"I am pretty sure they can view past events too. There are too many prisoners here for anyone to monitor constantly."
Standing up, Tamara attempted to stealth but nothing happened. "My stealth skill seems to be affected as well. But I think my physical abilities haven't been affected."
Arnaud said, "Well, it looks like this is as far as we can go. We've been fighting pretty smoothly, but you contribute a significant amount of damage and utility to each battle. I can't imagine how we can continue without your abilities."
Tamara nodded. "I understand your position, Arnaud. Sol and I will push on, we've made it this far, and I have a strong feeling that we're close to the end. I'm glad to have met you. I wish you good luck in your travels."
Sol nodded as well. "Good travels, Arnaud."
Arnaud clapped each of them on the back. "Thanks for your well wishing! Good luck on your travels as well!" He walked to the portal and attempted to port back to town. Nothing happened.
"Well, it looks like the portal back to town isn't working any longer. Looks like I'll be joining you guys whether or not I want to."
Sol said, "I'll try to portal to town." He walked up to the platform as Arnaud left the rune circle. Sol turned to Tamara and said, "See if you can see anything wrong."
Tamara nodded and focused on her Sense Magic skill.
Sol triggered the portal gate back to town. Nothing happened.
However, Tamara's eyes picked up a different story. Having made her own portal, she was familiar with the technology and how it should work.
"I saw you trigger the portal. The energy from the trigger worked properly but then nothing happened. This suggests that the portal has either broken or been turned off."
"We can try the next portal room." Said Arnaud with a hopeful tone.
Sol said, "Let's push on then." He turned to nod to Myst, signaling the cat to scout ahead.
Myst scouted four Greater Skeletal Warriors. This was going to be a tough fight with Tamara basically out of the picture, but they needed to know how to adjust.
Sol pulled them into their room using a fireball. The beautiful gold artwork on his red robes was highlighted in the explosions and firelight. His followup fireball grew in his hands as he walked backwards to set up in the center of the room. His fireball spellcores flared up and made their own balls of fire floating in the air until they reached their optimal size and flew to their targets. The spellcores had a staggered fire rate, which allowed the caster to take maximum advantage of the push back from the explosions.
Once the skeletons were fully enraged with Sol, Myst connected his pair of backstabs. And Arnaud launched his own fireballs at the skeletons trying to get into melee range of Sol, taking care to minimize the splash-back that could hit Sol. Meanwhile, Tamara saw her chance and hit one of the front line skeletons, using her natural gravity ball to knock it into the air, the anti-gravity pulling it to the ceiling and out of the fight. Tamara, being weightless, decided to keep them both out of the fight.
The lead skeleton smashed his great sword against Sol's metallic shield, leaving a trail of sparks. Sol slashed with his Ice Sword, scoring a hit against the skeleton. Tamara slashed on the skeleton, doing minimal damage, due to being weightless. The rest of the group focus fired on Sol's target. The fireball barrage took down the entire skeleton group's hit points down by a quarter, Myst, Sol, and Tamara had brought the lead skeleton down to half. The fight wasn't going badly, but it was much slower than their previous pace.
The group of skeletons spreads out to attack Sol, while he weaved, dodged, and parried. Arnaud kept up his barrage of Fireballs.
Meanwhile, Tamara engaged in swordplay, trying to keep one of the skeletons busy while Sol tanked the remaining two. She was mostly getting knocked back, but she was spoiling its attacks each time. Myst continued to swipe, slash, bite, and backstab. One by one, the skeletons fell. The last skeleton on the ground managed to cut through Az's Shield Sphere, whittling into Sol's hp, however, it fell before he reached zero. They attacked the floating one at their leisure, ending the threat.
Tamara has defeated a level 49 being and has earned 89 raw experience! After bonuses applied, 142 experience was earned!
...
Tamara has defeated a level 49 being and has earned 89 raw experience! After bonuses applied, 142 experience was earned!
Sol has defeated a level 49 being and has earned 94 raw experience! After bonuses applied, 150 experience was earned!
...
