Everybody just looked blankly at each other as they didn't know if there was a class amongst all the non-combat class that would help until the voice of the dungeon broke the silences.
"From my memories, the most appropriate class is 'Construction' this would help with the planning by giving you access to a range of skills but your combat ability would sufferer if you stop working on combat," said Hidden-Cavers.
"Don't worry about me as I'll keep working on the combat as well it should be easy enough as I'll have a whole dungeon available to me" replied Rhef in a determined voice.
"Before we talk about leaving tomorrow, dear sister, aren't, we going to at least try taking on the boss monsters for this level?" said Rinaldo with a determined look in his face as if somebody was taking away his favorite snack.
"The problem with that, my dear brother."
"Go on tell me please!"
"… is that it will take us several days to fight through the forest to get to the end of this level," Rhef said with a mocking tone of voice as she looked at her brother, "and I need to get them working on the dungeon levels as it so important for the dungeons survival. So, you'll just have to forget quenching your thirst for blood for once's."
"Great it always that way."
Rinaldo kicks his foot on the dirt ground sending a small dust cloud towards the beloved sister as she spat at feet with contempt.
"I hate to be the peacemaker in any situation," said Hidden-Caverns from the air in a tone of regret, "as it really goes against my nature, but Ceras can go forward with Rinaldo as he need the combat to improve his magical casting and he's not been abought helping with the design of the dungeon."
Rinaldo stopped kicking up the dust and smiled with the satisfaction of having what he perceived as a small win over his sister, while she nodded in acceptance of her perceived victory and everybody else just relaxed as the argument had been avoided.
Chapter 14 Boss Level
Several days had been an understatement of the time it had taken the two young men to get to the end of the level; it was ten days by the time that the two were in the area close to the exit of the level. It did not help that as Rhef had left, they had nobody to guide them through the maze of areas, and Hidden-Caverns refusal to give them direction. Rinaldo had seemed fine with being lost all the time, as long as he was fighting the monster, but the refusal of Hidden-Caverns had just annoyed Ceras on a matter of principle.
"See, I told you that you'd find the exit at some point if you just kept trying," said a very smug and amused sounding tone of voice from the dungeon.
"After we have cleared every area of this dungeon at least twice," said the frustrated Ceras, "that would have been Ok but it's you overly smug attitude that I didn't enjoy, you could of helped us a bit, especially when we kept returning to that one area with the large rock toll again and again."
"I had fun," said Rinaldo.
"At least somebody appreciates me."
The area of the dungeon Ceras was looking at was full of large winding trees that seemed to block any straight path through it. Vines were handing down from the top of the tree canopy creating twisting ropes that would support animal climbing up and down the levels in the forest. The plants were shades of vibrant greens with color flower adding red, whites and blue which broke up the green. Birds were flying with a lot of bird calls advertising their presents for all to hear. Ceras thought that he looked as if it was a three-dimension maze blocking the way to the exit.
Rinaldo started to scout the area of forest, before presumably large arch with wooden exit doors set in the side of the rock wall. He came back with an eager expression on his face as if he had discovered a gold mine. The look nearly made Ceras put his face in his hands in despair. He had long ago realized in this extended trip that this look nearly always meant the two were going to have a close call with death.
Over the days he had realized how much of a restraining influence Rhef had on her brother, as now it seemed like the young man was taking every risk, he could without his sister being there to stop him with a sharp comment. If it hadn't been for Ceras combination of magical ability and warrior toughness the two would have been killed many times, as he had to pull the provable rabbit out of the hat to many times for his comfort.
Hidden-Caverns had been no help at all and even encouraged the mad man to push Ceras, even more, getting them into more trouble. This was all done with the excuse of better development. Ceras was more determined than ever to learn the spell for healing the maddens, that afflicted people from too many repeated resurrections as he thought that he soon might have use for it if the training continued at this pace.
When Ceras looked up again, the expression had not been wiped of Rinaldo's face as he had hoped.
"You'll never guess what is in the area up ahead!" said the enthusiastic Rinaldo jumping on the spot in excitement.
"I bet that I can't, what exactly it is," said Ceras with a sigh as he had gone through this many time, "but I can be sure that it's dangerous and wants to kill us."
"How did you know?" said Rinaldo with such a straight face that made Ceras believe that he was not sarcastic.
"Well, you only have that look when it is dangerous, so it just a stab in the dark." said the deadpan face of Ceras.
"Well, you'll be happy to know that this time it is really dangerous, so we might even die!" said an earnest young barbarian like it was the best thing ever. There's are a lot of saber tiger in the area as the notification came up, but I didn't see one as they must be hidden so well.
