by Naosu N R
We didn't finish that 'skirmish' for nearly an hour, when I finally got to see the time.
It seems that this represents a huge new danger; a floor reset! How evil!
If they can re-spawn then...will they re-spawn in rooms that we are in?! This of course would be the most dangerous situation possible.
We set out to figure out how it works.
...
"Look out! Trap!" I yelled.
I activated my skill again for the damage shield.
The darkling had come out of a stairwell closet on this floor. With the only one with the detection enchant, I have to keep my eyes peeled on it.
I blocked the trap that would have taken Mandy's head off cleanly.
-54 damage
Wait something isn’t right. I didn’t get hit by the damage.
When Mandy saw how close it was, she was quite surprised and wide eyed. "Th-thanks," she added numbly.
I turned back to the screen. I see the damage registered on the status screen. But nothing bled through?
Wait, what happened?!
I hurriedly reset the charge using 10 more mana before the next set of blows came through. The damage blocker held, but is crackling. I'll have to reset the charge very soon, which I did. I’m feeling good because this is the most my damage absorption enchanted artifact has taken in one hit! Its awesome.
Then I hit stun.
Eh?
Rita also landed a critical hit. And then a stun. The others hit it with criticals also.
So it seems like if a monster is stunned, there's a higher chance for critical hits right after. Rita then landed a shield stun on its head, which saves me mana.
"I got this!" Mandy stabbed its eyes out.
I stunned it again.
"Guys...that's a boss," Miguel said in low tones.
Oh shit.
He didn't say sub-boss. He said boss. And on this dungeon floor even the bosses hurt!
"Keep it stunned or we're doomed!" Linz ordered.
"Miguel, go for the eyes," I ordered.
I had to keep my umbrella shield ready.
"This is so weird that you are a close combat tank mage. It shouldn't actually work," Melanie said from behind me. She's trying to act as a crossbow re-loader for Miguel at the moment. She'd figured out how to do that last night. Its giving Miguel a quick shot bonus.
The damage keeps piling up on the monster, with all of us working together. But to hold up I'm having to really spam hard shielding charge resets for the absorption field the umbrella chant puts out. Its really spitting out a lot of my mana to do so, and I can see the mana bar dropping surely.
I let loose a blind on this thing after the first 300 damage on it.
Yet it won't go down!
We keep steady pressure while watching our backs.
I've lost 70 mana lost.
Then I reached the 80 mana lost mark.
90...
Then 120...all on this same boss.
We're getting worried.
My status screen says my enchanted umbrella shield tool needs 'enchant repair' skill applied with big bold text flashing now every time I absorb a hit.
Shit, this won't collapse will it.
Finally at some point, Linz landed a killing blow!
We stood there stunned.
"Guys, we just killed a boss darkling!" Miguel broke the silence first.
They are all in awe.
"I can't believe it. This is way overkill for our levels. We shouldn't have been able to do that," Mandy admitted.
"Even a team above its level, often could fail on something like this," Linz said. She's looking at me with an awed expression. (From someone skillful and cool like her that's hard.)
"I'm just thankful to be alive," Shelly griped.
"Shelly can you transfer me some mana?" I asked.
"Sure."
I hurriedly hit the repair enchant on my enchanted umbrella tool. It repaired fast, but I lost 10 mana.
I can use the status screen trade window to swap mana with Shelly. But doing so, I lose half of it. Shelly spots me 60 mana, but the trade eats up 30 of it, leaving me with only 30.
She doesn't like it either but I'm only 20 mana left. Now 50.
"Let's hide. Hurry," Melanie said.
"Guys, this thing has live prisoners in the back of the room!" Simone discovered.
"What?! They...monsters aren't supposed to be able to do that!" Mandy said in awe.
"I know. But she's right," Shelly added dryly.
"What the hell?! Monsters...aren't supposed to be that smart," Miguel said confused.
I sent Mandy and Rita to check on them while we sift through the loot.
2,417 US dollars in cash, 817 dungeon dollars, ring of regeneration+1, Chain skirt, short sword+1, 5 throwing daggers, 2 more throwing daggers had fallen out of the darklings corpse from some earlier team attacking it, and we needed some time to go through the loot.
Nice loot stash.
But a bit depressing when you realize its come from previous fallen parties, accumulated up in a big stash.