Sol has defeated a level 49 being and has earned 94 raw experience! After bonuses applied, 150 experience was earned!
Tamara gained 4 levels in Sword and now it is 42
Tamara gained 2 levels in Beat Dance Battle and now it is 24
Arnaud said, "Well, we can do it, barely. But it took a long time to deal with this group. If there had been a wanderer or we didn't work together perfectly, we could easily get killed. I'm not comfortable with this. Especially seeing that we have no safe zone. We're being worn down, and there's nothing we can do about it."
Sol methodically looted the corpses. Again the loot was sparse, but they needed the air and cores. He used up four cores on this fight, and they got four back. At this rate, they'll be out of cores in no time.
Tamara said, "Let's find a room to rest. We need a different plan of attack."
Tamara checked her logs for the last several levels. They defeated 115 monsters, gained two levels, and sharpened their skills.
***
Tamara mentally reviewed all of the gear and abilities she had available to brainstorm ways they could survive the dungeon. She had access to her personal gravity. Her inventory included potions, shields, daggers, plasma rifles, and mana-engines. Using her daggers seemed like a viable strategy. But she needed to do other things.
Arnaud said, "If it helps, I have a spell that can port a party member from anywhere within party range to me. Maybe we can do some sort of kiting."
"That could come in handy, especially if we are moving fairly fast," said Sol. Pausing, he clarified. "We don't want to run into any respawns."
She needed to do something with the mana-engines. First, she tried to charge up her mana rate, but as soon as she drew from the engines, it was drained away. She had been nearly useless on the last fight. True, she took one skeleton out of the fight, but it took her out of the fight too. There was also no guarantee that there would always be a melee that could be affected by her gravity ball.
[Tamara: Bob89. Got any ideas?]
[Bob89: Spells and skills are out. You can still use your items, including the mana-engines. The mana-engines technically are engines, so you can still use them as engines.]
[Tamara: I have no way of steering them.]
[Bob89: No worries. This was part of the upgrade that I mentioned. I can steer them. If you pull one out and throw it, it will automatically launch straight ahead at full speed. I can alter the destination by varying the speed of the engine rotation.]
[Tamara: Did we have some sort of navigation system for the mana-engine?]
[Bob89: No. I did some calculations and made an executive decision. Your mana-engine only creates mana, electricity, or a gravity/anti-gravity field. The last component to a true gravity engine is specialized deflection materials to concentrate the fields. The casings for our mana-engines are made from specialized nanocells made with coatings to concentrate and deflect gravity fields. In short, I can control the nanocells to vary the output of the fields.]
[Tamara: So you're telling me that my mana-engine is similar to a space engine and that you can steer it?]
[Bob89: Much better than a space engine. Space engines could only create the gravity fields, and when installed in a spaceship, the engine room was specialized to redirect the forces to create thrust. Nanocells in our mana-engines are our engine room. We have flexibility that the Ancients could only dream about!]
[Tamara: That's amazing! How many do we have? I have so many ideas!]
[Bob89
: Twelve.]
[Tamara: Will the mana-engines last long being used this way?]
[Bob89: We will need to add some plating to help absorb and deflect. The mana-engine itself is mostly metal, so they can take a great deal of abuse. It will take me thirty minutes to do this.]
Coming out of her thoughts, Tamara stood up. Both Sol and Arnaud immediately gave her their attention. "I've come up with some solutions to our problems. We'll need to practice a bit." Six orbs appeared floating around Tamara, prepared to intercept any threat. Each orb was mostly solid steel, even the mana-engine itself was mostly metal. They weighed around 10 pounds and were the size of a medium grapefruit. Focusing on Sol, she gestured to Sol and Arnaud and said, "Come at me, bro."
Sol and Arnaud began casting fire dart spells. Each dart was intercepted by an orb, while the other four smashed into their shields, creating a shower of sparks. The orb attacks ranged from 5 to 10 physical damage, depending on how much speed was attained. For Tamara, the selling point wasn't the offensive capabilities, it was the ability to redirect and deflect attacks.
