“I have the Whirlwind spell that has a 30-foot reach – but it’s only level 1 and doesn’t do a lot of damage. It would just piss it off,” Mac told him.
“That’s all we need – I need to make it come after you. Sorry, my friend – you’re acting as bait for this one. Max, get behind Mac a couple of feet away and Stealth. I have a feeling that it will try to backstab its target whenever possible,” Domn3r gave out orders to the group.
When Max was in position, Mac cast his low-powered and low-cost Whirlwind spell. It created a vortex of wind that reached all the way to the ceiling and whipped the clothing around their bodies. It did very little damage at this level, which is why Mac didn’t use it very often. Within three seconds, Domn3r saw the shadow land behind Mac and stab forward with its knives. Before they could hit him, however, the creature was stabbed from behind by Max who had scored a critical strike in addition to the Backstab bonus. It fell to the ground dead, and they finally got a good look at what had killed Ambrose not once, but twice.
Its shape was very similar to the Hearthfire Dragonkin that they had just seen in the Dungeon that Devin had captured. Although it was smaller, it was hard to tell because it was covered head-to-toe in black fur instead of scaly skin. When he looked closer, he saw that it was called a Death’s Roar (Level 35 – Deceased). That was just under their current levels, which ranged from levels 37 to 39. He had never seen anything like this before and asked Krista about where she had gotten it from.
“I made it. I created a hybrid that included a Hearthfire Dragonkin and a Starving Mountain Lion. This was the result – a stealthy and deadly Dragonkin. I’m quite proud of it, actually, because it performed awesomely. Even better than I had expected,” Krista answered him.
That explains all the new and interesting creatures we found on third floor. I was wondering why we hadn’t ever seen those before. “That’s neat – can you mix any creatures together?”
“I can only mix Base Creatures together and the result isn’t always a success – you’d be disgusted by the results sometimes. When these creatures are created they become Advanced Creatures and I can’t do anything further with them at this time. Perhaps when my dungeon levels up more I might be able to.”
“Now I want to hear about dungeon building even more, there seems like there is a lot more to it than I thought,” Ambrose chimed in.
“We definitely will – but first you need to make it through this floor and we don’t have a lot of time,” Krista responded.
“Alright, let’s keep moving – this is what we’re going to do. Mac, periodically cast your Whirlwind spell while Max follows behind you in stealth. When we clear an area, Max will check for traps further ahead and then come back. That way we can flush them out and kill them before they can do any more damage to us,” Domn3r told them as they started moving.
Their plan worked out well and they flushed out three more Death’s Roars along the way. The only trouble they had was at the end of the hallway, when two of the shadowy Dragonkin attacked Mac at the same time. Mac ended up dying, but Max was able to Backstab one while Domn3r picked up the other and with all of them attacking at the same time was able to kill it before it could get away. As they exited the hallway, Krista asked them if they had any suggestions for improvements and they had none. If it wasn’t for Devin bringing Ambrose back to life twice, they would have been hard-pressed to get through without losing more party members.
Glad to be out of the dark hallway, Domn3r’s first glimpse of the next room reminded him a little of the last floor. From what he could see, they were in a large well-lit room that was much longer than it was wide. The ceiling was about 100 feet high and it was only that high because in front of them was a small hill about 50 feet high that ran the width of the room – almost like a giant speedbump. It was similar to the mountain they had seen on the third floor, so Domn3r warned his group to watch out for Mountain Goats or some sort of variation of them.
Domn3r led the way this time, ready for incoming attacks as they made their way up the hill. He didn’t have long to wait because at the halfway mark, he saw some grotesque shapes cresting the top of hill. As they rushed down to his location, he counted four of them and was just able to catch their name – Goat Suckers (Level 34). Well, I was right – Goats. But I’m not sure what they are covered in. As they neared the party, Domn3r used his group taunt to get them all to attack him. Bracing himself, he withstood the impacts of three of these sick-looking Goats while hiding behind his shield. The fourth one, however, hit him with enough force to knock him down, flinging him back down the hill until he stopped near the bottom.
Getting himself back to his feet, he looked at this health points and realized the fall took about 20% of his health away. Looking back up the hill, he saw the Goat Suckers racing down the hill toward him since he still had all of their aggro. He hoped they weren’t going to ram him again, but at least this time he was on flat ground. They closed in on his position and although they rammed into him, it wasn’t with the same force as before.
Now surrounded by four Goats, he looked up to see his group coming back down the hill and casting spells and firing arrows as they came. Now this we can handle – they’ll handle dishing out the damage while I keep these Goats busy. As he continued to be hit from multiple sides by the attacking Goat Suckers, he watched as his team quickly whittled them down until the first one was almost dead. Suddenly, the Goat with the lowest health suddenly exploded in a cloud of spores.
