Lana told the team to head down and she would join them in an hour. With the wall being almost done, she wanted the place for the next ramp cleared so it could be created. She put in 11A-16A and had Max drop the three of them down. They used the hallway to make their way back to their friends. Max went back into her. She wanted him to rest. He got a lot of work in here and soon she would need to task Almin to work on lighting in the closed off area. Lana created a circle of light stones on the floor beneath the hole she came out of so they could see where the next ramp was needed.
Finding them wasn't too difficult. They were working pretty fast and only had two or three more hours left to finish this off. They would then need to walk the area from end to end to check for threats before declaring it safe. She felt she should be there for that. On the next to last wall, Lana and Shalt were facing out over the wall that was being built. The others were facing behind them. The area wasn't safetyed yet so they had no idea where threats could be coming from. The side they were working on, they were walling off the hallways.
Lana swore she saw glowing yellow eyes at a height of about 25 feet, maybe higher. She looked at Shalt who looked back at her. She then looked at colors in the area the wall had not been built yet.
The three of them walked very quietly and snuck passed their friends, headed left and left again. They went down one cavern and went left one more time. There stood in front of them a beast, black as night with flames around its hooved feet. Lana raised her eyebrow that there were no roots. Her initial assessment of height was correct. It had horns that went out to the side and bent forward. It had human facial features and a chest but arms like an octopus. It didn't seem he had a single bone in any of them.
Without even discussing it this time, Shalt and Caser took up the same position. Lana put on both layers of armor and smiled. "You are going to help me rank up."
She cracked her whip and it charged her. Both her friends took the opportunity to attack from behind. Caser ripped out its Achilles heel and it fell to the ground just after Shalt stabbed him in the back of the kneecap in the other leg.
She didn't see impact on Shalt so she reminded him, "vampire!" quietly as she swung her whip around one bunch of octopus arms. The other got purchase on her but she was able to yank her whip and sever the ones she entangled while using her thorns on the ones around her.
Lana heard "bloodswipe!" and the beast reacted as it he was in pain. Being on the ground, Caser went for its throat but couldn't get through the thick hide with his teeth. This confused Lana. At this point, they were both king tier. The injured octopus arms were going toward Shalt while the others were regenerating and heading toward Caser.
She decided to run up the injured beast sinking thorns all the way up, coated with Qi. She flipped and landed hard on its throat making the thorns go in deeper and she swiped to the side as she had done before. It worked. The beast was defeated.
Shalt got the crystal out and handed it to her with a smile.
"How did that feel?"
He chuckled, "really good! Did you see how big and strong it was?"
Lana smiled, "I did. I told you I'd help you get stronger."
Shalt was grateful and bowed down to her. Lana wasn't sure she would ever get used to that. She placed the crystal in the same glove. Dilly said each glove had two dimensional pockets big enough to hold a crystal so she was going to use them. She planned to ask Dilly to make her something really nice. This was also her issue. If she logged them in at the Crows, she would have to send them to the Graylash. Nope. She would rather grind for advanced tiers.
By the time they got back to the last opening, it was already half closed. She looked at Shalt.
"Use Max to get through or go up or explore toward the vampire settlement?"
Shalt chuckled, "you are just all kinds of misbehaving today, aren't you?"
Lana shrugged, "it will be lunch time after they finish. I know how the layout down here works. It shouldn't take that long to get there. Maybe we can fight something interesting on the way there?"
Shalt shrugged, "let's see if we can find you some crystals you can use and maybe I can use my vampire powers a bit more." A huge grin spread across his face. "We won't tell the Tenth Leader about this."
Lana grinned and led the way.
They found the settlement an hour later. It was indeed empty. They found all the decayed bodies of the creatures Quinn fought. Lana wondered if some day they could turn this place into a home for someone as well but she thought the vampires would have an issue with it. Or maybe just Arthur. She thought of him sometimes, wondering where he was and if he was okay. Also wondering how he would feel about her settling on his planet. Or did he even think of this as his planet?
Lana then closed her eyes and envisioned the map so they could find their way out. There should be some challenging advanced tier beast nearby. They allowed her to lead the way.
Soon, they were out in the bright sunshine once again, Lana's shelter nowhere to be seen. The plants immediately assaulted her with welcome backs as they remembered her from before.
Lana asked them were to find the beasts that killed Caser's family. The plants were in awe that this was the baby she had taken off world all those months ago. They happily welcomed him back and pointed in several directions.
They went in the direction of her shelter and in 5 minutes, they ran into three of the florasaur beasts. She told the others be careful of the tentacles on its back. "Chop off its head."
She heard "bloodswipe, bloodswipe, bloodswipe."
Lana grinned, whipped out her whip, and jumped up with a Qi-infused attack that took off its head. Meanwhile Shalt had done the same thing. Caser didn't have a ranged weapon so he went for an ankle instead. These things were three stories tall. He couldn't exactly reach many vital spots. Lana went in and did her thing taking its head as well. A tentacle managed to suction itself to her but it didn't matter. She had forgotten exactly how fast they were. They got the drop on these beasts but they were definitely not on her level anymore. Shalt put the crystals in her snack bag.
They continued heading toward the shelter. They would be at dumpers soon. As long as it didn't rain again, they would be just fine. Even if it did, they had Max. More crystals to log in.