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Saber tiger
20
40
100
-
Camouflage
"That really high agility, so it's going to be hard to hit it with weapons and spells," said Ceras thoughtful as he considered the options, "and I bet it will attack from the behind as an ambush predator."
"We'll let go then as see what happen," said Rinaldo as he walked forward, "your look after my back as I go forward."
"Did you hear..."
"What?"
"Oh, forget it."
The two started to walk up a green rise from the forest behind them into the dense jungle in front that stood in the way to exiting the level. Both of the boys scanned for any sign of movement in the undergrowth or trees they were walking into, but Ceras thought you could hide a large elephant only a few feet away and you wouldn't be able to notice it.
When they reach the jungle, it was worse than he thought it would be as both of them had to clamber over branches, needing to put weapons away, so you had two hands, to even enter the dense forest. What made it worst was they the jungle was so full of biting insects that no matter where they placed their hand, something would start biting and causing damage by small itchy wounds.
Finally, Rinaldo started to get sick of the slow progress and hacked the forest with his sword to make a way this at least made it easier for Ceras who was behind him.
"I don't think that we have to be worried about the saber tiger not finding us with all that noise your making," said the sardonic voice of Ceras to the now sweating Rinaldo who replied, "Good."
The only noise that Ceras could hear was the slashing of the sword being used as a machete, so he was totally taken by surprise by the sudden pain and weight on his back and shoulders. Shouting in mostly surprise and hopefully for some help for Rinaldo, he dived forward and cast a powerful touch fire spell where he felt the animal attacking him. Flames and heat roared out of his body englutting whatever monster was attacking him. As he could still feel the weight on his back, he kept casing the spell using nearly half his MP creating as much heat fire as he could.
Rinaldo voice managed to penetrate his panicked mind shouting, "You can stop now it burn to charcoal bits."
Ceras stopped his spellcasting of the fire touch and reverted to healin
g his painful wounds on his back as if several sharp knives had been drawn down his torso. He felt Rinaldo kick a large object of his back and was able to look at the black burnt body of a tiger that was a large as he was, with large teeth that were wet with blood, probably his he thought.
Rinaldo was on a constant lookout for any other movement in the jungle, but no additional attack was forthcoming.
"Well that went as well as could be expected," said Rinaldo, the mad man with a smile.
"You weren't the one with a tiger on your back," said Ceras in an exasperated tone," how about I walk backward while you cut clear a path. That way I'll be able to watch if anything approaches from the rear."
In, reply, Rinaldo, said, "Great idea."
After waiting a while to be fully healed, Ceras walked backward while Rinaldo struggled to make a pathway through the jungle. As the progress was so slow due to the cutting and hacking away the vines and undergrowth of the forest Ceras was easily able to keep up with Rinaldo. This time he saw a tiger just before it leaped from the undergrowth directly from the rear and had a chance to blast out a hot red fireball from the tip of his staff. As the cat was so close and in midair, it was impossible for Ceras to miss, so the tiger was engulfed in red hot flames as its health went down to zero.
"They not as armored as the metal troll are," said Ceras as he watched the burning cat being barbecued by his spell.
"My turn to be at the back," said the barbarian as he handed Ceras his sword and took out his mace.
"I think it would be better if you have your sword," said Ceras, "I'm going to try and cut through the forest with a small flame."
As Ceras finished saying that he turned around with Rinaldo at his back, and started to experiment with his fireball spell. Concentrating he started to channel his magical energy through his system to the tip of his index finger, but rather than allowing the flames to circle into a ball, he concentrated on them producing a straight line in front of him that was about a foot long. Watching the flame burning with a red intensity, he channeled his fire energy to produce a hotter flame that shone with white light. Moving his finger as if it was a sword, he was able to cut the branches and leaves out of the way as if he was slicing a hot knife through butter and the two started to make better progress than before.
This time the attack of the tiger came from the front of the path, Ceras just managed to see a sudden blur of movement and quickly extended his finger flame in a cutting motion toward the oncoming movement. Lucky, he managed to hit the tiger in the head as it mouth was open ready to bite, so he watched revolted, as the white flame cut through the mouth and cut off the upper head in one slice causing the cat to drop dead.
"I bet if I change to the front, they'll just attack you from the rear this time," said Rinaldo in an annoyed voice, "so I'll outsmart them this time by staying in the back."
Ceras just shrugging with the logic as they started off again and crept slowly through the thick undergrowth. Ceras cut with his white flame, every now and then having to stop to allow his MP to restore.
After about half an hour he felt and heard Rinaldo being attacked from the back of him. Rinaldo body pressed against him as if something had smashed into him, and he heard the roar of the tiger and several thuds with a sword tearing into flesh.