The next thing Domn3r knew, he was being assaulted by demonic apparitions from all sides. He couldn’t help panicking and started wildly flailing about with his sword hoping to kill them all. His attacks seemed to meet some resistance but had no effect on the demons, so he ran for his life – screaming for help as he sprinted away. After what seemed like hours, his head cleared, and he looked around. About 50 feet behind him was the rest of his party, scattered dead on the ground. All except Ambrose, who was standing and shaking her head as if to clear it. As soon as she seemed ok, she looked up just in time to see three of the Goat Suckers impact her at the same time. She fell dead on the ground, just feet away from the others.
Domn3r knew when he was outmatched and ran away, attempting to get out of the aggro range of the remaining Goats. When he was far enough away, the trio of monstrous-looking Goats headed back up the hill to where they were waiting for them before. As he made his way back to the massacre, he found Devin already bringing his group back to life, hysterically laughing as he did so. When he was close enough to talk, he angrily asked, “Why are you laughing – almost all of us just died!”
He could tell Devin tried to sober up when he heard his angry tone, but his smile kept threatening to reemerge as he answered Domn3r, “I’m sorry. It wasn’t that you died, it was how you died that was so funny. All of you check your combat logs and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Fuming, Domn3r quickly brought up his combat logs and as he read them his anger slowly faded away. He didn’t think it was funny, himself, but he could see why it would have been if you were watching from far away. It turned out that aside from Ambrose, they had all killed each other – with Domn3r doing the majority of the damage. Apparently, the goat released some sort of hypnotic agent that caused hallucinations in the entire party. What he thought were demonic apparitions were actually his other party members and he had smacked them around while they were defenseless.
Domn3r thought that the friendly-fire rule applied to groups no matter what spell or skill was used. However, since this was due to an attack created by a monster, anyone that he attacked while under the influence was deemed a valid target. Similar – just opposite – of the Hypno Strike that Sorcerers employed on mobs. Not a fun situation, but they could get by if they figured out a plan for them.
Asking the others for advice, they came up with a plan that would minimize the risk to everyone but Domn3r. Since he was used to being the whipping boy, he went along with it. When they next ma
de their way up the hill, Domn3r was all by his lonesome in the center while the other four were to the left and right of him, out of range of any potential hallucinogenic gases that may erupt. When three of the remaining Goat Suckers appeared over the rise again, he braced behind his shield again, reminiscent of the last time he was here. As they collided with his shield, he was again knocked down and he found himself sliding to a stop at the bottom of the hill. Instead of getting up, he stayed on the ground and attempted to cover himself up as much as he could with his shield.
When the Goats arrived, they rammed into his shield over and over he sustained minimal damage. They occasionally found an exposed body part and did a little bit more damage – but not enough to worry about it. From behind his shield, Domn3r continued to spam his taunts, making sure all of the Goat Suckers kept their attention solely on him. After a couple of seconds, he could hear the rest of his party unload on all of his attackers until he first heard an explosion and then started seeing bugs crawling all over him. He threw away his shield and rolled all over the ground, attempting to squish them all. He did this for a long time, all the while screaming, “Get them off me! I hate bugs! Help! Kill them all!”
Suddenly, Domn3r heard laughing and he looked around expecting to find squished bugs everywhere and was confused when he didn’t see anything. He looked toward the source of the laughing and found his entire party – including Devin – collapsed and rolling on the ground, looking like they were being suffocated. It turned out, however, that they were just laughing so hard that they couldn’t breathe.
“See…
“Alright, that’s enough laughing at me – let’s go!” They followed Domn3r up the hill, still snickering behind him.
Chapter 21
As they reached to top of the hill, Domn3r looked ahead and saw another two hills the same size as the current one with small valleys between them. At the bottom of the valley, he saw lava on either side of a small stone bridge about 10 feet wide in the middle of the pathway. The bridge was so close to the lava that splashes of the molten rock could be seen cooling along the sides. At the end of the bridge waited another mob that he hadn’t seen before – a Lizard Tickler (Level 34).
Surrounding a short figure armored head-to-toe in scaled armor were three Lava Salamanders with collars and leashes leading back to the hand of the armored individual. On closer inspection, Domn3r could see that the figure was actually a Goblin and looked to be trying to prevent anyone from crossing the bridge. It’s probably a trap – since there are already some Salamanders present, I wouldn’t be surprised if more will appear while we are crossing, he thought.
He didn’t want to take any chances here, so he told Mac and Bolt3n to start firing at them from long range. As soon as they got closer, he would take over the aggro and finish the fight up close. He asked them to stay far enough away from him so that they wouldn’t be affected by any more surprise AOE attacks. The two players started attacking the lizard out front with a combination of Ice Shards and Ice Arrows. By the time they reached Domn3r, they had already taken out one of the giant Salamanders and he taunted the rest to gain their attention. Everything was going well, and the second lizard was almost dead as he saw Max unstealth and Backstab the Goblin for critical damage. The scaled armor the Goblin was wearing prevented it from being a mortal strike, and before she could attack again the Salamanders that were previously focused on Domn3r turned and attacked the Rogue with abandon.
Since she was wearing quality leather armor, Max survived longer than if she was a caster – but not by much. Domn3r could see that the massive lava lizards were doing more damage than normal, and he reached them just as she went down under their bites and flames, even with frantic healing from Ambrose. As soon as she dropped, they abruptly turned and began attacking Domn3r again as if nothing had happened. The rest of the fight went normally, and they left the injured Goblin for last since he didn’t actually attack until the other two Salamanders were dead.
