Rinaldo ran with the burning speed from his cover to behind another tree for cover in an attempt to get another attack from the enemy so the rest of the team could see what was attacking them. This was useful as another rock blasted from the wall of the cliff enabling the team to see what was attacking them. Ceras was just about able to see a three-meter high metal troll move away from the wall that he was camouflaged against. Looking at the tolls stats he thought great over double our level:
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Metal Trolls
14
1
300
-
-
"It a metal troll shouted, "Rhef to the rest of the group as he released arrow after arrow at its body.
"You think," said her brother.
Each hit took about five percent of its health as her power shoot took full effect. Ceras started to form, with as much feedback as he could bear, hot white fire balls full of energy. When he shot the first one hiding behind the rocky cover, it flew through the air with a tail of golden/white fire, hitting the metal body of the troll, to only explode on the surface, taking it health down by about ten percent.
For the next seven fireball, he forces as much energy he could, creating a throbbing headache with all the magical feedback he was producing in such a short space of time. In the mid casting, two or three fireballs were in the air at all time. All of them exploded onto the surface of the metal troll, leaving about ten percent of its health that Rhef and now Rinaldo were able finished off with arrows.
As the troll fell down with a large crash of metal on rock, that echoed throughout the area, the adventures were about to cheer, but another rock hit the cover that Rhef was behind reveling another metal troll hiding as if it was part of the cliff.
"I'm out of mana," shouted Ceras as he ran forward with his staff in hand to attack the troll as the arrows flew passed him taking the troll down to eighty percent of its health.
When the troll was in range, of the running Ceras, it lurched forward surprising him with a kick that hit him in the chest and sent him flying about ten feet back, in the air losing about half his health in one blow. It took a few seconds for Ceras to gain his senses and by that time, Rinaldo and Grikius had run to either side of the troll hitting it with their maces only taking five percent health of at a time. The troll was moving so slowly that as long as the two did not get into range of its legs or fist, they were fine.
When Ceras joined them, the three of them started to move around the troll, not stopping for a second and only attacking when they saw an opening.
Grikius was the first of the three that shouted, "Am running out of stamina, I'll need to fall back to cover."
By this time some of Ceras mana had recovered for him to cover his friend retreat, with a large fireball in the face of the troll, blinding it so it could not throw a rock at Grikius back as he was running for cover. The troll at this point was down to about forty percent, as Ceras felt the healing energies from Symania restoring his health.
The dance with the metal troll continued as the two remaining boys ran, duck and dived, taking every advantage they had for attacking the troll. Rinaldo ran out of stamina first, but instead of the backing off from the battle, he tried to engage the troll still. Only to be caught as he was trying to roll away from its leg. By a foot that managed to kick him along the ground to the wall of the cliff where he layered in an unconscious pile. The troll still had ten percent health, but two arrows hit him one after another taking the health to zero. The troll them fell falling face first onto the ground.
Instead of the team having a respite, Ceras saw another metal troll coming slowly from around a corner from the other side of the cliff.
"Let retreat," he shouted to the team members as he ran toward Rinaldo body with it health bar only about a fourth.
Picking him up, he left and quickly. Lucky because of his strength he was able to run with the twin faster than the metal troll, as Symania projected a shield behind him that prevented any of the rocks from hitting his back. He soon reached, with his powerful strides, the rest of the team who were also running back into the area with the spirits, quickly outpacing the troll that was now returned to the cliff.
After seeing that they were safe from the metal troll, all of the adventures sat on the ground panting with red faces from the excursion. Symania went over to the prone figure and started to heal Rinaldo's battered body, and soon he was sleeping soundly recovering from his injuries.
"We need to let him rest for a while," Symania said to the rest of the adventures.
"I'll keep watch," said Grikius as he and Apollo position themselves on a rocky boulder to be able to see anything approaching.
The rest of the team meditated or a while as they regained all their mana and stamina in quiet.
"I guess that we can take a high-level troll with Rhef arrow and my magic; we can do it from a distance," said Ceras finally summing up the challenge, "but two or three is probably more than we can chew all at once."
"That sounds about right," said Rhef.
Everybody that was listening nodded with agreement, and then Rhef said, "We need to be a lot more tactical than we've been so far. For this monster, it would be best to have a hit and run tactic and only take one on at a time. I suggest that when the big slob's awake, I scout and see if the metal troll is still alone then we hit it and move back into safety to recover."
As Rhef was eager to continue with the battle, in a few minutes all her compassion for her brother had run out, causing her to walk over to his sleeping form and hit him a few times with the flat of her palm to wake him.
"What you do that for."