"It seems that the darklings will eat anything. I think all of this stuff was inside it," Simone told me.
"Surprisingly not much of has any damage," Melanie told me.
But then I see a weird glowing stone.
"Monster core! Rare!" Miguel said astonished.
"Jay gets it. Without him here, we'd all be dead," Linz said first. She also blocked Miguel from just grabbing it.
The others admitted she's right.
Given that people mostly can get stats from leveling up, its rare to even see monster cores. This thing was valuable as hell!
The dungeon core gives me +1 to health regeneration and +2 to max mana.
My system absorbed it immediately and I can feel the effects. (It was obvious that I was the one that held the group together, so all of the stat bonus effects were given to me.)
'I feel a bit healthier'.
'I feel more connected to mana'.
Then I see other status screen notification flags.
Melanie level up!
Simone level up!
Jay level up!
Weird.
But nice to have a level up, after working so hard all this time.
"We should be dead," Shelly said in low tones.
"What the hell kind of monster are you, Jay?" Miguel asked.
Jerks.
Before I can look over our stuff Mandy and Rita came walking over with 3 roughed up humans with them.
"Guys, these people we saved are from the martial arts sect, 'Victor's Might', that we just rescued. They promise to help us if we can keep them alive a few days until they heal up," Mandy said.
Now we have a decision.
Do we allow the tag along to go with us?
And with each additional person following us, its that much easier for zombies to smell and hear us. You could say the danger goes up a lot with each person. Not to mention the feeding costs.
If we can keep them alive they promise a reward. But will they even keep their word?
I listened as the others spoke with them.
They'd come from the level 5 town, because things were getting desperate there with too many people hunting in their usual areas. They also confirmed the story that we'd heard about tons of refugees piling into the town and the floors leading up to the fifth level. And this seems to be why they came here.
"Most adventurers don't even come to the sixth floor, or level 6. The XP here is the best, but the theme of this floor has the reputation of, 'all tanks must die', and therefore all parties here end up wiping out, one of them told us.
"Most people just go to level 7, but we felt we didn't have a choice, because the orc floors were rampaging and people there are having a hard time," another said.
"What do you mean by 'orc floors'?" I asked.
"Floor 7, 8, and 9 are all held by the orcs. And lately they'd been getting too well organized and making a lot of tro
uble for us," one of the martial artists said.
"Orcs exclusively, or?" Melanie asked.
"Them and their allies."
"They hold more than one floor? Is that weird?" I asked Linz, who is listening while cleaning her gear.
"It can happen. It shows they are organized and trouble for us," she replied standing up.
"So is there a way to get to level 10 safely?" I asked.
"Wish I'd thought of asking them that," Melanie whispered to me.
"If you join our sect, we'll escort you there for free," one of them said.
"But we aren't martial artists," Simone frowned.
"Not you. We won't accept you. But the enchanter we'll take. You can join our sect and lose the weak ones with you," he said.
All 3 of the martial artists are eyeing me hungrily. They also pretty quickly figured out I was an enchanter.
Damn.
Looks like one of them has a read auras skill or something and that's how he'd figured that out.
But they are kind of idiots to be this blind, to think I'd ditch my team and go with them.
They left, but that wasn't any surprise. As martial artists they can travel light without a lot of gear and support themselves well. (That is if they don't get captured again.)
"I need to rest. Keep a watch and keep a watch on our friends also," I instructed the others.
I have Linz in charge while I'm asleep. The others don't like it when she's in charge because she is kind of harsh.
But she's skillful and good at keeping them alive.
...
Uh oh, while resting Linz decided to challenge Rita to spar.
I watched while Rita is fumbling through sparring with Linz.
What?
I already pacified her. What's going on?
"Pick up your weapon. Try again," Linz told her.
Then I realized it was friendly training.
Linz...is being nice with Rita. But I think its so she can show off with me. She's still a bad girl.
This reminds me that I need to work out my skills.
Can I modify pacify further?
Its clear that Rita wants to help and is a valuable asset. But she's still having a lot of trouble overcoming her past, even with my help. Her hands shake.
But then the next comment shocked me.
"When were you going to tell Jay, you can't use your [Quick Step] yet?" Linz said.
What?! She can't use one of her skills?!