Sol gave Tamara a quick thumbs up. "That was pretty amazing Tamara. What manner of spell is that? I've never seen anything like that before."
Arnaud chimed in, "Those balls are amazing! What are they called?"
[Bob89: Bobattackorbsofdoom!]
Scrunching her face with disgust at Bob89's suggestion, she shook that thought from her mind. Instead of using Bob89's suggestion, she replied, "Sorry, I had a weird image in my head. They're called Defender Orbs. My adviser and I designed these defensive orbs. They can attack as well, but we shouldn't count on them."
"How do they work?" Asked Arnaud, as he moved closer to examine them. "They don't appear to use any kind of telekinesis that I can detect. And how are they controlled? Can I use them?"
[Bob89: I took the mana-engine and surrounded it with steel and nanocells.]
[Tamara: So. The Defender Orbs can repair themselves?]
[Bob89: Sure. Hopefully, we don't run into many enemies that enjoy bending a nearly solid ball of steel.]
The questions took Tamara by surprise. But she smiled and replied, "The Defender Orbs use a combination of technology and magic to move. Unfortunately, the devices can only be used by me. A small part of my mind is controlling the orbs. I can't say that I truly understand how I'm able to do it, but it works!" The end of the sentence came out in a higher, positive tone. She punctuated the statement with a shrug.
Arnaud nodded and replied, "I'd love to buy one for study! I'd love to try and teach a small part of my mind to control one. You never know, I might figure it out!" He gave Tamara a hopeful look.
The half-elf didn't trust Arnaud. Something about his manner seemed off, so she kicked the decision down the road. "Arnaud, I am not ready to give out an unfinished product into the world. When I've got a better version down, I'd love to chat with you about sales, but at the moment, this is just an unfinished product. Talk to me another time. Maybe once we've left this dungeon, I'll have been able to work out some of the kinks in the product."
With Sol and Arnaud as practice partners, Bob89 and Tamara became quite proficient in defending and attacking. She kept two engines floating around her for defense. Two to defend Sol. And the rest was used offensively. The first version of the engine was optimized for generating mana, so the instant velocity for the engine was not as reactive. Bob89 was already tweaking a speedcore design for speed and attack.
When the respawn occurred, four Skeleton Warriors came at them. Sol instantly enraged them with a fireball. He was reserving his spellcores for emergency use, so he didn't fire any off. Arnaud also got a fireball off without stealing any mob's attention from Sol. The skeletons ran at them while being harried by Defender Orb attacks.
Tamara plucked enchanted daggers from her pouch and threw them, scoring hit after hit.
Tamara learned a new skill, Dagger!
Tamara gained 2 levels in Dagger and now it is 2
By the time the first skeletons engaged Sol, they had taken significant damage. The lead skeleton tried to skewer Sol, but one of the orbs deflected the blow, causing it to slide off Sol's shield with no damage done. Sol parried a second skeleton, while three orbs kept another skeleton busy. Tamara blasted one of the lead skeletons with her gravity ball, pushing it to the far wall's ceiling. Arnaud's Fireballs came blasting against Sol's target. The start of the battle was furious and chaotic, but once one skeleton was floated and another was harassed by orbs.
Tamara pulled out a plasma rifle and fired burst shots on the ground skeletons. She found that using the rifle was easier and more damaging than using her daggers. The remaining two were easy to take down between Tamara's shots, Arnaud's darts, and Sol's bash and slash. The last two fell quickly after.
Chapter 14
The addition of the orbs allowed the party to continue progressing. They weren't able to go back to the pace prior to the new chains, but they were still progressing. The next room contained four skeletons, two zombies, and two zombie mages.
Zombies are undead that feed on the dead flesh of humans, especially brains. They are relatively mindless and driven by the need to eat over all else, so they are usually in a decayed state, often in the same clothes they died in - assuming the clothes have survived. Their skin is dried, wrinkled, and darkened like mummies. If they eat enough, they can evolve into higher beings. They often hunt at night and robbed graves of their ancient flesh. They were known for their lack of fear, which made them formidable enemies. Both of the mages were equipped with staff and robes. It appeared one of them was geared as an elemental mage, while the other one had an imp by his side. Imps were one of the lowest tier fire demons. Able to use magic and cast fire based spells, they were relatively weak, but they have been known to overwhelm strong parties with numbers.
