We don't know what it does yet." Thomas picked up the Water mana crystal reward. It felt heavy and lush in his hand. Then he took a moment to glance over the fish. It was an ugly beastie, but... "I'm not a doctor," he said, and pointed. "But that looks like poison damage to me." The other two gathered around and both saw it. The point where Jo had stabbed the sword was blackened and rotten-looking, with green tracings extending out to some of the surrounding scales. "Cool," Zach said. "I know me and Thomas make it look easy, but it's pretty rare to be able to use a new mana type that you just got without an active skill. Maybe you should absorb more poison mana. You're hella compatible." "Actually..." Jo looked at the Water crystal Thomas held. "Mind if I grab that one? I've been using a lot of my Water mana to run my Still Waters skill." Part of Thomas ached at actually giving up this prime A-grade mana, and he forcefully had to remind himself that it wasn't actually his crystal, he had no personal use for Water mana, and she had been the one who killed the fish. He hoped no one saw his hesitation as he handed it over, but then he had to face another gut-wrenching decision. He hated being fair and logical, damn it! "You may as well keep the Blood Thirst sword too," he added with a sigh. "I still have my bear claw glove. Man," he added, "I miss my Ace Hardware maul." Zach laughed. "You can do better than that, dude. After we sell all this stuff we've gathered here, I'm pretty sure you can buy a real fancy maul." "You think?" "Uh, yeah," he said straight-faced. "Upgrade to Lowe's." Jo absorbed the Water crystal, and her arms up to her elbows turned a cool blue before fading back to normal flesh. That had been level 3 mana, so Thomas kept an eye on her in case she got mana overload too, but she didn't seem to have the same problem as Zach. Then again, he was his mana, had overloaded on fire, then had added a higher-level crystal on top. Still, why borrow trouble? "Add an Earth crystal," he advised her. "May as well go level 3, to balance out the Water. Then, yeah, another Poison if you feel like you can handle it." He glanced at Zach. "You good on mana?" "Yeah, though for not much longer." But then Zach's shoulders slumped. "I don't know how much help I'm going to be in this next part of the dungeon, bros. Those fish have a natural barrier against fire. I can distract them, but the quarterstaff might be my weapon going forward, and I don't think they care that much about being bonked." "Me too—Oh, damn it, my mace!" Thomas couldn't believe he'd forgotten. Stepping to the giant fish corpse, he tried to figure out where its stomach was, then used a bear claw to cut a slice. Liquid gushed out, and he hurriedly stepped away. It smelled very...fishy. His guess was right, and the mace wasn't hard to find, but the fish's stomach acid must have been something else. He didn't see any sign that the internal organs had reacted to the poison on the spikes at all. In fact, the mace looked extremely shiny, as if the finish had been stripped off, the spikes included. Thomas returned to the others in a bad mood. "I think the poison got worn off." "Are you sure?" Jo asked. "I'm not going to poke myself and find out," Thomas said, "but...yeah, I'm pretty sure. Do you think you could renew the poison on the spikes?" He held out the mace. She looked regretful. "I would, but I barely know what I'm doing. I could poison you." Thomas pulled the mace back. He could heal himself from injuries, but he had no idea about poison and wasn't about to become his own guinea pig in the middle of the dungeon to find out. "Tough luck," Zach said. "That thing was