Rita's face nearly panicked just then. "Wait, I can explain!"
Linz is giving me a smug look, like 'look at me, aren't I great?'. And at the same time Rita is giving me an 'Oh no! Don't abandon me!' look.
"I-I can explain!" Rita said.
"Bull shit!" Linz said.
"No really! I'm getting everything back! I swear! Just give me a bit of time! Please! Jay its not that bad! Sure I need a little help still, but I'm getting there," Rita pleaded.
"You going to get us killed?! What happens if Jay can't block another guy like that boss next time? And you and I are the top levels here!" Linz said.
"I know. I'm so sorry," Rita fell to the floor, sitting.
"Hey that's enough. Cool it Linz," I said.
I'd also realized if Rita was a different job class this would be worse. Because she's defensive and can still block well we didn't notice. An offensive class with the same problems would have been more clearly noticeable and more troubled.
"Whatever. I was trying to help," Linz backed off leaning against the wall.
I picked up Rita by the hand and pulled her over to me, and up off the floor.
Oops.
I didn't mean to pull her against me.
She's pretty. Not quite a blonde, but not quite a brunette either, like a dishwater blonde. She doesn't look very old also, but would have a certain draw to her if not for the issues she's having.
"I'm sorry Jay. Don't abandon me," Rita said grabbing my wrist and hand.
"I won't. Don't worry. We can work it out. Conquer your fears."
"I didn't mean to hide that I couldn't do that skill. It just...I thought I'd get it back," she stammered.
"How many other skills do you have that don't work?" I asked.
"J-just that one," she added.
"Are you sure?
"Well uh, actually three. But only one of them is a major skill. The other two are more like support skills," she said.
OK, that makes sense.
"Linz can you keep working with her?" I asked.
"Yes I can. I'll help her," Linz smiled at me.
This is good for Linz' 'be good' training also for them to help each other.
I also knew that Rita was doing damage in that boss fight. I saw it on the screen of my status screen. She'd done pretty well but Linz was doing way more, and this is how Linz must have noticed. To be fair, Linz probably would have done more damage anyway.
Anything more than she's doing could help next time.
I reviewed things.
Shelly is holding up. But she confirmed my suspicion when she asked if I could make her an enchant that can do bonus mana regeneration.
Hm...she's right to ask that. Of course I didn't answer back right away.
Do I help her with this?
Technically it would benefit the team.
But at the same time if I do it, it would be valuable and she would keep it. And it would mean getting her one before boosting my own mana regeneration stat.
OK, now I understand why some people didn't like always having 2 mages in the same team.
I peeked out the blinds of this upper level window before going to rest to get my mana up.
...
I was on the couch resting with Melanie when I heard Miguel sound the alarm.
"Guys! Get up fast!" he said.
I didn't hear anything other than that. Which I guess that's a good thing...but...
Usually if something's wrong you'd hear monsters.
Melanie had doused off with my head in her lap while she's leaning back. She's my best ally. And thankfully due to her buffs, I'm doing good also.
We got up. The others also; most of us are in the same room.
Miguel is waving us over to the window, not the door.
"I see it!" Simone said, looking through the blinds.
"Yep. I've seen that before," Miguel said.
"A threat?" I asked, gearing up.
I walked over to the window and got there last.
"Not exactly. But it could be collateral damage," Linz said.
We're lucky this living room had a big window and lots of blinds to peek through.
Below us in the streets, the weirdest thing is happening.
A line of convoy vehicles is literally ramming through town down the road.
...three, four, six, eight, wait, no twelve vehicles.
They have a fast moving heavy truck in front with both armor and plowing capacity, followed by several cars all black sedans. There's also a tanker truck, probably because the main front plow vehicle would have to burn tons of gasoline to be that heavy.
And the convoy doesn't stop but just charges right through everything.
There's two snipers on the top of the gas tanker, which is following the plow vehicle directly. Then after that are the sedans.
"That's a big operation," Mandy said.
"Yeah, it is," Linz agreed. "And risky for them to be doing a full convoy through a dungeon, going fast. If anything goes wrong the cars in the back are screwed and cut off if anyone wrecks or if the road gets blocked," Mandy said.
"The rear black sedans are full of adventurers. But I can't tell with the others," Linz said.