Sol pulled by launching a Fireball as usual, catching all eight of the mobs in a massive explosion of flame. What was different was that two of the four Defender Orbs following him peeled off and started smashing into the mobs. Despite being harried, they continued to move forward to attack the group. The undead mages attempted to cast spells, but they were being interrupted by the orbs, and if they managed to get a spell off, their spells were intercepted. Myst compounded their struggles as he double backstabbed a mage then shifted into the shadows, primed to strike again.
Sol and Arnaud let loose with their Fireballs. Sol was slightly ahead, ready to block the entrance into their portion of the cave when necessary. Tamara stayed in the rear to provide whatever support she could. Mostly, she was tapping songs to slow the enemy while speeding up her allies, cumulating into a 20% speed difference. Additionally, she would fire her plasma rifle in burst mode. More of her Orbs set off to distract the mages while Sol and Arnaud cooked the frontline. The smell of roasting zombies was not pleasant. It was like hosting a barbeque in the sewers. Despite the numerical advantages, Tamara's group quickly destroyed the dungeon mobs.
Glancing over her logs, she noticed that her skill raising game was pretty good.
Leadership has evolved due to meeting the following requirements: Player level is above level 20. Leadership is above level 25
Leadership: inspires the men and women under your command to work harder. They get a bonus of 1n% extra work, where n is the skill level. In combat, your troops will do an additional 1n% damage. Evolution 1: allows an extra group member.
They found the boss room for level twenty-five. The room kept the double black door theme of the dungeon, so there was no doubt they found the room. For all the previous levels, they were able to peek into the room without starting the fight, so they prepared their buffs for just in case, then peeked in. Inside, they found a massive undead lich, named Gangrene Bullocks. Gangrene wore an elaborate green robe with a strip of brown running through the middle from top to bottom. Oddly enough, he looked very similar to a pine tree decorated for the holidays. Stars, moons, and planets decorated the green areas of his robe. He was most likely
a level 55 boss, a full 20 levels higher than Tamara's party.
It was flanked by four Skeleton Warriors and two Skeletal Clerics. This boss encounter was well above their comfort levels, so they closed the door and backed out as quickly as possible -- as if physical distance could wipe away the reality of what they faced.
Without saying a thing, they backtracked to the last room they had beaten.
Arnaud made an audible sigh of relief.
Sol chuckled at Arnaud, then commented, "That level boss is going to be crazy hard."
"Let's try and find a safe spot. Any suggestions?" Said Tamara. Safe spots in a dungeon weren't the same as a designated safe zone, but every dungeon has places that have no wandering mobs or respawn points. Basically, if you find an area that doesn't seem to have a wandering mob, and is too far to attract the notice of monsters in different rooms, then you've just found a safe spot. The problem is that you can't necessarily tell if a monster is a wanderer or a regular member of a room unless you saw said mob wandering around the hallways. To be sure a spot is safe, you need to wait for both rooms to respawn and be alert for wandering mobs. Of course, if a wanderer does come over, you need to kill it while keeping it from running away.
Arnaud quietly suggested, "I feel like there's a safe spot in the corridor. The passageway is far enough that neither room would respawn and attack us. And the number of mobs per room was either four or six. Usually, wanderers made a room an odd number, like five or seven."
Sol agreed with him, so they all moved to the corridor.
Tamara said, "We need to go over our strategy. I'll also make some gear that will improve our chances. Maybe we can grind out some skill levels and do some mock practice on how to handle the boss."
Fortunately, Tamara had placed her crafting equipment into a crafting bag and a materials bag, so she was able to bring out a subset of her equipment to repair and upgrade their armor.
"Sol, could you make air walls to keep my work from attracting monsters?"
Escape From Litchfield Page 22