As Rinaldo was shouting at his sister for waking him from an interesting dream, she ran off to scout the area ahead with her range's abilities. The rest moved forward, discussing the plan of attacking from a distance with ranged weapons and then retreating to a safer area.
"I'll use my shield to block the troll from advancing, "said Symania as they finalized the plan.
Rhef ran back crouching down to the other and said, "it's up ahead with its back against the cliff as if it's waiting for us. We need to creep up on it and attack from cover."
The adventures moved forward taking cover behind rocks and trees, and soon they were close enough to the cliff to see the metal troll. On a signal from Rhef, everybody with a range of weapons or magic started to shoot or cast.
Ceras quickly sent eight very powerful fireballs, glowing white, with steaking tails of energy as hot as he could make them hit the metal troll in the chest. As each fireball hit exploding in a flash of white and yellow light flames that created a flash of light. While arrows from the twins were hitting its head in quick succession, the metal troll disintegrated with small rocks flying everywhere into a pile of regarded stones and melted dripping metal.
The team looked on with amazement with the destructive power of Ceras fires balls but rather than wait for another troll to appear the team ran back to a safer position to recover stamina and mana.
"Way to go with the magical destructions, my arrows most of really help though," Rinaldo said as they ran backward slapped Ceras on the back with a smile at the last comment joking.
"Thanks."
"That really worked out well," said Rhef in an excited voice as they all crouching down some distance from the blistering attack of the troll with its smoldering body, "hit and run it is against the high-level targets."
Over the next few hours, the adventures repeated this process as Rhef scouted for a lone troll they could pick of all at once with Ceras magical attacks, and then retreat to a safe position to recover and recharge mana. Sometimes instead of using Ceras full-on magical attacks, Rinaldo would run in close to a metal troll and pull away from the troll to an isolated position to be attacked by repeatedly hitting it with the maces as one of the tried to kit it aro
und the area.
Chapter 13 Reality Hits
As the day draws to a close with the lighting dimming the young team of adventures was starting to work out different strategies to use when they fought against the monster that was significantly higher level than themselves.
At the end of the day, Rhef led the team of adventures to a hollow within the rocky outcrop where they had been hunting the metal trolls to set up a campsite for the night in the forest dungeon level. After the team of adventures had set up a fire and started to cook the stew in a large cast iron pot, that had been carried in Ceras bag of holding, they eat as they talked by their day of battling within the level.
"I really need a ranged weapon as it I feel a bit out of the fight when we just stand off and shot it from a distance," said Grikius as he was feeding the scraps of his stew to a willing recipient of a dog that was always by his side, "But I did thing that Apollo did well today with his attacks on the werewolves."
"Yea, it was great when the dog bite of its..." said Rinaldo but was interrupted by his sister as she threw her empty plate at him.
"Humph."
"Thanks for that," said Symania quietly in a whisper that could just be head by the rest of the group.
"Humph," said Rinaldo again.
"Having Ceras as our heavy hitter has meant that we seem to be able to hit a lot higher above our level than would be normally possible, but tomorrow I'm going to ask Hidden-Caverns to show us were the monsters are that are only a few levels above level six, so we can all get in some fighting experience." said the keen and excited Rhef.
As she was planning the groups next day in her usual bossy manner that the team did not seem to mind expect her brother, but this time he kept quiet as he was happy with the plan to fight in more of a close handed style rather than leave it to the heavy hitter.
"Hidden-Caverns," said Grikius looking up into the air gaining the attention of the dungeon, "how is this dungeon level going to work. Will the monster be placed at random throughout the level, or will there be specific areas for each creature?"
"I really have to have to match up a creature to an environment that they are at home in; else they will not enter the portal that I've created in the surface above. So, each area will mostly be populated with only one or two monster types at a certain level. Once an adventure's group has cleared all the creature from the area then it takes a while for it to repopulate with the monsters." said Hidden-Caverns
"Hey," said Grikius as standing up as he had an idea, disturbing the dog with its head on his lap, "we could sell maps of the dungeon level giving information about want was in each area so people could fight at the level they needed."
"Remember that we also need to prevent any adventures from attacking the dungeon where Hidden-Caverns is located," said Ceras adding his concern to making it too easy for the adventures attacking the dungeon.
"Well as long as we don't give them a clear path through the whole level it should be fine," said Grikius still keen on the idea of making more money, "and as soon as we have the next levels up and running so it will not matter anyway. As it's my understanding that as you decent the dungeon levels, it will be filled with higher strength monster."
"That right," said Rhef with a happy look as she was working on the next level already," This level is meant for the journeymen. If we had a master class fighter battle in the forest, they would find it too easy and gain no experiences and kill of all the monster quickly so the dungeon will increase in difficulty as it gets deeper so it will cater for all type of adventures."