Turning around to see if he could help, he first saw the bloody body of the tiger on the ground with several stab wounds. Looking at Rinaldo, he saw his armor had deep gash marks over it from claws of the tiger. Whelpling up from the wounds was thick red blood, as Rinaldo started to go white with blood loss. Casting healing spells until as quickly as he could the blood dried up and Rinaldo color slowly returned. Then to his amazement, Rinaldo armor started to mend seeming to knit itself together as if it had not been damaged. The only sign of the attack on Rinaldo body was the dried blood and ripped clothing under his armor.
"That was very painful," said Rinaldo as he stood up with relief that he was whole again.
"It was bad, but this would be a lot worse if they attacked from all sides all at once I wonder why the tiger don't attack together like some of the other monsters?" said Ceras looking around as if to see any more attacks.
"The saber tigers are solitary animals," said the informative Hidden-Caverns, "if they hunted in a pack or whatever the collective noun is for tigers, then it would make this level too difficult for journeymen."
"But the problem is that we want the monster to be as powerful as they can be if we have to defend the dungeon against higher-level nobles," said Ceras thoughtfully, "so maybe we can have teams of dungeon monsters that we use as hit squad for when we are attacked by people trying to take over the dungeon."
As the two boys kept checking around them for another tiger in the dense undergrowth and the twisting dense levels of the jungle, with weapons and magic at the ready back to back Rinaldo said, "I'll do that job as I've some ideas from when I was working with the orcs, and it would help development of my combat ability if I practice with them."
As he paused in his comments, there was a flash of orange and white as a saber tiger leaped from the top of a large branch it had been hiding on with its camouflage body and magical skill that allowed it to blend perfectly into the background. Landing between to two boys that had moved to dodge its pounces, it roared opening its large mouth with to two large canine teeth that like too large daggers ready to plunge into their flesh. Rinaldo, with his quick reactions, stabbed the tiger, in the jugular with the sword he was holding. As the magical sword dug into the tiger body, it pushed forward with anger in its eye only to enlarge the wound by its movement leading to a greater blood loss. Ceras had already cast an enhanced fireball spell that hit the large animals on the back burning a hole into its body and exploding sending flesh and blood flying all over Rinaldo body.
"Let's get off here before we get into any more discussion," said the blooded barbarian as he wiped some blood from his face with a grin.
After about another hour of slow-moving through the jungle of the forest, the two boys made their way to the exit for the forest level.
In that hour lone tigers hand crept up on them, again and again, causing heavy injuries to both of them, and they were only saved by Ceras being able to heal them. Finally, they exited the dense jungle to see a large wooden door with monster images carved into the door all in farce's stances as if they were preparing to fight. As the two ascended the stone stairway the doors in front of them, open revealing a large stone hallway.
Ceras walked past the large wooden door the first thing he noticed was a shimmering deep blue-black doorway that was like looking into a deep dark lakes surface with chaotic waves across its surface. There were also stairways downward into the depth of the earth. This halls carving were also tree and plant carved to make the hall seem like a forest.
"The portal will take you to the level your accommodation is on, that now at the bottom of the dungeon as the other levels are being changed by Rhef," said Hidden caves.
Before exiting the dungeon level, Ceras checked his experiences by bringing up the information:
XP 3 of 18 too level 8 Wizard
Five stat point to place into character sheet
Five stat point to place into Dungeon sheet
As discussed with Hidden-Caverns, he added all his stat points into knowledge to allow the dungeon to extend by building more levels. Afterward, she pulled up his character sheet and dungeon sheet to check on his progress.
Character Name:
Ceras
1st Class
Wizard
Character Total Level*
7
Major
Strength
Fortitude
Agility
Number
59
59
59
Major
Intelligence
Charisma
Knowledge
Number
62
20
35
Minor
HP
MP
Stamina
Carry Limit
Number
411
434
305
128
Regen Sec
5.9
13.4
6.9
N/A
Dungeon Name:
Hidden-Caverns
Major
Energy per hour
Gold
Extent
MP
Number
354
100
19
1000
Major
Intelligence
Charisma
Knowledge
Number
62
20
35
Chapter 15 An Unexpected Guest
Ceras placed his spellbook down having finished transcribing a magical spell that would provide him a magical force shield around a volume of space that he so designated. This was one of the many spells he had been working on with Hidden-Caverns knowledge that he had gained from the library. To check all the spells he now had available Ceras pulled up information from his character sheet to check on the spells and saw the following tables appear in his vision:
Spells
Spell Effectiveness %:
235
Name
Mastery
MP
Effects
Dungeon Master Page 13