Ambrose brought Max back with her Resurrection spell and as soon as was up she yelled out, “What the hell was that? I thought you had aggro!”
Domn3r looked at her and said, “I did – apparently they don’t take kindly to someone attacking their master. It looks like we need to avoid attacking him until the lizards are dead. Sorry you died, but at least now we know.” They continued and crossed the bridge and were attacked by normal Lava Salamanders, just as Domn3r had thought. They finished them off handily and approached the next hill. Based upon their expectation of more Goat Suckers, they used the same strategy as last time with Domn3r in the center and the other four on either side out of range of any AOE attacks.
Even though there were six Goats this time, their strategy worked just as well as the first time. They did have one “Oh, shit!” moment when Domn3r was knocked backwards down the hill and almost ended up in the lava. When he was affected by the hallucinations again, he actually did end up in the lava toward the end of the battle. Fortunately, he was still affected by the spore attack, so he didn’t experience as much pain as he would have normally. They were able to resurrect him soon after the battle and they worked on figuring out a way to prevent that possibility in the future. The decided that if he laid down at the beginning he would take more initial damage but would prevent any knockdowns from happening.
Continuing on, they topped the next hill and found the same setup as before in the valley between the hills. The only difference this time was of two Lizard Ticklers instead of just the single one. Using the same method as before – since it worked until Max attacked the Goblin – they pulled the two mobs to Domn3r’s position and went to work whittling down one group of lizards at a time. As they finished off one group of Lizard Ticklers and started on the second, Domn3r was left flatfooted as the Goblin let go of all the leashes and the Salamanders scattered. They went in seemingly random directions: one went for Ambrose, another attacked Max standing nearby, and the third made its way toward Bolt3n.
Domn3r used all of his taunt abilities that were off cooldown, but they didn’t seem to affect the crazy creatures. He ran after the one heading for Ambrose (because you never want to let your healer die) and reached it just as it attacked her. She was able to block the initial bite attack but was burned badly by the follow-up flame attack. Domn3r used every skill he had to cause damage and it wasn’t enough. Fortunately, Ambrose was saved by a barrage of ice spears coming from the direction of Mac who wasn’t being attacked at the moment. Now safe, the Healer quickly started casting a heal spell toward Bolt3n who had been getting creamed by another one of the Lava Salamanders. His salvation came a second too late as he fell under the joint bite and flame attacks.
Max was holding her own, dodging like crazy even with a Salamander and Goblin attacking her. She wasn’t doing any damage – just concentrating on staying alive – but she couldn’t hold out forever. As Domn3r watched the lizard that had killed Bolt3n head in her direction, he ran toward them and spammed all his taunts again on the way. It didn’t look like it had any effect when suddenly they all turned his way and shot forward to engage. With the fight relatively back on track, they were able to take out the remaining mobs before Ambrose brought Bolt3n back.
“Wow, these guys are surprising the hell out of us – hopefully that was the last of the surprises we’ll see here – I don’t think I could take any more,” Domn3r told Devin.
“We’ll just have to wait and see – even I don’t know what’s in store for you guys,” Devin replied.
They made their way over the Lava Salamander-infested bridge with no problems and tackled more Goat Suckers on the hill above. This time there were eight of them, b
ut when Domn3r laid down and took their initial charges there were no problems this time. He did end up taking a bit of damage from that first attack but was healed up quickly by Ambrose. After the battle – and another hilarious bout of hallucination – they continued walking further until they caught sight of the rooms’ exit.
It was guarded by three Lizard Ticklers, but this time they had a plan. They would keep everyone except Domn3r at the extreme edge of their range and if they were attacked they would run from the slower Salamanders. They would continue to attack the ones grouped around Domn3r and keep him healed at the same time.
They implemented this, and it worked perfectly – it just took a bit longer than they were used to. Twice, a group of Salamanders broke off and headed for the ranged group but were easily outrun. After about 20 seconds they stopped their chase and went back to attacking Domn3r. Through a long battle of attrition, they were able to take out all the remaining Ticklers.
“I love and hate that room, Krista. I loved it because it was so challenging – and hated it because it was so challenging. If you want to make it deadlier, which you probably do, add something to prevent ranged attackers from pulling the Lizard Ticklers off of the bridge to take advantage of the Salamanders in the lava. Something like a wall they can hide behind so they can’t be targeted,” Domn3r told the air, hoping Krista was listening.
“I saw that, I didn’t even think about that possibility before this. Thanks for pointing it out to me – I’ll change it later when you’re all done dying over and over in here. Speaking of that – next!” Krista responded.
Chuckling at her enthusiasm, they made their way to the exit and headed further through the floor with Devin trailing behind.
“That was fun watching them make their way through this room – I love all of the new monsters you created. What’s next?” Devin whispered to Krista.
Dungeon Guild: A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure (Glendaria Awakens Trilogy Book 3) Page 13