"And more importantly," said Hidden-Caverns with a serious voice, "prevent them from attacking me in the central core room."
"Just a quick question" said the Symania as if she had seen an error in their plans, "are you comfortable having higher level monster in the dungeon that you cannot be stopped from attacking you because we certainly will not be able to defeat it and the monster you have will all be lower levels."
"That an interesting question, "muttered somebody.
Everybody, including the dungeon, went quiet at that point as they tried to think of the effect of what Symania was saying. Ceras was scratching his head trying to solve the problem, but he didn't know the effect of being high-level as most of the people in the area around his birth place were below master and he had only heard stories about legendary level people and monsters. Also, from the same stories he had heard area of the kingdom that was off-limits to normal people as they were filled with high-level monsters that would easily destroy anybody at a lower level.
He knew there were many stories of the incursion of higher-level monster into lower-level lands giving rise to wonderful tales that, excited the younger children with glee, of magical battles of the high-level kings and high-nobles of the land, performing their duty sworn duty of protecting the commoners from the legendary creatures, that would easily rampage the land if left unchecked.
His father had always said that this was how the higher nobility kept control of the land, in the different kingdoms and empires, as if a region rebelled all they would do was not harken to the calls for aid when a monster attacked the region leaving the rebelling to fend for its self.
This would ensure that soon the people would learn their lesson and rejoin the kingdom after a few such disastrous monster attacks leaving the population begging for protection.
Another one of his father's favorite topics was how most the sons or daughter of the noble household wouldn't put in the effort to gain the levels, but relay on powerful weapons for their battle prowess which would cap them at the master level, as it was near impossible to find or create a legendary weapon.
This would have the effect of leaving the kingdom exposed to high-level monsters if none of the commoners gain the legendary levels. It normally meant that the higher noble positions were based on level rather than birth as it was essential for the high-noble and the king to be champions of the kingdom in the battle against the monsters.
His dad has always smiled at the fact that most of the king came from the common stock of people as was with other empires and the kingdom that was close by.
As the fire crackled with exploding pieces of burning wood with a bright yellow flame and red embers at the bottom of the fire pit that was still heating the last retainment of the stew. Howling could be heard in the distance as
Hidden-Caverns broke the silence as he had been reading Ceras thoughts, "We also have to really be careful of the high-level noble in the kingdom as they will see the dungeon as a source of income, that if they take over will all be theirs."
"So, what the position does that leave us in?" said Ceras to Hidden-Caverns as the other was looking on with nervous expression as they started to understand the perilous position the dungeon and the dungeon master were in.
"Well going back to the Symania original point of high-level monster, we just have to gamble on trying to gain as many high-level monsters as we can and hope they don't want to destroy the dungeon in one attack.
"It should be ok as long as they come through the portal into the dungeon as one of the conditions for attacking the dungeon center is that you have to have complete the dungeon as a whole entering from the surface.
"So, it's going to be a balancing act until the dungeon and dungeon master is powerful enough to fend of high-level attackers from the kingdom.
The best way to do this is to have many levels as possible filled with monsters, so I'm afraid Ceras you'll need to put all your available point into knowledge to increase the number of levels in the dungeon. For increase, you other states will just have to use the training method."
"Great."
Ceras groaned inwardly and brought up his character stat to check on his training progress and his experience progress:
Character Name:
Ceras
1st Class
Wizard
Character Total Level*
6
Major
Strength
> Fortitude
Agility
Number
55
55
55
Major
Intelligence
Charisma
Knowledge
Number
59
20
25
Minor
HP
MP
Stamina
Carry Limit
Number
397
417
285
120
Regen Sec
5.5
12.8
6.5
N/A
XP 12 of 16 too level 7 Wizard
Ceras noticed that his intelligence had increased over the three weeks by four-point he had been working hard on increasing his magical experiences. He then checked on the spell efficiency, and it had also gone up to 225% which was a significant increase in his power so maybe it would not be disastrous if he had to put all his upgrade point into Knowledge allowing the dungeon to grow significantly.
"This seems like it will give users plenty of opportunities to design the dungeon levels," Rhef said in an ecstatic tone of voice, "as the design of this one was such fun."
"My sister always had a creative side and was bossy enough to want to organize everybody, since the day she could talk," said Rinaldo as he avoided a thrown stick from his loving sister.
"Be quiet you, as the rest of the siblings in our family need organizing and somebody had to do it."
"Ya, right!"
"As it certainly was not going to be you," she replied in such a short manner as if she had to argue this point over and over with her family, "but getting back to the original point. If it is so important for the dungeon to have a new level, we should start as soon as possible and head back tomorrow and get on with the work. Does anybody know what class that would help me most with the work?"
Dungeon Master Page 12
